I could repeat my comments from last episode, but I won't do this. In a nutshell: it looks awesome, but the story and most characters are mediocre. I still enjoy it but it's certainly not great.
Let me talk about something else instead. Tolkien's work and Jackson's adaptation have always received their fair share of criticism regarding ethnic and racial stereotypes. One example is the problematic Wagner-ish portray of dwarfs. I won't go into this. Enough was said about this. In this show, they added Hobbit "ancestors". Hobbits were never funny and a a big fat Irish stereotype. Now they added this element of "migration". How could you not think that they are inspired by Irish Travellers? The Harfoots have other traits allegedly ascribed to their culture: they too love music, gather around campfires, organize themselves in families and live at the edge of society in relative poverty. It's like costume artists were fans of The Kelly Family. I'm not even saying that only negative stereotypes are reverberated: the Harfoots are too likable to immediately incite prejudice and discrimination against Travellers. But I wonder why they always do that in this franchise? Why do they often use a discriminated ethnic or racial group as a template and why do they choose to portray them in a very stereotypical way? They could have designed this people very differently very easily. Who's next? Gypsies? Pygmy peoples? Sámi? Eurasian nomads aka "horse people"? It doesn't really bother me though. (I'm not a snowflake and I realize that fiction is different from reality). This was mostly an academic remark. But I think, it was worth to be mentioned. Instead, very interestingly though, the show is (totally unfairly) criticized by some for including (as in: inclusion) black actors. Really? It makes you think whether "our" value system is well calibrated.
PS: I knew it. Yolandi Visser is one of these weird, otherworldly, pale elves. These guys are elves, right?
Galadriel and Halbrand arrive on Numenor and we get to know Elendil and his family. The island realms of Numenor is impressive and looks really wonderful, Galadriel seems a tad less irritating this episode, but I have no idea why they totally changed the history of Numenor, while they had the rights to the Appendices in LotR, where that history is summarised. Apparently Tar-Miriel is the queen, her father is still alive in some tower, and Pharazon is only her counsellor and not the usurper king (though they can put things right later on by making him usurp the kingship but why complicate matters in the first place when they could have followed the Appendices they had the right to?) I liked the tower of lore with all its scrolls, apparently Galadriel befriended Elendil and he took her there, but the horse-riding scene is really kitschy, Galadriel has a grimace as if she was really straining and not enjoying the ride. She discovers in one of the scrolls that the sign Sauron left was actually the map of Mordor which he plans to establish, how silly of Sauron to lay down his secrets like this. Halbrand fares worse than Galadriel as he antagonises some local smiths and lands in prison, Galadriel finds out that he is some sort of leader of men, though it is not clear whether the good ones or the bad ones. From the interest he showed in the smithy, he could have been Sauron but I guess that the guy Adar the orc worship would turn out to be Sauron in the end (maybe Adar because they don't have the rights to the name Annatar?). Elendil's family is OK, even the invented sister is not so jarring, but here they are sailors and not members of the royal house which is also a huge mistake. The worst part about the Numenor plot is that they never say that the reason why the Men estranged themselves from the Elves was because they were jealous of the Elvish immortality (as it is not said anywhere in the show that the Elves are immortal), so the reason behind the Numenoreans' dislike of the Elves is never explained. This is a huge mistake that would bite the showrunnners back later on.
The hobbits has some sort of celebration before leaving their current camp, and Nori decides to steal a page of Sadoc's book to find out more about the constellations the Stranger has showed her, the sequence about the theft and her friend Poppy covering for her is quite funny. But her dealings with the Stranger are discovered as he puts the stolen pages on fire by accident. She is to be punished and as a result her whole family has to travel at the back of the whole colony, which is especially hard due to her dad's twisted ankle, as the hobbits have to drag their wagons themselves. This seemed a bit un-hobbit like to punish the whole family for what only Nori did. In the end, it looks like the Stranger helps them to push the wagon. I hated the hobbits in the trailers but now I am used to them and they seem the mosst enjoyable part of the show. They are a bit like pixies from myths and legends, deeply rooted in nature, and it is rather sweet, though the last speech of their leader brings back to mind Bilbo's speech in Peter Jackson's films. They also had some commemoration of their dead, lost during the journey, which was quite moving.
