2017

On this week’s episode of This is Us, present day Kevin goes back to Pittsburgh to be honored at his high school’s homecoming.  While in flashback, we experience the days leading up to his career-ending high school football injury. The episode opens in flashback with Jack and Rebecca encouraging the Big Three to walk.  Kevin, [...]

The post Finally, The Kevin Episode OF ‘This is Us’ We’ve Been Waiting For appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.

New beginnings. Fresh starts. Unsought awakenings. These were prominent themes for the characters of Supergirl Season 2. This makes sense as the show was in a state of new beginnings moving from CBS to The CW Network.

With that move came a lot of changes. Little things like the DEO is no longer located in what could reasonably be confused as a cousin of the bat cave. Now their location is a gorgeous tall building in the middle of National City.

Other changes were not so little, however. We finally get to meet Superman; and I admit, I was pleasantly surprised. My big concern when hearing he was visiting was that he’d overshadow Supergirl in some way. However, Tyler Hoechlin does a brilliant job showcasing Superman’s heroism and strength while simultaneously encapsulating Clark’s endearing midwestern oh gosh, by golly charm. Tyler’s the first Superman I’ve seen since Christopher Reeve who I feel successfully pulls that off. And he looks awesome in the Super blue, red and yellow. But green? Not so much.

We also gained Lena Luthor and her mother Lillian, played by Katie McGrath and Brenda Strong respectively (I’ll get more into them later), Mon-El of Daxam (Chris Wood), Miss Martian aka M’gann M’orzz (Sharon Leal), and some fantastic guest star appearances by the likes of Teri Hatcher as Mon-El’s mother Queen Rhea and Lynda Carter as President Olivia Marsdin. Also in this mix…Kara’s new boss, Snapper Carr (Ian Gomez) who actually fires her at some point. But he wasn’t serious about that, surely?

However, we lost Lucy Lane (which I mourn) and Maxwell Lord (which I do not mourn in any way) and Cat Grant was preparing to exit stage left. Thankfully, we haven’t lost her forever. That doesn’t mean I don’t miss her something fierce. I look forward to and enjoy all her guest visits which can’t help but light up the screen.

She isn’t the only character to find herself on a journey of self discovery. James Olsen, who Cat set up to hold her spot at CatCo Worldwide Media, found himself wanting more out of his life and decided he needed to take up the hero business in his spare time. He got Winn Schott on board with his crazy scheme to provide not only tech and logistics support but also his super high tech costume. And thus, Guardian was born.

If you sense my ambivalence here it’s because I sort of feel the show doesn’t really know what to do with James. I mean, since when does he have a black belt? I don’t remember that ever coming up before. But now he doesn’t care about photography nor CatCo, not really. Not given the lack of care or attention he pays it for the bulk of the season. I hope the show figures out how better to use him because I *heart* James and I don’t like it when I feel like a show is mishandling a good character.

Other journeys of self discovery went a whole lot more smoothly. Alex Danvers finding out she wasn’t nearly as heterosexual as she had always assumed she was, for instance. That story was poetry in motion. I felt her confusion, her hurt when the object of her affection rejected her, her concern her family would turn on her, her elation at learning Maggie loved her back. These are real, human emotions that so many people experience. Chyler Leigh, Floriana Lima and Melissa Benoist all moved me personally with such an honest portrayal of Alex’s journey.

Alex of course, wasn’t the only one to find love in surprising places. Winn for instance, began a relationship with Lyra Strayd (Tamzin Merchant), a refugee from Starhaven. Their path to love was a bit rough. She was scamming him the whole time. But she did it to save her brother. And because of that he forgave her for lying to him; and now she’s joined Team Guardian to help protect National City. Yes, I’m still ambivalent over the whole Team Guardian thing. But still.

