Thoughts on a Rewatch: Seasons 2 and 3

because I forgot to make a post after finishing season 2.

Damn this rewatch is flying right on by.

• It's super obvious that the hair and makeup folks have gradually shifted Frances Conroy's look since season 1 to make her look younger and more vibrant. Honestly in season 1 she looks way older than her actual age (47).
• Why can't Bettina be in every episode. I demand this.
• I'm having wild thoughts about if this show had an online fandom during its airing (in the way online fandom works now, i.e. reddit/tumblr/twitter/etc). That season 2 to 3 transition is a BANGER. Like, season 3 opens with Nate's hallucinations of what happens, then smash cut to him at the barbecue with Maya and married to Lisa and how long did that have to go on before the audience realized that WASN'T another hallucination? I remember when I watched this as it aired and I was actually half waiting for the other shoe to drop for a couple of episodes before I realized that was real. An online fandom would have had endless discourse about this, and the pretty abrupt tonal shift going into season 3.
• That being said, the whole Lisa of it all is...strange. Okay, I kinda buy her and Nate abruptly getting married. But her departure is also beyond weird. It's the kind of departure that makes you suspicious of behind-the-scenes drama, like an actor walking off set and refusing to film anymore (which can't be the case as Lili Taylor appeared in the finale during Claire's graveyard visit). It just feels so strange that they chose to write it like that? I don't know how to explain why it feels strange, just that it does.
• That ALSO being said, I absolutely am fascinated by how they wrote Lisa, from a writer's perspective. They made her so...realistically multifaceted. She's sweet and loving but also smothering and cloyingly demanding. Sometimes she has a point in her conflicts with Nate and sometimes she's definitely being weird (her fixation on whether or not Brenda touched Maya is...odd). I actually loved her conversations with Dana in the camping trip episode because we heard her separate from Nate.
• SPEAKING OF. My dude. Nate. Even if you find Lisa unforgivably irritating, he is not helping the situation. It is stupidly obvious that she's right - he married her to prove he was a good guy, not because he wanted to.
• But I still ached for him when Lisa disappeared and he went totally off the rails. Yes he was worried because he cares about her but also out of guilt because secretly...he wished her gone.
• His brief scenes with Brenda only drive home the point that they're more compatible in thirty second than he and Lisa are in months.
• Catherine O'Hara. Nuff said.
• Speaking of Brenda, it was a good call to keep her off the show for the first half of S3 after all the intensity of S2 (which I loved, I love characters spiralling). She feels very different when she returns, in a good way. I remember being surprised but definitely also not surprised that they actually Went There with Billy.
• Ok, both Rico and Keith are kind of terrible.
• I find Arthur's calm voice and deliberate demeanor inexplicably soothing. I kind of wish we'd seen more of him actually being an intern. He seemed to spend all his onscreen time doing laundry and making music.
• More Before They Were Stars: Zachary Quinto as one of Claire and Russell's art school classmates. Adam Scott as David's brief lawyer boyfriend Ben.
• This show isn't totally innocent of leaning into gay stereotypes but...tbh it's a pretty realistic depiction of some segments of white gay male culture (to be fair I've only been a spectator there - I am queer but not male). I also appreciate that they've got a gay relationship that they're treating as a relationship like any other with issues and conflicts and incompatibilities. That wouldn't be terribly groundbreaking now, but you know, 2003 and all.
• Another moment I've always remembered is David's description of how his interest was piqued by how Keith locked his car. "Fuck you, car. Now you're locked." That is hilarious.
• Thank you for letting MCH sing, show. But...is that how big the LA Gay Men's Chorus is?? It's TINY. I live in a pretty large Midwestern city that's like 1/10th the size of LA and our gay men's chorus is like...100 people. They have SUB choruses they use to perform in places not big enough to hold the whole chorus.
• I am now beginning to keep track of people on this show who were also in Deadwood. So far I've got Molly Parker, W. Earl Brown, Leon Rippy, Paula Malcolmson, Alice Krige, and Cleo King.