The Sweet Thrill of Forgotten Memories
🖐 The Friday High Five #117
Another Friday, another Mullet edition of the High 5.
Business in the front: The 5 things I loved this week, free for all to enjoy.
Party in the back: A deeper exploration of something on my mind, for supporters.
Business in the front
Andor: S2 Episodes 4-5
Vibe: Tinker Tailor Rebel Spy
Deets: I continue to stage a one-man revolt against Disney’s decision to release Andor in 3-episode chunks, which leaves me with a difficult choice: gulp it all down in a gluttonous frenzy or space it out and fall behind in the Nerd Discourse.
Life intervened this week—I haven’t had time to watch all 3 episodes. So score one for blazing my own path, I guess. It doesn’t help that the episodes release at 9 PM EST. I’m in my 40s, with a day job; 9 PM is when my body starts saying, “hey bud, how about that sleep you like so much?”
It’s also baffling that in this day and age, we’re still beholden to the tyranny of time slots. It’s not like Andor is a live sporting event; why not just release it at 6 PM in every time zone? Why am I punished for living in Michigan?
Scheduling gripes aside, I continue to be amazed at Andor. It’s so intentionally not a Star War, but enough of the Saga is represented that the net effect is an elevation of the entire franchise. I’m working on a piece delving into why the best Star Wars since The Empire Strikes Back, and perhaps ever, is being created by someone who is steadfastly not a fan. It flies in the face of everything we’ve known, or assumed to know.
If not for the galaxy’s familiar sights and sounds, Andor could just as easily be an unbranded sci-fi about space fascists, disjointed rebel groups, and the people who don’t care to pick a side.
It’s interesting how the show gives this latter group a voice. In the third episode, Perrin advocates for a hedonistic approach to life. Delivered during a speech at his daughter’s wedding, his advice is to pursue a vapid existence, empty of meaning but what the next pleasure can impart. He’s a conscientious objector who buries his complaints in a self-destructive haze of booze and (probably) sex. Rather than fight, he chooses to hide, and also hide from the fact that he’s hiding.
Nobody can escape the shadow falling across the galaxy. Everyone makes a choice.
The second set of episodes centers on Ghorman, an affluent planet that stands directly in the Empire’s way. Ghorman is a weird place. Its economic power comes thanks to spiders (?) that spin rich cloth fibers when called to work with Alpine horns (??) by people with French accents (???). It’s weird but fits with the cool weird Star Wars sometimes engenders (I’m still waiting to learn more about the clocktower dude from season 1 who struck an anvil with metal hammers during funerals and presumably also at the top of the hour).
This batch of episodes is high on intrigue and subtitles. I’m there for it. I do wonder if Andor is going to lose some people along the way though. For all of Gilroy’s disinterest in Star Wars, Andor is richly steeped in lore and backstory. Andor also doesn't directly explain itself often. There’s a lot of nuance and subtext, misdirection and outright lies. It’s a hallmark of good writing, but combined with the deep lore, it makes sussing out what’s what sometimes tricky.
I can follow the threads because I’ll watch each episode more than once, and I’ve read Wookieepedia for laughs. My wife, like Gilroy, is not really a fan. She’s having a harder time tracking the story and is not happy about it. She much preferred season 1.
I said recently during a livestream that I was worried the one-year time jump between each set of episodes would splinter the narrative thrust, or at least blunt it. After the first such time hop, those concerns are warranted.
Shrinking: S2
Vibe: TV’s best ensemble delivers laughs and feels.
Deets: We’ve been slow rolling Shrinking for weeks, parceling out episodes like apocalyptic survivors trying to eke out their bit of sustenance (which frankly isn’t far from the truth). For some reason I thought season 2 was only 8 episodes. Imagine my delight when it kept going. Meat was back on the menu! Alas, the buffet eventually gave out; fortunately S3 started shooting almost 3 months ago.
I wasn’t quite sure where this show was going early in S2. Most of the S1 storylines had been resolved (Jimmy’s strained relationship with his daughter) or forgotten (Harrison Ford saying ‘raw dogging’). The early going coasted a bit on witty dialogue and vibes. But then plots fully matured, new crises emerged, and things that had previously seemed resolved turned out not to be. Which is the case with life. Few problems ever truly go away, especially if we are those problems.
