Know Your Lady Showrunners: Julie Plec

My So Called Company; Outer Banks, Alloy, CBS Television Studios, Warner Bros,

Julie Plec launched one of the biggest fandoms in TV history with the vampire trilogy, The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and Legacies. But she’s still the original fangirl. She blames David E. Kelley and Joss Whedon for creating some of her favorite shows which included Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Once and Again, Ally McBeal, The Practice, and The West Wing which sparked her fascination with LA and set her on a mission to work in Hollywood.

Long before she was getting paid to do it, she’d regularly block calls to watch tv shows and flip through the trade rags. Her first job in LA was as an assistant to a talent agent. A friend as advised her: “When you get out there and you interview for a job, it doesn’t matter what you want to do, you tell them you want to do what they do.” Plec told them she wanted to be an agent, she landed the job. Three months later, she moved on.

Plec’s next job found through friend, Lisa Harrison, now her literary agent, was to assist for horror master, Wes Craven, which included reading stacks of horror scripts. Plec soon realized she had a knack for reading scripts and writing thoughtful analysis’. She decided to forge a career for herself in development. With Wes’ partner Marianne Maddalena, Plec found a mentor and confidant. The women read through the script Scream and loved it. When the film went into production, Julie joined. There she met her creative soulmate, the film’s writer, Kevin Williamson. After many late production nights keeping warm in Williamson’s car and bonding over the thrill of being newbies in Hollywood, he asked her to take a look at a pilot he was working on. The script was about his life growing up on a creek in North Carolina.

Dawson’s Creek became wildly successful, allowing Williamson access to make another feature, Teaching Mrs Tingle. While he was focused on the movie, Plec came onboard as an executive and producing partner for Dawson’s Creek Season 2. Plec brought on fellow Northwestern alum and writer, Greg Berlanti, launching his storied career. Plec was still focused on development, but to help Williamson and Berlanti keep up with the breakneck pace of the season, she’d step in to write and lay out scenes.

Plec revealed to the Emmys, helping Williamson make TV shows led Plec to a life-changing epiphany. “Everything I was doing was helping the writers,” she recalls.  “I was writing for television and didn’t even realize it.  At that point, my career shifted — I can write, I enjoy writing. I’m a fan and storyteller at the same time, so I wanted to make the kind of TV I wanted to watch. To do that, I needed to be a showrunner.”

After six seasons of Dawson’s Creek (1998-2003) wrapped, Plec and Williamson were approached by Jen Breslow, VP of Drama Development at the CW, to adapt the YA series of novels by L.J. Smith, The Vampire Diaries, into a TV series. Williamson, turned off by riding the coattails of the current Twilight craze, had turned the project down. As a fan of the series, Plec persuaded him to reread the books, to look at it less as another vampire story, but a genre story dealing with universal themes of love, mortality and loss. Elena is mourning the recent loss of her parents, and at some level the brothers are mourning the loss of love, loved ones and eachother. Together they navigate their small town of Mystic Falls and all the that lurks beneath the surface.

In 2009, with Plec and Williamson at the helm as co-executive producers, The Vampire Diaries debuted. After Season 2, Williamson left, leaving co-creator Plec as the sole showrunner for the rest of the series’ 8 season run (2009-2017). In 2013, she added The Originals, the TVD spin-off, to her roster and also became executive producer on Berlanti’s CW series Tomorrow People, giving her an impressive TV trifecta: three shows airing at the same time, on the same network.

Over the past two decades, Julie Plec has created one of the most successful and biggest fan-favorite universes with The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and Legacies, along a variety of roles on Kyle KY, Tomorrow People, and Roswell, New Mexico.

Her once three-year development deal at Warner Brothers, became a ten plus year residency, and in 2020 shifted to a four-year mega-deal with Universal Television valued north of $60M. As part of the deal, Plec will develop projects for the studio that she creates and writes herself, as well as those she supervises under her My So-Called Company banner. The first two projects out of that deal are the series’ Girl on the Bus, co-created with author Amy Chozick, going straight-to-series at Netflix, and the much-anticipated adaptation of the YA book series by Richelle Mead, Vampire Academy, going straight-to-series at Peacock.

Her Advice to Writers:
On arriving in Hollywood: 1.) I repeat the interview advice I was given (above). And 2.) If you have an opportunity to work at an agency desk as you’re coming up in the business, it’s the smartest thing you can do, because it’s the one place where you get access to all the information in the world, and you can’t learn that any other way.

