END OF 2019: Schitt's Creek & Unbelievable
Dear Kelsey,
A very merry Christmas to you!! We are both finally on Christmas break and the time off feels luxurious, to say the least.
gif: Roland from Schitt’s Creek saying “Try to chill out my man”
(Me to myself going into this break)
More importantly, we are in the thick of MOVIE SEASON! And this year’s holiday movies have NOT let us down. In fact, there are so many movies that I want to see that I can barely keep up—good thing I now have several weeks to sit alone in a movie theater on Tuesday afternoons.
While my favorite movie of the holiday season may still be yet to be seen (looking at you, Greta Gerwig’s Little Women), my personal favorite of the last month (and of 2019 so far) is definitely Knives Out. I am a diehard Westing Game fan, and as a lover of both comedy and mystery, this movie hit my sweet spot. I’ve already seen it twice and I anticipate countless home watches once it’s available online.
gif: Jamie Lee Curtis in Knives Out saying “I found it delightful.”
But enough about me! You saw CATS! Which I will likely see after this newsletter is released, which means that I am pre-CATS and you are post-CATS. An ocean of CGI fur divides us, and I personally cannot wait to join you on the other side. I have also been compiling some of my favorite tweets about CATS into a thread, for those who might be curious.
We chose to take this holiday season to rest and recuperate, and so instead of doing 3 movies/TV shows we only chose 2: Schitt’s Creek and Unbelievable, which are different in almost every way imaginable and I have no idea how I will thread my thoughts on these together into one coherent train of thought. (Maybe I won’t! Maybe I’ll wander tangentially for 3 pages before ending with a thought that simply creates more chaos, in true CATS form.)
gif: Eugene Levy in Schitt’s Creek dancing.
You and I are both somewhat new to Schitt’s Creek. I only just started watching in 2019, and it took a great deal of effort to force my way through Season 1 (so many of our best comedies have truly awful first seasons, it must be a sign of good luck). The show has since become a profound source of queer representation in television and unexpectedly wholesome and heartwarming over the course of its 5 seasons.
I spent several seasons wrestling over whether or not the Rose’s would be considered antiheroes. The earliest episodes of the show involve Johnny, Moira, David, and Alexis essentially sabotaging each other and the Schitt’s Creek community through their antics—which was ultimately funny to watch, but frustrating to me all the same. But I think it’s simply that they are flawed humans from a life of privilege, learning how to live less delusionally entitled lives.
gif: Catherine O’Hara in Schitt’s Creek saying “I once hosted the non-televised portion of the People’s Choice Awards”
And yet! Their delusions of grandeur start to become endearing after a while as they learn how to be kind to one another after years of neglect and dismissiveness. Moira learns she won’t be forgotten if she’s not center stage in every scene. Johnny learns how to tell the truth and engage in conflict, even if it makes him uncomfortable. David starts his own business and makes a leap toward emotional and financial independence. Alexis goes back to school and finds a career she’s passionate about. And they all learn how to see one another more clearly as they truly are.
I would be remiss to not mention Patrick, who together with David creates some of the most significantly meaningful queer representation in comedy (and television) history, and also just in general one of the most simple and touching love stories. Schitt’s Creek shows us that the high highs and low lows of soapy screenwriting can often dull our senses to the beauty of ordinary love—which is maybe why I feel more personally seen by the love of David and Patrick than I do by most TV romantic couples. Waiting to introduce a major love interest until season 3 was a storytelling risk, but one that’s paid off, because it remains consistent with the realistic nature of David and Patrick’s whole relationship—like D and P, most of us don’t start our stories knowing the person we’re going to spend the rest of our lives with.
gif: Patrick feeds David a shot on Schitt’s Creek
I am OBSESSED with Dan Levy. He is fine as hell, but also he’s made such a beautiful thing and he deserves all the recognition he’s getting for it. Also if Catherine O’Hara doesn’t win an Emmy for her portrayal of Moira, I am going to boycott all future awards shows until further notice. 10/10, GO WATCH RIGHT NOW WHY ARE YOU STILL READING THIS?
gif: Catherine O’Hara in Schitt’s Creek saying “One must champion oneself and say I am ready for this.”
JK, please keep reading because now it’s time to talk about Unbelievable! Which is a very lighthearted transition to a very……..not lighthearted show. And for good reason.
(TW: rape)
gif: Kaitlyn Dever in Unbelievable saying, “You did totally. You know, the thing is, I’ve spent my whole life trying really hard to believe that most people are basically good, even when the ones I knew weren’t. I don’t know, I guess it just gave me hope or something.”
