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| Otalia - Guiding Light | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 29 2009, 06:54 PM (21,265 Views) | |
| cagey | Jul 21 2009, 01:57 AM Post #406 |
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G3 Curtain and Duvet!
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Okay, just finished watching the whole ep. It's so sad, but in such a mature way, I was really impressed. Was today's theme about not living up to one's personal expectations and/or the need of the love of one's beloved in order to reach those lofty goals? Or maybe it's the absence of the beloved that makes one's flaws apparent? Anyway lots of people at all sorts of levels of grieving and within that tableau, Olivia is merely one of the players. By the way, Buzz refers to Olivia at 24:30 in the cbs.com version. It gave me this eerie feeling of the alive lost souls wandering the cemetery looking for their missing.
And then she goes to the bar, drinks more and kicks herself for that failing of up until now, she's never picked up her daughter while drunk.
I did like that Josh made it clear sex was not going to fix the pain either of them is in. I get the feeling this day may last all week. As for the rain - or what we Californians might identify as rain, but that in Springfield must be considered the humidity - it just added to the morose feeling of the show. I was really enjoying it. |
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| abzug | Jul 21 2009, 02:08 AM Post #407 |
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In love with a prisoner
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Yeah, but she didn't drive.
As someone who lives in the vicinity of Peapack NJ, I'm getting a kick out of seeing our insanely crappy June weather replayed during these July episodes. I was trying to figure out which of the four or five torrential downpour days was the one where they filmed this episode. I mean, please, Emma's scene was under the craft services tent! My lord! They must have been desperate. You can barely hear the dialogue from the rain falling above them. But yeah, it did wind up being quite fitting. |
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| ekny | Jul 21 2009, 02:57 AM Post #408 |
In love with a prisoner
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Yeah... just didn't feel like it went anywhere, dramatically. Tired of seeing Olivia beat herself up for her imaginary failings, maybe, when at this point this mess is all Natalia's doing. Also surprised she was so vague with Josh, with his never-ending come-ons--the level of her responsiveness to that is beginning to seriously get on my nerves--but suppose under the circumstances it would have been inappropriate discussing her situation more directly with the Tragedy of Jeffrey hanging over everyone. (& more to the point, it's in keeping with her character. Just wish she'd prove impervious to it, for once: everything that comes out of his mouth, with her, is a pick-up line. His *non*-pick-up lines are pick-up lines. Not shagging him is not the issue. Sorry, just a small dykey objection.) ETA: I just saw the scene with Buzz, & despite his general tendency for scenery-chewing, found this appropriately low-key & felt it *did* make sense & sort of gave a different feel to the ep as a whole.
ITA, you nailed it. The image was depressing as hell; actually moreso than anything I saw. Because I just don't think Olivia's wandering around for Jeffrey's sake in the cemetery. NB: never declare eternal luv in a cemetery. Just sayin. |
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| cagey | Jul 21 2009, 03:33 AM Post #409 |
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G3 Curtain and Duvet!
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Josh and Olivia: both parties have tremendous sexual frustration. Both parties thought they were doing the best for their object of affection and got shafted for it. Both parties aren't serious about the flirtation they just need to get the energy out somehow and need someone who gets what the problem is. The handy thing about it being Jeffrey who is dead, is that Olivia can speak a bit to her grief about Natalia and make it almost sound like she meant Jeffrey - which I suppose she does on some level, but, um, not all that much imo. At least he really was her friend, so it makes sense she would be upset. Josh is only upset because Reva is upset - well I don't mean it that callously but that, he and Jeffrey were rivals not friends.
I can't decide if she was looking for Natalia or coming to ask Gus where Natalia is. Both of them are phantoms at this point.
That wasn't the craft services tent - no, that was the day camp's craft area - with the shade so the kiddies won't get sunburned. Donchaknow.
"I'm just a mess. I guess everything is wrong when the person you love is gone." Just noted that both Josh and Christina ask specifically: "are you okay?" The damn is gonna burst soon! Just for you abzug I have to admire the nice dykey leg spread at the table at Farley's. Drinking the long necks, shooting pool -- I mean, really, who is Olivia kidding? |
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| solitasolano | Jul 21 2009, 04:16 AM Post #410 |
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cagey, don't know about abzug, but I for one thank you for the "nice dykey leg spread" alert which passed by unnoticed upon first viewing, but now well appreciated. Thanks for getting me started. There are a couple of extra words in there at the peak of Olivia choking up, face away from the camera. "I don't know. I'm just a mess. But, I guess....everything you feel is wrong when the person you love is gone." "I'm okay, right?" That plays as an end of a scene. Someone in SF must have noticed Natalia was missing by now. Guess not. |
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| ekny | Jul 21 2009, 05:19 AM Post #411 |
In love with a prisoner
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Ok, I checked--you're right, it plays as end of scene, yeah. I heard: I don't know, I'm just a mess. But I guess everything just feels wrong when the person you love is gone, right? Hm? Right? I'm right, right? |
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| solitasolano | Jul 21 2009, 05:38 AM Post #412 |
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Bingo. Maybe you should have my job. |
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| abzug | Jul 21 2009, 01:04 PM Post #413 |
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In love with a prisoner
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Nice article written by a guy who has been an extra on Guiding Light for 25 years, about the cancellation of the show: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/07/21/guiding_light/
Oh, wow. That's not how I've been reading Olivia's grief at all. I don't think she's beating herself up, or blaming herself. I think she's taking on responsibility to try to fix it, because she's a do-er, not the type to sit back and see what Natalia does. But that doesn't mean she thinks it's her fault. The lines about making mistakes many times a day--I don't think those had anything to do with Natalia in her mind. At that point she was preoccupied with Emma. And while she might worry that she's not worth loving (that would be the other undercurrent of such a line), that to me is a general self-esteem issue; it's not her sitting there thinking "Gee, what did I fuck up that caused Natalia to abandon me?"