On attacking 22-episode mountain: We try to break a season down into a series of chapters, so that four times a year, basically, you’re getting a season finale, and four times a year you’re getting a premiere. Then there’s always something really big moving the story forward, and if somebody doesn’t like something, odds are good we’re going to be moving on from it within a month. So it keeps the audience guessing, it keeps the story itself feeling energized, and it makes it infinitely easier to break a season if you’re not looking at a big, daunting, 22-episode mountain. You’re looking at a series of mini-mountains. –Entertainment Weekly

On inspiration: I draw from books and other people’s television shows. I read a lot. On vacation, I make a point of trying to read at least one or two books a day because when you read other people’s words, it awakens and energizes your own brain. Your brain can get really stale when you’re the only person coming up with ideas or talking to yourself. –Entertainment Weekly 

Life as an '80s Musical? Bring it.

Orion Classics, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, United Artists Releasing

Here’s the thing, we have been locked up for going on three months now, and I need the fluff, and I need it set to a nostalgia-packed ‘80s soundtrack. I don’t care if the jukebox musical take on the Nick Cage ‘80s classic Valley Girl (directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg) is both unnecessary, panned and oddly steaming on Amazon Prime where I now buy my toilet paper. I don’t even care about the odd device of Alicia Silverstone narrating. Well, I do care about that one, but that’s why we have fast-forwarding. Sorry, Alicia, I don’t like to time-jump to the narrator’s wise, hindsight point of view. I want to stay in it with all the bad, reckless decisions, big fashion, and bigger hair. I want to get lost in it, have Julie (Jessica Rothe) coquettishly wrap me up in her pink phone cord so I don’t have return to the real world. YES. Plus all the pink, all the bright colors, big songs, a dreamy Hollywood punk guy, Randy (Josh Whitehouse), and finally–a leather/denim ensemble just made for the beach. Finally! With new takes on some of the best ‘80s hits like We Got the Beat (The Go-Gos), Take on Me (a-ha), and I Melt with You (Modern English), drop the guilt, grab your fishnets, and head to the Valley.

It's National Sibling Day, Baby Girl!

SEVEN24 Films, IDW Entertainment, Dynamic Television, Cineflix Rights, SyFy

There’s ‘ships WayHaught and WyDoc, but the oooy, gooey, heart-melting center of Wynonna Earp is the bond between Earp sisters Wynonna and Waverly. Cursed to purgatory, there’s no lengths these two wouldn’t go to to protect and save one another, and no one they’d rather fight alongside. This National Sibling Day, celebrate like an Earper. You know, without all the Purgatory demon killing.

Escaping the New Normal

Element Pictures, BBC Studios, Hulu

With alarms of chaos and uncertainty ringing so loudly right now, it was a welcome change to turn the volume all the way down with the Hulu series adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People. The delicately exquisite series set in Northern Ireland feels granular, achingly tactile, covering the on and off again relationship between Marianne Sheridan (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Connell Waldron (Paul Mescal) who defy their differing class standings by pursuing a sexual and, at moments, romantic relationship. Both navigate the disparate challenges of their home lives, the discomfort in their own bodies, and the insecurities in their worthiness to be loved. As much as they struggle in the melancholy of the outside world and outside people, it’s the tranquil world they create when together that brings them furthest from the anxiety of their physical beings and closest to normal.

Beautifully shot featuring gorgeous, other-worldly landscapes set to a dreamy, subtle soundtrack (music supervisors: Juliet Martin and Maggie Phillips), I was swiftly seduced by the series’ hushed, disarming spell. The instinct upon completing the 12-part series is to want a Season Two, but somehow a fleeting moment of a one and done season feels more heart-breakingly apt for Marianne and Connell.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

CBS Television Distribution, Warner Bros Television Distribution

I miss places. And sure, in LA, there’s maybe a handful of places where everybody knows your name. Okay, a thimbleful. But a handful definitely know my face–the clerks at See’s who salve cravings for Dark California Brittle, the folks at Mendocino Farms who know me and my Avocado Quinoa Salad order all too well, the seamstress, May, at the dry cleaners who gives me a hug every time I walk in, the juice shop where I hit in moments of desperation and all the time, the nail salon where they tidy up my eyebrows and always ask to clean my upper lip as well, the hair salon where everyone knows me because I’m there too often, the beauty shop where Shadia knows every skin ailment I’ve ever had, the clerk at Whole Foods who calls me sweetie, the coffeeshop packed with cyclists on a Sunday morning where I resist the alluring aroma of freshly brewed coffee and order a iced tea instead, and the other coffee shop filled with yoga pants-wearing bourgeois grabbing lattes when I just want an avo toast – oh avo toast, I may miss you most of all.

