June 7, 2021

I hung out with a group of friends inside for the first time yesterday, and I said some things I regret! Just insensitive stuff. Opinions that I should have kept to myself. I apologized at the time, and I figure that's the most I can do about it. That and regret it forever. 

Having friends is hard. Maybe it's always been this way or maybe it's particular to the post-pandemic now. Maybe it's my particular group of friends or maybe it's everybody. It just feels particularly easy to wound. Wounding with disagreement. Wounding with interruption. Wounding by lack of priority. Wounding by lack of perspective. I don't want to hurt anyone, but trying to be sensitive and careful all the time wipes me out! 

I wonder if it's a byproduct of being in LA, where rents are super expensive, and it feels hard -- it is hard -- to "succeed" in a normal way. Like having the stability of a house requires becoming a millionaire, practically. The razzle dazzle of the entertainment industry is right here. People constantly know they could be doing better. "Better" is all around them. 

Maybe not. My instinct is to say this is an other people's problem. Surely I don't have to think so hard before I say anything to my friends, right? My knee-jerk reaction is that everybody should take responsibility for their reactions. (Haha.) If people are feeling vulnerable/tender in a specific area, make that known. But I don't know, it seems not okay to be vulnerable/tender in every area. Ergh. Okay, enough of that. 

TVlog time! 

AVENUE 5

Season 1, Episode 7 – “Are You A Spider, Matt?” 

2020

Written by: Charlie Cooper and Daisy Cooper

Directed by: Becky Martin

Watched: 6/5/21

Frank thinks he sees the face of Pope John Paul in the poop orbiting the ship. Other people do as well and start a vigil on the upper decks of the ship. This pisses off litigious trillionaire Harrison, whom Judd is afraid of. Captain Ryan receives divorce papers from his husband and wife and is tasked with buttering up Harrison so he won’t sue. “It’s at the top of my agenda. It’s actually above the word ‘agenda.’” The Captain breaks and is demoted. Back on Earth, everyone hates Rav for negotiating 500 passenger deaths in order to receive government aid. 

Rating: ★★★

AVENUE 5

Season 1, Episode 8 – “This is Physically Hurting Me” 

Written by: Georgia Pritchett and Will Smith

Directed by: David Schneider

Watched: 6/5/21 

Oh whoops – this is actually the episode where the captain is demoted. The previous episode is when we learn that he’s the only one who can dock the ship when they get back to Earth. It takes people about 5 years to learn that, and they only have 3.5. The captain is doing a bad job at the simulator. But now he gets demoted, and it turns out he was wearing a toupee. In revealing the toupee and that he’s British, a faction of passengers believe that the whole thing is a simulation for reality TV. They find out the crew are actors as well (not the below decks crew though). Several people jettison themselves out the airlock. Sarah, an actor who’s part of the crew, gets jettisoned as well, which is sad. Rav boards the shuttle to Avenue 5 and realizes that either she can go back to earth now or Judd but not both. 

I liked how the training time of 4-5 years makes the ship’s problem that the journey is too short instead of too long. 

Rating: ★★★1/2 

AVENUE 5

Season 1, Episode 9 – “Eight Arms But No Hands” 

Written by: Ian Martin, Peter Fellows, and Sean Gray

Directed: William Stefan Smith

Earlier, Billie comes up with the plan to jettison 500-people’s worth of stuff. Like the similar weight. Karen has been in charge of accumulating the stuff. Matt feels responsible for the people air-locking themselves to death, so he’s changed the codes and hidden somewhere in the ship. Everyone has to find him because they need to jettison the stuff withing the hour in order to cut their trip time down to 6 months. The shuttle arrives, and Rav gets out. There’s a revolving cast of characters who board the shuttle and then get off, mostly because they’re forced too. John Finnemore plays the shuttle captain, which is exciting. Billie and the comedian are starting to kind of have a thing, but he’s also kind of terrible (and tries more than once to be the guy on the shuttle). Eventually Iris gets stuck on there, so she’s the one who’s going home. They find Matt and get the codes, and Karen jettisons all the stuff out the port side… which turns out is the wrong side. (There were more bays on that side than the back, so she thought it would be more efficient. BUT the whole point was to push some stuff backwards to propel the ship forwards.) Now instead of the journey being 3.5 years, it’s going to be 8 years. 

Haha. 

Rating: ★★★1/2