Unbelievable is the true story of a girl newly out of foster care who is stalked and raped in her own apartment, her experience of the reporting process, and the eventual discovery of a serial rapist. However, the B plot contains much more: the institutional misogyny embedded into the reporting process, how rarely police officers actually investigate these cases, and how the toxic masculinity within police academies and police officers themselves renders them entirely inequipped to meet the needs of rape victims or catch rapists. The show does not shy away from the statistics on domestic violence by police officers, and rightly draws the parallel that police officers rape and abuse at significantly higher levels than the general population.
gif: Merritt Wever and Toni Collette in Unbelievable bumping fists.
Merritt Wever and Toni Collette play the two female police officers—Karen Duvall and Grace Rasmussen—who take on the case and eventually catch the perpetrator, and their performances are, to put it simply, phenomenal. I could gush all day about the profundity, the elegance, the charisma of Wever’s performance. Wever brings a steadiness to Toni Collette’s performance. Collette’s acting always feels slightly unhinged in the best way, but Wever is slow and sure in her steps.
gif: Merritt Wever in Unbelievable stands up and pulls aside her blazer to reveal a gun and badge
(Totally not related to this gif at all whatsoever in any way absolutely none, but I am very gay for Merritt Wever)
Procedural dramas are often very pro-police, and I thought this show struck a very interesting political dilemma of being generally anti-police but still focusing on the procedural aspects of criminal investigations. I also thought they did a GREAT job of looking at the ways the reporting structure for victims of sexual assault is set up in a way that repeatedly retraumatizes victims. They also get at how being a police officer shapes performances of femininity for Rasmussen and Duvall, as well as what being a police officer means for their individual sense of safety. At times, it felt a bit like wish fulfillment: what if a woman didn’t have to be afraid when walking alone at night? What if she had her own means of intimidating other men into leaving her alone? An essay could be written alone on the power stances both women use in their posture throughout the series.
It was not easy to watch (especially not the first episode), but I enjoyed Merritt Wever so much that I watched the whole series twice. I also really liked Criminal Minds as a teenager, so do with that what you will. And because I am thirsty, here is another Merritt Wever gif.
gif: Merritt Wever in Unbelievable walking
(THE POWER IN THIS WALK)
I’d love to see more procedural dramas about the toxicity of police and particularly the racism of the institution, rather than the pro-police propaganda that has been infused into our procedural dramas for decades. I think there’s a way to do those sorts of dramas that isn’t unequivocally in favor of the institution itself (see: season 3 of The Crown, which has introduced a skepticism about the monarchy as an institution that makes the show infinitely better as a whole).
gif: Merritt Wever and Toni Collette in Unbelievable talking in a car. Merritt Wever says, “And I just thought, “Okay, I don’t have to defer or second-guess. I can just show up and get the job done.” Toni Collette says, “That’s right.”
Truly grateful to be living in the golden era of television this Christmas.
Here is wishing you much new content to enjoy on your vacation,
Hannah
Dear Hannah,
I’m deeply grateful to myself for having written the bulk of this letter over a week ago, for by now my mind is filled with the brainworm we call CATS. My unending stream of podcast-listening has only intensified because any quiet moment my brain chances upon is instantly filled with the phrase, “Jellicles can and jellicles certainly do!”
gif: Taylor Swift in Cats shaking her cat chest??
It’s a cursed film that’s also an unholy amount of fun to see, a truly unifying viewing experience that has become the delight of the internet, the propellant we didn’t deserve but needed to get us to the end of this year. It’s Bad Art in every way, so let us turn our eyes instead for awhile to some genuinely Good Art and reflect on what makes it so good.
Starting with...Schitt’s Creek!
gif: Catherine O’Hara in Schitt’s Creek saying “When one of us shines all of us shine”
As you mentioned, we were both late adopters to this show—I’d been seeing the gifs all over Twitter and hearing lots of “it makes me cry!” which, as many of you likely know by now, is one of the top ways to douse any interest I have in a show. Then this spring I got hit with one of those dreadful colds that’s not quite intense enough that you pass out through the whole thing, but which makes it impossible to focus on more than 20 minutes of story at a time. And enter: Schitt’s Creek.
gif: Catherine O’Hara in Schitt’s Creek saying “Did you say bebe?”
(it’s me, I’m bebe)
The beautiful thing about Schitt’s Creek is that it’s an inside-out version of what it appears to be. On its surface, it appears to be the worst kind of comedy, which centers people who for the most part really hate each other. But even at the beginning, when the Roses are at their most immature, that was never the truth of the show. It’s always been about people who care very deeply about each other in an abstract way but now must learn how to care for and allowed themselves to be cared for by one another in a fuller, lived way. Their money for years allowed them to live at physical and emotional distance from each other, sharing the occasional duet or party when it was convenient but with millions of opportunities to jettison away from one another at the slightest annoyance.