I miss all the places. I miss bustling. I have a new appreciation and love of the word bustling. I have an on-going list on my door–the post-pandemic list. It covers all the non-essential things I need to buy like lightbulbs and underwear, non-emergent errands I need to run like the dentist and the dry cleaners for my favorite shirt that didn’t get picked up before quarantine, and all the places and restaurants I want to go–Night + Market Song where J will get the friend chicken sandwich and I will order everything on the menu that’s vegan–oh my god, the mango sticky rice! The mango sticky rice!, Pizzanista for a slice! Slice!, Petty Cash because I like the name and I like a margarita, Sharky’s where my friend’s kids roam free, and even Fat Burger to provide a fast food fix.

I want to be in a crowded place with names called overhead, and music bouncing off the walls, where, pressed shoulder to shoulder, I can hardly hear myself or the person next to me, and yet somehow our drinks still arrive. I want to hear drink glasses set down on tables, clinking with ice and celebration. I want to go to concerts and sing along and sweat till my shirt sticks to my ribs. I want to sit in a restaurant and observe all the trivial conversations around me. Trivial. There’s another word for which I have a new appreciation. Trivial once had a bad rap but now it seems so quaint. I love trivial.

On Week Two of social-distancing, sure everyone around here knows my name, but those are all the voices in my head, or my family on House Party.  And the only thing that’s bustling is my freezer with homemade soups. Nothing seems too trivial, though I am sore from a virtual work-out, so I’ll take that for the ridiculousness it is. For now, I’m going to sit in my newly reorganized dining room made up only of a rattan chair to soak in the morning sunlight and contemplate all the loud, clamoring, boisterous, joyful, people-filled times ahead.

The One Where We All Got Locked In

Warner Bros.

We’ve officially crossed double digit days of Quarantining and Social Distancing, so I thought it might lighten the mood to recall some favorite shows where the characters were locked in. Sure they weren’t hoarding toilet paper and canned goods, but in Friends Episode, The One The Morning After (3x16), Joey, Chandler, Monica and Phoebe did try to eat wax. Relatable as I look for reserves behind the reserves–my brief stint as a hiker has suddenly come in handy–hello, protein bars. But back to the episode.

This is the episode after Ross and Rachel decide to go on a break, and after he had a one-night-stand. On his way back-stepping through ‘the trail,’ he realizes Rachel has already found out. Meanwhile Monica and Phoebe try out a new product Waxine, and quickly learn that just because it’s organic and made in the rainforest does not necessarily mean it’s pain free. Yelping in pain as they peel off each other’s Waxine strips in Monica’s bedroom, Chandler and Joey barge in to help. They get locked in when Ross and Rachel burst into the apartment arguing about his one-night stand. Not wanting to reveal that they had been listening, they’re sequestered in Monica’s bedroom for the night. While Ross and Rachel come to terms with the end of their relationship, Phoebe misses a massage appointment, Joey dreams of Pizza, Phoebe suggests eating wax to sustain them through the night–and they actually do. It’s not till well past 3am when they leave the room to find Rachel asleep on the couch and Ross long gone. Then it’s only a mere 7 seasons later that they finally get past all that ‘on a break’ fallout. Hopefully we’ll get past our fallout much sooner.

In the meantime, I’ll keep thinking of episodes and movies where characters were locked in– all in a light genre, none of that Saw, Room, or Panic Room nonsense. Let’s keep it light!

Friends ‘The One with The Blackout’ (1x7) In a city-wide blackout, Chandler gets stuck in an ATM vestibule with Victoria’s Secret model, Jill Goodacre, Ross tries to escape The Friend Zone, and Rachel fawns over Paulo.
Please Like Me ‘Champagne’ (3x9) In an attempt to have an open relationship, Josh entertains a Grindr date while Claire joins Tom in his room to give the two men privacy. Claire and Tom end up playing a riveting game of ‘Penis or Not Penis’
New Girl ‘Cooler’ (2x15) In fateful turn of True American, Jess and Nick end up locked in the apartment until they kiss. The crew outside the door chant ‘Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!’ Unable to do so, they wait out the night till Nick takes drastic measures to escape.
The Breakfast Club The John Hughs classic where five students at the fictional Shermer High School report at 7:00 am for all-day detention. Through the course of the day, Claire, Brian, John, Allison, and Andrew find out they’re all much more than their designated clique.
Riverdale Chapter One: The River’s Edge (1x1) Archie and Veronica get locked in a closet for Seven Minutes in Heaven. Steamy.