Kara found herself on an even tougher path to love. As Kara herself put it, think Hatfields and McCoys. Daxam and Krypton, neighboring planets orbiting the same red dwarf star Rao, had been at war for a long time. And while that war ended a long time ago, the tensions between their two worlds never let up. So Kara meeting a surviving Daxamite didn’t provide any kind of joy for her. She was suspicious from the start. Biased and judgmental too (some fair, some…not so much).

Mon-El did himself no favors. He first arrived at the very start of the season (actually, picking up from the last moments of season 1). When he wakes, he attacks and rushes out and tries to find a way back home. That, I don’t fault him for in the least. However when he’s recovered and learns his circumstances, he acts like a jerk who takes little to nothing seriously, as though others exist to cater to his whims (such as poor Eve Tessmacher, James’s new assistant). He behaved that way for a good reason, of course. But even then, as his time with the fine folks of the DEO progressed forward, he continued to hide his true identity from them. He stuck to his story that he was a guard who served the Prince of Daxam as opposed to being the Prince who fled.

When Kara and he finally found themselves on the same page romantically, he continued the ruse until he was outted by his parents who received the distress signal he sent out early in the season. Yes, he is the prince. And worse, he sacrificed his guard and watched a Kryptonian ambassador bearing the House of El insignia be murdered for the pod that took him to earth. It literally takes a journey to another earth and another realm (I’m still a little confused as to where Kara and Barry Allen ended up, to be honest) before Kara puts aside her trust issues and accepts him into her heart more fully. Then she’s totally ready to enjoy breakfast in bed, or not, courtesy Studdly McDaxam.

But my favorite romantic relationship of the year by far was the one between J’onn J’onzz and M’gann M’orzz. While the other relationships in the show have had significant hurdles to overcome, J’onn and M’gann had a veritable canyon to leap. When J’onn first meets M’gann, he believes her to be a fellow Green Martian. And even when he learns of her involvement in an underground alien fight club ring, he’s able to move past it.

It’s not until after Parasite, a creepy creature made of a human mutated by an alien parasite, critically injures him that he learns her true nature as a White. M’gann gave her blood to save him but it started to turn him into a White as well. It was only due to quick thinking by bio engineer Eliza Danvers (Helen Slater) and a reworking of Lillian Luthor’s alien toxin that saves him from a fate worse than death in the end and returned him to his gorgeous green self.

But he despised M’gann, not for who she was, but for WHAT she was. It’s hard to overcome 300 years of hate. When M’gann was attacked psychically while in the DEO holding cell, J’onn felt compelled to go into her mind to save her.  He came to terms with the fact that he cared for her. He knew she wasn’t like other Whites. She stood up against oppression and carried the guilt of her people.  He found it in himself to see her for her and not the race of beings that murdered his family centuries ago.

M’gann…she never knew love before but she knew she felt a connection with J’onn. But it was that connection and her seeing his courage and his heart that gave her the strength to go back to Mars and find other like minded Whites who opposed the genocidal, militaristic mindset of her people. Yes, we see her again in the finale but I sure hope we’ll get to see more of her in season 3.

Family was another prominent theme of the season. The Danvers, with their concern over Jeremiah (Dean Cain) and what’s become of him in Cadmus’s hands and of course their full acceptance of Alex and her new relationship. The Luthors, with the complex dynamic between Lillian and Lena who could never meet with her mother’s approval. It’s a fascinating relationship, frought with angst and rejection. I just feel so much for Lena and her need to feel selfless love from a parent. Not that she ever for a moment expects to receive it of course. That need drove her in part to Rhea’s proverbial arms, making her an integral part in the season’s final episodes.

But family isn’t limited to blood or legal relations. I dare anyone to look at J’onn, Alex and Kara and not see a real bond that exceeds friendship. It’s because of the strength garnered from these ties that our team finds the drive within them to take on the challenges before them. Stronger together, right?

