(no subject)

Somewhere, there is a shark. And after Bombshells (Hulu linkage), I'm not sure which side of that shark House is on. In as few non-spoilery words as possible: I have never seen regression look more like Glee. The entire episode is a collage of different genres, and while that is one of my favorite things to do, ever... it's a freaking weird way to cover something that is such a serious part of the show's mythos. And by the time we got to the musical number... Actually, the best explanation for the weird dissonance that produces is to have you watch it, but the only place it exists is on iTunes (here) and though it's free, if anyone else's computer hates HD video in iTunes as much as mine does that isn't going to do you much good. That number is just so weird that my immediate reaction was to put my hands over my face and watch it from between my fingers (which is how I always watch Glee, so maybe it has more to do with musical television in general, but...). But the thing I really couldn't shake? How much the whole visual style seemed to have been very thoroughly influenced by Panic! At the Disco or something. (Maybe it's the eye makeup, I just don't know.) Now that I've watched the video a couple of times outside the context of the episode, though, it's... still weird, but not nearly as much so. It stands up a little better as a kind of diversion than something in the middle of an episode (at a turning point, even). But now I want to tear into it as metaphor for what was really going on in that scene, because I know it's more than slightly awkward caduceus-themed steamgoth pastiche.

I also love that Hulu sometimes has the habit of posting little interviews with the writers of episodes, because I'm getting ready to level the literary scalpel again this episode (it's begging for it; 3/4 of it is in metaphor anyway), and I like to know exactly what I'm supposed to be looking for with "authorial intention." (I always find it kind of weird when writers speak with utter certainty about the nature of their characters. Then again, I don't have any characters of my own, so I have to take an uncertain stance toward what I write.) Between this and Bones, I think there is some meta coming up about TV Relationships and Audience Expectations vs Authorial Obligation to the Story.