So many thoughts on The Great s3
Jul. 9th, 2023 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chocolatepotIn no particular order ...
- First thing - Orlo dies at the end of the first episode, completely randomly and without anyone knowing. There were definite thematic reasons that it worked (okay, I did not detect them myself, I saw them on Reddit), but the lack of aftermath was TERRIBLE. Orlo had been by Catherine's side from the beginning: she should have had a reaction to his apparent disappearance. Marial should have had a reaction. The fact that his body was eaten by bears and so was never found should have played into the season somehow, like with people trying to find him or something. All we got was one reference in Katya's play.
- Glad Peter's dead, though. Always found him so annoying, have been looking forward to his getting taken out of the picture since the beginning.
- I have always disliked Georgina and watching her suck up to Catherine at Marial's expense was painful. Oh my god, and when she got Katya's play staged to bring Catherine closer to her even though it emotionally destroyed Catherine?? RAGE! (To be clear, this was great writing.)
- I love that I can now think, "I hate how much everyone in this show is motivated by sex, it's just nonsensical to me as someone on the ace spectrum," rather than being worried that I'm a sex-negative prude or something. But can people PLEASE be ambitious for power or money or something from time to time?
- I fucking love Maxim. At first I found him an annoying precocious tv child, but either he grew on me or his writing/acting got funnier throughout the season. Maybe it's just that he's obsessed with his clothes, always a trait I enjoy. "You're rending my garments!"
- Okay, time to be serious again. The show seems a bit weird about female power. No, I don't expect it to be accurate, but for their purposes they demoted Elizabeth from reigning empress to dotty, oversexed aunt and made Catherine madly in love/lust with her husband and conflicted about getting rid of him rather than quite determined about it. I remember seeing a thinkpiece somewhere once about how pop culture only loves female rulers who come to power accidentally/reluctantly/not through their own efforts, and it always comes to mind when I watch something about a historical queen. In the first season, I was happy to see this apparently subverted (with Peter sucking and Catherine being active in trying to unseat him), but the second season and then much of the third felt like big steps back toward the norm, with Catherine being so unwilling to take him out of the picture. So ... I look forward to the next season (which I hope it gets - streaming shows usually don't get a fourth) and hope that it sprints back to a cheerful exercise of queenly power without much more angst over Peter.Orlo deserved the angst instead.
- Relatedly serious, I feel like the show skips back and forth between it being bad to shame a woman for her sexuality and it being okay? From the beginning, the fact that Georgina was kind of commodified (commodified herself) as Peter's mistress despite being his friend's wife was a joke, and adulterous wives in general are a joke. Marial and Georgina snipe at each other over it, humorously. Elizabeth's sluttiness is also often a punchline. But then at other times the show goes, "the people are criticizing Catherine for unbridled lust," and it's supposed to be horrible of them. It's as though there's a line between Catherine and all other women on this score.
- I'm kind of obsessed with all the femslash potential this show has, which is totally unrealized because the slashy side of fandom isn't into the show. But like ... you know how people say "I'd be interested in female characters that way if they had the same kind of complexity as the male ones" when defending primarily being into m/m? THIS IS THAT CANON. Marial's conflict with Catherine as someone who likes her but is now on an opposite side because their politics clash. Georgina sucking up to Catherine destructively. Marial and Georgina hating each other. Georgina and Petra, the maid who lusts after her. SO MUCH POTENTIAL. I want to start writing it and I have started writing it (a fic set at the end of 3.03 where instead of just bickering, Catherine and Marial start making out), but I have so many other things to write that I don't know ... It would only take four more Catherine/Marial fics for the category to appear on the AO3 sidebar, though.
- First thing - Orlo dies at the end of the first episode, completely randomly and without anyone knowing. There were definite thematic reasons that it worked (okay, I did not detect them myself, I saw them on Reddit), but the lack of aftermath was TERRIBLE. Orlo had been by Catherine's side from the beginning: she should have had a reaction to his apparent disappearance. Marial should have had a reaction. The fact that his body was eaten by bears and so was never found should have played into the season somehow, like with people trying to find him or something. All we got was one reference in Katya's play.
- Glad Peter's dead, though. Always found him so annoying, have been looking forward to his getting taken out of the picture since the beginning.
- I have always disliked Georgina and watching her suck up to Catherine at Marial's expense was painful. Oh my god, and when she got Katya's play staged to bring Catherine closer to her even though it emotionally destroyed Catherine?? RAGE! (To be clear, this was great writing.)
- I love that I can now think, "I hate how much everyone in this show is motivated by sex, it's just nonsensical to me as someone on the ace spectrum," rather than being worried that I'm a sex-negative prude or something. But can people PLEASE be ambitious for power or money or something from time to time?
- I fucking love Maxim. At first I found him an annoying precocious tv child, but either he grew on me or his writing/acting got funnier throughout the season. Maybe it's just that he's obsessed with his clothes, always a trait I enjoy. "You're rending my garments!"
- Okay, time to be serious again. The show seems a bit weird about female power. No, I don't expect it to be accurate, but for their purposes they demoted Elizabeth from reigning empress to dotty, oversexed aunt and made Catherine madly in love/lust with her husband and conflicted about getting rid of him rather than quite determined about it. I remember seeing a thinkpiece somewhere once about how pop culture only loves female rulers who come to power accidentally/reluctantly/not through their own efforts, and it always comes to mind when I watch something about a historical queen. In the first season, I was happy to see this apparently subverted (with Peter sucking and Catherine being active in trying to unseat him), but the second season and then much of the third felt like big steps back toward the norm, with Catherine being so unwilling to take him out of the picture. So ... I look forward to the next season (which I hope it gets - streaming shows usually don't get a fourth) and hope that it sprints back to a cheerful exercise of queenly power without much more angst over Peter.
- Relatedly serious, I feel like the show skips back and forth between it being bad to shame a woman for her sexuality and it being okay? From the beginning, the fact that Georgina was kind of commodified (commodified herself) as Peter's mistress despite being his friend's wife was a joke, and adulterous wives in general are a joke. Marial and Georgina snipe at each other over it, humorously. Elizabeth's sluttiness is also often a punchline. But then at other times the show goes, "the people are criticizing Catherine for unbridled lust," and it's supposed to be horrible of them. It's as though there's a line between Catherine and all other women on this score.
- I'm kind of obsessed with all the femslash potential this show has, which is totally unrealized because the slashy side of fandom isn't into the show. But like ... you know how people say "I'd be interested in female characters that way if they had the same kind of complexity as the male ones" when defending primarily being into m/m? THIS IS THAT CANON. Marial's conflict with Catherine as someone who likes her but is now on an opposite side because their politics clash. Georgina sucking up to Catherine destructively. Marial and Georgina hating each other. Georgina and Petra, the maid who lusts after her. SO MUCH POTENTIAL. I want to start writing it and I have started writing it (a fic set at the end of 3.03 where instead of just bickering, Catherine and Marial start making out), but I have so many other things to write that I don't know ... It would only take four more Catherine/Marial fics for the category to appear on the AO3 sidebar, though.
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Date: 2023-07-10 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-13 10:53 pm (UTC)