The season ends on a bittersweet note for Kara when she’s forced to make a hard choice. When the Daxamites led by Rhea come to conquer the earth, the odds seem insurmountable. Lena, previously manipulated by Rhea, works with Winn to modify a device created by her brother Lex to emit lead into the atmosphere. Lead is supremely poisonous to all Daxamites. In fact, Rhea turns to ash and disintegrates (I guess I can say goodbye to the hope of her coming back next year, huh). The problem of course is that it’s poisonous for Mon-El too. But it is their only hope and it is the only choice she can make. In order to save him, she sends him away, presumably forever.

The Mon-El at the end of the season bears little to no resemblance to the man they pull from the pod at the beginning of the year. This Mon-El listens more. Cares more. Is more responsive and understanding. This Mon-El speaks up for the people and stands against oppression. I’m not generally a fan of the “man is made better by love” trope. I don’t feel it’s a woman’s job to make a man be better. But I will give this instance a little more leeway.  We actually do see him evolve and change into something more. Even when he thought he lost Kara by returning to Daxam, he wanted to be worthy of Kara’s love.

At any rate, going into season 3, Kara is heartbroken with this loss. Just another major blow in a lifetime full of them. Time will tell how this informs her actions from here on out and how she comes back from it. Will she find it in herself to be the sunny Danvers loved by all? (Well, everyone but Siobhan Smythe, that is.) Or is this the straw that broke the camel’s back?

I suspect we will see Kara slowly return to us. That this is her journey for Season 3 in part. Re-finding that balance between being Kara Zor-El and being Kara Danvers. While it might hurt too much right now, in the long term, Kara needs her human connections to keep her grounded. She needs her human family and friends. She needs game nights and pizza and potstickers.

I only hope she figures that out sooner rather than later.

There were a few issues I’d like to see addressed next year. Specifically James and what role the show envisions for him but overall, the season was very enjoyable. I give Supergirl Season 2 9 El Mayarahs out of a possible 10.

The post Supergirl Season 2 Refresher Guide/Year In Review: New Beginnings appeared first on The Nerd Element.

One of the things that makes The CW’s The 100 so awesome is the nuanced and finely-calibrated central performance by Eliza Taylor, who plays our favorite bisexual dystopian leader, Clarke Griffin. In the new movie Thumper, Taylor brings that talent to a realistic, contemporary story about the American meth epidemic from the point of view of the underprivileged youth most likely to buy and deal.

Thumper, written and directed by Jordan Ross, is about teens in a low-income neighborhood who are lured into working for a violent and dangerous drug dealer. When a new girl harboring a dark secret arrives in town, their relationship jeopardizes everything. Taylor plays that girl, Kat Carter, who forms a bond with a guy known as Beaver (played by fellow Aussie actor, Daniel Webber), as they are both lured into a life neither is entirely comfortable with, but that they go along with for reasons outside themselves.

When I had the chance to speak with Taylor on the phone, she revealed that Thumper basically came together because she and Ross became better friends the more they talked about it, encouraging her to maintain her interest.

However, the script on its own lured her to the project initially because she knew that drug epidemics weren’t exclusive to the United States. “In Australia, even where I grew up,” she says. “the drug culture with kids getting involved with the wrong people was very prominent when I was 17, 18.” That, and the truthful way in which those kids were written in this script, were what drew her to the film.

“Being in talks with Jordan a couple of years ago, when I was new on the scene, we became really good friends, so I just wanted to do it more,” Taylor explains. “And then eventually, I thought it had kind of gone away, and I was shooting Season Three, I think, of The 100, and I get a call from Jordan and he’s like We’re doing it! So, here we are.”

I asked her if anything surprised her about the extent of the meth problem here in the States versus where she grew up, and she said, “The only surprise to me was that, I know if you look at the stats in Australia, they’ve gone way up, especially when it comes to methamphetamines. I think it either is or was the meth capital of the world. And I used to work in bars when I was a teenager … and [meth] had become socially acceptable. And it terrified me, especially having a younger brother grow up and going out in a world where that’s okay. That terrified me. So, I was surprised that it was just as bad in the U.S.”

