Strange & Unusual

absolutely incredible line delivery from penn here

and boy, was i wrong...

the finale of YOU s5 was perfect. it surpassed my expectations for a great ending bc it went beyond the show's assumed formula and became a self-aware, raw and surprisingly feminist meta commentary on the show itself, joe goldberg, his victims and the real world realities of the victim/predator dynamics.

throughout the season, i wondered what was the point of introducing a character like louise. was it to show once again that joe will always find a flaw in his "soulmate" and continue the pattern of his predatory behavior?

yes, but more importantly, it all clicked and made sense when the finale revealed the point of louise to be about HER, not joe.

louise is not a random chick whose life and story is split in "before joe and after joe". she is an echo of beck. through louise we see that beck was not just a tragic heroine in joe's story, she was someone who left an impact on people in her life such as louise.

she is not the perfect victim or heroine. she has some moments of internalized misogyny, thinking that she is smarter than those women who fall for toxic men. she believes that she can fix joe. she fantasizes about being saved and dominated by him, giving him control to build her up bc she does not know who she is and has self-esteem issues, struggling to love herself without a lover's validation.

in some sense, she represents joe's perfect victim; in some sense, she represents the audiences who romanticize him. and she is the one who snaps out and sees herself clearly, thus seeing joe as he truly is and becoming his ultimate reckoning.

and with her, we see joe as he is as well. a pathetic misogynist with mommy issues who does not accept anything he deems selfish in women he preys upon. a predator who kills his prey once she does not reflect the image of himself to him he wants to see. someone who does not take accountability for harming others, always making excuses for himself. his mask is finally off, he is naked.

once louise confronts him and takes her voice back, demanding joe to admit the truth, the story takes off the romantic lenses that reminded more or less intact throughout the show and turns into a pure horror of brutality and violence.

but joe can not kill louise. metaphorically, it's bc he does not have power over her anymore, she found her own power in herself. power that is found through self-acceptance and love for all the victims who were silenced by joe. she declares that she is not bronte built in his fantasy, she is louise.

i actually teared up when louise had a vision of beck autographing her books and then it cut to an older lady, showing the lifetime that was taken away from her.

no

Im not gonna shut up about it actually - you season 5 spoilers so if you're not insane and didn't consume that season at the speed of delirium scroll now

But season 1 and the way the story was told was truly a testament to the way Joe saw the world and the way he stole Beck's voice the entire time and THAT is why she came across as bland and boring and irresponsible and messy in the first season and why she was so unsympathetic to so many (not me but some of y'all know who you are) because she WAS Joe's trope and she only existed because he SAW her in season one - her light was only applicable when we saw it shine on him and he was so fucking good at making it seem like he was the only thing that drew out her radiance and creativity and fucking brilliance and everything else in her life diminished her, Joe diminished her and capitalized off her insecurities to do so. He championed breaking women down so he could try to be the one to "build them back up"

And the above being inherently untrue is why she haunts him so much because the reality is - Joe was the one who was absolutely nothing special without someone's light shining on him and Beck shone SO fucking bright

But then!!!!! Season fucking five!!!!!! We finally, FINALLY, see Beck through the light of someone who looked up to her!!! Who ACTUALLY saw her!!!! For her brilliance, for her kindness, for her light. We saw the fact that Guinevere Beck touched so many lives and she drew people in to the point where her impact stayed even when she wasn't aware of it.

Guinevere Beck is the perfect showcasing of a character who's light draws good people in to bask and bad people in to corrupt and/or diminish and capture. Joe wanted to capture her light and steal her intelligence - he never would've written in the first place if not for Beck and her creativity - he had to steal her voice to give himself one. Joe was a pro at playing feminist and him claiming to be Zelda to Beck's Fitzgerald is a PERFECT example because in THAT lies the most insane metaphor that Joe sees himself as the visionary and Beck as the one capitalizing off him - the way he accredits himself for Beck's essays about Peach, accredits himself for Beck's novel, accredits himself for all of Beck's success and beauty. Painting himself as the victim at every turn when in reality, Beck was always Zelda and Joe was always stealing from her the same way Fitzgerald stole from his wife.

And in the end, he's the one who lost anything interesting about him. Louise gave Beck back the most important thing, her voice, her writings, and she took away from Joe what never should've been his in the first place. No one will ever read his legacy because he doesn't deserve to have one, but EVERYONE will read Beck's and know the truth and THAT is the most glorious ending i could've hoped for

Season 4 was such a clusterfuck horror show of what happens when misogynistic men are so good at undermining women by convincing them they are feminist and season 5 was all about the power of women finally seeing the light and coming together to save each other and take back their voices

Joe stole from every single woman he came across AND the show being so starkly in his head even stole sense from the audience so to have the wrap up be a collective wake up and criticism of societies willingness to forgive and romanticize bad men made me shed several tears.

Occasionally, alms for also left in there.

These ‘buchette del vino’ (literally ‘little wine holes’) are a typical Florentine phenomenon and had been in use until fairly recently; over the last decade people have started restorating and reopening them. There are about 170 of them around Florence. Here are a few ones: