The Girl Who Would Be Sansa Stark

We are five episodes into the latest season of Game of Thrones. We are halfway through and I have no idea what is the story being told. I couldn't tell you what the characters' motivations for doing anything are or even which character a particular actor is going to be playing before an episode begins.

This isn't because of some neat same-actors-playing-different-roles-each-season thing like American Horror Story or something like that for the three of you who don't watch Game of Thrones and might not know what the show is about. Each actor plays the same character across each season, aside from one or two recasting calls.

Don't let the recasting fool you, in my heart he will always be Faabio.

No, the problem is that the writing of those characters is so inconsistent that a character who was completely submissive or stoic the previous episode will act assertive or emotional the next with little to no reason. Don't get me wrong, there are a handful of characters who remain relatively consistent throughout the story but they are becoming fewer and further between as the show progresses.

This isn't a the-more-they-divert-from-the books-the-worse-the-series-gets book snob thing, by the way. Just because of the way things turned out, I've only read two and a half of the books (the third one was split in two) and only come to the show for entertainment and a compelling story, not as an adaptation necessarily.

And I liked the show. I was enthralled by the first three seasons, which I thought were fantastic. The fourth season was still entertaining but the fifth was kinda so-so. However the sixth so far has been a bit underwhelming to say the least.

"Don't listen to them, son. Yelling 'That's my father!" in every flashback scene is not a lazy or boring way of delivering exposition.
How would the audience ever know otherwise?"

This Post is Dark and Full of Spoilers

Stepping into season 6 there is so much filler and wheel-spinning in certain arcs, it's becoming frustrating and I just want things to happen. For example, in five episodes we have seen Arya been beaten up by the smug Waif character who seems to hate her, for reasons undisclosed. Arya has done nothing in those five episodes aside from get beaten up.

She may have started off as blind like she ended season 5 and gets her eyesight back in episode 3 but has learnt nothing as far as I can tell. There was no growth to her character. The Waif shows up, taunts her, and proceeds to beat her up with a stick, rinse and repeat. Arya blocks a blow while blind at one point which apparently is enough to give her back her sight. Why?

There was no indication that this was intrinsic to her learning something without the use of her eyes, like relying on her other senses since your eyes can be deceived, becoming more zen-like or anything like that. Arya blocked a single attack (possibly by accident) so she gets to have her eyesight back but then still gets beat on and I'm not sure why.

I'm equally confused why everyone is just cool with this random beating up a blind beggar girl on a public street in broad daylight.

Let's look at a counter example from Star Wars: Episode IV when Luke is lightsaber training with the floating zappy ball. In order to teach Luke to trust in the Force and open himself to a wider world of possibility, Obi-Wan tells him to try again but with a helmet on and the blast shield down so he can't see.

As Luke lets go of the limitations of his physical senses, he connects with the Force for the first time and blocks the zaps from the ball whilst blind. The lesson Obi-Wan is trying to impart is clearly illustrated and makes sense, there is more than just what we can see with our eyes. And this is only in one scene!

On the other hand, I have no idea what Arya is supposed to be learning. To be fair, she has finally been given something else to do in the fifth episode but only after scene after scene of getting beaten up with a stick because they had to fill the time somehow.

I'm not gonna delve into more examples of narrative stagnation in the show, although there are others *cough cough, King's Landing, cough cough*. No, rather I want to focus on a single character. Now Arya, along with Tyrion and Cersei Lannister, is one of the few characters in the show who remains consistent from week to week. I can give you a decent bead on who they are and what they want.

Unfortunately I can't say the same for Sansa Stark.

Well, hello stranger.

Now I know that Sansa is not many people's favourite character and is often dismissed as too passive. I reckon this is because a lot of people don't appreciate the precarious nature of her situation for much of the series and that her resistance is largely internal. Sansa is a high born girl raised to be a lady. Her strength isn't physical or militaristic but comes from her empathy for others and will to survive.

She does what she needs to do with the tools she has at her disposal. For example, while his captive and betrothed to be his wife, Sansa acts as the perfect lady in response to King Joffrey's horrific mental and physical abuse. She often turns the other cheek while making it clear to him that he hasn't broken her. Courtesy is her armour as well as her weapon.

At least that was her character, more or less, over the course of the seasons 1-4. There were a number of sidesteps, she whined a bit early on and didn't seem to have a lot of real agency since her internal resistance didn't translate well on-screen but at least I knew who she was. Even during the second half of the season when she lies to the Lords of the Vale to protect Petyr Baelish for reasons.

But at the end of season 4, this happened:

Who are you and why are you dressed like a Sith Lord?

Sansa ended the season as an apparently domineering and/or manipulative seductress who is meant to look badass in her Sith dress. And don't tell me you don't notice the dress. If you Google Image search 'sansa stark season 4 dress', this is the dress which comes up. It was an iconic visual but a complete 180 for the character.

Which makes what happens in the fifth season all the more illogical. I'm not gonna do full on recap because GoT Gifs & Musings did a fantastic retrospective of the Season 5 Winterfell plot-line I encourage everyone to read (there's one for each plot-line in Season 5). Essentially it boils down to this: every single decision made by the characters in this plot was to serve one purpose, to get Sansa to Winterfell so Ramsey Bolton could rape her on their wedding night.

They decided that Ramsey had to rape Sansa for reasons unknown and contrived everything to fit that decision. Once Sansa realises that they're heading North to Winterfell, she tells Baelish she doesn't want to go but he convinces that she can marry Ramsey to avenge her family...

I had the same look on my face too, Sansa.

That is easily one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. How the hell does one marry for revenge? What does that actually mean? Baelish knows that by marrying Ramsay, Sansa solidifies the Boltons' position and Roose Bolton's claim as Warden of the North, right? We're told not many Northerners like the Boltons and are still loyal to the Starks but a marriage between the two houses would bring an end to that. How does her marrying Ramsay help anyone but Ramsay?

Whatever, let's go along with this like Sansa does because the plot tells her to. She gets to Winterfell, shows she isn't intimidated by the Boltons but does nothing to win them over like Baelish said she should in order to avenge her family. Also she could have and should have left as soon as she realised what a monster Ramsay is, which is pretty early on but doesn't because reasons.

The rape happens like it was always going to on their wedding night since the whole arc was written with this destination in mind. Baelish is supposed to be smart, the show constantly tells us how conniving and knowledgeable he is but apparently he knew nothing about Ramsay somehow. And Sansa goes along with this plan purely because the plot says so, not because it makes any sense for her character to do so. Anyway, at the end of the season Sansa and Theon/Reek escape Winterfell.

Sansa: "You think jumping off this really high wall is really a good idea?"
Theon/Reek: "My body is already broken, so I should be fine."
Sansa: "..."

Which brings us to Season 6 and the many faced Sansa. Sansa starts the season off running away from Ramsay's dogs and men with Theon (he's pretty much dropped being the broken Reek unless the plot demands it). They come across a river and Sansa says she can't cross it but Theon says they must to throw the dogs off their scent.

Two things to note here. First Sansa says "I can't" not "We can't". The Sansa I knew was empathetic to a fault. She would be just concerned about Theon as she is about herself, despite what he had done to her family, so that doesn't jibe with me.

Secondly, this show frames this hesitation as a weakness on Sansa's part and Theon needs to convince her to cross the river but there's very good reason for not crossing the river. It is freezing cold and snowing. They could get hypothermia and wouldn't be able run anymore.

"Weren't you mentally broken too? Should you be making the decisions here?" - Sansa probably.

Whatever, they cross the river but the dogs still find them anyway so Theon's brilliant idea to cross the river in freezing conditions to throw off their scent came to nothing. Anywho, Brienne and Podrick ride in and save them, Podrick somehow having learnt to ride a horse well enough off-screen that he can swing a sword without falling off. Oh, Theon also kills a dude since apparently he got over his body being broken somehow and can hold a sword straight again.

And here we get to the scene that was utterly insulting to me because of how condescending and unconsciously misogynistic it was. Brienne pledges herself to Sansa who then looks to Theon for approval. WHY?! No, seriously can anyone tell me why she needs Theon to approve her actions, especially to approve Brienne?

Let's start at the most obvious, Theon doesn't even know who Brienne is. He's never met her before. For all he knows she could be just one more of Ramsay's mindfucks. He has no reason to trust her. Sansa on the other hand has met Brienne before and knows that she served her mother. Second, Brienne is pledging herself to Sansa, not to the both of them. Lest we forget, this is Sansa Stark of Winterfell, a lady highborn and true. She doesn't need permission from anyone to accept a knight, least of all from the man who had betrayed her family.

Okay, moving on to what might be an even more egregious act, Sansa forgets the oaths and needs to be prompted by Podrick of all people. Podrick, a squire who is so ill-trained he barely knows the basic protocols of knighthood and is repeatedly berated for his ignorance. This is supposed to be the same Sansa who didn't forget her courtesies when Joffrey showed her the head of her father on a spike, right?

Now I know people might say that she is in shock and traumatised following her rape and the following pursuit in the cold and wet but I call bullshit. While trauma effects people in vastly different ways and leaves a scar, there's no established reason why Sansa, who has suffered more abuse in her lifetime than most, would all of a sudden forget her courtesies when that had been the one thing which she had used as her defense.

"Hey, it's kinda cold out here in the snow. Can we hurry this along?"

Alright fine, Sansa in this season is unsure of herself and fragile following the events of the previous season. Fair enough. I don't agree with this development since it makes little sense given what was established for her character but okay, let's roll with it. Sophie Turner is a fantastic actor and can sell it.

But then she behaves like regular Sansa in the very next episode, trauma forgotten as she converses normally with Brienne. She is also the voice of reason when Theon wants to put the fire out for fear of being caught but she points out that they'd freeze and they just need to make it to the Wall. Okay, fine.

And then we are introduced to badass Sansa two episodes later. They say this is the same character and she is still played by Sophie Turner but this isn't the Sansa we saw so far this season or the previous season. If anything this character seems to have picked off where season 4 Sith Lord Dress Sansa left off, confident, assertive and in charge.

Hi there, do I know you?

After she has a touching reunion with Jon Snow at Castle Black, during which she apologises for being awful to him when they were kids although that was never shown onscreen but okay,  Jon gets a letter from Ramsay demanding Sansa be sent back or rape and pillaging will ensue. And it is Sansa who steers the conversation and convinces Jon that they need to take back Winterfell, Wasn't this the girl who was too afraid to cross a river a couple of episodes ago?

Don't get me wrong, I really like confident assertive Sansa, I just have no idea where she came from. Did she get over her trauma just like that? Because that's just terrible writing. I'm sorry, there's no other way to get round it, that's poor writing with no concept of how trauma works or manifests.

I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure trauma isn't a means for people to act in completely random ways. Usually trauma manifests in a specific ways like shutting down emotional reaction or conversely feeling intense reaction to things, not "I'm a badass now after being completely incapable a couple days ago".

But then we get to the kicker with the arrival of Baelish (by teleportation?) at Mole's Town, just south of Castle Black. Sansa goes to confront Baelish, with only Brienne as guard for reasons that make no sense, and gives him quite the talking down.

You may be badass now but this still makes no sense.

So she's left the security of Castle Black to face Baelish with Brienne and gives this line of dialogue which is probably the most meta piece of writing in the entire show,

“Did you know about Ramsay? If you didn’t, you’re an idiot. If you did, you’re my enemy.”

YES! How could Baelish not know about Ramsay? The series shows again and again how he knows things that he shouldn't about everyone, even things he couldn't possibly know but the plot says he has to. There is no way he couldn't have heard of Ramsay's atrocities. He's the son of the Warden of the North, it's not like he's some random unknown.

I would say it's almost like the writers are acknowledging the criticisms of Sansa' arc last season if the rest of the episode and Sansa's erratic characterisation post-rape didn't seem like a perfect example of "She needed to be raped in order to learn a lesson".

Because that is what it is. For the writers of the show, in order for Sansa to learn that the world is cruel and become badass, something they set up at the end of Season 4 but reigned back in Season 5, she needed to get raped.

"No, please. Do go on."

Execution of her father. Nope. Mental and physical abuse at the hands of a tyrant king. Nope. Deaths of her 'brothers' (she didn't know it wasn't them who were burnt). Nope. Loss of her brother and mother. Nope. Being married off to a member of the family which orchestrated the fall of her own house. Nope. Being nearly thrown out of the Moon Door in the Ayrie by her deranged aunt who suspected her of sleeping with Baelish. Nope.

She totally needed to get raped in order to learn from that tragedy. A rape which was completely and utterly contrived, where all the events leading up to that moment made no sense but had to happen, Since Ramsay needed to rape his wife on their wedding night and his wife needed to be Sansa because it wouldn't mean anything if it hadn't been another character, right?