Shrinking travels the same lanes as Ted Lasso but deals with more serious subject matter. It’s a tricky balancing act. That the show continually pulls it off is a marvel.
Oblivion: Remastered
Vibe: The best Skyrim since Skyrim.
Deets: Bethesda announced a modern remake of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and then immediately released the game. Best marketing campaign ever.
Oblivion originally released in 2006. I sunk a ton of hours into it but put it aside, and out of mind, once Skyrim came out in 2011. It’s been a strange experience replaying a game I have no memory of playing. More on this below.
I cannot get over how pretty this game is. If nothing else, playing the Oblivion remaster only stokes my excitement for the next Elder Scrolls game, which we may potentially see next year.
Wild
Vibe: Part memoir, part adventure travelogue, all inspiration.
Deets: I have no recollection of how this book got on my TBR list. But I found it on my list while wandering the library, and took it home. My wife gave me a bit of a side-eye when she saw it. I could only shrug. “I heard it was a good book.”
It is.
Wild is a first-person account of the author’s decision to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, the events that led to that decision, and the actual hike. It’s an autobiography, but also so much more. I’m only about 1/3 of the way in, and already I want to throw on some shoes and go on an adventure. That’s not the point of the book, but it is aspirational in a way. I don’t necessarily want to spend 100 days hiking a desolate mountain trail. But leaving behind work and the busy bullshit of modern life? Yeah, sign me up.
Strayed is a great writer. The writing is so vivid and full of detail. As someone who gets a bit uppity about prose, Wild is a pleasure to read.
I highlighted this section:
Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me. Insisting on this story was a form of mind control, but for the most part, it worked. Every time I heard a sound of unknown origin or felt something horrible cohering in my imagination, I pushed it away. I simply did not let myself become afraid. Fear begets fear. Power begets power. I willed myself to beget power. And it wasn't long before I actually wasn't afraid.
There’s a Reese Witherspoon movie of the same name that was adapted from the book. I’ll probably watch it after I finish reading, but there’s no way it’s as good as this.
Hacks: S4
Vibe: Witty women rule the world.
Deets: Hacks is a hilarious comedy/drama about Deborah Vance (Jean Smart), a legendary comedian who hires Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), an unemployed comedy writer, to help modernize her material. That’s the short version; I recorded a podcast about how much I love Hacks if you need more. Hacks is one of the funniest shows and one of my favorites.
Deborah and Ava are an explosive pair. Their relationship is schizophrenic—friends to enemies to frenemies, and back again—but also beautifully reaffirming. They both fill a hole in the other’s life, and are drawn together like magnets. I just want Deborah and Ava to be BFFs. Is that too much to ask?
HBO of course knows what we want, and likes to tease us with reconciliation only to pull it away again. It’d be frustrating if it wasn’t so well done, and if the betrayals and reversals didn’t arise out of character and situation.
Party in the back
This bit is not about video games, but it’s the way into the story. Bear with me if your idea of a hot video game is Pong or Tetris.
Though I put probably 200 hours into the original version of Oblivion, I have no memory of playing it.
Actually, that’s not totally true.
I remember the tutorial at the beginning. Patrick Stewart visited me in a jail cell that harbored a secret passage out of the castle. He locked eyes with me and told me he’s had vivid dreams about me. (I assume the scene would’ve ended with him declaring his undying love, and perhaps trying to roll in the moldering straw with me, but his bodyguards were looking on.) I accompanied the group into the castle’s bowels, the Emperor entrusted me with a secret mission, and then he died. I stepped out of the dungeon and into sweeping vista where I could go anywhere and do anything.
There the game begins, and there my memory fades. Or so I thought.
After recently replaying the tutorial again—now in high definition!—I realized I have no memory of anything. The years—and Skyrim—had completely obliterated all memory of this place. I was like Gandalf at Moria, knowing I’ve been there but not able to recall even how to get inside.
I wandered the countryside, lost and directionless. The soundtrack kicked in then, speaking to a forgotten part of myself. My heart stirred with the vague, formless memory of past adventures. The details were gone, lost to time, but in my body remained a residue of something I could’t forget.
That got me to thinking about memory, and how we forget, and how we remember again.