Jena’s Cinema Club

And just like that, we ended up having a conversation like this:

“Would Delorean like some pear?”

How come I’ve never heard of Ethel Cain/ Hayden Anhedönia before? At first it was just the title of this EP that piqued my interest - pretty bold for the name of the album. If only I had known how hooked I became once I gave it a listen 🫠 “Inbred” is so disturbing and hauntingly beautiful - with all those themes of generational trauma, abuse and the ugly underbelly of so-called “good”. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, I haven't even gotten to the “Preacher's Daughter” and “Willoughby Tucker…” yet, where Cain lore will become more coherent. Looks like one hell of a ride awaits me.

“Two-headed mother” is by far my favourite track. I love how she explores the ugly dark side of parenthood here. A force of nature that could destroy you just as easily as it could lift you up. I especially enjoy that circular feel between the opening and closing lines:

You think that you create the waves

But I create you

…

Two-headеd mother pulled you from the black

I also not really sure how I feel about those two together lol. I absolutely love my gorgeous girl Maddy and my Spike Spiegel’s evil twin and from the shipping perspective alone they are extremely delicious 🫠 But in the context of narrative wtf was that? It’s as if a crack ship you really like becomes canon out of the blue, and you don’t really know whether you love it or hate it. Like they barely even interacted! How did Bishop become soft on her? And he didn’t even care enough to actually stand up for her against Alamo. He just used an opportunity to betray his boss and take over, and got the best girl as a bonus. At least that’s how it was heavily implied in the show.

Idk man, as much as I love Bishop, doesn’t Maddy deserve something better than ending up with a psychopath and a cold-blooded murderer after everything she went through for her dumbass friends?

Well I guess it’s still better than being sexually abused by that creep Alamo 😭 At least I hope Bishop will treat her good. They will probably run some kind of digital brothel together and raise their sweet pup. This dark, somewhat crack ship is probably the best thing season 3 gave me. Wishing them all the happiness and looking forward to seeing lots of fanfics about them here 🤞

By the way does this ship even have a name? Like Biddy or MadShop? MadShop sounds pretty cool.

And it’s sad because the characters with all their controversy and ambiguity were always the heart of this show. The magnetic season 1 with its Petra Colin’s unique aesthetic got you hooked and really made you empathies with those kids. Scenes like with Rue and her dad on a hospital bed, Jules and Rue’s star crossed lovers edit, Cassie imagining her self ice skating as she went through abortion, all of it held so much emotional weight and tenderness.

So when Rue, our narrator we follow throughout the show, died so stupidly when she almost got to the “other better side”… idk it’s just made me feel soo viscerally unwell. It’s like with Sarah Lynn from Bojack Horsemen. Yeah Levinson’s writing not even nearly as great as Bojack’s and Sarah Lynn is actually way more tragic than Rue, but the parallel is still palpable to me. You see both of them as this comic reliefs (I mostly talk about s3 Rue here), you laugh at their antics and yet there’s nothing funny about their deaths (or their lives in general). It just left you heartbroken.

And dear God, could they at least handle Rue’s death with more idk dignity? It was just so dumb. Right up until the end, I didn’t believe that she actually took the pill Alamo gave her. Like how the fuck can you be that stupid? 🙈 And all of this for what? For the cool Tarantino style shooting scene in the strip club and cringe ending in the Texas farm with the most unrealistically looking farm girl in the whole media history? I started to laugh hysterically the moment camera zoomed on her trademark ig influencer face. Is this how the member of closed, out of touch with modern world community supposed to look like in Levinson’s head or was this some kind of meta joke amidst the corny dramatic prayer?

Oh, Moses never made it to the promised land, and so does Rue. Okay, I get it, Levinson, just chill with all your biblical references already. Seriously, it’s like he read bible while being high and just like Lexi was fascinated with its sex and violence and decided to make it cool again. BAM! Here’s your season 3, fuck you very much 🤡