But let's get back to 'rape as motivation'. I've written before about rape in pop culture on this blog and that the depiction of rape is a sensitive topic but an important one. However, using the same quote from Rachel Eddin I used in that post:

Take a good look at your story. Why do you think a rape is what you need for it to progress? Is there something else that could fill the same function? Unless you have a damn good reason to include rape in a story, you probably shouldn't. Using sexual assault as a motivation-in-a-box or an equivalent trope will do nothing but steal credibility and respect from a really serious, really important subject. Plus, you'll look like a twit.

"Sounds about right."

What we are seeing in the current season of Game of Thrones is exactly how rape shouldn't be used in storytelling, sexual assault as a motivation-in-a-box. It's a disservice to the audience who is invested in the character, it is a disservice to the story being told, it is a disservice to real victims of sexual assault, and it is a disservice to the character.

Sansa didn't need to be raped in order to want revenge on the Boltons. She already hated them since they are traitors who killed her brother and mother. And it's obvious they only used the effects of her trauma (timid unsure Sansa) when it was convenient to have other characters shine by protecting her, not for any dramatic or thematic reason.

I had always felt a bit defensive for Sansa. She was always put in impossible situations with little resources and survived but still got a lot of flack from the fandom for her apparent lack of agency and 'girly' ways. But this badass woman who suddenly appeared out of nowhere isn't Sansa.

Or rather she is who we wanted Sansa to become but how she got there makes no sense and isn't the same character Sophie Turner had been playing earlier in the season or the season before that.

And that, I'm sorry, is just bad writing.


References:

Sansa Stark Game of Thrones Wiki

Winterhell Perspective - GoT Gifs & Musings

Game of Thrones 5x3 - Sansa and Littlefinger - You loved your family. Avenge them.

Game of Nonsense Week One - Fandom Following

Game of Nonsense Week Five Point One: The Ballad of Sansa Stark - Fandom Following

Attack on Titan: In Defence of the Wall

About a month ago, I finished watching Attack on Titan, the massively popular anime series feature terrifying monsters called 'Titans' which have nearly wiped out humanity, the remainder of which hides behind humongous walls built to keep Titans out. It is brilliant.

Once an episode finished, my girlfriend and I were left in such a state of anxiety and desperate excitement to know what would happen next that we had to watch the next episode. This led to some serious binge watching.

I mean, just look at that.

Everything in the show is set to eleven. The stakes are absurdly high for one - humanity is on the brink of extinction and the battle the protagonists fight is against an unrelenting unstoppable enemy, one which they aren't equipped to face. They are hopelessly outmatched and know it.

The drama is so intense, it could be accused of being melodramatic if the high stakes hadn't already been so well-established. The characters' emotions are exaggerated, the reality of their situation warrants their dramatic outbursts.

This is apparent just from the show's original opening theme song. An insanely awesome tune which is equal parts over-the-top camp and pure adrenaline pumping. Everything is designed to ramp things up, thrashing guitars, heavy metal drums, bombastic orchestra, piercing choir, unrelenting vocal. It is nothing short of epic.

That is Attack on Titan in nutshell. A ridonculously epic show. There is barely a moment to breathe, particularly in the first several episodes as you're thrust into this world and events unfold so quickly and so shockingly that you can scarce believe what you're watching. The pace is relentless. The spectacle gripping. The story compelling.

And I realise I haven't done a good job so far summarizing the story or describing the show at all. Since I want to address some analysis and weird theories about the show, summarizing the plot might be in order. Alright, before we get into this, for everyone who hasn't watched Attack on Titan yet...

This Post is Full of SPOILERS, Seriously Dude Don't Touch It

Spoiler 1: The Titans breach the outer wall protecting humanity in the first episode.

As previously noted, Attack on Titan is set in a world where humanity lives inside cities surrounded by enormous walls due to the Titans, gigantic humanoid beings who devour humans.

As per Wikipedia,

The story follows the adventures of Eren Jaeger, his adopted sister Mikasa Ackerman, and their friend Armin Arlert, whose lives are changed forever after a Colossal Titan breaches the wall of their home town. Vowing revenge and to reclaim the world from the Titans, Eren and his friends join the Scout Regiment, an elite group of soldiers who fight Titans.

In the first episode, Eren's mother is eating by a Titan before his own eyes as he is being taken away to safety. There is really a feeling through the series that anyone can die, that no one is safe. This is an enemy that can't be reasoned with since they only live to eat humans and not for nourishment, they can survive without food. They eat humans just because.

This is Thomas Wagner. He was a cadet with Eren and a character we get to see grow over the course of several episodes.
He is the first cadet in Eren's squad to get eaten by a Titan but not the last.

I bring this up because in a post on Fandom Following about Plot Armour, Attack on Titan was brought up as an example of how not to use plot armour. For the uninitiated, "Plot Armor is a narrative device which allows any character to survive anything (as long as the writers consider them important enough)." Essentially how the bad guy's bullets seem to always miss the good guy.

According to the Fandom Following writer, while Attack on Titan tries to do the 'Anyone Can Die' thing, it ultimately fails since it establishes who the main protagonists are and doesn't kill them off, using the example of Eren. And that's where this argument falls flat for me. The Fandom Following post criticizes the fact that Eren seems to die but is brought back "shortly afterward none the worse for wear, with special powers to boot".

This kinda misses the point. I have this idea that just because people are aware of the tropes which exist in storytelling they apply them to situations which might fit the trope in isolation but with no concern for the wider context of the story being told.

This is where Eren is eaten by a Titan and for all we knew had died.

When Eren 'died', it was a complete system shutdown moment. My girlfriend and I stared at each other in disbelief, they could have killed off the main protagonist could they? And he isn't brought back shortly the next episode like some cheap emotional trick.

He comes back three episodes later, emerging from the body of another Titan, a Titan body he was unknowingly controlling. See Eren's return from death wasn't an example of plot armour in action. Rather it was an important narrative development and thematically significant. It signaled how little we, and the characters, know about the Titans and who Eren is, as well as seeding things for later in the season.

The revelation that Eren can turn into a Titan isn't a glib "oh, now the protagonist has special powers" empty twist. It raises questions and is treated with suspicion by the rest of the characters but also offers them the first glimpse of hope they've had in long time. It has narrative purpose and isn't just a lazy way to write a character back to life or avoid death.

He uses his new Titan body to pick up a big rock and use it to plug up a hole. It's more awesome than it sounds.

And really, the Fandom Following post missed an excellent opportunity to use a perfect example of plot armour in action from the show, Armin. While Armin is quite bright and able to think up clever strategic plans for attacks on the Titans, he is a so inept as a fighter due to his crippling fear of the Titans that he often just freezes when confronted by one of them. If any character has plot amour, it is Armin.

Armin was literally about to be eaten by a Titan only for Eren to miraculously pull him out of the Titan's mouth at the last moment and sacrifice himself instead. That's how Eren died. He was Armin's knight in shining plot armour.

Don't get me wrong, Armin is important to the plot but the way he has survived numerous situations where he surely would have died if he wasn't a main character are pretty obvious. This is the difference between just applying a trope without context and examining how the context of the show fits the trope applied.

[Full Disclosure: I love Fandom Following and think it's a great site but this writer kinda dropped the ball here.]

This is Dot Pixis. Note his appearance, this will be important later.

Moving on, one thing I had heard about Attack on Titan was that it was Japanese propaganda. This was something I was aware of going in but didn't really catch at all while watching. At first I thought it might be because of cultural dissonance, I wasn't able to pick up the element of propaganda so I decided to research after I finished the first season.

And from what I can tell, essentially the propaganda theory is based on two things. First is the fact that Dot Pixis, a high ranking general in Attack on Titan, had his appearance based on General Akiyama Yoshifuru, a war hero in Japan who committed several atrocities against Korea and China. Second is that Eren and the rest of the characters are in the army and sacrifice their lives for the rest humanity.

That's about it. From that, it is argued that Attack on Titan is Japanese imperialistic military propaganda. Because one character's physical design was based on military hero/criminal and the fact that the characters are part of an army. Since of course, by basing a character's design on someone infamous from history, you fully endorse that person, regardless of whether the character's personality is completely different.

Also, the fact that the only way for them to fight the Titans is as part of the army isn't discussed, nor is it raised how the characters mistrust the high command and are mostly working outside of command to get things done. 

No really, it's kinda a major theme of the second half of the season. The Scout Regiment, which Eren and co are part of, face off another human-Titan and suspect the higher ups in the military of a cover up so they essentially go rogue to root out the conspiracy. But nope, still military propaganda.

Couldn't possibly be a metaphor for the inevitably of death considering how the Titans are near unstoppable and kill everyone, could it?
Also, could possibly be about seeing giant monsters fight, I dunno.

The thing is, I'm not going to argue there isn't a lens through which you could argue the show has a xenophobic angle (they built a wall to keep out an invading race which is mindless and wants only to kill the normal people inside the wall) but the propaganda theory just doesn't hold water for me.

That was pretty much all I had to say about Attack on Titan, for now at least. Well that's not quite true since I did want to talk about other things but they can wait for a later post.

And I think a good place to end is by saying that I really enjoyed Attack on Titan and can't wait for season 2 to come out... what?! it's been pushed out to 2017?! Not cool.

References:

List of Attack on Titan Episodes - Wikipedia

Plot Armor and Narrative Interest - Fandom Following

ATTACK ON TITAN Will Probably Be the Cause of World War III - TwitchFilm

Attack on Titan: Inspiring Post-Apocalyptic Adventure or Japanese Military Propaganda? - Women Write About Comics

Break From Another Star - Read The Zeppulian

Hi the internet, no post today.

It's not you, it's me. I just needed time to myself to focus on my online science fiction comedy serial novel, The Zeppulian. This is something I've been putting quite a bit of effort in and even launched a website for.

It tells the story of the Zeppulian, the fastest and grandest ship in the galaxy, which is stolen by Zo and Qin off the planet Lozth. Problem is, they have no idea how to fly it. Luckily, they meet Kara whose escape pod crashed into the ship and is an ace pilot. Together they must evade all the people trying to capture the Zeppulian, including the Neuzuan fleet of space pirates, as they have adventures across the galaxy on their way to a fabled lost planet so lost no one knows its name.

If you like jumping right into the middle of a story, check out The Story So Far...

But if you prefer starting at the very beginning, a very good place to start, check out Part 1 of Chapter 1, Zo and Qin.

If you like what I do and want to support future content, please go over to my Patreon page. Any donation, no matter how small, would be just the best.

Spaced Episodes XI-XIV: So Long, and Thanks for All the Geeks

And so we come to the end of this series of Musings with the final four episodes of Spaced. I know that the Spaced Musings have been overwhelmingly positive but it's not my fault that Spaced was such a great show. But maybe I'll find something to criticise in this final installment, who knows.

Full Disclosure: Like last week I have to say that I've never watched season 2 of Spaced before. So until I've reached the end of the review and have seen the final episode, I won't know how the series ends. Hopefully it provides a satisfying payoff, we'll just have to wait and see.

"You may attempt to dramatically satisfy me."

Episode XI - Help

We open with Damien the head of Dark Star comics as he calls in his secretary to announce they need a new title, all ominous and swirling cigarette smoke. They run through a list of possible names before settling on Tim, who pitch his comic to them last year. Inter-cut to Tim blowing pixelated bad guys away in first person shooter I recognise but can't remember the name of... oh well.

Daisy doesn't seem to take the good news that Dark Star comics have asked Tim for a portfolio of his work all that well. It's almost like she's jealous of the potential success he might have or afraid he will take the opportunity to move on to the next stage of his life. But that would be petty, wouldn't it?

Okay, the joke where Tim knees down to pray and it is revealed that he was praying to a poster of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was pretty gold. I'm currently rewatching Buffy at the moment, so it was anice meta moment for me.

"For thou art the Chosen One and thee only will stand alone against the forces of darkness. Amen."

Due to her reaction to his opportunity to become a comic book artist, it's uncertain whether Daisy intentionally meant to put Tim's caricature of Damien which he had removed from his portfolio back in to sabotage Tim or whether it was a simple accident made when she wasn't thinking. Because of her general thoughtlessness, I'm inclined to believe it was the later but who knows.

Of course Tim finds out and doesn't take it especially well. Daisy tries to defend herself saying that she was only trying to help but as Mike points out, Tim's just really angry at her because she has jeopardised his future. Regardless of her intent, her thoughtlessness does effect other people.

Tim and Mike chase after Tyres who is delivering Tim's portfolio, Daisy goes on a jog with Marsha, while Brian puts on a suit to meet his mom for lunch - she thinks he's a lawyer. Hijinks enuse! Tyres has already delivered the portfolio so that's a bust but Mike has an idea how to get it back.

I really forgot how many Matrix references were made in the early 2000s. 

Brian is trying to impress his mom by making her think he is a successful lawyer who makes all the money and is successful and stuff. He also pretends not to know Marsha when she jogs by which is a bit of a dick move. Not cool Brian.