And these emotional truths about the show’s dynamic elevate the structure as well, spinning a number of sitcom tropes to make them new. It’s not simply “people unnecessarily not communicating with each other, and thus, hijinks!” it’s that these people have no idea how to communicate with each other, how to deal with discomfort at all, not just materially, but in relationship. The Christmas special between seasons 4 and 5 really elucidated that for me, because it showcases their progress in a very special way. “Member of the family wants holiday to be perfect as it constantly falls apart” is a trope that can get very tiresome very quickly, but the show is so gentle about why it matters to Johnny that they’re all together, how different their life has become and how much happier it has made their family.
gif: Alexis Rose in Schitt’s Creek saying “Now I feel like I should be here for you”
I love this show, and while I’m sad that we only get one more season, I’m happy as well, for its characters. So many sitcoms are premised on a necessity of stasis, of everyone staying in town, staying at a job, staying with the partner the show has assigned them. It would be unfair to the Roses, and to Stevey, Ted, Patrick, and everyone else in Schitt’s Creek, to keep them in stasis forever. I hope this final season gives us a bit more Moira; the most recent season made it clear that, unlike the other Roses, she still has a tangible expectation that their time in Schitt’s Creek will not be permanent, or even indefinitely long. The show being as compassionate as it is, she’s not vilified for that expectation; yes we’re meant to laugh at the Roses, but the humor is at the expense of the kind of lives they’ve lived, not at the expense of their earnest needs and desires. Truthfully, all of the Roses can be quite exasperating, but who among us can’t? We are all ridiculous in our own ways and also deserving and capable of love and fulfillment, and the show does an excellent job of bringing that to light.
gif: Catherine O’Hara in Schitt’s Creek saying “You keep everything inside like a bashful clam!”
(it’s me, I am the bashful clam)
Every possible character pairing in the show could use their own essay, so instead I’ll just share this lovely piece about Johnny and Moira by Hannah Giorgis and say this about David and Patrick: they make me want a boyfriend, which is a feeling I absolutely DID NOT OKAY!!!
gif: Patrick in Schitt’s Creek playing guitar and singing “You’re simply the best better than all the rest”
gif: Dan Levy in Schitt’s Creek singing “I call you when I need you my heart’s on fire”
Now I’m going to talk about Unbelievable, and just want to repeat your trigger warning because I’m going to be getting into some discussions of rape and rape culture. But first….
MERRITT FUCKING WEVER! TONI FUCKING COLLETTE!!!
gif: Toni Collette in Unbelievable saying “You said ‘fuck’”
Whew okay I just had to get that off my chest before diving into any ~analysis~ because otherwise I would be far too distracted.
It took a lot of different people in my Twitter feed, along with one of my best friends, talking about this show to get me to watch it. Even past the point where I believed it was “different,” I personally felt that I’d had enough and would be better off respecting this show from a distance. After two years as a volunteer advocate with the Sexual Violence Center in Minneapolis*, where I mainly did medical advocacies [sitting with victim/survivors** while they underwent a rape kit], and after the most recent few years of society being so saturated with accounts of sexual assault, turning to another story about it during TV time was a really hard sell. And pals, if this is where you’re at as well, that is completely fine and understandable!
[*who are really really great btw! I’m currently on an extended mental health break from volunteering there but it’s something I highly recommend if you have the spoons for it. If you live in Minneapolis you can find more info about volunteering at SVC here, and if you’re interested but live outside the Twin Cities there is probably one in your area as well. Also, you can use their crisis hotline from anywhere in the country, in addition to RAINN, which is a crisis hotline that connects survivors to resources in their area.]
[**at SVC we primarily refer to the people we work with using the combination victim/survivor unless the individual specifies a preference. Different people with different experiences have different preferences on the word they use [gasp!], and other advocacy centers might have different practices, but this is the one I usually go with.]
All that being said...I’m really glad I watched this show.
gif: Toni Collette in Unbelievable saying “I was making a point.”
As you mentioned, the first episode is really, really tough. It zooms in on Marie, the victim-survivor we spend the most time with in the show, implied to be the earliest known victim of this particular serial rapist. Very little screentime is spent on the assault itself, and there’s absolutely no glamorization in the depiction. The majority of the episode is actually about the aftermath, emphasizing how Marie experiences the medical and police personnel she interacts with, as well as the people in her community. We learn early on that Marie grew up in foster care, and although she’s still in touch with some of her former foster parents who appear to wish the best for her (more on that in a bit), she’s mostly on her own, both emotionally and materially. We watch her become convinced by the police to recant her accusation (which they’ve determined is too vague to pursue) and thus become alienated by what community she does have.