Arondir lands in orcish slavery, where other Elves and Men work under the whip of the orcs, which are very sensitive to sunlight and can be seriously burned by it. This may be a callback to Morgoth enslaving Elves in the First Age, as well as Arondir fighting the warg, which may bring to mind Finrod fighting such a creature in defence of Beren when they were captured in Sauron's tower. It is a nice touch to refer to some material they have no rights to, but why on earth they do not use that one they do have access to properly? The show could have been much better if they stayed true to the summary of Numenorian history written in the Appendices. Now as it is, it does not make much sense.
[9.6/10] The vast majority of us live in bubbles of one kind or another. No matter how broad our experiences or perspectives, there’s spaces where we tend to feel comfortable, circles that we tend to run-in, and those unofficial metes and bounds of our lives shape who we are and how we feel. But so do the times we’re able to pierce them.
My bubble is very different from Alice’s, but what grabs you in “Houston”, the best episode of Mrs. America’s already sterling season, is how relatable her experience at the National Women’s Conference in 1977 feels despite its specificity to a particular moment in time and one woman’s very particular processing of it all.
Some of that comes from the fact that, unlike many of the major figures in this show, Alice is a composite character, a fictionalized reimagining of the sort of women who allied themselves with Phyllis Schlafly. That gives the series’s writers some extra wiggle room, a more blank canvas upon which to project awakenings and epiphanies, without the surly sandbagging that comes from having to maintain fidelity to real people and their true histories.
Make no mistake, that also gives way to a fair bit of wish fulfillment and fantasy. The fact that in the span of one weekend, Alice has all of these experiences that make her question if she’s on the wrong side, that persuade her that her own beliefs push her toward more complexity and acceptance than the Stop ERA crowd allows, that cause her to rethink her allegiance and maybe her whole life, is implausible, or at least exaggerated.
But that’s the beauty of fiction, which this is, bundled neatly within a series of true stories. It allows storytellers to heighten and package an array of experiences in a single vessel, making some moments symbolic or representative, but lining them up for maximum impact. It’s no coincidence, to my mind, that our perspective character here is named Alice, because like the great tale of fantasy from Lewis Caroll, our hero slides down the rabbit hole, takes a pill that affects her perception, and finds a startling new world on the other side of the looking glass.
It’s a world where nothing goes the way that she and Pamela planned. In their fight to make a stand against “the libbers”, they end up accidentally becoming liberated themselves, or at least one step closer to it. That’s another of the key ironies in this show, one that vindicates Bella and Gloria’s push to let all women participate. By the very act of having all of these women come together, forced to act independently at least a little to participate, hearts and minds can’t help but change a little, forged in the bonds of sisterhood and self-discovery.
So sure, it’s a rush how quickly that happens for Alice, but each vignette and experience is a potent one, and one more prick to puncture her bubble. She finds that her privilege has no power here, whether it’s walking to the front desk and insisting that she made her reservation or telling the clerk that she’ll get her husband involved to no avail. She’s left with no choice but to share a hotel room with a black woman and her daughter, and to sleep in the closet lest she be kicked by Pamela in their head-to-toe sleeping arrangement. Her usual comfort and security is gone here, forced to fend for herself amid the crowd of equals.
But the real turning point comes when she sits down with a kind southern woman, who perceives Alice’s forlorn conditions and gives her solace...as well as what might be some acid? Their conversation is the first major flip of Alice’s expectations here, when she meets someone who could be her: a mother, a church-goer, a wife who was devoted to her husband. The difference is that this woman is a devoted member of the National Organization for Women, despite her cutting an image that’s familiar to Alice instead of the radical lesbian feminists she was imagining.
That’s the thrust of this episode. Through her safe environs inside the prairie state, she had a particular idea of what the opposition was like, of how they were evil, cruel, unreasonable, and almost inhuman. So much of Alice’s journey here is her reconciling that propaganda caricature with the reality of the decent, considerate, very human and humane people she meets in Houston.
