I Come for the Social Commentary, I Stay for the Murders
In a sea of insufferable characters, it’s best to be a cynical person who reads books.
I didn’t expect to be mesmerized by You on Netflix as much as I am. When a movie or a tv-show is made based on a book, I usually want to read the book first. I want to imagine the visuals of the characters, and places on my own, and not have the optics decided for me. Then, I’d like to see how someone else imagined it by putting it on a big screen.
I didn’t read You by Caroline Kepnes first, and I will forever regret it. I watched it first. Then read it. And even in that order, it was an unbelievable experience. Her work is something you can’t even put in words; so different than anything out there, this world she pulls you in, so original, like nothing you've ever read before. You read about this killer, but his social commentary is so on point, he says all the annoying things you are thinking about this world; you forget he kills people.
Even Stephen King was mesmerized by Caroline’s work: “Totally original. Never read anything quite like it. Hope you're working on a new one.”
Steven King never read anything like it.
Let that sit there!
The show’s creators, my all-time favorites Sera Gamble and Greg Berlanti did the book great justice. I’m fascinated by how every season tops the last; a rare occurrence in television.
Why I love this show and find it so relevant, is the social commentary that is so unbelievably on point. There are so many issues on this planet, so much that’s annoying and despicable, and having someone else word it, exactly how you feel, feels nourishing to me.
The way Joe perceives all the cities he visits, and points out their nonsense is an absolute gift to watch. It makes you feel seen, acknowledged.
New York's social commentary was so brilliant. I didn’t know that can be topped, but Los Angeles, a city I lived in for 9 years and the one that gave me so much grief, the absolute mental hellhole - it was healing to watch. San Francisco was another level of being in-tuned with the grievances of the society you came into, juggling the murders that seem more pleasant and less hard than juggling annoying people in your proximity.
Disclaimer: This article contains no spoilers for Season 4 of You, Netflix.
Season 4 started in a way I thought for a split second might not be as good as the other seasons, mainly because the characters around Joe weren’t that interesting to me. A girl that was supposed to be the hottest one everyone wants is not hot at all. All the men that were supposed to be hot or studly or interesting - weren’t, his supposed love interest was not interesting or visually pleasing like others; everyone was just blah. I couldn’t connect to anyone.
But as the series progressed, I understood the build-up and slow character development of his supposed love interest to a such level, if you asked me who would I pick out of all 4 seasons to be his permanent love interest, the one he ends up with, it would be this one! This is how good writing is.
With Prince Harry whistleblowing the inner works of the Monarchy and people doubting if it should even exist when it doesn’t really benefit its subjects, and are more concerned about its own image; Season 4 is relevant again. It’s giving us another important social commentary: aristocracy, and what’s their use?
I would like if I can go through life where Joe Goldberg narrates every second of my life, even though I already walk around having similar begrudges about everything that’s shitty around me, minus the killing part.
Social commentary is priceless. There are my absolute winners.
New York - Season 1
He’s just pissed he’d gotta buy Salinger to feel respectable, when all he wants to do is eat Cheetos and jerk it to iPorn before washing it all down with a Dan Brown chaser.
You went to Brown where you majored in Lit. And minored in douchebags.
You teach a 6:30 class called Get Up N Flow. You caress the sweaty backs of bulimic dead-eyed real mommies of Soho, offering smiles and lies of encouragement.
After class, you head to your favorite cafe to write for the first time all day. But your life doesn’t cooperate. Your wealthy girlfriends have just now woken up, have nothing better to do than plan their next pointless yet Instagrammable night. Can we get real for a second you have questionable taste in friends.
Way to go Beck. Looks like a catch. Benjamin J. Ashby III, oh there’s three of them.
Greenwich-born, boarding-school bred. Two failed careers. Model. Oh, boy. And co-creator of a dating app that connects people through musical tastes called LoveHooks. Current CEO of Home Soda Artisanal Beverages. Motto - “Drink better by hand”, which makes no sense, but evokes a homespun quality that lines up with a guy who wears $600 Japanese sneakers. The hair, the privilege he tries to hide with retweets of Black Lives Matter. Not to sound judgey, but this guy is everything wrong with America.