After the first episode, Marie’s story becomes counterbalanced by two female detectives as they catch a serial rapist three years later and several states away, which solves Marie’s case as well. I’d highly recommend watching the first two episodes in one sitting, because the way that Merritt Wever’s character (and then later on Toni Collette’s character) talks to victim-survivors in her care is so markedly different, so victim-survivor centered and trauma-informed, that it feels like you can finally take deep breaths again.
gif: Merritt Wever in Unbelievable nodding and saying ‘yes’
One critique I have, which is more about the Discourse surrounding the show than the show itself (as you excellently wrote, the show is clearly invested in examining the poison of police systems) is of the absolute fizziness I’ve heard expressed over the difference that the detectives being women makes. Now, putting aside for a moment that this show is based on a true story, as a piece of the narrative I absolutely agree. Though female detectives are fairly common on broadcast procedurals [ie “normal TV”], prestige-y limited series dramas are usually focused on manly manly sad men solving the murders and assaults of delicate white teenage girls. Seeing an idealized version of a female-led detective team on a show like this did affect me in a way that these shows often don’t. (We talked about this in our Veronica Mars edition as well.)
H o w e v e r...the exultation of female cops [in particular white female cops] as even a partial antidote to the many poisons of policing, including the ways it intersects with rape culture, really rubs me the wrong way. Women, particularly within policing institutions, are not magically exempt from the trappings of rape culture [as the show adeptly shows us through Marie’s skeptical foster mom], and though the female detectives in this show are well-versed and sensitive to the ways that rape and its after-effects can play out in a myriad of ways in the victim/survivor’s life, that’s hardly a widespread reality. It’s not even a widespread reality in the general population, let alone the portion of the population for which it’s specifically relevant to their job! [The true crime genre in general does a lot of cop exulting, which this piece goes into brilliantly.]
Again, this is not something I read the show as explicitly indulging in. A huge part of this is due to the distinctness of Wever and Collette’s characters, neither of which feel meant to be stand-ins for an imagined universal. They even [gasp!] occasionally disagree on what the most sensitive and ethical way to move forward is. Even more importantly, the show is careful to emphasize that, while the fact that their rapist has been caught and convicted is certainly important to the victim/survivors in the show, it does not resolve their trauma. Overall I think the show did an exceptional job of centering the victim/survivors, which is why I hope that the viewers’ takeaway isn’t “yay more lady cops!!”
gif: Toni Collette in Unbelievable saying “You got the job done.”
Getting back to what I feel the show did really well, I was blown away by how well it captured the impossible and warped worldview victim-survivors are expected to fulfill: one in which some elusive and unexamined ideal of justice is attainable, in which the system to attain that justice is sensible and compassionate to victim-survivors, in which rapists are wholly external and never enmeshed in their victims; lives, in which victim-survivors react in ways you believe you would react. In short, a world we are nowhere near. Every choice available to Marie (which isn’t many) holds the potential of penalization for her, not her attacker. Each person she interacts with places all of the spoken and unspoken anxieties they hold about rape culture directly on her shoulders. Even people (like her former foster parents) who believe they want the best for her, can’t move out of their own incomplete understandings of trauma to center hers.
NPR’s Glen Weldon correctly names the eighth and final episode as cathartic. It achieves this not through soaring false promises, but through simply saying aloud so many of the things that are rarely said, or perhaps are frequently said but more frequently drowned out. The lingering fears and sadness of the victim-survivors are given space to exist without being anxiously papered over, Marie is able to not just request but demand a material apology from the system that repeatedly retraumatized her, and there’s even a rare moment of self-reflection from the detective who initially disbelieved Marie.
After hearing from Wever and Collette that their case has been solved and conclusively linked to Marie’s, he visits their office, and upon seeing the sheer amount of effort they put in appears visibly shamed. On his way out, clearly shaken, he notes to Collette’s character that he’s always felt frustrated by hearing about bad cops, and wondered why “they didn’t just get rid of him.” In a very small voice he admits: “Maybe they should get rid of me.” I’ve rewatched just that moment several times and gotten chills every time. (It goes from about minute 4 to minute 7 in episode 8 fyi)
(this clip is unrelated to that scene, but superb)
To end this segment on a more positive note…..MERRITT FUCKING WEVER!!! TONI FUCKING COLLETTE!!! If you are looking for an interview to read that’s equally uncomfortable and fascinating, while of course being excellently written, look no further than Kathryn VanArendonk’s walk with Merritt Wever, and then as a chaser go watch Merritt Wever’s legendary 2013 Emmy’s acceptance speech.
What a trying, complicated year 2019 has been. I for one am glad to be rid of it, though I cannot possibly throw the whole year in the bin since this was the year we started this bountifully fun and live-giving Pen Pals project. Thank you for your support, friendship, belief, and joy. May 2020 be full of those qualities and so much more.
Kelsey
P.S. You didn’t think I’d be getting out of here without talking about CATS one more time, did you? I haven’t seen The Rise of Skywalker yet, but as far as I’m concerned, this combined CATS and Star Wars trailer is the final installment in the saga.