One of the themes of the film is that it’s underprivileged kids who are being taken advantage of, and often bear the brunt of all the punishment when it comes to law enforcement. Meth cooks take advantage of the fact that these kids are desperate, and then let them take the fall when things go south.

“Which is so frustrating!” Taylor exclaims. “I’ve seen the film three times now, and that whole aspect of it still gets me. And I’ve talked to police officers who’ve gone CI [confidential informant], and they do get so frustrated having to bust the dealers. These kids who don’t know any better, who are trying to earn money for their families.”

Thumper is also surprisingly feminist, which I wasn’t necessarily expecting from a film of its type. And yet, there’s a lot of examination of Kat’s life choices in a very feminist way. There’s also one scene in particular that surprised me, in which the meth cook, played by Pablo Schreiber, is approached by a teen girl named Gina, who is a meth addict. She needs a hit, and is willing to do whatever he wants to get it. Yet just when you think he’s going to accept her offer, he sends her home and says, “You’re better than this.”

“That scene in particular,” Taylor says. “I was kind of waiting for him to be like C’mon, get in. But he doesn’t. He has kids, he has a good side, even though he’s really messed up, you kinda see his side of the story.”

When I asked her how she and Ross approached her character, and whether there were conversations about the other female characters from a feminist perspective, she replied, “We pretty much talked about every single aspect over the years. I think that Jordan has such a knack for real storytelling, and every character in this film is someone he’s come across. And so, these women, they exist in the world, and he just wanted to tell their story, which is really fucking cool.”

One of those female characters, Kat’s boss, is played by Game of Thrones’ Cersei herself, Lena Headey. Taylor joked that she definitely was taking notes and asking Headey for tips from working on Game of Thrones to help her with her work on The 100.

“She is a force to be reckoned with,” Taylor said. “[Lena] is one of the sweetest, funniest women I’ve ever met, but she’s also incredibly terrifying when she’s in a performance. I’d forget my lines just because I was watching her and being blown away by her performance. She’s fantastic. I’d love to work with her again.”

I wondered if a gritty, contemporary, realistic film like this was a nice change of pace from the dystopian world she’s used to inhabiting, and she gave an enthusiastic yes:

“And it’s challenging,” she explains. “On The 100, we have a script, and we stick to it, because every story point is so very important to every other one. It’s like, you really have to get every line of dialogue right and really know the story. With this, Jordan gave us a lot of freedom to mess around with our words and go with the flow, which I thought was brilliant, but when it came down to it, it was really challenging. I kind of felt like I didn’t have my safety net. I was freefalling. But it the end, it was amazing, and so rewarding, and I actually got to play someone who’s not trying to save the world. She’s actually just trying to save herself in a way.”

I couldn’t help but make the parallel between Taylor’s character in the film and her real-life profession as an actor with a prominent profile, as both require a bit of a double life. Taylor had made the comparison, too.

“It definitely affects your relationships,” she says. “And it upsets the people around you, having to drop everything and go where the work is. Having to jump from job to job. Risking your privacy. It’s hard. You always identify a little bit with every character you play, but that was a comparison that was easy to make…” She laughs before qualifying, “Even though I’m not exactly going out and risking my life.”

When I asked her what she does to ease that process for herself, or how she compartmentalizes to protect her personal relationships from the bright spotlight of her career, she paused before replying, “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

Thumper is in theaters now as well as VOD.

(image: The Orchard)

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A film festival darling, it is hard to know what to make of Martin McDonaugh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri from the trailer that blended a harsh topic with equally harsh humor, to the third act of the movie where after several twists you are laughing through fear, comedy, and sheer exhaustion. The dark comedy teeters between its humor and anxiety-inducing tension, but never strays far from either, each joke undercut by an underlying emotional heft and each tense moment followed by an unexpected lightness. It’s disorienting in the best way, keeping you on your toes like — if I can make a fitness metaphor — changing your workouts to keep your muscles on guard. The result are scenes so jarring they evoke the realism of a film based on a true story, with its realism nearly stranger than fiction. Simply put, of the few pleasant surprises this year, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is among the best.

