The Chooper

Robert Eggers has been fascinated and haunted by Nosferatu since childhood

which, funnily enough, is the EXACT same thing every other female coworker of his has said. dearden, ganesh, briones, azeez... all of them. like I'm almost embarrased on behalf of these people who spread random hate. like congrats. the actors themselves think ur crazy.

what's really become obvious to me recently though, is that despite the fact we aren't getting a nightshift season (at least, any time in the foreseeable future), the point you can't handle one will be proved anyway. how? because of ellis. she's moving from night to day shift, and we're getting her as a major character next season. we'll get to know her character deeper, perhaps what drives her, what issues and setbacks she has, who she is. all the messy stuff we get to know about the day shift.

she's one of the characters people always wanted more of (rightly so, she's great), and was some people's reason for wanting a night shift season. and you'll get her! but unfortunately the point will be proved that, just like all the current main dayshift we know things about, you can't handle her. because the issue is that you love characters until you can't deny their problems, or their biases (which they all have), or their flaws. you can deny these things about the current night shift- it's why you think you want them, so you can claim that xyz character is soooo morally superior and better than xyz dayshift character (we need to look no further than response to robby and abbot to find this weak line of reasoning), and so you never have to feel uncomfortable.

you don't actually prefer nightshift because they're better, or kinder, or whatever other reason- you just don't know how to engage with human, complex characters, and don't know how to see someone's value when presented with their struggles and moral pitfalls. you think night shift would give you an easy watch where everyone is perfect and serene, and you're wrong.

so, when we get ellis next season, this is what will happen. people will initially cheer- here, we're getting more of the nightshift crew!- and that response will quickly fade and flip on its head. what we DO know about ellis is that she takes no shit. she's ferociously competent, doesn't and will not suffer fools gladly, and she can be a leader- no question about it. people will take umbrage with this in the blink of an eye. in addition, we'll find out about her personal struggles like we do robby, trinity, dennis, javadi etc- we'll see her FLAWS.

and suddenly, ESPECIALLY since she's a woman of colour, people will hate her. look at trinity. she hasn't actually done anything wrong- she just has a personality that doesn't back down, where she holds her own and can be headstrong and she's unafraid to do what's right. in female characters, that's not accepted. she gets called a bitch, gets called annoying and self centered, in comments that gain sometimes thousands of likes. the same WILL happen to ellis. she won't deserve it, but she'll get it.

she'll commit the crime of being a person with flaws you SEE and can't deny, a person who might say something that your favourite character might not like, a person you can't lie and say is a moral angel, free of any nuance. we'll get the same wars people have over trinity (and often al hashimi too), and people will still clamour for night shift season, not realising that they've proved exactly why they can't have one.

to reiterate- you want a night shift season because you think they're easier characters. you think they don't have flaws, you think you're finally getting someone Perfect. you're completely wrong. ellis, coming from night to day will be an unfortunate case study. she'll have all the depth and nuance of all the other main characters, and you'll be angry.

if you GOT a night shift season, this would be the case with every. single. character. heaven forbid what would happen when you would be forced to confront the fact that jack abbot is undeniably, utterly complicit in numerous civilian murders in the middle east, and that he still is part of the military industrial complex for real.

so yeah. you don't want a night shift season. you just can't handle nuance and you're looking for an easy way out. I'm almost scared of the way that the view of ellis will change in some sections of the fandom when we see her flaws. it won't be pretty in the same way the mob calling for robbys death wasn't pretty (and seriously, if that was you, you need to revaluate a LOT about yourself).

And I need people to start thinking of Dennis Nedry as Jurassic Park's representative of the lowest-bidding contractor. Burnt out under a capitalist boss who hires the cheapest labor he possibly can and demands miracles from them, in an exploitative system that forces people to undersell what they can afford to live by.

Like, in the long run, JP was doomed to fail for myriad reasons. Nedry is not the sole factor in why it went down.

In the original, the folk religion the inhabitants of Summerisle practice is in fact a 19th century re-construction of various British folk traditions, which was explicitly invented by Christopher Lee's character's Victorian ancestor to rebuild a sense of community on the island while modernised agricultural science would save the islanders from the economic hardship that was causing them to move to the mainland.

In this sense, Lord Summerisle's religion was a constructed religion with a deliberate policial/social intent, in the same manner that the Welsh Druidic revival from approximately the same period (such as the one championed by Dr William Price), was intended to create a shared cultural heritage for the Welsh people after centuries of English colonial rule... Even though, due to the historical Druids never actually writing things down, Price and his peers kind of made up a lot of stuff to fill in the gaps.

In the case of the Wicker Man, the fact that the religion is made up of disparate bits and pieces from around the UK culturally (the song Sumer is icumen in that features in the movie is written in 13th century Wessex English, for example, while Summerisle is located off the coast of Scotland for example). Indeed even the titular Wicker Man has no actual historical basis, beyond it being something the Romans claimed was a practice in the British Isles prior to their colonial efforts... when it's also noted the Romans intentionally made stuff up about their enemies to justify their invasion and conquering them. Add to that how the Druids didn't write things down, and you can understand why Price and his peers had to get Inventive).

Hence the horror of the situation for Sgt. Howie. Not only is he being horribly murdered in a "pagan" sacrifice, but Lord Summerisle had already told him the religion was artificially created less than a century ago to control the worker population. So while the islanders may have believed there was a mystical significance and justification for Howie's horrible death, the guy who orchestrated it didn't actually believe in the religion himself and it was all a move to keep his tenants and workers compliant and under his thumb.

All of this historical context stands in contrast with the 2006 Wicker Man's version of Summerisle... which was founded by escaped Salem witches, and have explicit supernatural powers. No ambiguity, no historical context, and the closest to a social point is drawn from the director's own heavily misogynistic views on women.

He's dying because of a belief system he finds insane, just like the countless Jewish, Muslim and homosexual men and women throughout history lost their lives to a belief system that is no less crazy than his are...because really, how is believing that human sacrifice can ensure a good harvest any crazier than believing someone can walk on water or come back from the dead?

Vs the Wicker Man remake which is basically just Neil Labute going "Women be bitches, am i right?" for an hour and thirty

i realize i'm poking the bear here, but i don't think mohan was a very good teacher/mentor. for as much empathy she extends towards her patients, she extends very little towards her colleagues (and towards herself!)

she has her moments. encouraging whitaker in s1 to move forward after mr milton's death was a great moment, as well as educating him on sickle cell. i also like how she responded to joy coming up with a more helpful treatment plan.

however, her way of practicing medicine is for the most part very "my way or the highway". she dismisses robby's complaints about her speed consistently and doesn't listen to santos regarding the overdose. in s2, she overrides mel's treatment plan (and also rolls her eyes/makes faces at her during the eye stroke scene...) and puts the kibosh on donnie prescribing to a patient, something he's within his rights as an NP to do.

but mostly what bothers me is her absolutely egregious failure of mentorship when she lets santos, an intern on her first day, take the fall for a mistake she made. mohan stood there and watched santos get berated and never bothered to correct langdon. sure, telling santos she does belong was a nice gesture, but it is absolutely unacceptable that mohan, as a doctor in her THIRD YEAR of residency, never even followed up with langdon to admit that it was her own mistake. bare minimum, she should have done that. (also in s2 never even checks in on santos about how she feels regarding langdon being back despite witnessing his verbal abuse of her?)

she also more or less tells whitaker you can determine who is drug seeking and who is in real pain basically based on vibes which is um. something.