There were so many interesting pieces and shows in the pop culture space this past week, from Netflix’s The Tinder Swindler to the Wall Street Journal article that led to the unification of all shoeless households, so I’ll get right down to it.
A well-done true crime documentary should be, in my opinion, sharp and succinct — a limited series of not more than three episodes, or under two hours in one sitting, with an easy-to-follow timeline, and a clear villain. Netflix has not one, but two, offerings this past week that had the internet in a chokehold: The Tinder Swindler, and The Puppet Master: Hunting The Ultimate Conman.
While the former has been the more talked about, it was The Puppet Master that stayed with me long after I binged it. It’s an incredibly sad and sick tale that I wouldn’t have believed possible if I had heard about it second-hand which means that a summary won’t and can’t do it justice. The man is a menace and a villain in every sense of the word. Here’s the trailer:
Speaking of villains, there’s an often referenced rule of Twitter: you do not want to be the main character of The Discourse of the day. Last week, the (dis)honour was given to the author of this article Here’s Why I’ll Be Keeping My Shoes on in Your Shoeless Home. A snippet of the author’s thoughts, for those of you coming up against the paywall:
And here’s a peak at what Twitter had to say about that:
May I suggest that people respect the homes into which they are invited? I have a friend who insists on us bringing clean socks whenever we visit their home and nobody blinks twice about it. In fact, I have taken to having designated home socks that I wear when it’s cold because of that friend’s house rules and I am all the better — and warmer — for it.
Back to shows that I binged this week, Amazon Prime’s Reacher — based on Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels — was a surprising hit for me. If you know me, you’ll know that Romance is my preferred genre for books so I have very little background knowledge of the character other than the fact Tom Cruise played him in a movie or two.
So imagine my delight when Alan Ritchson’s portrayal of Reacher gave me a glimpse of what I imagined an “alpha” might look like IRL, with his quiet demeanour in stark contrast to his imposing stature.
As an avid reader of supernatural romance, it was really interesting to see how Reacher’s character reflected a lot of qualities of an archetypal alpha in Romancelandia — he’s gruff, he’s big, he’s a killer, but he’s also got an unerring sense of duty and moral responsibility to protect the world from bad people.
Here’s a great article breaking down the series, with a special nod to how much of it mirrors the HEA (Happily Ever After) trope that’s ever-present in Romance.
The series is well-paced, action and gore-packed, and while the actual romance scene left so much more to be desired (let’s just say that Amazon Prime is not HBO…), I found myself reaching to press the Next Episode button again and again.
As a fan of only watching sports when there’s a big event happening, I am always giddy to be reminded that Ice Dance is an Olympic Sport because it gives me an excuse to watch my favourite showmance — which I define as a romance crafted as part of a routine or show where the two performers are not in an actual romantic relationship — of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who have such explosive chemistry on ice that it has spawned so many fancams and theories on Reddit.
I mean would you look at how his eyes never leave her form, how carefree she jumps and falls from his arms to the floor, how gently his hand cups the back of her neck, or grazes a lock of hair from her arm as he reaches out to capture her into a spin? Phew. This routine made me so kilig I actually had to pause for a good 30 seconds just to let out a squeal.
Finally, here’s a quick list of pieces that I read the past week that made me pause, think and save to share with you guys:
- On this Olympic skier who scammed her way into the Games — it’s a pretty good grift; story from 2018
- On kids having their mother’s last name instead of their father’s — something that I have been thinking of since I am quite fond of and attached to my own
- On finding solace from grief in travel — while Hong Kong makes it difficult to travel at the moment, this piece by Matt Ortile hit home on several fronts
- On how there was a population of enslaved black people in the American Deep South who did not know they were free well into the 1960s — an article from 2018 that I found under the comments section of the trailer for Keke Palmer’s new movie, Alice
