Media Round-Up 5/5/21
When I first started this newsletter I wanted it to be a place for serious media criticism and analysis; not in the sense that everything I covered would be prestige or solemn, but that I’d treat every piece of media I talked about with the same level of respect and attention. What I didn’t want was for it to just turn into a pile of recommendations.
But sometimes you have a deadline, an incredibly packed week, and plenty of half-formed ideas for newsletters that just aren’t capturing your attention, so instead, you want to talk about all the random little things you’re enjoying right now. It happens! This is one of those weeks, so today I’m going to take a few minutes to talk about all the television shows, books and comics, music, articles, and various other pieces of media that have captured my attention over the last week or two. Maybe something intriguing will capture your attention, but I’d also love to hear what all of you have been into lately in the comments!
TELEVISION
A couple weeks ago — intrigued by the entry on it in Alan Sepinwall’s Too Long; Didn’t Watch podcast — I started watching The Leftovers, which tells the story of the world that remains after 2% of Earth’s population suddenly vanishes with no explanation (it’s not the rapture). I’ve only made it four episodes in so far because the first season is relentlessly grim; I’m invested, but I definitely need time to recover after any given episode. It’d be easy for me to say that I’m sticking with it for the promise of the more whimsical series I know it becomes in its second and third seasons, but that’s not true; even in these early episodes lies moments of pure magic. The first meeting of Justin Theroux and Carrie Coon’s characters has an immediate spark of chemistry, the kind of which entire series could be built on, and I can’t wait to see more of them together; episode three, which focuses solely on haggard priest Matt Jamison (played by my favorite Doctor, Christopher Eccleston!), is probably the most emotionally wrenching thing I’ve seen all year, and could give any classic Greek Tragedy a run for its money.
Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier wasn’t the series I was hoping it would be, though I think most of us probably know this by now. It was just trying to do far too much to do any of it well; the “villains’” motivations, and the world conditions that created them, were never all that clear and seemed to shift from scene to scene, and there was far too much set-up for future shows and movies that felt tacked-on here. That said, Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan were as great as I’d hoped no matter what material they were given, and the path Sam takes from Falcon to Captain America works better than it has any right to. I still love these characters. Still, the better superhero show right now is Amazon Prime’s Invincible, which just finished up its first season (I talked about Invincible last week, and I think it’s possibly my best newsletter of the past month or two, so check it out!). It’s a brutal watch, and not for kids, but if you’re looking for a new superhero show during Marvel’s brief hiatus, this should absolutely be on your radar.
Otherwise, I’ve been back on my trek through early Simpsons. Though it’s one of the few episodes of this era I’d seen before, “Lisa’s Substitute” still stood out to me as an early highlight, as moving as anything on television without feeling schmaltzy the way a few Season One entries did. The “You Are Lisa Simpsons” note is the moment that (rightly) gets all the attention, but I was taken by the ending, with a rare win (even rarer; it’s earned!) for Homer. It’s not easy to make Homer look so bad for twenty minutes and then have him pull everything together and come through for his family at the last second, but dammit, this episode does it, and that’s some tremendous writing right there.
BOOKS
I recently finished “The Rest of Us Just Live Here” by Patrick Ness, a novel that’s a bit of a parody of typical YA stories, or of series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer where a group of teenagers are the “chosen ones.” “Rest of Us” has that world-altering story play out in the background, instead choosing to focus on the kids who have to try to live a normal life in the shadow of their more “blessed” peers. The parody portions made me laugh harder than they should have (at least four of the chosen teens are named “Finn”), but mostly I was taken by how well these kids living through world-altering circumstances mirrored our current world in the time of Covid. The heightened back-drop should probably make the protagonists’ normal problems look small by comparison, but instead Ness is able to bring out the drama and danger of the mundane. A particular highlight is a full chapter — the main character, Mike, at his therapy appointment — that plays out only in dialogue. The choice keeps readers at a distance from Mike and puts us on the same level as his therapist, forcing us to tease the truth out of Mike rather than letting us be privy to his thoughts as in the rest of the novel. It’s gripping stuff.
MUSIC
Oddly, this week I’ve been on a bit of a Waterparks kick. I haven’t really listened to these guys much since, like, 2016 or 2017, and even then I was already way too old to really be a part of their target demographic. But while their last couple releases haven’t done all that much for me, their early work holds up as fun, catchy, upbeat electronica-fused pop-punk. The first four tracks of their debut album, Double Dare, are about as perfect a streak of bangers as you could ask for (that album’s biggest weakness is that it’s 13 tracks instead of 10); album opener “Hawaii (Stay Awake)” is a track I could, and have, listen to on repeat for far too long. Give it a shot!
This week brought two new exciting music announcements that couldn’t be more different. One one end, Philadelphia power-pop band Hurry is releasing their first new album in three years, “Fake Ideas.” The video — directed by scene darling Chris Farren — features the kind of hilariously sarcastic self-aggrandizing the band’s merch and live sets do so well, while the song itself delivers the kind of chill jam I’ve come to expect and love from Hurry.
Fun fact: for their last record, Hurry singer/songwriter Matt Scottoline drew portraits of any fan who sent in a picture of themselves and a screenshot of their buying the album. Here’s what he came up with for me:
On the other end of the spectrum, pop-punk legends Descendents are releasing a “new old” album; the first ever recordings of songs from their earliest years as a band, and their first release since “Milo Goes to College” with the band’s original line-up. The first single is only a minute, but it’s a blisteringly, hella punk minute of classic Descendents.
Friend of the newsletter Len was telling me about a Descendents Facebook group breaking out into chaos as a bunch of sixty-year-old fans all freaked out about buying vinyl, and I’m sorry, but I think that’s the coolest story ever. I hope I still care that much about music when I “grow up.”
Fun fact: Descendents singer Milo Auckerman, like me, lives in Delaware! I’m pretty sure he hates it here, but who doesn’t? I’ll take what wins I can.
COMIC BOOKS
Kieron Gillen is my favorite comic book writer for a reason. Back in December I declared his Once and Future one of my Favorite Comics of 2020. I stand by that assessment, but I’ll admit that over the last few months I’d been having trouble keeping up with the plot. Once and Future 18 won me back in a big way, though, with an ending that upended the entire premise in one fell swoop. It’s not just that there’s a twist, it’s that it was perfectly executed; Gillen and artist Dan Mora lulled readers into a sense of security with a seemingly definitive ending, then let us watch in horror as it all fell apart due to circumstances planted right under our noses throughout this arc. I’m jealous of how well this works; and how wild the next arc looks like it will be.
Over at Marvel, Gillen is also writing The Eternals. I’ve never read this property or about these characters before, and Gillen makes them approachable and understandable without ever letting his writing become dry, overly expository, or pretentious. He’s really the perfect writer for the job, capable of elevating these eternal guardians of Earth and granting them the gravity they deserve while still allowing them to have relatable moments and even finding sparks of humor inside their labyrinthian machinations. Much of this comes from the series’ narrator, an Eternal machine that 1. isn’t all that fond of humans and 2. is also malfunctioning, granting it a very human litany of quirks.
Gillen is just perfectly suited for this project.
ASSORTED ARTICLES
This article was inescapable on Twitter this weekend, but is worth highlighting anyway. The New Yorker managed to land the first ever real interview with elusive Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder, the man responsible for writing more of the show’s scripts than any other and shaping some of its most important characters and moments. This interview goes beyond the Simpsons trivia, and though it’s vital reading for anyone with even the slightest interest in what it’s like to write for television, it goes beyond that too; it’s a work of art in its own right.
Even in an interview the man is funnier than I’ll ever be!
Rolling Stone also dropped their list of the Top 100 Sitcoms of All Time, which is so my jam that it isn’t funny. If I knew this was coming out I would have taken off work tomorrow in order to fully appreciate it, and I’m only half-kidding about that. My favorite sitcom made it in the Top 10; how did yours do?
TOP “WAS GARFIELD FUNNY TODAY?” OF THE WEEK
It’s only the project’s second week and I got to give out a hard “yes!” This is why I think Garfield is a good candidate for a kind of project like this; a strip like this slips through the PAWS Inc. quality control just often enough to keep things interesting in the otherwise tepid sea of uninspired punchlines and copy-and-paste art.
I’ll note that, while Garfield was never a brilliant comic, in the eighties it leaned into the same kind of absurdity that this installment does on a pretty regular basis, and was better off for it.
ABOUT
“Do You Know What I Love the Most?” is a newsletter from Spencer Irwin about his relationship with the stories he loves. Spencer is an enthusiast and writer from Newark, Delaware, who likes punk rock, comic books, working out, breakfast, and most of all, stories. His previous work appeared on Retcon Punch, One Week One Band, and Crisis on Infinite Chords, and he can be found on Twitter at @ThatSpenceGuy. If you like this newsletter, please subscribe and share with your friends!
Logo by Lewis Franco, with respects to Saves the Day.