Spooky Musicals

It’s been a while since I’ve done a post for Musical Monday. I haven’t discovered many new shows lately. For a while, I was watching musicals almost exclusively (thanks, BroadwayHD and The Shows Must Go On!) but now I’m back to watching them at a normal pace, which means that there aren’t too many that I have strong feelings about that I haven’t already discussed here. But since I’m planning to put Musical Monday on hiatus through November (it’s NaNoWriMo, which means that my more regular book reviews will likely also take a hit), I wanted to post at least one more. Since this week is Halloween and I’m always very excited about Halloween (I love dressing up; this year I’m going to be David from Schitt’s Creek), I thought it might be fun to write about spooky musicals.

I’m easily frightened, so I tend to prefer things that are lightly spooky. I love Halloween, but I love the cutesy, cosplay side of it, not the nightmare fuel. But I adore musicals of all kinds, so I listen to and watch them even if I’d aggressively avoid them if it weren’t for the music.

The Rocky Horror Show

Which cast recordings have I heard, and which is my favorite? It’s hard to believe that there’s a campy cult queer movie musical that I haven’t seen, but here we are. Between the movie soundtrack, the Glee episode, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I feel like I know The Rocky Horror Show about as well as is possible without actually having seen it. While I think that the Glee versions of the songs are very good and I haven’t heard anything from Fox’s 2015 version, I’m assuming that you can’t get any better than the classic movie.

How can you see it? There’s a movie, plus the Fox Live version, and apparently another live version from 2015 that I’d never heard of until I Googled it just now.

What’s it about? Basically, a straight-laced couple gets caught in a storm and has to wait it out in a creepy mansion with a group of bizarre Transylvanians.

10 Reasons to Watch Galavant (Musical Monday)

Hello, and welcome back to Musical Monday! This blog is almost entirely dedicated to reviewing books, but every two weeks on Monday I dedicate a post to one of my greatest loves: musicals. For the most part, I’ve stuck to reviewing traditional stage musicals, but I thought I’d take a departure this time and write about a TV musical that is criminally under-appreciated: Galavant. I watch a lot of TV, so it’s hard to pick an outright favorite show, but if I did, it would probably be Galavant, because it is just about perfect. TV viewers definitely let themselves and Galavant down by not watching it while it was airing, because it got cancelled after only two short, hilarious seasons. Yes, it has the most satisfying final scene in the history of television, but it deserved to have at least two or three more seasons.

If someone had looked inside my brain and formulated a show specifically to my tastes, they couldn’t have done better than Galavant, which is a musical parody of medieval fantasy. It’s hysterically funny but engages with tropes in surprisingly sophisticated ways. Galavant does for medieval fantasy what Crazy Ex-Girlfriend does for romantic comedies. It is one, but it’s also a meta commentary on them. It works as a surface-level comedy, but is also clever enough to be the subject of a college report (seriously! My sister did one!).

It has a charming cast that’s a combination of recognizable actors (Psych’s Timothy Omundson plays King Richard, Luke Youngblood of Harry Potter and Community fame plays Sid, and Downton Abbey’s Sophie McShera plays Gwynne) and relative unknowns (some of the biggest roles—from Galavant to Isabella to Jester—are played by actors whose imdb pages are still pretty short).

What’s it about?

When the evil King Richard kidnaps Madalena, lady love to the gallant Sir Galavant, it sends Galavant into a long depression he only shakes when Princess Isabella, whose kingdom was captured by the same King Richard, approaches him to engage his help in freeing her family and her people. Galavant jumps on the chance to win Madalena back, unaware that Isabella is leading him into a trap.

So without further ado, here are 10 reasons to watch Galavant

1) The Songs

Even though the episodes are very short, they all have at least one or two original songs that hilariously advance the story but are also catchy enough that you can listen to them on their own (I have often done this, including while writing this post). There are a pretty wide variety of musical styles, from a rap battle to a Les Mis parody to a song set to the dirge of an executioner’s drum to a cheesy karaoke-style number. There are some blatant homages to well-known songs (I particularly love when Richard and Galavant sample from West Side Story and even pull out the classic Shark and Jet snapping move; there’s also a clear reference to Grease). The lyrics are playful and often challenge their form. A song about hatred is sung like a loving duet, songs break the fourth wall  to acknowledge that they’re being sung, and so on.

Oh, and did I mention that Alan Menken—who worked on The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Newsies, Pocahontas, Hercules, Enchanted, Tangled, and more—did the music? Because he did, and it’s brilliant.

2) The Meta and Satire

I love a good bit of metafiction, and that’s something that Galavant does best. It makes liberal use of anachronisms and tropes to cheerfully mock its genre and the time period it’s set in. Galavant as a whole is a masterclass in effective meta. One of the best meta moments is in the first song of the second season, which absolutely defies explanation. Every line is deeply, deeply meta, lampooning both Galavant itself and the larger entertainment landscape. Just watch it.

If you don’t love it, I don’t trust you. Later, before the climax of the season, a character sings a recap song to catch everyone up and then, unwilling to fight in an upcoming battle, offers to sing it again to delay, in case someone missed it. At a tense moment, Galavant suggests that it’s a good day to die and someone replies, “We won’t, there’s one more episode.”

Everything About You is So Musical

Welcome back to Musical Monday! To the best of my ability, I’m going to try to theme these more. When I first started writing about musicals I did it totally randomly. I’d pick five random shows with nothing in common and slap them onto a post together. Last time I did a Musical Monday I wrote about three shows that were loosely based on historical events, and I like the idea of having them sorted.

This time, the theme is even tighter. These three musicals are all about unpopular high-schoolers making their way up the social ladder in, let’s say, less than ideal ways. Furthermore, none of them are original musicals: two were based on movies, and one on a YA novel.

Mean Girls

Which cast recordings have I heard, and which is my favorite? I think there’s only one… the OBC recording. Update: as of 2024, there’s a movie! I’ve not seen it yet and heard mixed reviews, but still. 

Are there any good YouTube-available clips? Actually, yeah! Mean Girls is pretty good about putting clips on YouTube. There are actual performances of “Sexy” and “Stop” as well as music videos for “World Burn” and “I’d Rather Be Me.” “Apex Predator” has a music video in addition to a live performance on the Today Show. Plus, the cast performed “Where Do You Belong/Meet the Plastics” at the Tony Awards.

What’s it about? It follows the same plot as Tina Fey’s 2004 classic movie. Basically, a new girl who has been homeschooled her whole life goes to a public high school and falls in with the popular clique, realizes how terrible they are, and then brings them down from the inside with the help of a few outsider pals.

What’s so good about it? It’s cute and silly, just like the movie. Mean Girls is not the kind of musical that’s going to change lives or be remembered as a classic, but it’s still fun. The songs are catchy and expand the characters from the original movie, so it’s unsurprising that it is popular with young adults, especially those of us who grew up with the movie.

Update: Having seen the show live (in 2023) it’s now a favorite. The songs are universally catchy and it’s a laugh a minute. I like the original movie a lot, and the musical does a fabulous job of updating it enough that it stands alone as its own thing while still feeling very much like a faithful reinterpretation/love letter to the original. The movie musical is pretty fun, too.

My favorite songs: “World Burn,” “’More is Better,” and “I’d Rather be Me”

---

Be More Chill

Which cast recordings have I heard, and which is my favorite? There are two main ones, one Broadway and one Off-Broadway. I heard the Off-Broadway version first and vastly prefer it. Broadway added a few songs, none of which are worth it, and the characterizations are different from version-to-version (even the ones played by the same actor). I liked all characters better in the Off-Broadway version, but the biggest reason to skip the newer version is that the Squip leans waaay too far into the Keanu Reeves impression. Still, if you’re a Dear Evan Hansen fan you’d probably be interested to hear the Broadway cast, because the insanely cool Jared Kleinman (aka Will Roland) plays Jeremy.

Are there any good YouTube-available clips? A few. That is, there are some good ones but if you know this musical at all you have to cringe a little at a few of the censored lines. It’s not, like, Spring Awakening at the Tonys censorship, but it’s still enough to warrant a shaking of the head. Still, we’ve got “Pitiful Children,” “Two-Player Game,” “More than Survive,” and “Michael in the Bathroom.”

What’s it about? Based on the novel by Ned Vizzini, Be More Chill is about a tragically unpopular high schooler who downloads a supercomputer called a Squip into his brain. The Squip is intended to help him navigate the world in a cooler, chiller way… but it goes about as well as you’d expect.

What’s so good about it? It’s silly fun. This is the rare adaptation that improves its source material 100%. I didn’t care for the book—there’s some sexist, racist, and homophobic stuff in it, which the musical thankfully eliminates and/or outright criticizes—but the musical improves on it drastically, making the characters more sympathetic and the social commentary stronger. The songs are very catchy, and have a kind of electronic sound you don’t often hear in musicals. Seriously, like half of them are major earworms. Be More Chill only made it to Broadway because it went viral with teens and young adults, which actually makes a lot of sense. This is a musical for people for whom technology plays a large role, which means that it probably has a pretty steep generational divide (I have a hard time picturing my grandparents enjoying it, even though they love theatre) that I happen to be on the right side of.

My favorite songs: “Michael in the Bathroom,” “Pitiful Children,” and “The Squip Song”

---

Heathers

Which cast recordings have I heard, and which is my favorite? I think there’s just the one with Barrett Wilbert Weed. I mean, there’s also the soundtrack from that Riverdale episode, but, like, lol.

Update: There’s a professionally filmed version now! It’s on Roku, I think. I have a full review here.

Are there any good YouTube-available clips? Not very many. I found two montages, plus a studio recording of “Candy Store” and a low-key performance of “Seventeen” at Barnes & Noble.

What’s it about? Mean Girls but with more murder. A girl falls in with a group of popular mean girls, which is bad enough, but then her unpopular boyfriend turns out to be a murderous psychopath.

What’s so good about it? This is the weird show that I like but also I don’t. It has some very good songs, but I actually hated watching it because it’s too dark. Like, really dark. There are a couple of shows that have compelling music but are too graphically violent for me to enjoy actually watching (Sweeney Todd and Little Shop of Horrors are also in this very specific category) and Heathers is one of them. So, yeah. Great songs. I loved to listen to this one and then I read the Wikipedia synopsis and went yikes. I’ll watch any musical proshot I can, even if the wiki made me say yikes, and I have to say… my opinion has not changed. This is absolutely a ‘music only’ one for me.

My favorite songs: “Candy Store,” “Freeze Your Brain,” and “Dead Girl Walking”

---

gif credits here, here, and here

Musicals for Pride Month

I thought I’d do something a little different this week. Instead of writing generally about five random musicals, I decided to focus on shows with LGBTQ+ characters and themes. I haven’t actually seen all these shows, but at the bare minimum I have listened to a cast recording and read a synopsis. Unlike in previous musical posts, I have included a few shows that I don’t personally love but fit my criteria anyway because why not?

Falsettos

Queer Rep: This is a show about a gay man’s desire to figure out his family life post coming out. Marvin navigating life as a gay man is literally the main plot, and his boyfriend Whizzer sings more big solo songs than almost anyone else in the musical. There is also a minor pair of lesbians. Only seven characters take the stage in Falsettos, and four of them are gay, making this arguably the gayest musical I’ve ever seen. Falsettos also engages with heteronormativity and gender roles most actively than most media I’ve come across, because it shows Marvin trying to push Whizzer into the same role he once kept his wife Trina in, and also sees Trina making a life with her new husband, Mendel, who is not nearly as inflexible as Marvin. It takes place during the start of the AIDS crisis, which is probably good to know going in (I didn’t).

Brief Review: I love the songs in Falsettos. The first time I hard it, I was absolutely bewildered (it starts with “Four Jews in a Room Bitching,” which is one of the weirdest musical theatre songs I’ve ever heard), but it didn’t take long for me to be entirely won over. The songs range from hilarious to heartbreaking. I’ve watched the proshot of Falsettos multiple times, and I am always emotionally affected by the end. The performances are great, it’s thematically very strong, and while it is incredibly sad, it’s also very beautiful.

The gayest song: There are a lot to pick for, but I’m tempted to say “The Thrill of First Love,” just because you don’t often see love songs sung by same-sex couples, but ultimately I have to go with “Unlikely Lovers,” which is sung together by the four gay characters about their relationships with their respective partners but also with each other as a community. Honorable mentions: “What More Can I Say” and “What Would I Do”

---

RENT

Queer Rep: Of the main characters, Maureen is bisexual, Collins is gay, Joanne is a lesbian, and Angel’s gender is ambiguous. Both male and female pronouns are used, so it’s pretty much left up to the viewer if they want to see Angel as a gay drag queen, a transwoman, or gender nonbinary.

Brief Review: RENT gets a lot of flack from people who call out the main characters for being lazy or entitled, and while I don’t think that they’re entirely wrong in seeing it that way, I do feel that RENT celebrates deviation from the norm and living for principals rather than conforming to what is expected. Plus, the soundtrack, aside from the weird protest song, is killer.

The gayest song: Like with Falsettos, there are a lot. “I’ll Cover You” and “Take Me or Leave Me” are both highly memorable songs sung by queer couples and “Today 4 U” is Angel’s introductory I’m a badass song. “La Vie Boheme,” though is RENT’s thesis song, and it’s all about living however you want.

---

The Prom

Queer Rep: Literally the whole plot of this musical is that a teenage lesbian who wants to take her girlfriend to the prom, and the gay Broadway actor (actors? I’ve only listened to this one, so I don’t know if Trent is also gay, or if it’s just Barry) who brings media attention to the situation.

Brief Review: So I’ll be totally honest: it took me a while to get into The Prom. The first few time, I found the music unremarkable, and then I read the novelization and found it horribly, horribly depressing… which surprised me because my understanding is that The Prom is a comedy. I’ve heard that it’s very charming and very funny, but that’s definitely not apparent from the book. I’m excited for the Netflix movie, because it’s going to have Andrew Rannells in it (and also… I’m excited for all movie musicals). I listened to the cast recording again while writing these little blurbs and for whatever reason it struck me more this time around. A few of the songs are a little overwrought for my personal taste, but most of them are silly and upbeat while carrying poignant messages. The ones sung by the adult characters work for me more than those sung by Emma, the lead, but it’s still a sweet musical throughout. Update: This one is a must-see, because when you hear what happens in it without the campy warmheartedness, it doesn’t really work. The show itself does, though. It is extremely funny and affirming, and while I wish that Emma got to sing better songs than the homophobic bullies, as a whole the musical is really good.

The gayest song: Probably “Unruly Heart.” I also like “Love Thy Neighbor” and “The Acceptance Song.”

---

Billy Elliot

Kat and Meg Conquer the World (Mini Book Review)

I’d never heard of Kat and Meg Conquer the World or Anna Priemaza before stumbling across it in the at the library. Actually, I stumbled across a different Anna Priemaza book and thought it looked good, but then decided at the last minute to start with her first book. Anytime a book’s summary promises me nerdy fangirl content, I’m in. I’m in even when the fangirling is directed towards things I know nothing about, like gaming and YouTubers. I’ve played some video games casually (MarioKart, mainly), and there are some YouTubers I enjoy (Vlogbrothers!) but I’m not a gamer or a major YouTube fangirl. I am a fangirl for other things, though, including books about fangirls.

Unfortunately, I didn’t love this one. It’s fine, I guess. I love the concept of it. Two outcasts finding each other because of a shared enthusiasm? A story of two best friends who balance each other out and help the other grow? Usually these are the elements that would make a book a slam-dunk for me. The bald truth of the matter, though, is that something is missing. I wasn’t ever able to fully connect with the book or its characters, which is a little odd because I saw a lot of myself in Kat. Maybe I saw too much of myself and that’s why I found her slightly annoying. Who knows?

Some of the storylines felt a little heavy-handed. Meg’s relationship with her ex-stepfather could have been emotional and rewarding, but the twist that (mild spoiler, I guess) Stephen-the-Leaver actually loved Meg and only didn’t ask for legal custody was for financial reasons was so blatantly broadcast that it was difficult to empathize with Meg. At a certain point, it’s hard to see her as anything but responsible for her own heartbreak. Maybe that’s callous, but Meg is not an idiot. It’s hardly plausible that she could be so wrong for so long, or that none of the otherwise very competent adults in her life would step in and set the record straight. Spoilers over!

Maybe Priemaza’s writing improves for her later novels, but Kat and Meg suffers from ineffective writing. On paper, the two protagonists are very different and complement each other well. In reality, their narrative voices are so similar that at the beginning of the book I sometimes didn’t realize that the POV had switched, and their deep connection is informed rather than earned. I know as well as anyone how fandom can the basis for a friendship, but sometimes it feels like that’s all Kat and Meg have. They bond over Legends of the Stone and then they’re best friends for life.

There are too many jumps from oh no we’re nothing alike to we are BFFs forever. Towards the beginning of the book, Meg mentions that she drifted away from a friend in part because the friend couldn’t understand that she liked to watch YouTubers play Legends of the Stone rather than play herself, and kept trying to force her to play. She specifically says she hates it when people try to tell her she’s not a real fan of the game if she doesn’t play it, but when Kat immediately upon meeting her tells her she should play it, she’s immediately like, Yes! I should! and then is an obsessive—if unskilled—player for the rest of the book. While it’s true that sometimes the people you love the most are exempt from little pet peeves, writers sometimes use these little exceptions as cheat codes to advance a relationship to a stage of intimacy that hasn’t been earned.

With a bit more emotional maturity and technical writing skill, Kat and Meg Conquer the World might have been something special. As is, it was a moderately entertaining diversion that I neither loved nor hated.

i hate everyone but you (Book Review) ⭐⭐

For a while, it seemed like i hate everyone but you by Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin was on a display at every bookstore I went into. I always picked it up curiously and then decided that it didn’t intrigue me quite enough to buy it. I finally found it in my library and gave it a shot. Now that I’ve read it, I can confirm that “doesn’t intrigue me enough to buy it” is a good description of it. I enjoyed reading it, but I’m pretty sure that at the end of the year, when I’m compiling my annual top and bottom ten reads, I’m going to have to reread my own review to remember what it was about.

What’s it about?

Gen and Ava are best friends, but they have very little in common. Ava is shy and plagued with all sorts of mental disorders—OCD, anxiety, and depression are the main ones, but there are probably more—and Gen is a cool, brash tries-everything-twice sort of girl. Since they’re attending college at opposite sides of the country, they’ve decided to keep in close contact via text and email as they navigate their new lives apart from each other.

What’d I think?

i hate everyone but you is pretty typical for the story it wants to tell. There aren’t any surprises, which in itself is probably not a surprise. It’s the story of two friends who love each other and hold onto their relationship despite distance and life taking them in different directions. The format works very well; the novel consists entirely of the girls’ text and email communication. Sometimes that format wears itself thin or struggles to tell the whole story, but it functions really well here. It’s also worth noting that the girls’ voices are distinctive enough that I was able to pick up on who was who very quickly and keep track of it without difficulty even though their text communications are differentiated only with little monster avatars.

Ava and Gen are delightfully nerdy. Early on in the novel, Gen mentions Newsies, and from that moment I was like, “Yep, I love this girl.” Unfortunately, she didn’t manage to sustain that level of love for the rest of the novel (and no, it’s not just because her love is for the infinitely inferior movie version of Newsies).

Broadway Newsies is phenomenal. Movie Newsies is meh.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 4×17 Review (I’m in Love)

“I’m in Love” is the finale of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It’s a perfect ending–seriously; the ending could not have been better–but I’m still sad the show is over since I love it. I knew it was ending, so I’ve been making predictions the last few weeks. Let’s see how I did!

Two weeks ago, I said: I really hope that we get at least one or two more solid, totally new songs before the end.

Check! We definitely got an amazing original song in “Love’s Not a Game.”

I also said: And I want another medley like “Rebecca’s Reprise” in the finale.

Check! “Eleven O’Clock” is a solid medley.

I also said: And one more group song with every single character highlighted.

Again, “Love’s Not a Game” gets this one. It’s also a White Josh solo, which I forgot I wanted, so score!

I also said: (I also want Santino Fontana to appear somehow, even if it’s just for the concert episode, but my hopes aren’t high).

Sadly, Greg 1.0 was a no-show, but I didn’t actually expect him to show up.

My predictions got more specific, of course, last week. I said:

I expect that there will be one new song, either a Rebecca solo or a full group number. I also think that there’ll be one more reprise of one of the more famous songs. I don’t think they’ve updated “You Stupid Bitch,” and that’d be a good one to bookend with improved mental health, so I’ll put my figurative money on it.

There were no more group numbers (though that itch was scratched by the concert that aired after the finale), but Rebecca does sing “Eleven O’Clock,” which is both a new solo and a medley of old hits. Since the medley ends with “You Stupid Bitch,” I’m counting this prediction as a win. All those costumes and that’s the dress she actually put on! Plus, she sticks with that song a little longer than the others. I’m scoring my own predictions, so… check!

I also predicted/hoped this: I hope that everyone shows up again and that there are some quality final moments with the full girl group, but specifically Paula and Rebecca since their friendship was the heart of the show at the beginning and deserves to be circled back to.

Rebecca acknowledges all her girls, but her friendship with Paula is front and center where it belongs. They sing a few lines of “West Covina” together, which is a callback to the beginning of their friendship, and Paula is the one who makes the breakthrough that leads to Rebecca’s happiness.

I also, of course, guessed the resolution to Rebecca’s love life. I worked through each possibility, but my final prediction was this: From the beginning, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has been deconstructing the romantic comedy. Is there anything more central to the romcom than the romantic happily-ever-after? I can’t imagine that the show would work so hard to buck every expectation only to end the same way as your standard romantic movie.

Rebecca chooses herself and rejects all three of her suitors. She doesn’t part on bad terms with any of them, but she is decidedly single and happy with her decision at the end. Huzzah!

I didn’t predict Rebecca’s songwriting, though in retrospect it makes perfect sense for her; other than that, I think I did a pretty dang good job.

---

Now for the part where I break down all the callbacks and references! Surprisingly, there are actually fewer (that I caught) in this episode than in the previous two.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 4×16 Review (I Have a Date Tonight)

Last week, I started my review with a list of references and callbacks I found in the episode. I had a really good fun time doing that, so I thought I’d do it again. I apologize for the overuse of gifs and YouTube links in this review. I got excited.

• Rebecca and Josh’s romance started at camp, so Josh brings her full circle by setting up a campsite for their date.
• Rebecca’s first (crappy) date with Greg is at a taco festival. They had a good time, but Rebecca ended up singing “Settle for Him” in a porta-potty before going home with another guy. Greg planned to take Rebecca up in a balloon (where there isn’t a bathroom to flee to, not to mention no other guys). That plan falls through, but they do get tacos. Talk about full circle.
• Speaking of the lack of bathrooms, Weird Al’s song “There’s No Bathroom” is a reprise of Naomi’s season 1 song “Where’s the Bathroom?”
• When Rebecca is in her room before her date with Josh, there’s a giant stuffed alligator on her bed. Anyone else remember Ruth Gator Ginsburg?

• In “Love’s Not a Game,” White Josh (and everyone else) sings, “the group mind has decided to bet on love.” The last time the group mind decided something, it was that Darryl and White Josh were in love. Historically, the group mind does not have a strong record when it comes to predicting romantic futures.
• Father Brah is able to confirm that Jesus is cool with everyone betting on Rebecca’s love life because he graduated from Priest School. AJ is confused, thinking Father Brah said “preschool.” It’s the same mistake everyone made when Josh tried to join the clergy.
• In the reprise of “Love’s Not a Game,” Rebecca sings, “This whole thing is a powderkeg. I have no choice but to cancel on…” She stops singing when she sees Greg, but fills the rhyme correctly with his name, spoken. This recalls the very beginning of the show when Rebecca sang about her move to “West Covina” and averted her rhymes at the last second to avoid telling truths she couldn’t confront: “My life is about to change. Oh my gosh. ‘Cause I’m hopelessly, desperately in love with… West Covina;” “Look, everyone, stop giving me the shakedown. I am not having a nervous… West Covina, California.”
• Valencia lampshades the Greg recast: “He is practically a completely different actor now. And of course I mean ‘actor’ in the political and legal sense.” The show has a long history of breaking the fourth wall and then having characters immediately insert a ridiculous in-universe explanation for their odd word choices. It started with “Who’s the New Guy?”
• In the deadpool, someone predicted that Nathaniel would get trampled by elephants at the zoo. I don’t know about the elephants, but he sure does go to the zoo a lot.

On to the episode!

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 4×15 Review (I Need to Find My Frenemy)

“I Need to Find My Frenemy” is a hilarious episode. I liked it much better than last week’s somewhat lackluster offering, and that will be reflected in the number of quotes in this review. There’s a lot of everything in this episode. Lots of characters. Lots of callbacks. Lots of songs. Lots of color. Lots of jokes. Lots of growth. I laughed out loud multiple times, and then I realized that everyone is converging and reaching their destinies because there are now only two episodes (and a concert) left.

Left: Me @this episode. Right: Me realizing the show is almost over.

There are so many fun references and callbacks this episode, some obvious and some more subtle. I’m sure I missed some, but here are the ones I caught:

• While buttering a piece of toast, Rebecca asks what she’s supposed to do now that her drama dream has fallen through and then says, “No, I’m not asking you, butter. You’re never any help.” Back in season 1, a lot of Rebecca’s decisions (including the move to West Covina) were prompted by weirdly specific butter advertisements.
• “The Math of Love Quadrangles” is a reprise of “The Math of Love Triangles” from season 2. Rebecca wears the same dress and references the props from the original number. Nathaniel, Greg, and Josh take over the roles of the backup dancers/singers.
• When Rebecca and the others find Audra in the hotel room, Heather and Valencia explain that they’re there to help: “Females helping females. That’s called sisterhood.” This is a direct quote from Valencia’s season 1 song “Women Gotta Stick Together.”
• “Women Gotta Stick Together” is referenced a second time when Valencia runs into “Denise Martinez, that bitch I cannot stand.”
• Audra tells the girls that they can’t call her crazy: “You can’t call me crazy, because when you call me crazy you’re just calling me in love. BAM!” This, of course, is a lyric from the season 2 theme.
• Heather explains that by coming to Audra’s rescue “We’re basically heroes. Dare to defy.” Crazy Ex-Girlfriend airs on the CW, which is famous for its superhero shows and uses “dare to defy” as its tagline.
• Rebecca and Audra’s JAP praise fight is a reprise of their “JAP Battle” from season 1.
• The horrifically expensive suits are Fett Regoso… the same Fett Regoso who has a perfume add during Slumbered and whose underwear line Josh wants to represent. Now that I watch Queer Eye, I’m more aware of Fett Regoso (he’s the one played by Tan France).
• It may not be an intentional reference, but those super expensive suits the girls rock strongly remind me of their “Let’s Generalize about Men” wardrobe. Paula and Heather even have the same colors, and Audra–who is emulating Rebecca-from-the-past–is wearing Rebecca’s blue. Valencia and Rebecca, who have grown the most, have updated their colors. Is this me reading way too much into the costuming? Probably. Get over it.

Let me know if you caught any references I missed!

Now onto the episode!

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 4×13 Review (I Have to Get Out)

I’ve gotten very behind on my reviews, because that’s what happens when I decide to go to sleep at a normal time so I can wake up for work instead of staying up to get all writing done. In other words, this review is nearly a week late. Oops.

After fighting against them last week, Rebecca is finally ready to start taking the medication recommended (and prescribed) to her by Drs. Akopian and Shin. It helps that Dr. Akopian reassures her that “Anti-Depressants Are So Not A Big Deal” in style of La La Land. It’s a ridiculous song full of prescription tap shoes, rescue dogs, and meta asides about brand names. Although it’s not my favorite song Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has produced, it has all the staples of the best: it’s catchy, its inspiration is clear, and it addresses serious issues with a light and humorous hand. “Dream Ghosts” will always be Dr. Akopian’s best song, but it’s always a treat when Michael Hyatt sings, because she has a powerful voice. “Anti-Depressants Are So Not a Big Deal” reminds me that someone needs to re-record all the songs in La La Land.

Be More Chill (Book Review)

A few months ago, I got in a discussion about how great it would be if there were a gong that went off in your head anytime an opportunity you were supposed to pursue arose. Literally the next day I saw Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini at Barnes & Noble, which has a very similar premise. The timing was so weird that there was a part of me was like, “Hey! It’s the destiny gong! I should read this!” I didn’t, though, since I’d previously read Vizzini’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story, which I didn’t particularly like. Later, I found out that there’s a musical adaptation of Be More Chill; I listened to it and liked it a lot. It’s not a new favorite, or anything, but it’s definitely catchy and enjoyable. I figured that the combination of ‘interesting concept’ and ‘was made into a musical’ would add up to ‘book I will love.’ Unfortunately, that’s not exactly true. The musical is better.

Summary: What’s it about?

Jeremy is a painfully uncool high school loser. He spends his days lusting after his beautiful classmate Christine and tallying his daily humiliations. Everything changes when his cool classmate Rich offers the secret to his success: a squip. A squip is a swallowable pill-sized computer that, once ingested, tells its host how to behave in order to be more chill and therefore more popular. With the squip in his corner, Jeremy finds his life and social circle changing dramatically.

Review: What’d I think?

Be More Chill poses some really interesting questions about technology dependence and the pressure to be cool, but in my opinion it fails to deliver on the promises made by the premise. The emotional core of the story is better rendered in the musical adaptation. I am more attached to the characters in their musical form than in the novel form despite the fact that I’ve never actually seen the musical (I’ve listened to the soundtrack, which is on YouTube).

My major problem with the novel is that none of the characters are likable. Unpopular Loser Jeremy and Chill Squip Jeremy are basically indistinguishable. I can’t figure out how I’m supposed to feel about Jeremy with his squip. Is he supposed to be different pre- and post-squip? Does the squip change him or just indulge his worst tendencies? I feel like it’s supposed to be the former, but the squip doesn’t change Jeremy all that much.

Obviously my expectations were skewed by the overtly evil musical squip, but book Jeremy’s squip is… not that insidious. Jeremy can turn it on and off at will. It can’t control him in any way. It’s cheerful and boosts Jeremy’s self esteem. The worst thing that it does is tell Jeremy to blow off Michael, but when Jeremy makes it clear that’s not something he’s willing to do, the squip just kind of shrugs and is like, okay, whatever; makes my job harder, but fine. It doesn’t like Michael, because Michael is so obviously uncool, but it doesn’t sabotage the friendship. In fact, in many instances, all the squip does is encourage Jeremy to act on his own impulses. The squip gets Jeremy to work out, stop masturbating, speak his mind, and tell his parents the truth. It also teaches him to drive.

The bad things that the squip does are all guided by Jeremy’s awfulness. The squip encourages Jeremy to act grossly towards girls when Jeremy indicates that all he wants is to get laid; when he clarifies that he wants a relationship with Christine and not just to have random sex, the squip changes its course of action to be decidedly less disgusting.

Michael and Christine both fare much better in the musical than in the novel. In the musical, Michael is an incredibly loyal best friend who is sweet and a little dorky but overall pretty awesome and ultimately heroic. In the book, he’s a nonentity with a fetish for Asian girls. Honestly, he does so little in the book that I’m confused why Vizzini bothered with him. He should be a true friend that Jeremy gives up for cool points, but instead he’s just… there. He is never emotionally affected by anything that happens to him. He just rolls with the punches, but it doesn’t feel  like a character trait as much as a lack of characterization. It’s hard to go from “Michael in the Bathroom” to “Michael is so busy having sex in a bathtub that he doesn’t notice anything going on around him.” As for Christine… in the musical she’s an over-earnest but charming theatre nerd. Book Christine is clearly supposed to be a person of substance, but that’s lost in her constant slutshaming and negativity and bizarre overreactions.

In general, I think that musical Michael is what book Michael is supposed to be and ditto for Christine. The writing just isn’t good enough to hit the right the emotional beats.

The secondary characters are weird as well. The theatre director’s dialogue is randomly punctuated with bizarre noises, and Jeremy’s dad is pointlessly idiotic. He walks around naked a lot and spouts homophobia and misogyny that goes largely unchallenged. Jeremy hates his dad, but the hate is mostly directed towards the fact that his dad is fat, not towards the more serious issues, like the fact that his dad seriously laments that it’s no longer a thing to take teenage sons to brothels to lose their virginity. What? What? And that’s just, like, background color.

My biggest issue with the novel, though, is the end. If you don’t want major spoilers, this would be a good time to bow out of this review.

What’s wrong with the end? MAJOR SPOILERS!

Queens of Geek (Book Review)

Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde is another one that I heard about by reading other people’s book review blogs. So if you reviewed this positively, you may assume that I saw your review and read it by your recommendation. So… thanks. As I’ve said approximately eighteen thousand times, I love books about fans and fandom, so this one was immediately appealing to me.

What’s it about?

Queens of Geek follows Australian friends Taylor, Charlie, and Jamie over a weekend at SupaCon in America. Charlie is there as a panelist; she’s a popular YouTuber turned movie star. She plans to have a good time at the con, but her plans are complicated by the unexpected appearance of her costar/cheating ex-boyfriend Reese, with whom she is passionately shipped by fans. Taylor and Jamie are there in part to cheer for Charlie and also to meet Taylor’s favorite author, whose series Queen Firestone helped Taylor through some difficult periods in her life. Over the course of the weekend, the three address deep-seated insecurities and find love.

What’d I think?

I love how diverse the novel is. One thing I love about fandom—and by extension, books about it—is how inclusive it is. People from all walks of life are joined by their love of books or TV or music or whatever it is they love. The main cast of Queens of Geek is nicely diverse: Taylor is plus-sized and has clinical anxiety and Asperger’s. Charlie is Chinese-American and bisexual. Jamie is Hispanic. Alyssa is a black lesbian. Even the characters who only pop up for one or two scenes are diverse. The characters are all really great to each other. Their differences are present, but not made an overly big deal. The most significant difference between Charlie and Taylor, for instance, has nothing to do with race or sexuality: Charlie is a vivacious go-getter, and Taylor is tentative and introverted. With a few glaring exceptions, everyone is there for everyone else, and they use fandom as something to bring them together from literally all over the world.

The only issue that arises from the diversity is a problem with society, not with the book. There are a few clunky paragraphs explaining things that really shouldn’t have to be explained. At one point Taylor confronts Reese for bisexual erasure. At another, she meets another character who helps her see that being on the Autism spectrum doesn’t make her bad or wrong. It just is. These passages, while important, do occasionally feel a little too much like a crash course in Being a Decent Human Being 101. It’s good that there’s fiction out there that addresses and explains these sorts of things, but at the same time… wtf, guys. It’s 2018. Why do we still need writers to tell us that it’s not okay to fatshame or to hurl anonymous abuse on the Internet?

Both the romantic storylines were cute. I liked all three characters and found both Taylor and Charlie, the narrators, really relatable. I think it would be a rare person who couldn’t see him/herself in one or both of the girls. The desire to find your place and the fear that you won’t is pretty universal. Taylor’s terror of her world changing after high school and Charlie’s nervousness about being a different person than the world expects are both well written and easy to empathize with. I also love how supportive everyone is of each other. Yes, there are romantic storylines going on, but Charlie and Taylor always make time for each other. I say it all the time, but it is worth saying all the time: platonic friendships make or break a story, even a romantic story.

How’s the fandom content?

Good. The book uses some fandom lingo, but not so much that it would alienate people who aren’t deeply into fandom. The main characters cosplay and do trivia contests and blog about their enthusiasm. It’s not the most densely fandom-saturated book I’ve ever read, but there’s plenty.
Me being me, I loved all the little geeky callouts. My favorite was the chapter where Taylor fangirls over Supernatural and particularly Dean (and Destiel). I love how Supernatural is the go-to standard for modeling TV fandom. I mean, I totally get it. The Supernatural fandom is fierce. My personal fandoms don’t totally line up with the Queens of Geek squad’s—they’re more into video games than I am, and watch a lot of shows I’m not familiar with—but, even though I obviously prefer references that I get, it really doesn’t matter when they fangirl over something I don’t know. Fandom is a language that has an infinite number of minor dialects; even if you don’t get every little nuance of what’s being said, you can still understand it.

Is there I didn’t like?

Well, it’s more a minor quibble than something I legitimately didn’t like. I never did figure out how famous Charlie is. She is somehow simultaneously the lead actress in a major blockbuster franchise and a niche YouTuber. She doesn’t have enough clout to invite a few friends to a party but she can trend worldwide and tell her studio to suck it when they ask her to do things she isn’t comfortable with. It’s interesting how many fandom books have a character who is on the other side of fandom, whether it is an actor or an artist. I’ve theorized in the past that despite the love that these writers obviously have for fandom, there’s a need to “legitimize” it for a larger commercial audience. I don’t know. Let me know what you think about that.

TL;DR

Queens of Geek is a very fun love letter to fans and fandom. There are lots of lovely geeky references, the characters are quirky and relatable, the love stories—although admittedly a little cheesy—are cute, and both the new and longstanding friendships are encouraging and healthy. There’s a lot in this book to like; anyone who likes diverse characters, fandom, and YA romance will enjoy it.

Report card.

Writing: B                                            Characters: A                                 Plot: B

Themes: A                                            Fun: A                                             Final: A

---

gif credits here, here, and here