I didn't think she was responsive at all! I mean, it was a HUGE contrast to the kiss, which was just a month ago, when she was similarly out of Natalia's orbit, and yet this time she couldn't have had less interest. Her "can't" line wasn't just about "Oh, hey, I've got a girlfriend and can't cheat on her, but if I didn't, I'd be jumping into bed with you in a milisecond." That "can't" was about not even being able to think about being sexual with anyone other than the woman that she loves. In fact, it was about her newfound complete lack of interest in sex for sex's sake (as opposed to sex for love's sake). All I saw between these two was some platonic affection and shared loneliness.
Fuck! I totally missed this! Turning on tv right now to rewatch.... (Although I did appreciate the drinking beer out of a bottle thing, since it's so dykey and so not Olivia.) |
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| marymartin | Jul 21 2009, 01:39 PM Post #414 |
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The ghost of Larkhall!
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That is certainly one way to look at it but everyone drinks beer from a bottle on this show. GL has more scenes with beer, wine and martinis, than any soap on tv. I don't know of one episode where someone isn't drinking. Natalia drank out of a bottle, the day she went to Farley's looking for Rafe and was doing shots. Beers |
| "Thomas is gorgeous. He's everything you would want in a man. But I want a woman." | |
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| ekny | Jul 21 2009, 03:27 PM Post #415 |
In love with a prisoner
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"According to Variety, this season the show has averaged 2.2 million viewers." Nielsen had been giving the numbers as between 1.5-1.6 a week, at least during March-April, no? Mildly interesting discrepancy. (I know Nielsen sucks: am just wondering where Variety gets *their* numbers from, bec I'd have assumed the same place.) Solitasolano... um. Does your job pay, um, "money" & stuff? I've heard of that. Call me. ![]() The beer-drinking just struck me as yet-more product placement. I think as mainly Americans on this thread we just might be more sensitized to the alcohol thing? I'd rather look at beer than laundry products, myself.... |
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| cagey | Jul 21 2009, 04:27 PM Post #416 |
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G3 Curtain and Duvet!
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Beer product placement - I've finally managed to read the label on the long neck beer. On tap they have Rolling Rock and Bud Light and a table card for Marie Brizard cocktails, but the beer of choice at Farley's is: PLCKS. Goes well with the PITZ crackers available at the mini-mart.
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| Jeanna | Jul 21 2009, 05:29 PM Post #417 |
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I said SIT IN THAT CHAIR
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Thanks for that. So...the scene where Buzz mentions that Olivia was in the cemetary (I got that stark Spoon River/Our Town lost soul feeling too)...but is there any way of knowing if there was an actual dropped scene there? |
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| ekny | Jul 21 2009, 05:38 PM Post #418 |
In love with a prisoner
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I don't disagree with this view of Olivia. It's been in the back of my head since you posted it, because... something about it seems--really optimistic? Still thinking about it. I have to take into account Olivia's massive self-esteem issues; and the fact that, in practice, she has spent enough time apologizing to ( I'm not saying she hasn't handled things remarkably well, up til now, or that that will change. But I can totally see her making this way too easy on Natalia when N. returns. Saying I shouldn't have pushed about the sex, or the barbecue, or the moon being in retrograde, whatever. In short, if a rational person were standing in Olivia's shoes, they'd look around and say, Ok, does this have anything to do with me? Insufficient data. But a person in love, who is not sure if they've even been chosen, much less rejected, isn't like to be able to maintain that level of rationality for many hours of the day. Insidious doubts will creep in, and they will say: what did I do wrong? It's only natural. (And most of all, of course: if she loved me, why the hell wouldn't she have left me a note? There is no way not to take that personally, in Olivia's position.) |
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| ekny | Jul 21 2009, 07:27 PM Post #419 |
In love with a prisoner
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PLCKS: that's a very famous German beer, yah? Nice one. :lol: Caught the Rolling Rock right away. Philly, yo. 33. Used to be able to pick up a case for $8 at the distributors. Yeah yeah, and a lid used to cost $40. A'ite, I'm gonna bounce. |
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| cagey | Jul 22 2009, 03:15 AM Post #420 |
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G3 Curtain and Duvet!
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Pivo PLCKS - Czech - you can tell by the absence of vowels. Their slogan: Have one, have a dozen - Pronunciation is never a problem. ![]() Random thoughts - Blake telling Olivia to return to her roots - that was her best Password clue for Natalia is pregnant, isn't it? Frank: feeling not quite like the good man today. I had a moment of delirious speculation thinking that it is possible that Frank may not feel like such a good man for getting Natalia with child. Because really, in the world of soaps, if everyone exclaims that a character is a Good Man, something has got to be seriously flawed. I refuse to believe all those Good Man back slaps are heterosexual story line reinforcement.
In as much as it was the end of that *day's* part of the conversation, yes it ends the scene, but you are very correct that the conversation was not over - as was apparent today. Which brings me to ask if we can look again at what is going on with the non stop double entendres coming out of Josh. They don't bother me - but can we look at why this character has been in this position throughout the Otalia storyline? He has become the siren crooner, tempting Olivia at every turn. Does he really know everything and is enjoying watching her squirm and continually reject him? Or is this allegorical, metaphorical or otherwise meaning something other than what is on the surface?
Well encapsulated, that. I believe there are support groups using multiple vowels that are full of people with these characteristics. Yep, the search for the roots is on. By way of Chicago. Now much as I would love to see Olivia discovering the true backstory of Natalia, I suspect it will be a quick trip and then deep into her own past, because I fear this trip is going to be every bit as successful as the last expedition in search of the lost Rivera. |
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8:46 AM Jul 11