The acid doesn’t hurt that realization though! “Houston” has a real Mad Men feel to it, reviving that show’s periodic drug trip episodes that would allow it to get a little more impressionistic and experimental. Director Janicza Bravo shakes and rattles the camera ever so slightly, or shoots Alice from powerful angles as she kneels before a nun. The editor deploys unnerving cuts that move Alice through the frame in ways that violate the grammar of film. Sparkling reflections and images projected on screens present Alice with different visions of herself. And thumping bass drums and train whistles signify in sound the thundering discombobulation that Alice is going through.
On that trip, a term which carries extra meaning here, she sees how the other half lives. She realizes that a majority of people support the ERA, in contrast to her assumed silent majority. She finds out that one of her favorite patriotic songs is also a socialist anthem. She sees how the anti-gay posters she and her confederates put up hurt real people who are no longer abstract boogiemen but flesh and blood human beings. She witnesses other women’s libbers as church-goers, who are not godless, but rather see their faith as a blessing and motivation for their cause.
More than anything, she sees their kindness. She listens to random knockers on a bathroom stall just want to make sure that the women they hear crying in there are OK. She contrasts Rosemary chastising him for eating out of the trash with kind nuns telling her where to find food. She watches a group of organizers commiserate, listen to, and laugh with one another when deciding on their course for the convention floor.
And most importantly, she sees her bete noire, Gloria Steinem, leading them with kindness and making sure each of them is okay with the decision before she goes forward. It’s a sharp contrast to the dicatotorial bent that Phyllis deploys and which Rosemary imitates in her stead. Alice and Pamela gaze at their arch enemy, having planned all the vicious things they’ll say to her. Instead, they can only gape at her equal and opposite self-assurance. Instead of the vitriol Alice expects, Gloria just compliments her. It’s in contrast to the barbed kiss Phyllis plants on her later in the episode before telling her to “fix her face,” a telling echo of Alice’s fever dream.
Rosemary strips Alice of her speaking role after one rough interview; Bella reiterates the Eagles’ right to speak despite their harsh disagreements. Stop ERA is a den of vipers ruled by their queen cobra, ready to tear women like Alice down and keep them from speaking for themselves. The National Women’s Conference is a place where women from different walks of life build one another up, empower one another, support one another.
It’s in these moments, after Alice has spoken so admiringly about Phyllis, that she begins to realize her alleged dear friend’s subtle abuses and negging. Her southern drinking partner remarks that Alice has no trouble expressing herself. Alice looks hard at a copy of a newsletter which declares that Phyllis is liberated because she makes her own choices, while bossing people like Alice around. Suddenly it dons on her that this has all been a lie, but that this work prepared to genuinely break through and break free.
Alice’s speech to her would-be allies, asking about common ground and something other than total opposition, lays it on a little thick. But the story is told best through Sarah Paulson’s acting. Paulson is a pro at selling the combination of disorientation and awe that Alice experiences as she goes through the thick of her trip. Even moreso, the story of her gradual, night-long transformation comes through in Paulson’s expressions: a wide-eyed gaze, an exaltation of joy, a thousand yard stare that sells the weight of her realizations.
But it also sells the way that she is energized, invigorated, to be a part of this grand achievement and collection of women expressing themselves. She stands in support of the conference’s closing resolution of solidarity, visibly affected by all that she’s seen and heard, before the attendee’s join arm in arm and sing “We Shall Overcome.”
The conference-goers may have been one verse away from declaring, “We shall not be moved,” but I was. How could you not be? How could you not feel something when Betty Friedan casts aside her self-admitted prejudice and supports her lesbian compatriot’s civil rights? How could you not be affected by the moment when Alice turns to Pamela and tells her, “I’m sorry. I will help you.” How could you not see all these women, with their friends, allies, and daughters, joining together in sisterhood and not have your heart swell?
Alice does. It’s stark contrast to the cold scene she sees when she arrives at Phyllis’s counter-rally, one with a confederate flag in the background, an attempt at a hug nearly thwarted by what’s implied to be Klan bodyguards, and another veiled putdown from her supposed friend. There are two images presented here, one of warmth and ecumenical grace and empowerment, and one where you’re expected to tow the line set by whoever can exert their authority over you.
That’s the power of breaking out of that bubble. It shows us an alternative. It shows us the real versions of the people on the other side of our cocoons, not the exaggerated spectres we imagine. And it shows us how life could be, but for a few choices on way or another, that might enrich us, engage us, or free us.
