little highway girl

Despite following the Chucky TV show closely in season 1, I never got around to catching up with the later two seasons before it got cancelled. But the show has dropped on (our) Netflix! Only the first two seasons, but that's still given me the kick to rewatch season 1 before finally checking out season 2.

I just finished season 1, and I have to say that bingeing it feels really different from the anticipation and build-up of watching week to week, plus it makes the mild swerve at the back half of the season feel more of the swerve that it is. I love the lore of the franchise, and the arrival of Tiffany, Nica, Andy and Kyle was SO exciting back then, but in this rewatch I got annoyed by it because it took time away from the new characters, and all the great character work that we got at the start of the season thins out to make way for the amped-up shenanigans.

Which is all the more a shame because although they organically got the story to a point where it makes sense for Jake and his bully Lexy, and his crush Devon, to work together and trust each other, I felt there they needed one or two more scenes to acknowledge that growth and what Lexy especially had learned about herself. There was even an opportunity for it when Lexy, who has gone through a hero arc, confronts Junior, who has gone through a villain arc, at the end and they could've both expressed how they'd gone on different journeys and are seeing each other from new vantage points.

Also, Devon doesn't get as much as the other two to work with, innit. He's the Perfect Crush and then the Perfect Boyfriend, and despite being a teenager he always knows the correct sensitive thing to say at any given moment, even when he sadly backs away from helping out. They don't explore what should be his fascinating headspace, as a boy who has a widowed cop for a mom, and is deep enough into true crime that he has has a competently-made podcast. Devon doesn't even really get to react when his mom dies, I was so startled by that! That said, a sincere and cute youthful gay romance, especially in a horror franchise, is special in itself, so my guess is that a black boy like Devon being smart and desired is more subversive than if he were not, regardless of the lack of depth in the character himself. (Which also results in spiffy gender dynamics among the teen characters, where the "Smurfette" is the bully that needs redeeming instead of the love interest.)

Onward, to Thick as Thieves! Which feels a little like hitting on the breaks after the momentum of the previous books, but I think makes sense for the series as a whole because it's a return to its roots with a road trip underpinned by a lie Eugenides has set into motion from the beginning, plus as a breather of sorts before the final book. I think I was a little impatient with the book the first time I read it, despite very much enjoying Kamet and Costis's dynamic, but this time round I relaxed myself into the worldbuilding and set up for the open confrontation with the Medes that was obviously going to happen in the final book.

Then, FINALLY, Return of the Thief. I've only read it once but I think I'll read it one more time before I arrange the whole series properly on my bookshelf. I enjoyed it a lot but it's such a bittersweet read for having to say goodbye to the characters and the world, and by necessity this book had to be more straightforward in tying all the plot threads and set up together.

I said in a previous post that The Queen of Attolia didn't work for me as much because although it has so much happening plot-wise, the lack of a strong POV to hook our emotions onto weakened it for me, and here! Return of the Thief does EXACTLY what I wanted QoA to do, by introducing a compelling new character to follow and to be the eyes with which we view the plot, and Pheris SO GREAT. I love him, what a good boy, and amazingly Turner has made yet another new POV character that's distinct and different from everyone who's come before, especially in terms of interrogating the series' thing about unreliable narrators by having a character who is at pains to notice and make sense of the world's truths, even the awful ones, and good gravy is his personal story tough to get through.

( A little crit behind the cut )