Letter #47: Bad and Crazy
Good morning, Erin.
So…I know you’ve given me a new over-the-break list to work
through (which I of course dutifully started as soon as you made the
recommendations), and I know you are absolutely dying to hear my thoughts on
them—but I was sort of already about to finish something, so…here’s that one!
Yay!
…y-yay.
Um, if it helps, this is Part 1 of what I’m calling the “For the
Boys!” Duology, which is two shows I’m watching expressly for the fellahs that
are in it (as opposed to my normal, very careful “oo she’s pretty!”
method). So, y’know, maybe there’s a little something extra in it for you, this
time.
Either way, let’s have a little (non-spoiler) talk about Bad
and Crazy:
1. This show immediately started with giant whales, so I
got to deal with that right off the bat. As if I didn’t suffer enough with Attorney
Woo.
2. …but that’s all right, because this ended up being pretty darn
fun. It gets a little in-its-head, in the latter half of the series, but I
thought it was a really good time. A solid recommend, from me.
3. I want to talk about some of the performances, so let’s get to
the list of folks I recognized:
· Mr. Death from Goblin as the internal affairs detective
4. So, yeah, I can’t believe this is the second time in the last
couple of weeks that I’ve accidentally stumbled across Ae-wol in something I’m
watching. What a wonderful surprise. For me.
4A. “But Daryl, you literarily didactic chatterbox,” I hear you
say, “have you really started this so-called ‘For the Boys’ letter with blatant
fanboying over an actress you like—and, worse, after promising that there might
be something ‘extra’ in it for me?” To which I say, dear Erin, that…well,
I mean, it’s not entirely for fanboying reasons. You just, um, interjected
before I had a chance to, y’know, f-finish what I was going to say. Which
was…that…that…
4B. Aha—see, I had a note for exactly this! I feel bad that, in a
show chock full of fight scenes, our feisty cop lady is the only one whose
scenes have very obvious edits between her (for example) throwing a punch and
it connecting with the bad guy she’s fighting. It’s just a few frames, but it’s
noticeable—and it really is just her. And your guess is as good as mine
as to why this is.
5. But you are right: I promised you a little something extra…and
it’s that Mr. Death goes shirtless a few times and, if you like a guy with
muscular litheness to him, then you’ll probably enjoy that.
6. Oh, also: Mr. Death gets to do something other than being
deadpan, in this, and…he’s really good! He shows all kinds of emotions and
stuff. He doesn’t get to be as funny as I know he can be, but he’s a very
engaging lead. (Even if he does, by the end, do this one “I’m shocked and
befuddled!” face waaaaay too often. Like, possibly more than Princess My
Name engaged her “mildly aghast” face, when she has to break that out.)
7. Mr. Wharton Man, though, is…I think miscast. He’s not bad, but
he’s playing a sort of zany character, and he (as in, the actor) is obviously acting
zany rather than just being zany. That is, the actor feels like he’s
trying to play a zany character instead of playing a character who just is
zany (if that distinction makes sense, as I’ve described it). It’s obvious that
they want him to be very…big, I guess, with his antics, but I thought his
performance felt more forced than I’d have wanted the actor playing his
character to come across.
7A. Plus, I don’t think his face is quite expressive enough for
what he needed to do. Which I mean in a literal sense: I don’t think the
actor’s face is built for the elasticity this kind of role demands. He’s got a
big smile, which totally works for what they want. But the range of motion just
isn’t there, in my opinion. (Mr. Death, on the other hand, could have
nailed that aspect.)
7B. BUT…I think the big reason they wanted him in the role was how
obviously perfect he was for all the physical stuff he was required to do. Dude
clearly knows his way around a fight—and stunt work. (Or maybe they just wanted
him for his muscles. Maybe the stunt stuff was just a happy accident.)
8. Once again, all the Hyundai logos are covered up—but so is
every other logo, so…I guess I can’t complain too much.
9. This show’s blatant Quiznos sponsorship just isn’t as
satisfying as others’ Subway sponsorships.
9A. There was an episode of a now-old TV series called Reno 911
(which is a spoof of shows like Cops) that featured a segment where the
Sheriff’s Department was trying to get an idea of how a shooting in a house
unfolded, and the big hang-up they have is figuring out why there’s a
relatively fresh bag of Arby’s sandwiches on the coffee table where the
shooting happened. (“Did the shooter bring it? But then why would he leave it
behind?” That kind of thing. (The punchline is that one of the deputies left it
there for everyone to grab some lunch.)) Thing is, though, that the people who
made the show didn’t get permission to use the Arby’s logo and stuff before
they filmed the segment, so they just kept referring to it as a “bag of
piping-hot, delicious Arby’s” in the hopes that the legal department at Arby’s
would think that was adequately glowing free publicity. And I mention all that
because that’s exactly how these Quiznos segments felt: needlessly in
praise of sandwiches.
10. The drug dealer boss lady does a great job being that
slovenly, devoid-of-humanity quirky character I see so often in gritty/“gritty”
anime. It’s not an archetype I enjoy, honestly, but she’s both written well
and, crucially, played believably (despite hitting everything on the archetype
checklist). She was ultimately my favorite character and, surprisingly,
#BestGirl.
11. Speaking of the drug dealer boss lady, this was another show
where the subtitles didn’t help me understand that people were speaking
something other than Korean when that distinction really, really mattered. In
this case, they were speaking Russian—which, to my credit, I was able to distinguish
on my own, though I wasn’t anywhere near certain that I was hearing Russian and
not just fooled by the actor’s accents. But, yeah, they really need to add a
little “in Russian” (or whatever) note, in these instances. Because we,
as the audience, are supposed to realize that characters aren’t speaking in the
native tongue, and it’s hard to do that when everything is subtitled in the
exact same way.
12. I think it’s interesting that they chose to have this show
focus on cops in Internal Affairs. You don’t get that too often. (There’s a
pretty good plot reason for why this decision is made, but…still.)
13. Speaking of the Internal Affairs cops, there’s literally one
woman on the team, and she is the only character to neither have lines nor be
given a name DESPITE APPEARING IN MANY SCENES which would—anywhere else—demand
that she A) speak or B) be addressed directly.
13A. …except, okay, she does eventually speak (Ep 10) and get a
name (Ep 11). But we’re talking about a 12-episode series, here, so it’s
comically late in the game for this. And I don’t think this was meant to be a
joke.
14. I totally knew who the bad guy was going to be, and I totally
knew what the numbers (I’ll leave it at that) meant—well in advance of the show
revealing either to us, just in case you had forgotten that I am the world’s
greatest detective.
15. There’s a recurring character who reminded me of an actor from
one of the Chinese romcom series I was watching right before you pointed me
towards Hotel Del Luna. And…well, that was a series that, like pretty
much all the other Chinese romcoms I’ve watched, overstayed its welcome, and
seeing this actor who looked like that other actor totally reminded me that I
lucked out by having you intervene in support of K-dramas. And also that I
wanted to punch that character in the Chinese romcom.
16. They discuss the term gaslighting, in this show, and
(unlike the other show that used the term) they get it pretty much totally
correct. Which is nice.
17. There are a lot of thematic parallels that run within the
series, but I’m not sure how many of them (or even if any of them) are
intentional. For the many really solid things about the story in the first half
of the show, the strength of writing wanes noticeably in the latter half. Don’t
get me wrong: it never falls on its face or anything, but it definitely loses
its surefootedness in favor of going to the “acceptable contrivances” well a
few too many times just to progress (or perhaps stretch) the story. So, I can’t
tell if these parallels are clever or purely coincidental (though, given they
don’t do much of anything with these parallels, I’m leaning towards
coincidental…or maybe deliberate but left hanging)…but they are there,
regardless.
And that’s all I have to say (spoiler free) about that.
I thought this one was a lot of fun, and I really did watch it
because I saw Mr. Death was in it along with Mr. Wharton College Man. And…I’m
sure you enjoy at least one of them, right?
Also: I once again wrote this while one of those “walking in the
snow” YouTube videos was keeping me company. Had my little Christmas tree next
to the TV. And someone put out a synthwave Christmas mix, earlier today. It was
a comfy ol’ time.
Which, I guess, is as good a reason as any to mention that I hope
you’re having a wonderful run-up to Christmas. We’re not quite at the day, as I
write this (though I imagine the next letter is going to start just before and
end just after), but I hope you’re feeling the cheer already.
Or, barring that, I hope you’ve had a cup of hot chocolate that
just really hit the spot.
—Daryl
· Mr. Death from Goblin as the internal affairs detective
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