At the same time Tim and Mike are infiltrating Dark Star comics to get back the Damien caricature with Tyres' help and some walkie-talkies. They manage to get to Damien's office but it's locked. Brian in the meantime has let his mother know he is an artist, which she takes remarkably well. She's totally cool with him being whatever as long as he isn't gay...

Moving on from random homophobia, Tim manages to get inside Damien's office by the ventilation shaft. Meanwhile, Daisy and Marsha are exhausted after their competitive jogging but then Colin the dog runs into the road towards Brian on the other side. Brian saves Colin but then...

The suspense is killing me. That face though.

Damien's car hits Daisy but it's okay. Tim gets back the caricature and also scores a date with Sophie, Damien's secretary. He apologises to Daisy for shouting at her earlier and everyone goes home happy at the end of the episode. Hijinks resolved.

Episode XII - Gone

Let's do the time jump again as we start the episode with Tim and Daisy running down a street in Camden late at night before being stopped by some young looking thugs who are going to beat them up for some reason but cut back to "Six Hours Earlier".

Tim is getting ready for a date with Sophie as Daisy is making chicken stew with that most exotic of spices, oregano. Sophie calls in to cancel since she has to work late but Tim thinks she is cheating on him with her boss. Luckily Mike knows just what to do and slaps him in the face. Daisy decides to take Tim out so he feels better.

Enter Brian to wax lyrical about how women are the true creators since all men do is destroy things. Women have a bond so unknowable to men since their menstrual cycles can sync up if they are together for long enough, you see. However Mike has the perfect response here too as he informs Brian that men share a telepathic bond unknowable to women.

Mike takes Colin for a walk but then loses him, enlisting Brian to help find him since no man or dog gets left behind. Tim bumps into some college kid in the toilet at the pub who wants to buy some weed off him but brushes him off.

They run into the college kid and his group of young thugs outside the pub and they demand the weed, which Tim had given to Daisy for safe keeping. In a case of wacky mix-ups, Daisy hands them the oregano by accident.

We also get Marsha's tragic back story that is too tragic to relate here but trust me that it is a tale of Olympian proportions. Tim realises that he forgot his keys and runs back to the pub when they are cornered by the young thugs. Cue slow motion gunfight. Tim and Daisy escape and make it home safe.

They all just had the chicken stew with the "oregano" in it.

Episode XIII - Dissolution

I've been spending to much of this review just recapping the events of the past two episodes. Therefore I wanted to get into some analysis for the last two episodes. Just so we know a basic outline of what went on, here's the plot summary of this episode on IMDb:

Marsha still thinks that Tim and Daisy are a couple, and when she sees Tim kissing and flirting with Sophie, she gets suspicious. Later that night at Daisy's birthday dinner, Marsha tell Daisy that Tim is cheating on her, which Daisy replies with the truth about their relationship. Marsha, humiliated after realizing that she's the only one who didn't know the truth leaves the restaurant and moves out of the flat.

Okay, analysis. The first couple of scenes have this recurring joke which is just expertly executed and a perfect example of how to use juxtaposition of sound and image for humour. So many comedy series or films forget that television and film are audiovisual media and sacrifice the visuals for dialogue or don't use sound in funny ways (and no I'm not talking about wacky sound effects).

On their night out at the pub, Brian and other people are taking pictures of the group enjoying themselves intercut with shots of Brian in a darkroom developing the photos while a horror movie sound effect is heard. Then this overly dramatic and ominous choir music plays as he looks at the finished photos. The music implies something nefarious is afoot which completely contrasts with the relatively innocent act of developing photos of your friends and fun times at the pub.

The horror. The horror.

The same highly intense dramatic choir music plays when Marsha spies Tim and Sophie making out outside from her bedroom window. It subsequently punctuates that moment when Mike watches Tim dance on the sidewalk before he confronts him about how his relationship with Sophie is causing him to forget his friends. Also Tim missed his promotion to Sergant. Not cool, Tim.

In each one of these instances, the complete disconnect from the mundaneity of the scene being played out visually and music better suited for an apocolyptic battle or horror film comes together for a perfect audiovisual joke which can only be done in the media of film or television. I've told you guys, I love Edgar Wright, right?

Another fantastic visual joke is that Marsha confronts Tim that she knows what he is up to and cut to the shot of Tim and Sophie making out. Tim asks if Mike told her and cut to a shot of the birthday cake Tim got Daisy in the shape of a typewriter. Throughout the exchange, it keeps cutting to what each thinks the conversation is about to heighten the misunderstanding.

The horror. The horror.

Whereas other shows would have a similar exchange where characters think they are talking about the same thing but actually are each thinking of different things for comedy, they wouldn't use the visual cues. But because the camera also zooms in on the making out and typewriter cake to highlight the misunderstanding, it heightens the comedy of the exchange.

The episode covers quite a bit too, Daisy grappling with getting older on her birthday as well as her dislike of Sophie because of her unstated feelings for Tim, Mike's disappointment in Tim, Brian and Twist breaking up, Marsha's feeling of betrayal... a lot happens. Which sets things up nicely for the season finale and final episode ever of Spaced.

Episode XIV - Leaves

We open with an Oasis b-side since you can't get more British than that before we see that the house is for sale. Marsha obviously didn't take being lied to by Tim and Daisy very well. The show then gets super-meta as the first scene post title credit is an exact reenactment of the scene where Marsha shows Tim and Daisy the flat in the first episode.

Realising that they need to apologise to Marsha and try to convince her not to sell the house and break up the flat, Tim and Daisy try find her. They go to Brian but he isn't coping with expressing his emotions that well at the moment and isn't even aware the house is for sale. They then go to Mike for information.

And he has scones with jam inside! They find out Marsha is living with her daughter Amber and head to Amber's flat. Meanwhile Daisy noticed Colin wandered off into the neighbour's and she goes after him. She kinda just lets herself in and what she lets herself in for is a horror movie spoof.

"Oh my god! Yet another horror movie spoof!"

Essentially Colin has been cheating on Daisy with the elderly neighbour lady next door since Daisy hasn't been treating him right and that's very important in a healthy relationship. Plus the neighbour has a widescreen TV so no real competition.

Tim and the rest don't have much more luck with Marsha who doesn't buy Tim's the "family of the 21st century are friends" speech or his apology and still wants to sell the house. They are really showing the hurt of Marsha's betrayal. Also Sophie is leaving to Seattle so she can work for Marvel.

As is apparent from the title of the episode, the theme of this episode is people leaving. Life doesn't stand still and things change. For a show that was all about how people either wander aimlessly or are stuck where they are, it's appropriate the last episode would focus how everyone leaves.

Even when they are family.

Anywho, Mike and his army buddies hikack a tank to do something spectacular to convince Marsha not to sell the house. Which of course means a Say Anything moment as Tim holds a boombox above his head John Cusack style to warm Marsha's heart because over the top gestures always work.

However Daisy has done a runner to get some distance and sort things out, and is waiting at the train station. But Tim also has to see Sophie off at the airport. A nice touch is that when Tim tries to call Sophie to let her know he needs to stop Daisy, John Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane" plays when we cut to Sophie blow-drying her hair.

Skip to the end, Tim gets to Daisy with Colin (who's come back), Mike drops off a letter from Tim to Sophie before she leaves, Marsha moves back in, Twist a hit in Manchester's gay scene, Brian's art is flourishing, and everyone is happy. It might be sappy but it was a real satisfying end to a fantastic series.

All is right with the world again.

Notable Pop Culture References:

The Sixth Sense "someone got hurt" exchange - even featuring Olivia Williams
When Sophie calls and speaks to Daisy, she's holding a Buttercup PowerPuff Girl doll
Tim obviously has a Judge Dredd poster on his bedroom door.
"Clever boys." reference to "Clever girl" in Jurassic Park
The sound effect while Brian is developing his photos is from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The dramatic choir music I kept mentioning is "Ave Satani" from The Omen
The ending of "Dissolution" is a perfect homage to Empire Strikes Back

The opening scene of "Leaves" is a nod to The Royale Family title sequence

Spaced Episodes VIII-X: Reality Strikes Back

The saga continues with the second season of Spaced (or the second series if you're from the UK, in which case, hi!). Once again we join Tim and Daisy as they try navigate the uncertainty of their aimless twenties in turn of the millennium London.

Full Disclosure: I'm not as familiar with the second season as I was with the first. This isn't because there is anything wrong with the second season or I think the first is better or something. I just never watched it. Sometimes things just turned out that way.

"Art never just turns out that way. True art like Season 2 is vibrant and free of cliche." - Brian probably

Episode VIII - Back

The first episode back starts with an introductory sequence just in case you forgot who the characters were since the season one ended. They do this neat trick where the shot holds on the character and they wobble the picture as Tim delivers expository narration on the character. I don't think I described it all that well but it's a cool visual effect that ties nicely into the tone of the sequence.

Tim's expository narration is intercut with Daisy's narration for a book she is trying to write. She had spent the past couple of months travelling over Asia trying to find herself after she sold some articles and inherited some money from her dead auntie. And she comes back to find that Mike has been sleeping in her room.

He didn't make that much of a mess.

When Tim asks for photos of Daisy's trip, she doesn't have any but rather recorded her travels with a video camera... on tape. Ah, 21st century technology at its finest. Also a nice touch is that right before Tim asks to see her photos, the screen flashes with a flashbulb sounds off like an old timey camera as it cuts from Daisy to him. Damn you Edgar Wright and your expert directing touches!

Daisy heads downstairs to catch up with Brian who is enjoying life way too much for a tortured artist. His relationship with Twist has been going quite well and they are enjoying quite the healthy sex life with an appropriate leather aesthetic.

Tim and Mike are watching the same skateboarding fails video from season one and once again Wright uses the reactions to the video to punctuate the scene that actually plays out, namely Daisy telling Marsha about Stephen, a Time-Lord she met on her travels.

He really is the Master.

Stephen is nabbed by the agents from the Matrix, one of which is Mycroft Holmes so you know things are serious. They are looking for something in Stephen's bag but he switched it out with Daisy's and so she becomes their target.

Honestly it's quite refreshing to see a parody of The Matrix don't doesn't feel tired, like the innumerable bullet time parodies which came out in the early 2000's, and is actually still funny removed from the source material.

They are about to take Daisy away but then Marsha shows up like a wine-soaked deus ex machina to show them the video which shows Stephen swapping out his illegal bag for Daisy's. All is well, aside from Daisy's post-holiday blues.

"What? I will write for and appear in both Doctor Who and Sherlock? That is the sound of nerd credibility."

Episode IX - Change

A window breaks with a clash of smashed glass and the thump of a heavy suitcase landing on the lawn outside. Tim, Daisy, Mike, Brian, and Colin the dog are abruptly awoken by the disturbance above their heads. Marsha's daughter Amber has moved out.

Tim then doesn't have the best day as he is fired from his job at the comic book store by Bilbo after shouting at a young boy for wanting to buy a Jar-Jar Binks doll since the child obviously had no soul. Tim still hasn't gotten over The Phantom Menace even though it has been 18 months since it came out. To be fair to Tim, we still haven't gotten over The Phantom Menace and it's been 17 years.

Over to Brian who is having trouble finding inspiration for his painting due to his happiness in his relationship, even though he has been approaching the canvas in different ways.

However he does seem to get his groove back when he finds out his uncle has just died. Fueled by grief and pain, he attacks his canvas with delicate strokes of his brush in a creative frenzy. As a tortured artist he needs to feel tortured in order to art. Such is his curse.

Daisy and Tim go to the Job Centre to try get some money. Tim is lucky since he found a sympathetic employee who understood the negative impact The Phantom Menance had on people's lives and works something out for Tim. Daisy not so much since she hadn't claimed the dole in the three months she was on holiday.

Tim manages to get a job in Bilbo's doppelganger Derek's comic book store while Daisy has some trouble getting a job since she doesn't know what type of work she could do. Daisy's desire to be a writer but her total aimlessness is quite real to me.

So many people have dreams or aspirations but don't actually know how to achieve them or don't do what they need to get there. And Daisy is one of the few television characters who exhibits this reality and I identify with that.

This is my reaction to the question "What kind of work can you do?" too.

Marsha hits on Mike who she's made her new lodger and then gives Brian inspiration by telling him that he needs to be miserable in order to paint and that the conflict between his happiness and his art must make him inconsolable.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate Julia Deakin's performance as Marsha here? Because she is hilarious. This could so easily have been an annoying character and while Marsha is a little one-note, Deakin's gives her a real presence and totally sells the character.

End of the episode, Tim's got his old job back, Mike's got his own room, Brian is naked in the garden, and Daisy got a job in a book shop. All is well.

I'm just gonna leave this here.

Episode X - Mettle

Robot Wars! I remember watching that show as a kid, people building dangerous little robots to attach other dangerous little robots with axes and saws. It was great. They even namedrop Sir Killalot. Ah, the early 2000's.

