Despite my sense that 2019 was just… fine as far as
reading (and much else) went, I certainly encountered some things that were
worlds better than fine. Here are the books and TV shows that really curled my
papers last year.
Supernatural (CW for gore, TV scariness, and religious figures as characters)
This is the big one, spacerats. Despite the fact that it
will certainly be well into (maybe even all the way to the end of) 2020 before
I *finish* the show (327 episodes. 327. Whut.), 2019 will always be the
year of Supernatural for me because it is the year I fell down that
particular rabbit hole. A good friend and former roommate introduced me to the
show waaaay back in 2006, we watched the entire first season in, like, two days,
and then I was afraid of the dark in the apartment where I lived alone for the
next four years and wouldn’t touch the show from that point on. *Until* an
internet acquaintance started watching it from the beginning for the first
time and suggested that she thought I would like it. I gave it another go,
found myself intrigued and *much* less scared by it, and here we are. Nine months
later, I am halfway through season ten (which means I have the entirety of a
decently long-running TV show’s worth left to watch. Fifteen seasons. Fifteen.
Whut.), there’s SPN paraphernalia all over my office, and that internet
acquaintance is a dear friend with whom I discuss every episode. I would love
this show without the buddy watch component (the mythology! the exploration of
good and evil! the Impala! the music! the family dynamics! the meta episodes!
Misha Collins’s blue, blue eyes! DEAN WINCHESTER.), but finding a new friend
and clicking with her in that way that is just so rare after your twenties was
the highlight of 2019 for me. If you are among the handful of people who have
had to listen to me talk about this show ad nauseum this past year, I do
apologize. Sort of.
I first heard about the Phoebe and Her Unicorn
comic when it was mentioned in passing on a podcast I listen to. And then this
past summer Barnes and Noble had a huge display of the collections set up in
the store, so I decided to give the first one a go. And I loved it to sparkly
little bits. The premise is that Phoebe meets a unicorn and saves her from
staring ceaselessly at her own reflection. As a reward, the unicorn offers Phoebe
a wish, and Phoebe wishes for the unicorn to be her friend. And then the two
have all kinds of adventures together. If you’re thinking along the lines of Calvin
and Hobbes, you are on the right track, though Phoebe and Marigold Heavenly
Nostrils are all their own thing and an absolute hilarious delight.
This past year saw the release of the third season of The
Crown, the Netflix show following Queen Elizabeth II’s time on the throne,
and I’ve been watching it right along. So the show certainly wasn’t new to me
this year, but this season was so good that it almost felt like a new
discovery. I was wary about the cast change (though of course it was, or at
least soon would have been, necessary given the ageing of the characters
portrayed), but the new cast is just as stunningly brilliant as the first was.
I’m already looking forward to season four with great anticipation.
I read the
first in the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny in 2018 and liked it all
right. I read the whole thing (always a sign that I enjoyed a book at least on
some level), but I wasn’t really grabbed by the world or the characters. I was
reading the book on the suggestion of a good friend (a different good friend than
either of those mentioned above—ain’t I lucky?) who was deep into the series
and would like to discuss them with me, so I committed to trying at least the
second book. And the second book hooked me! I settled into Three Pines, started
really falling in love with Gamache, and found myself wanting to return to the world
Penny had created when I had finished book two. I suspect this will mark the beginning
of a long relationship with this series for me, along with many book discussions
with my friend, which are always a treat.
Baby Yoda. Do I have to say more? But seriously, Husbeast and I just loved loved loved the
first season of this show. The half-hour installments are just the right amount
of Star Wars in a go, and the stories are intriguing. And then there’s
Mando, who I instantly fell in love with, and who is played by Pedro Pascal impeccably
and with nuance from behind a helmet. Can’t wait for more of this.
Black Sails (CW for violence and rape)
Black Sails
takes a few of the characters from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island
and tosses them together with some historical pirates and puts them in a
specific historical time frame and then sits back to watch as the yards get
armed. It is a gloriousness of tall ships and the sea and plotting and a fripping
incredible soundtrack. (Go watch/listen to the opening credits. Why still here?
Go!)
Best of all, perhaps, (I am about to *seriously* spoil the experience of the
whole show, so DO NOT proceed if you are planning on watching) is a reveal in
season two. If you are like me, you have experienced many a TV show over the years
where you are *sure*, based on their behavior, the way scenes are played, how
they look at other characters, and how other characters talk about them, that a
character is gay or bi, only to sit through season upon season with that
element of the show either never coming to fruition or suddenly erased. Sometimes
referred to as queerbaiting,
this is a tactic that another show in this post is super* guilty of. But
on Black Sails, after a season and a bit worth of characterization that
feels like it might well be that familiar queerbaiting build up, it turns out
that Captain Flint *was* in fact in love with another man and that the tragic
ending of that affair *is* in fact what is motivating so many of his actions. The
reveal is a glorious, glorious moment that made me punch the air, shout “Yes!”
loud enough to scare the fuzzbeasts, and rewind to rewatch the scene agape. I’m
still working my way through the rest of the show, and I have every expectation
that I will continue to love it, but no matter what, it will forever hold a
special place in my heart for that moment.
*Heh.
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