John and Josh Productions, Pivot, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox

We Won't Get Fubo'd Again

Warner Bros

I have been waiting for FIFTEEN MONTHS!!! FIFTEEN MONTHS for S2 of Roswell New Mexico. Hold your snickers, I said who I was straight from the top! ANYWAY, I have been patiently waiting for FIFTEEN MONTHS for S2 of RNM, and when the night finally arrives for the CW hit, it’s nowhere to be streamed. Sure, I watched S1 on Hulu just fine and if I wanted to watch the off-the-rails tales of their CW counterpart, Riverdale, I can watch that mess unfold anytime, but highly anticipated show RNW has vanished. 30 minutes before the premiere, I loaded up on EVERY Hulu Add-On, even Disney Plus to see if it would appear. No avail. 20 minutes before the premiere, I sought out new, uncharted avenues, including Fubo. WTF??! But I did it, a fangirl on a mission is not easily deterred. I signed up, gave them my credit card, loaded up the site and again – no avail. FML. It’s the damn CW, people, don’t get all HBO-Go on me. F’ing streaming wars. 10 minutes before the premiere, I went to CWTV.com, I know, the source, should’a started there. But STILL, no avail. Only streaming day AFTER premiere. They wouldn’t even take my credit card for access to watch live. Everyone takes my AmEx!!! 5 minutes before the premiere I deactivated all the Hulu Add-Ons, Disney Plus, and canceled my Fubo trial (again, WFT and thumbs down on the interface, so I guess, knowledge=good), then went to alternate channels I dare not speak of. The moral of this frantic fan tale is this–no matter the streaming wars nonsense–a fangirl’s needs will not, I repeat, will not go unmet.

Fuck Yeah, Gallaghers

Warner Bros. Television Distribution

Propelled by successfully watching Josh Thomas and his family in Please Like Me, I thought it was time to nut up and meet the Gallaghers of John Wells’ (E.R. and The West Wing) Shameless. Again, too much family, chaos, and codependence had previously made me steer clear, but what the hell, it’s 2020, I’m growing. Fiona is the eldest sibling and dubbed head of the household, Liam is the youngest, Debbie is painfully adolescent, Carl has a penchant for fire and fire arms, Lip is brilliant but also the everyman, and Ian and Mickey are iconic – worth the watch.

While there is the expected fair share of cringe-worthy scams, usually instigated by their alcoholic, often homeless father, Frank Gallagher, they also deliver an empathetic view on gentrification, aging, mental health, and more. For me, shows like this (you know, not on the CW, my preferred mode of entertainment) especially torture when characters make the wrong choices, mistakes that you have to helplessly watch play out. The stories move forward, often with great pain and struggle, but the siblings come together to see each other through the latest fallout, sometimes with literal shovels in hand. I guess that’s how they got me, those damn Gallagher siblings. They aren’t perfect, but you can’t help but love ‘em.

Special shout out to Music Supervisor Ann Kline who cuts deep with indie tracks you’ll want to look up. A few gems to add to your Quarantunes:
Basic Instinct The Acid
Canyons Paw City
Falling Together Mason Brothers
Pink/White Frank Ocean

If you suddenly find yourself with an inexplicable amount of time on your social-distanced hands, I suggest digging into 10 seasons of Shameless. That’s right, 10 seasons. It’s the longest-running original scripted series in Showtime history.

All ten seasons are now available to stream on Hulu with the Showtime add-on. Seasons one through nine are available on Netflix, but season ten is hella-worth the Hulu add-on price.

The eleventh and final season is slated for release in late 2020.

Welcome to Josh's Feelings Circle

ABC2, Participant Media, Pivot, Josh & John International

We’ve been friends for a long time now, I think I can be honest with you. The first time I watched the critically acclaimed Australian series Please Like Me created by and starring Josh Thomas, I only watched the scenes with Josh and his friends. I fast-forwarded through the all family scenes. I know, the shame. I just couldn’t bring myself to watch Josh volley himself between the needs of his divorced parents – his depressed mom and his mid-life crisis dad with new wife in tow – it was too on-point family… nope, noooooo, naaaaaaaah. All the fluff, none of the heavy for this fangirl.

But I loved the series so much, I had to know more. I dug into research, reading praise for the show’s ability to ride the fine line between laughter and pain. You can’t know and fully appreciate one without the other. So last night, I put on my big girl britches and watched every episode all the way through. And I can say, I’ve learned my lesson. As Josh read in a eulogy, ‘You don’t love people because they do what you want, you love them because of who they are.’ And I love this show just the way it is. While his family did bring the heavy, with co-dependence at every turn, it was tempered with Thomas’ trademark wit. I’ll gladly take all the facets, please.

The four-season series kicks off with a pitch-perfect pilot as Josh’s girlfriend breaks up with him, he accepts his sexuality, gets called to the hospital after his mother’s suicide attempt, and comes to terms with her mental illness. It’s a lot, and it’s perfect. I love it so much. If you can’t dig into the series, at least watch that one episode. If you continue, you’ll see that each episode opens with gorgeous shots of preparing food, often dancing, one time pills, accompanied by lovely typography set to I’ll Be Fine by Clairy Browne and the Bangin’ Rackettes. You could just watch videos of the opening sequences, which I too have done before I went full binge watch.

I’ve watched Please Like Me a few times now. The sound of Josh’s voice, no matter how self-indulgent, is like the comforting voice of a friend. I can’t help but smile. I’ve watched his follow-up show Everything is Going to Be Okay, plus his stand-up show, Whoopsie Daisy, just to get a Josh fix. Both are heartbreaking and wonderful. I imagine Please Like Me will always be my favorite as it’s his personal story of coming out, dealing with his mom’s bipolar disorder, and the friends and family along the way. Every time I watch the camera pull away on the last scene of the series finale, I helplessly plead with the screen, ‘No! No! Go back! Go back!’ I couldn’t love this show more. I hope you love it too!

All four seasons are now available to stream on Hulu.

Their Next Act

One Potato Productions, Tremolo Productions, Netflix

The Netflix has been delivering the docu goods. Here’s a few to check out:

Inside Bill’s Brain
The four episode docu-series, Inside Bill’s Brain, answers many questions, among them–what does a billionaire do with all his money? How can he make the biggest impact on the world with the financial and intellectual gifts he’s been given? The answers may surprise you, but it’s a totally compelling watch. Join Bill from his upbringing as he’s groomed by his mother who challenges his intellect to match how he interacts with people and the world around him, through his rise with Microsoft, his relationship with Melinda, and how all these factors come together to frame his next and most impactful chapter yet. The series may have us all reconsider are we all using our time and gifts we’ve been given, we all might need a Think Week to evaluate.

Miss Americana
Next up is Miss Americana, the Taylor Swift documentary. I expected to enjoy this documentary because, if you’ve read this blog, you know I’m Team Tay Tay, but I didn’t expect it to be so powerful and strangely, relatable.

After two decades in the spotlight, living for the approval of strangers, Taylor recounts how quickly that belief system can crumble. Her whole life was centered around being a good person, being likeable, not getting into trouble, and not speaking up. She struggled with feeling not good enough, not belonging, not worth accolades or success, meeting standards of beauty, facing body issues, eating disorders, online bullying, sexual assault (7 witnesses and a photo, and she was still questioned), sexism, and ageism (‘the female artists I know of have reinvented themselves 20x more than the male artists, they have to or else they’re out of a job’).

The documentary is a deconstruction her belief system–tuning out the noise, gaining her voice and finding happiness without anyone else’s input. I wrote down nearly every word she had to say for the last fifteen minutes of the doc – powerful. All this and an inside peek into her creative process. Incredibly impressive, well worth the watch, and well worth all the accolades.

Cheer
Last up is America’s Sweethearts, the Navarro Cheer squad from the six-part docu-series Cheer. They’ve been on Ellen, and on the red carpet at the Oscars, they’re at every roundoff-back hand-springed turn.  

The series joins the team on their quest for their 14th National Championship title since 2000. Led by coach Monica Aldama, the team is as dedicated to her as they are to the sport. For the past 25 years she’s created elite squads, coaching kids for success on and off the mat, “I feel like it’s God’s purpose for me and that’s why I haven’t left the job yet.”

Battling stereotypes of cheerleading and female coaches, Monica has an unwavering drive to succeed, to watch her kids succeed, and to keep coming back season after season. Her mantra is to “keep going until you get it right, and then keep going until you can’t get it wrong.” She can’t stop because someone is always on her tail ready to take the title. In return for their hard work, she gives the kids structure, accountability, and expectations to meet.

The series is about more than the journey to complete a two minute and fifteen second routine in Daytona Beach, Florida. It’s about not holding back, going full out–the importance of drive, and the importance of trust. May we all face every challenge like there’s an ocean crashing in the background, taunting us towards victory. We can. We will. We must.

Long Live the King

Zelig Recordings

King Princess's debut album Cheap Queen is a sunny Saturday morning, breezy with windows open, and a day full of possibilities that you may or may not get to. Mikaela Mullaney Strauss, known as King Princess, hails from Brooklyn and is signed to Mark Ronson’s Zelig Records label. In 2019 she performed at  Lollapalooza, Coachella, and Saturday Night Live, and was the opening act for the European leg of Harry Styles’ tour. More importantly, she presently owns my Saturday mornings with these must-listen tracks:

Hit the Back
Cheap Queen
Useless Phrases
Ain’t Together
If You Think It’s Love

Go ahead and give your Saturday morning over to her.

UPDATE: February 14, 2020, King Princess released a deluxe edition of Cheap Queen including five previously unreleased tracks.