All books add up to one essential truth. Which is, if your IQ is above a certain number, life is pretty much unbearable. And the number is not even that high.
It’s a great job, bro. “Bro”. You waste of hair.
She invited you to add texture. She wants to seem interesting. Like she hangs out with real folk.
I want to call you and tell you, but I can’t because there’s a traditional waiting period between every goddamn communication when you’re trying to date someone. I hate this generation.
Straight to voicemail. Worst three words in the English language.
These books are more alive, more worthy than most people I know.
Lynn is a dark cavern where conversations go to die.
I can metaphor circles around you all day long. I have great metaphors.
Los Angeles - Season 2
(LA was such an excellent study of Hollywood acting scene, lives “in-waiting”, and the whole wannabe celebrity culture)
Love has taken me to dark places. But Los Angeles has gotta be as dark as it gets.
Fortunately, an LA bookseller is practically an oxymoron.
Hell, I arrived. It’s called the San Fernando Valley. At the borders of which anyone with an architect’s degree is apparently denied entry.
(If you ever lived in this town, you would understand the sheer unbeaten brilliance of the above sentence.)
Well, I’m glad these people found each other. Look forward to never seeing them again.
Sea of sweaty thirsty Hollywood outsiders. Masquerading as actors, slash writers, slash directors to take the pain out of being nannies, slash baristas, slash disappointments. This room is self-fellating ouroboros of desperation.
You keep glomming onto people thinking that’s what’s gonna make you successful. Will can’t help you. You need to help you. Why don’t you just do the work?
I need to befriend somebody on the edge of fame. What better place to find nobody that think he’s somebody than the improv crowd.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He’s but the tip of a second-hand bullshit iceberg.
Forty, you know when people talk about having it? You don’t have it. It is a combination of talent & work ethic.
The air feels charged. Santa Ana winds. Anyone with a lick of common sense would get the hell out of this town before it’s too late.
Out of pure, morbid curiosity. I know these dating apps are helpful and there are success stories, but how lazy and anti-feminist is this? Swipe yes or no based off of a glance at a retouched selfie? It’s barbaric. Bring me the days when a man would ride horseback for hours just to sit beside a woman for tea, without the promise of a graze of a single finger.
San Francisco - Season 3
Now that the baby is here. That white picket fence purgatory feels logical.
When that patented North California fog burns off, you can see for miles. Miles of noisy neighbors, peering suspiciously from behind lawn care equipment and video doorbells.
Of course, there is no bookstore in this particular circle of hell.
I’d imagine parenthood would feel like an essay by Nicholson Baker. Tiny moments made magnificent. Or maybe a novel by Louisa May Alcott. Hard work, but rewarding. Noble, even. Turns out, parenthood is Groundhog Day as written by Jean-Paul Sartre.
Her blog slash podcast slash brand, Heart-Shaped mistakes — Kill me. — is a mecca of humble bragging and superiority fronting as heard-earned wisdom.
Think about trying to keep a human infant alive, you can’t afford to think too hard about who you’re in the trenches with.
The libraries represent the very best of civilized society, the housing of egalitarian access to knowledge. It’s from separates us from the apes.
You feel it too don’t you? That feeling when you first with someone. All the tension, possibility. I wish I could bottle it. It’s better than anything.
I don't believe in conspiracies, except when they're about the unfair advantages of being rich. Those are true.
The only thing worse than a kid’s party is a rich kid’s party.
You wanna be friends with people who can surprise you. That’s what I want in friends, to be inspired to wonder.
“Nothing bonds you for life like the altitude shits together.” - Why is male small talk so terrible?
I don’t want to spoil Season 4, Part 1 for you, but I have to finish with just a few gems.
London - Season 4
No love, no people, just books.
If something doesn’t grow, it rots. Especially when you have the means, you have to decide not to be the absolute worst.
I just want to be a person and not even a great one, just decent.
I need you, I don’t have time for boundaries.
Watching this series really just shows you; in life - in a sea of insufferable characters, and situations, it’s best to be a cynical person who reads books. Except for the killing part.