By the way, Tim and Mike built a robot in case that wasn't clear. They have a rivalry with Dexter who also has a robot which they beat in the regionals to qualify for the quarterfinals. Dexter wants a rematch but Mike declines. Dexter isn't happy about this.

Robot war is hell.

Oh, that thing I said about all being well at the end of the last episode? Well they're not. Well, that is. Daisy has been fired from three jobs in as many weeks. She's not real good at the whole 'keeping a job' thing. She gets a job in a kitchen run by Nurse Ratched, sorry I mean her boss Tina.

Brian also has his arc going this episode where he is the last minute replacement to put on an exhibition but is facing insecurity about his art and if people will like it. Funnily enough, whereas in the last episode Marsha gave Brian creative inspiration, in this one she inadvertently shattered his confidence.

Mike and Tim's robot is sabotaged by Dexter and his goon in the night. But they resolve to rebuild it before the quarterfinals. This kicks off the what I'm gonna call the "getting shit done montage" as Mike and Time rebuild their robot, Brian resolves to paint his arse off, and Daisy is determined to wash all the dishes she can to pulsating music. It's a pretty funny and effective montage.

The show is over.

What I also like about it is that everyone is taking charge. Much of the first season was focused on inaction, not doing things whether due to apathy, lack of direction, or simple laziness. It nice to see these guys take action and be determined to get a goal accomplished.

Daisy gets a heavy dose of reality when Tina informs her that all the staff at Neo Nachos are writers and she isn't special or the only creative one. While Tina is obviously the villain here, this is an important message to tell. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own narrative that we forget that other people are also creative and struggle to do the things they want to do too.

Tim and Mike have a rematch with Dexter at Robot Club. I really wish I could say more but the first rule of Robot Club is that you do not talk about Robot Club.

So that was the first half of the second season of Spaced, join me next week for the last installment of the Spaced Musings as we look at the final four episodes.

Notable Pop Culture References:

Tim's voice-over is Goodfellas' "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster"

Pulp Fiction with the pop tarts and Daisy finding the gun as Mike comes out of the bathroom

Darth Vader's funeral pyre when Tim burns his Star Wars memorabilia
The Karate Kid training montage
Bilbo's office front door is the TARDIS
The A-Team - Marsha puts a cigarette in her mouth and says "I love it when a plan comes together"
Derek quotes Obi-Wan Kenobi "You've just taken your first step into a larger world"
Daisy's two halves are Sandy pre and post transformation in Grease
The Neo Nachos kitchen is just the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ward
Robot Club is of course Fight Club

Spaced Episodes IV-VII: The Wrath of Tim

Here we are with the second half of the first season of Spaced. Having introduced and established the characters within the first three episodes, the remainder of the first season focuses on the characters adapting to changes in their personal relationships and making important life decisions.

The pop cultural references continued unabated of course. In this installment of the Spaced Musings, let's check out the next four episodes as battles are began and chaos reigns until epiphanies are had as the first season ends.

"Aren't you glad we've been introduced?!"

Episode IV - Battles

The fourth episode opens with Daisy breaking up with her long distance boyfriend Richard due to her success as a writer. By which I mean Richard breaks up with Daisy since he's meeting new people and doesn't have space in his life for her. Also, she's been getting off with other people behind his back. Again Edgar Wright does a nice little camera pan to reveal the real situation.

Talking about nice little camera pans, there another bit of classic Wright camera work where Daisy is telling Tim about the breakup after he asked her. The camera turns in on her for a close up while she weepily talks about her feelings, just to a quick head turn back to Tim who is playing video games since she said she was "fine".

She did say she was fine.

The juxtaposition between the slow dramatic close up and abrupt cut to Tim emphasises the humour of the moment. It also emphasises that these aren't the nicest characters in the sense that they aren't particulate empathetic and are a little self-centred.

To be fair to Tim, he is dealing with stuff following his own breakup with Sarah, which he isn't handling that well. Unless it is considered healthy to repeatedly drown Lara Croft. As he tells a paint covered Brian,

Tim: Well, I just got a letter from my ex-girlfriend, three months late, explaining why she dumped me. It was full of "You'll always be special" and "I'll always love you" platitudes designed to make me feel better while appeasing her deep seated sense of guilt for running off with a slimy City boy called Duane and destroying my faith in everything.
Brian: So it didn't really work, then?
Tim: No, it made me wanna drown things! You've got some paint on you.

This is the problem I have reviewing Spaced. I just end up dissecting every scene and line of dialogue so I don't get anywhere. Since I've got three more episodes to do and I've barely got into this one, I'm gonna do more of an overview approach from here on end. Alright?

"Alright then." - Duane probably.

So in this episode, Daisy gets a dog to deal with the emotional hole she's feeling following her breakup while Tim faces off Duane, his ex-girlfriend's current boyfriend, in paintball. I think this episode might have Wright's first ever lock and load montage but as anyone who has watched Hot Fuzz knows, it definitely wasn't his last.

I forgot to mention the homoerotic tension between Tim and Mike before because it is so blatant that it's almost above mentioning when you occasionally get lines of dialogue like this,

Paint ball player: I've always fancied myself as a bit of a soldier.
Tim: I've always fancied myself.
Mike: I've always fancied you.
Tim: Not here.

Moving on, basically this episode is supposed to show how different people deal with their grief, Daisy does it by finding something to fill the void while Tim does it with the violence of paintball.

"Both are equally valid." - Duane probably.

Episode V - Chaos

Daisy has developed a nearly unhealthy obsession with Colin the dog due to her emotional dependence following her breakup. This is difficult for Tim because of his phobia of dogs but at the same time he understands that Daisy has had a hard time and does feel better while Colin is around.

This shows some emotional growth for Tim as he puts aside his own feelings for Daisy, possibly due to his cathartic paintball confrontation with Duane in the previous episode. We also get to see more of Bill Bailey as Bilbo Bagshot, Tim's boss at the comic book store, in this episode and more of Bill Bailey is always welcome.

Bill Bailey: Who's my character?
Edgar Wright: You play a comic book store owner named Bilbo Bagshot and...
Bill Bailey: No, that's enough. I've got this.

Tim and Brian have a Star Wars marathon as part of a cultural exchange since Tim went to an art museum with Brian but on his way to buy popcorn for the marathon, Tim bumps into an evil and suspicious man on the pavement.

There's a nice early dig at Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (remember this show came out in 1999 before we had all realised just how unforgivably atrocious that film was) with the "Three Good Star Wars movies later..." scrolling text.