Have Fun. Stay Single.

Warner Bros. Cameron Crowe

So, here’s a Saturday morning. I wake up with well-known jazz track on repeat in my head. I cannot remember the artist’s name and it is damn near driving me crazy. I sing the saxophone riff aloud in hopes of inspiring an answer, I consider shazamming myself singing it but fear being laughed at or worse, being labeled as ‘error’. I do however recall that the song was playing under the Steve/Linda break-up aftermath scene in Cameron Crowe’s 1992 classic, Singles starring Bridget Fonda, Matt Dillon, and Campbell Scott with appearances by Chris Cornell, and Pearl Jam. 

The beginning of the song plays as the camera pans to slowly reveal just how much Campbell Scott’s Steve has unraveled post break-up. On the doorknob hangs stacks of delivery flyers, the mail slot is jammed with ignored mail that overflows onto his entryway along with unopened packages and filled trash bags, as we move inside an array of discarded take-out containers, pizza and Chinese boxes litter every surface, an overhead shot finally reveals Steve splayed starfish style on his carpet contemplating life. Maybe this song stood out because it’s the lone jazz track in a movie filled with music and appearances from every grunge headliner that made up the Seattle sound, or maybe starfish while contemplating life is just a relatable feeling, either way the scene is forever burned into memory.

Playing the full scene in my mind but still coming up empty, I jumped out of bed, downloaded the movie, and cut right to the scene. Even decades later, I know exactly where it lands. I simultaneously hit play and Shazam. Damn, I should’ve known the answer. The track is the John Coltrane classic, Blue Train. Blue Train is the seven-minute opening track to the 1958 album of the same name.  The album, considered among the most important and influential not only in John Coltrane’s career, but the entire genre features Coltrane on tenor sax, Lee Morgan on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Kenny Drew on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. The quintessential jazz standard is now saved and playing in the background. 

Fun Fact: I once worked at a jazz magazine, not that it helped this morning. So today, I failed the jazz quiz but I win the pop culture game. Every damn day. Filing this lesson away for future fangirling reference.

Fan Girls Never Say Die

Warner Bros. My Chemical Romance

This has been a simultaneously a most blessed and cursed day. On one hand, I found out My Chemical Romance is making a comeback at least for one LA show, and on the other, I was stuck in a seventeen minute abyss courtesy of AXS.com for tickets only to come up tear stained and empty handed. I will have nightmares from this. I will live in a perpetual state of black streaks from freshly applied eye liner from this. I am forced to spend the rest of my morning recreating the Helena music video in my apartment from this.

Damn you, Day 2 of Mercury Retrograde, you are bitter, bitter mistress. Fangirls everywhere beware. Welcome back boys, you’ve successfully whipped the OG Army sleeper cells into a frenetic frenzy.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Iconic Ennis House Sells for $18M

Blade Runner, Warner Bros., House on Haunted Hill, Castle Productions,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 20th Century Fox

The Frank Lloyd Wright Ennis House changed hands this weekend from billionaire Ron Burkle, who oversaw the significant restoration after 1996 earthquake, to cannabis entrepreneurs Robert Rosenheck and Cindy Capobianco for 18M.

Frank Lloyd Wright based his design for Ennis House on ancient Mayan temples, featuring 27 thousand textile blocks – each cast by hand on both the interior and exterior, compression and release entryways, glass mosaic by Blanche Ostertag, mitered windows, and a loggia overlooking the pool and garden. The house, located in Los Feliz is a designated city, state, and national monument. The last and the largest of his four Los Angeles ‘textile block’ houses. Upon completion of the Ennis House in 1924, Wright immediately considered it his favorite.

Its significance in pop culture and film history cannot be overstated, the Ennis House is a Hollywood icon with over 80 onscreen appearances. It should have its own IMDB. In Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic, Blade Runner, it was the home to Harrison Ford’s character, Deckard. In the 1959 Vincent Price film, the exterior façade was The House on Haunted Hill. Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer got in on the action, using the exterior as the mansion occupied by vampires Angel, Drusilla and Spike (see S3, E3 Faith, Hope, & Trick). It appeared in cartoon form in South Park and was influential to the design of Meereen Palace in Game of Thrones.

After all the estate has provided to celluloid history, it was the Hollywood community that rallied together, led by Diane Keaton and Joel Silver, to help fund the restoration, saving the house from appearing on the National Trust for Historic Preservation list of top ten most endangered places. Fully renovated, it’s one of the most famous houses in Los Angeles, I’m hoping the new owners continue to share it with the Los Angeles and Hollywood communities for years and films to come.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Ennis House

Yeah, Bitch. Redemption.

Netflix, Vince Gilligan

I generally stay away from the critically acclaimed, and the Arizona meth trade may have been a bit of a stretch from my regular rotation, but I couldn’t help but root for Jesse Pinkman. So, when he hit the road to redemption in the Breaking Bad movie, El Camino, I was ready to jump in for the ride.

Skinny Pete and Badger eased us back in with their side-kick banter on gaming and men’s cologne, ‘Obsession’s the bomb, yo.’ They take Jesse in, get him ready for the road, and prove to be true friends and heroes themselves. We got to see the faces that helped and influenced Jesse along the way including Mike, Jane, and Walter. But he had to forge, escape, crawl, and shoot through to make his own way. His face scarred by his experiences, but his compassion unwavering, he had us rooting for him till the very end. As Ed said, ‘Not many of us get a fresh start.’ Settling the mind is the final frontier, and Jesse Pinkman is set up to do just that, to put his past to rest and come to some sort of peace.

 When I left the theater, I felt renewed myself, I wanted to talk about the movie, and philosophy, and second chances. Spurred on by the track over the ending credits, Static on the Radio by Jim White featuring Aimee Mann, it sounds like the wide-open road, full of possibilities, and I can’t help but want to get behind the wheel to discover what’s ahead.

Love Is Blindness

Jack White Photo: Jo McCaughey, Single: Third Man Records, U2: Island Records

This morning, I heard Jack White’s U2 cover of Love is Blindness. The song appears on the soundtrack for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (2013) and on the b-side of the Sixteen Saltines single, which is just oooofffa, love, right out the gate from his album, Blunderbuss.

Jack White rips and wails his way through Love is Blindness in his signature way that has made a fan girl since his days wearing red and white. Despite all his wailing, that I love so much, it also made me crave the quiet, dark melancholy of the original.

Created 20 years prior, the original U2 recording of Love is Blindness appears as the twelfth and final track on Achtung Baby (1991). While the sound of the album pulsed with sleek rock bravado, the mood was heavy, full of doubt and longing. Just when you thought you were out of this exceptional album, this euro-pop playground, they completely level you on the last track.

I love how Uncut contributor Gavin Martin described the song as "rapturous and unsettling." He continued, "With its stark, churchlike organ intro, pulsating bass synth and guitar reverb stretched into a hallucinatory squall, it brilliantly describes the discord and dread that provide a constant undertow to Achtung Baby. And yet, through its alluring sonic palette and wounded but sensual vocal, 'Love Is Blindness' also maps out a search for harmony and salvation".

The original is not the wailing or wild riffs from Jack White that can be listened to anytime, anywhere, but refuge and darkness is needed from the outside world.

LOVE IS BLINDNESS: JACK WHITE V. U2
This fangirl has room in her heart for both. Take a listen.

Appearing in Rolling Stone’s top 100 albums of all time, U2’s Achtung Baby is worth a revist. Though it’s hard to skip ahead, I get hooked from the first track, Zoo Station. A track that can make a Friday commute on the 405, with the weight of the week nearly behind you, even better. That got me in the mood for their fifth track from their 1993 follow-up album, Zooropa, Stay (Faraway, So Close!).

Such good music, that completely holds up 20 years later. It seems many are quite to see U2 ride off into the sunset because they don’t like Bono, or his alter egos – which, hello, both Beyonce and Garth Brooks had alter egos, or they begrudge one bad marketing faux pas on itunes. Sure they tried new things out in a mercurial rock landscape, some landed, some didn’t, but it would be a shame to write off their undeniable creative force and indelible mark on music history for reasons that are usually forgotten about in less than 180 characters.

Tay Tay All Day Day

PHOTO: Valheria Rocha ALBUM: Republic, Taylor Swift,

Lover has arrived and I’m here for it. Heavy rotation, people, that includes singing tracks down the hallways at work. All in. Just last week I was driving up the PCH wondering if anyone else was listening to Elliott Smith on a sunny LA day. Thank goodness Taylor Swift came to flip the script and my playlist, Lover plays so much better in the sunshine–full of optimism and self-assurance, this album is unabashedly Taylor. The songwriting mastermind is living out her gifts and tuning out anything or anyone who tries to shame or diminish her for it, and that is definitely something to celebrate.

I best get back to it, I haven’t played Paper Rings for about 10 minutes.

NO CUSSING WAY!!!

Hulu

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

ALT TITLE 1: WHAT THE ACTUAL CUSS??
ALT TITLE 2: YOU GOTTA BE CUSSING KIDDING ME!!!
The opening credits to the Veronica Mars reboot on Hulu was the harbinger of trouble ahead – more lifeless than noir set to Christie Hynde’s dour take on the series track by The Dandy Warhols, ‘We Used to be Friends.’

The second, and more disturbing sign, was the opening shot of Logan in a tight swimsuit coming out of the ocean, a la Ursula in 007, Demi in Charlie’s Angels, or Phoebe in Fast Times. I don’t get why in order to move away from objectifying women, we have to turn the tables and objectify men.

While I’m glad the LoVe relationship is on in the Hulu reboot, in every subsequent episode Logan seemed to be minimized, emasculated by Veronica. Especially frustrating as he was so focused on growth, but was often brushed off, often left in a room alone talking to himself. He seemed to be present only for Veronica to have something to push away from and come back to.

The latter of the 8 episodes rushed through Veronica’s own growth, but so quick, it was not quite believable including a quickie engagement and marriage. Though I appreciated that Wallace and Papa Mars were at the court house to witness. All to end in the explosive demise of beloved (despite his many flaws) original character, Logan Echolls, key component to the original ship to which all ships would be compared, LoVe.

So I understand that all of the above is to show Veronica as the strong, independent woman she’s always been, but I don’t understand why others have to be objectified or weakened to get that point across. Nor do I understand the trend in killing off leading men, Derrek on Grey’s and now Logan on Mars, to tell the story of how strong the woman is. I think it would be more of an interesting story to show a woman who is able to build upon her strength and independence while able to show up and function in a relationship.

I was glad to see these characters back in action, but with this erratic swing of the pendulum, I don’t foresee a re-watch in my future.

Billie Eilish Creeps Her Way into Our Hearts

Interscope Records

I love a good story. Angeleno from Highland Park, Billie Eilish was homeschooled alongside her older brother, Finneas O'Connell. In their highly artistic, eclectic, and musical home they started writing music together in his bedroom. She sang on the bed, hardly a step away, he laid down the tracks. At 13, she released her first track, Ocean Eyes. By age 14, she completed her first track, Bellyache. At 15, her first EP, Don’t Smile at Me. At 17, she performed at Coachella and released her first album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We go?

Accused of being insensitive, insulting, romancing depression and death, and mislabeled as misery music, Eilish calls it storytelling, all I hear is pop. Since its release, I haven’t been able to put it down. Each morning, I wake with a different song of hers in my head. She slinks and scats around in my mind until I scroll through her catalog till I find it. It’s been weeks and I’m still humming different tracks down the hallways, along the sidewalks, and down the stairs. She’s creeped her way into my heart, consider letting her creep into yours.

Roswell Crash Lands on the CW – Again

And I am here for it. Thank you, Carina Adly Mackenzie.

I questioned it. I protested it. I ignored it. My loyalty to the beloved OG series, OG Liz, OG Max had me seated firmly out on this one. But damn my CW addiction and this second quarter TV viewing slump, I watched it. I know, shame spiral! I protested some more, mocked some more, and then I watched again. Damnit! I am simultaneously questioning, mocking, and rewatching. The inner conflict! The shame!

Let’s grab a booth, a milkshake and talk through some of the new origins and questions:
-The OG series (1999) took place in high school, this one reimagines the story taking place 10 years after graduation, new wave Liz moved away to study science, Max became a gravel-y-talkin’ deputy, Kyle is a doctor, Maria a bartender, and Michael a mechanic.
-It’s been 10 years, and Max and Liz supposedly had a thing for one another and now are all angsty to be back in the same town together with Liz’s return. But I’m not feeling the angsty. I’m seeing it but not feeling it. I patiently await getting swept away by the sizzle.
-Nice throwback soundtrack and episode titles, the 1999 Mrs Potter track is a nice nod to the OG premiere date. Though, fair warning, CW, I do have a Counting Crows limit.
-Was Maria BFFs with Liz or Rosa? It didn’t seem like the sisters’ friend groups would cross yet the season fluctuates as to who Maria was actually tight with.
-Fortunately the sizzle is apparent with another duo. They best be endgame, CW. Have all the fun, angst, regret, and develop your story, but endgame, they’ve gotta be endgame.

So here I am, a fangirl with questions, curious if they’ll be able to sweep me away with feeling, and wondering about endgame and the stories in between. If Season 1 leaves a viewer wondering this much, that’s a good sign, especially if this fangirl has admittedly already looked up dates for the Season 2 premiere. True. Story. Damn, you got me good, Carina. IN.

ASIDE: Last week I was out with someone who asked, ‘What genre of tv or movies do you like?’ Obviously he’s not a loyal MissSugarbritches reader. I answered without hesitation, ‘CW.’ Later, I detailed that interaction with a bestie who advised, ‘maybe don’t share that with people you’ve just met.’ Fair. That’s fair.