Three Billboards follows Mildred Hayes, played by Frances McDormond in a performance so stunning it joins the ranks of characters you couldn’t imagine being played by any other performer. After her daughter’s rape and murder, which takes place off-screen and prior to the movie’s start, desperation leads Mildred on a PR campaign to draw attention to the police department that has failed to find her rapist in a case gone cold. Her idea strikes as she drives by three dilapidated billboards on a nearly abandoned road, leading her to spend the little money she has — and some that she doesn’t — to put the Ebbing, Missouri police department’s feet to the fire. She names the police chief by name, Bill Willoughby, played by Woody Harrelson, in a calculated risk to strike accountability at the chance of drawing the ire of everyone in town. Chief Willoughby is beloved, but even worse, is dying of cancer, a fact that a hardened Mildred Hayes disregards in comparison to justice for her daughter. The stunt turns into a conflict weighed in the jury of public opinion: Mildred Hayes, sympathetic to the audience, versus Chief Willoughby, his sidekick Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), and the Ebbing police department with the loyalty of nearly everyone in Ebbing, Missouri.

It is here themes of racism, class, and police brutality is drawn out and tied inextricably to the plot of Three Billboards. The Ebbing police department is known by to be a violent display of uncontrolled authority, only primarily focused on Blacks. Whites, on the other hand, are less a victim of their corruption, but still suffer from it at the department’s will, or in Midlred’s case, their ineptitude that likely killed any chance of justice for her daughter’s rape and murder. Still, Chief Willoughby is known to the people as a good man, a man to whom they are loyal, for whom they would make Mildred Hayes’ life hell to end her campaign with those three billboards. Her son becomes the target of bullying, her family cast in an even darker shadow, herself the subject of intimidation and threats, yet Mildred does not bend, showing tender moments only sporadically that betray no weakness, but rather an unending willfulness to see things through no matter the harm that comes her way. Nothing she faces could be worse than what her daughter did, and given flashbacks of she and her daughter, Mildred seems to feel deserving of whatever comes.

The film does not sensationalize the brutality of rape, addressing it as horrific without any scenes onscreen, flashback or otherwise. Instead, we are trusted to know the act as deplorable and that Mildred’s daughter’s death was horrible, sight unseen, and thankfully so. A similar approach is taken to physical abuse against Mildred, a survivor of domestic assault. Mildred unabashedly speaks of her ex-husband as an abuser, refusing to be shamed about it even in the face of physical danger in the present. Her family is a poor, argumentative, rural one, a source of the tragedy and humor that anchor the film. Mildred can go from arguing with her son to being threatened by her ex-husband to her son putting a knife to her ex-husband’s throat to protect her, all before a ditzy teenager interrupts to say something hilariously stupid.

Largely unseen are the people who simply want Frances to get over it, represented through news stories and words of support to the police. Their presence is felt everywhere throughout the film, their motive a reflection of our deifying of police as good, honorable people uniformly deserving of support. That deifying makes Ebbing, Missouri side with the police even against a grieving mother and a crime they would otherwise rebuke as unforgiveable. Frances persists though, her exhaustion an ever-present feature of her being, perseverance making her a crowd favorite.

Ultimately, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a revenge film of a new kind, a hard twist at the subgenre otherwise led by men whose violence spearheads their campaign. It’s a welcome subversion, and the darkness — and ridiculousness — that follow make for a film so much stranger than fiction that it feels like reality. With twists and jarring turns too good to spoil, Three Billboards is the must-see surprise of the year. Address your awards to Frances McDormond.

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