Also, fun fact from IMDb, the song that plays as Tim, Daisy and Brian have just finished watching the Star Wars trilogy, is the Ewok song which plays in the final scene of the original version of Return of the Jedi sung by Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright. They couldn't get permission to use John Williams' Star Wars end credits score so their composer came up with a tune and they sang the Ewok song over it.

They had no idea of the horror that awaited them.
Attack of the Clones wouldn't be out for another three years.

Colin is then abducted by the evil and suspicious man while Tim has takes him out for a walk. Apparently the evil and suspicious man is a vivisectionist and the gang has to arrange a rescue mission to break Colin out of an animal testing lab.

I quite liked this bit. Not sure why exactly but there was something quite gratifying in seeing this bunch of misfits and oddballs pull off an Ocean's Eleven style heist/rescue mission. Spoiler Alert: They get Colin back.

Oh, and can we talk about Marsha's intense lady boner for Brian? This has been a running joke throughout all the episodes so far but it seems way more intense in this episode. Maybe her sexual innuendos are more blatant or something but they really went for it in this episode.

"I could really go for it, you know what I mean Brian." - Marsha probably

Episode VI - Epiphanies

And so it has come to this, the clubbing episode. Tim's friend Tyres invites Tim and Daisy to go clubbing with him. Tyres often speaks in high-octane flurries of words jam-packed with a hundred adjectives and back by a pulsating rave beat. As a bike messenger, he's a worker man and won't miss any opportunity to diss Tim and Daisy for their more artsy career choices.

It seems that the emotional growth I thought Tim had undergone in the previous episode hadn't been so much a growth as a momentarily blip on his emotional radar. When Daisy observes that he is still hung up over Sarah, he snaps at her quite aggressively since he's so touchy about it.

They invite Brian to join them as they go clubbing but he's hesitant due to a traumatic 1980s clubbing event involving a punch to the head and the Dexys Midnight Runners' "Come On Eileen". Also he says he is busy painting with his penis, obviously to avoid the cliche of using his paintbrush, and doesn't want to go.

Suffice to say he goes.

Before I felt like I writing too much an every scene and needed to take an overview approach but now I feel like I'm glossing over so many things. There are just so many jokes and humorous minor story-lines crammed into each episode. I haven't even mentioned how Mike was banned from the Rough Ramblers canoe club following a failed Eskimo roll or the recurring joke involving Tim and Mike's childhood flashback.

Anywho, the club scenes feel like being at a club. Pulsating music, flashing lights, things happening. Brian's arc comes to a satisfying close in the club with a repeat of his earlier transgression of knocking someone's drink out of their hand but instead of a punch to the face and "Come On Eileen", this time he gets a bear-hug set to rave music.

Also, Tim apologised to Daisy for snapping at her earlier in the episode which was nice. This shortly devolves into a compliment-fest as they say how talented they both are. I like how Tyres leaves the club at the end of the episode, his work done.

And what fine work it was. Mike become a hardcore UK raver.

Episode VII - Ends

Here we are, the final episode of Spaced's first season. Or if you're from the UK, the last episode of the first series of Spaced. Naturally we open with shots of people falling doing Tim's natural mode of transportation, skateboarding. Ah, the late 1990s and early 2000s, when watching skateboarders bail real hard was the only version of a fail video they had.

Tim gets a call from Sarah who wants to see him for some reason. The cuts to skateboards eating concrete after Daisy comes up for different reasons Sarah might want to see Tim and Tim's reaction to the skateboarders is a nice touch. Not that that is surprising at this point, the whole season has been fill of nice touches.

Moving on, Sarah says she has split with Duane which makes Tim jubilant since he thinks that means she'll want to get back together with him. Obviously, this causes Daisy some distress since she thinks Sarah is manipulating Tim and leads to an exchange of catchphrases/idioms such as "Don't judge a book by his cover" and "Do you believe in life after love?".

We all know Cher believes.

They also finally reveal the mystery that we had been trying to unravel the entire season, the tragic backstory of how Mike and Tim became friends. I won't spoil it here for those not yet caught up for fear of ruining the reveal but suffice to say it involved a tree and was greatly satisfying.

There's is a lot more Mike in this episode which I'm happy about since I love Nick Frost so more Mike is always good. He is trying to get into the Territorial Army since he was banned from the regular army after commandeering a tank to invade Paris. Like most Paris invasions, Mike's invasion was cut short due to a stop at Disneyland Paris, then called Euro Disney.

Back to nice touches, Tim lashes out at Daisy for not supporting him in regards to his relationship with Sarah and she hands a brutal take-down which is mirrored by Nina in Tekken kicking the other character's ass.

If only every argument had such a clear winner.

Follow this fight, Daisy tries write but gets interrupted by Marsh bringing gifts of wine and backstory. She and Brian had a thing before but it was only to pay his rent. Daisy then settles in to write but properly this time, and for the first time the whole season.

Also Brian and Twist go out on a date which turns out real well, so hooray for them. Tim and Sarah also go out on a date but theirs doesn't end well, so hooray for them. Sarah wanted him back but he declined. Daisy meets up with Tim at the pub and he describe his moment of clarity,

It's like when you have an orgasm on your own. Lyin there watching some porn movie you bought on a drunken, lonly night in SoHo. And you're lyin there, everything is really great. You're getting totally turned on by these absurdly graphic images. Everything seems so right, then Ppett. Bingo! You wake up. You're lyin there sweatin, despreatly lookin for the tissue, which you just know is still in your pocket. And the remote control which is somewhere on the floor. It's like walkin in on yourself. You know, 'What you doing?' That's how I felt tonight. Sitting here, feeling my heart miss a beat everytime the door opened. What the fuck are you doing.

They then finish the episdoe dancing to a pub band performance of Louis Jordan's "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby" and honestly I can think of a better way to end the season.

Notable Pop Cultural References:

Psycho shower scene theme (again) while Tim mimics frightened girl's pose in Evil Dead II poster
Bonus Evil Dead II reference - After the lock and load montage Mike says "Groovy"
Instrumental version of the Baywatch theme plays during a flashback scene
The Nutcracker plays whenever we see Colin the dog
So much Star Trek, just all the Star Trek
The Shining in the flashback to Tim's step-dad who was a nice guy
The A-Team theme music plays while Mike is raving in the club
"He who dares, wins" Del Boy's catchphrase from Only Fools and Horses
Tekken obviously
I like to think they're referencing Tom & Jerry with "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby"