Last week, I got hospitalized for yet another bought of amoebiasis. It included enough horrific bodily fluids-centric moments to gross just about anyone but the consummate over-sharer that I am – will just get do what I do best.
This whole conflama all started one Saturday night, when my family and I attended a relative’s milestone birthday held at a local restaurant. Now as much as I want to namedrop this place, I won’t because there might be an off-chance they might end up seeing this blog and I’ve had enough drama. Anyway, we were at the party, I was parched from eating too many cake pops and I inadvertently drank the service water, which my cousin thinks might have come from the tap. I filmed and cheered for my kid brother’s band later that night at separate event and everything was fine until the morning after. That’s when I started feeling all kinds of something-somethings.
For the next three days, I was in a downward spiral. It was midweek and the office was bustling with people but my entire body felt clammy, I was very dehydrated, tired from too many sleepless nights and maybe, just a little bit crazed. I was basically Harrison Ford on the set of Raiders – dysentery and a busy schedule do not mix well together. I was in no knife fight but all I really wanted to just shoot someone and more than anything I just wanted to go lie down and rest. However, I was discouraged by the many medical professionals at work from going home and suggested that I seek immediate care. So off to the nearest medical facility I went! After a tumultuous visit to the ER and various lab work – it was found out that the microscopic bastards inside my body were once again acting up.
My grandma and I ended up sharing a hospital room because she also needed to be admitted – she’s been having mild breathing issues and because of her advanced age, the family didn’t wanna take any chances. And so regardless of my status as a patient, I was still her designated caretaker.
In between following doctor/nurse’s orders and lugging both our IV poles around, I managed to sneak in some trashy romance novels and caught up on shows I’ve been meaning to see for a long time.
This was the show I was excited for the most. The Umbrella Academy comics have been around for a while and what kind of MCR/Gerard Way fan would I be if I haven’t read them?
Aidan Gallagher convincingly plays a cynical old man. Ellen Page plays the emo kid in all of us. Tom Hopper likes to play the same characters – fiercely devoted to his family and loyal to his father until said staunchness gets you burned literally and even to a crisp! Oh Dickon Tarly, you never learn do you. I haven’t formed a solid opinion on Emmy Raver-Lampman’s Allison yet but let’s face it though, Robert Sheehan was quite honestly, all the best parts of this show.
And I cannot unsee or unhear the comment Let Me Explain made about David Castañeda’s (No. 2 aka The Kraken aka Diego) eerie physical and even vocal similarity to Noel Miller. Of course, I’ve been nursing a crush on them both – separately! – but after that comment, the lines have been getting blurry.
Sex Education was exactly what I expected it to be – delightfully raunchy – but also manages to be deeply profound and is able to address serious topics without losing its playful tone and the dry humour of the British we all love. It reminded me a lot of Skins and the countless other UK-based series that I watched as a teenager.
Asa Butterfield plays Otis, a skinny nerd that’s ambivalent towards the concept of sex despite having a kickass sex therapist mum, played by the stunning and equally charismatic Gillian Anderson. It seems everyone Otis goes to school with is an asshole in varying degrees. In the show, I like how all these different personalities interact, clash and complement each other and how it all feels normal, organic even. The various plotlines and the many conflicts, whether its between the central characters themselves, their parents/family, their significant others or whatever, make good entertainment.
I bet a lot of the struggles presented in this show resonate with a lot of people and that’s what makes it great. I’m looking forward to next season – lots of loose ends and plot points need to come together. I’m honestly excited to see more trashy teen behavior.
The last show I got to binge during this whole endeavor was Russian Doll. You can tell that this show is Natasha Lyonne’s baby. It’s also unsurprising that the amazing Amy Poehler is a co-creator along with Lyonne herself, and Leslye Headland, who I found out has a pretty solid reputation to date and loves to focus on “complex female characters and portraying women and women’s experiences in a truthful way”, which to me are all signs that the show is in good hands.
The story centers around Nadia, who on her birthday gets caught in a twisted time-loop a la Groundhog Day. Halfway through the series, she meets Alan who is also trapped in his own personal time-loop hell. Both are going through rough patches in their lives and together they must figure out how to stop their respective loops which, unbeknownst to them, are intricately connected. I believe the show is fresh and out-of-the-box. I personally haven’t had so much fun watching people in their mid-life crises accidentally kill themselves repeatedly.
Russian Doll has a haunting and almost hypnotizing soundtrack, excellent choice of songs featured throughout the season, most notably Harry Nillson’s Gotta Get Up. The plot really tries to reel you in which it succeeds in doing and the build up in every episode is done in a way that will keep you biting on your fingernails. You’re invested into the main characters and how it’ll end for them. I also love the fact that Natasha Lyonne is playing her character as herself and it gets all very meta. I read somewhere, that she said some elements found in the show came from her personal experiences, making her character’s struggles even more genuine.
I’m really excited for Season 2 and despite lacking an official announcement from Netflix to date, we can expect great things from this show – and more of this too:
That’s all I’ve got for now, folks. I’m just glad to be out of the hospital and finally getting back to normal.
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life by misadventure. 