A Zoey jukebox

The other day I mentioned watching Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. On and off, some of the songs and their connected scenes in the TV series have been playing in my mind. So, I thought I’d share here as well. All the videos are quite short, most songs are between a minute and a minute and a half long (or around two minutes max), so quite perfect for quick musical fixes.

In the show, the father (Peter Gallagher) of main character Zoey (Jane Levy) has a rare disease that causes him to lose his muscular faculties. From the beginning it is clear that he won’t have long to live as he sits rigid and silent on the couch, only able to look and take in but not able to communicate with those around him. As Zoey can hear people’s innermost feelings in song hallucinations (that no one else can hear or see) she also unexpectedly is able to connect with her father in song. It was such a powerful moment for me to see her communicate with her father again. It really struck a chord as my father too was not able to communicate well with us in his final years and I would have rejoiced at such a moment that Zoey is able to have with her dad.

I already shared my favourite dad and daughter moment in my earlier post but can’t resist sharing it again here as well. I think it’s the video I have re-watched most.

On a lighter note, Zoey hears her best friend and co-worker Max (Skylar Astin) pronounce his true feelings for her…

… and is touched by his intention to stand by her…

Her other co-worker, who becomes a friend as well, is Simon (John Clarence). I can so very well identify with the sentiment in this brief song, especially in a work setting. “My name is NO!” is something I think all of us have felt at some point, whether in work or in life outside of work. This cracks me up and I am keeping this in the back of my mind for future reference.

Ah, and there she is, Lauren Graham! She plays Zoey’s boss Joan in the first season who becomes empowered after she finds a way to deal with her husband.

I’m not too fond of love triangles, but there is one on this show as well, with both Simon and Max vying for Zoey in a musical battle.

I really like group numbers like this one where a lot of the main cast get to play a part.

There’s a racism storyline in the second season and before Simon holds a press conference to confront the world with the racism in his workplace, Zoey hears his heartfelt plea to please not be misunderstood.

This video of Simon expressing his frustration about the self-congratulatory white world around him not seeing the racism is good too.

This following video is so relatable. Sometimes, when everyone around you is cheerful, you can’t help it, you still remain sad…

Goes for this following video as well. Zoey and Max aren’t quite as into this dress up marathon as everyone else seems to be.

Mo (Alex Newell) is Zoey’s genderfluid neighbour and friend who falls in love but still has some things to work out with the man he loves…

Zoey’s brother Andrew (David Clarke) and his wife Emily (Alice Lee) have some beautiful moments together…

… while even the outward quite perfect Emily also falls apart on occasion. Alice Lee who plays her is really so heartbreaking here.

One of the saddest songs is this one from the final (Christmas special) episode. At this point in the story Max temporarily also has the power to hear the ‘heart songs’ that Zoey normally hears and is stunned by the outpouring of grief that isn’t as visible on the outside. I so very well understand how the family feels.

To end on a more positive note, everyone wanting to kiss each other during a party is kinda sweet.

Of course there is far more, like a long funeral scene set to American Pie (on YouTube it is split into three videos here, here and here), but these are the ones that most stuck with me – my own personal Zoey jukebox so to speak.

Christmas spirit?

As soon as Sinterklaas leaves our country, everything bursts into Christmas here. We have not celebrated Sinterklaas at all this year. It’s usually a children’s festival and our children are now grown and have little interest in it. There are also grown up parties sometimes, but this year there was none to attend and I didn’t have interest in making Sinterklaas special either. I did buy the traditional chocolate letters for the family…

… and when I handed out the letters to Mr Esther and the kids, I sang a very short Sinterklaas song for them (same one as sung 48 seconds into this video)…

… and that was pretty much it.

Now it’s time for Christmas. Mr E. didn’t initially want to put up any decorations. “Didn’t we only just pack them away?” he asked and yes, it does feel that way. More than a year and a half working from home and everything seems to be blending together. Suddenly we seem to virtually be in winter again and I hate that it now gets dark early and those short winter days. The only things that can cheer me up when there’s so little daylight are twinkly lights and candles, so I did want to put something festive up. We now have a smallish Christmas tree, which I decorated on Sunday (blasphemy to be doing that on the day of Sinterklaas itself!), and I put out some little Christmas village houses we have that we can burn candles in. The twinkly lights at the window of our dining area have already been up for a little bit.

You’d think that would be enough to get me into the Christmas spirit but I am just not feeling it. I did put together and order the family photos calendar I make every year for my mother, aunt and siblings but I have absolutely no other Christmas shopping done yet. I don’t even have a clue what to get everyone. Mr E left the house earlier this afternoon, saying a package would arrive and I am not allowed to open it. Meanwhile, I have nothing, niets, nichts, nada, niente, le rien, zilch planned or bought. I so need to start getting on top of this. I also need to figure out what to get our daughter for her 18th birthday in 12 days time. She has no clue what she wants either! I just can’t seem to figure it all out. How did December creep up on me like this and find me wholly unprepared? I thought I was doing OK but now it really feels like the winter blues I feel every year may have arrived.

Something just needs to boost my mood. I watched (half watched, really) a few Hallmark movies but most of those seem to be getting me more annoyed than cheering me up. I did enjoy skipping through Parenthood episodes with Peter Krause and Lauren Graham but many episodes are such tearjerkers, I can’t go into depth with those either. I do love the marriage Peter Krause and Monica Potter portray as Adam and Kristina…

… and I also love the season 4 – 6 storyline with Lauren Graham and Ray Romano as Sarah and Hank …

Parenthood really is a great series and when I feel a little lighter, I’ll definitely go in again and also pay closer attention to other storylines, but now is not a good time.

I’ve also enjoyed the look of Richard in the Stay Close images I have seen…

… and I like the trailer…

… but even that has me apprehensive. I fear too many red herrings going nowhere, like in The Stranger, that other Harlan Coben series Richard did last year (or was it early this year that that came out?).

Maybe, to boost my mood and get more into the festive month spirit, it’s time to start taking those Vitamin D pills I bought a month or so ago or maybe I should finally invest in that light therapy lamp I’ve been meaning to get myself? I hope twinkly lights and candles can help.

One more…

I seem to be on a posting spree this past week (this is the 10th post in 8 days!) and even I am getting a little tired of hearing myself talk. Just this one more thing before I head to bed that I need to get off my chest: I made a second video for Bobby (Peter Krause) and Athena (Angela Bassett) from 9-1-1. This one’s a joyful one, it certainly cheered me up while I was making it…

Two videos for one show means that this warrants 9-1-1 having its own fan video page in my fan video corner on this blog. 🙂

Speaking of 9-1-1: seeing Peter Krause in action so much recently has also brought me back to his real life partner Lauren Graham again, whom I loved as Lorelai Gilmore on Gilmore Girls.

It reminded me that I have been meaning to read her book of biographical essays that she published a few years ago called Talking As Fast As I Can (which is what she did on Gilmore Girls – that show had really fast paced dialogue). I figured I’d put it on my Christmas wish list but then when I saw the e-book for only €2,-, I couldn’t resist and went ahead and bought it…

I haven’t touched my e-reader in eons, so needed to charge it first but I’m all set now. It’s just after midnight as I hit publish, I never really sleep before one am, so just enough time to jump into bed and get started! It feels good to find the motivation to read something again, I hope I like it enough to stick with it.

Peter Krause anyone?

A few years ago I watched a short lived tv series called The Catch which starred an actor called Peter Krause. I didn’t know him before that but instantly loved him on that show. The first season was good, the second less so, but through it all I really liked Peter Krause.

It turns out he already had a few hit series under his belt, like Six Feet Under and Parenthood but both are shows I have never seen before. About two years ago I watched seasons 1 and 2 of his latest show, called 9-1-1, about first responders in Los Angeles. I tuned in specifically for him.

He plays the fire department captain Bobby Nash, with some tough past baggage that he carries with him, and he eventually falls in love with policewoman Athena Grant (played by Angela Basset – man, that woman can give looks that kill!).

When I first researched Peter Krause, after I saw him in The Catch, it turned out that he’s the real life partner of Lauren Graham, who plays Lorelai Gilmore in my beloved Gilmore Girls. I just love that they’re a couple.

Anyway, this past week I’ve been binge-watching 9-1-1 again. I had been all caught up until almost the end of season 2 but had not gotten around to seasons 3 and 4 yet. Not sure anymore what brought me to it again but I refreshed my memory by re-watching bits and pieces before watching season 3 and am now progressing on to season 4. Although the world does seem to be ending every few episodes (fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, train crashes) I do really enjoy this show. There are also more mundane and some very weird cases in it, based off real life 911 calls, which are sometimes tragic but sometimes also quite funny.

The cast is diverse, which I love. Yes, there’s Peter Krause and Angela Bassett, who are awesome, but the rest of the cast is also good. I especially like Athena’s ex-husband played by Rockmond Dunbar (in the picture below on the left, I had also loved him on The Mentalist), Aisha Hinds (to the right of Krause) who plays an EMT married to a woman, Kenneth Choi (on the right) and the storyline of a firefigher played by Ryan Guzman who is the single dad to a boy with cerebral palsy.

Back to Peter Krause. There’s just something about him, in the way he looks into the world with a half smile and such a friendly face but so much hidden behind those open wide eyes as well.

He’s got me hooked again on this show and I love seeing him as the captain commandeering crisis situations, as the father figure for his team, as the man dealing with a difficult past, and in his marriage to Angela Bassett as Athena. I love that there is no endless will they/won’t they between them. They fall in love and get married all within one season and just get on with it, dealing with all that life throws at them (and that is a lot!).

I’m thinking that after I’m all caught up, I might go on to watching him in Six Feet Under and Parenthood. It’s always fun exploring an actor like that and I just like this guy. He’s been nominated for Emmys and Golden Globes for Six Feet Under and he did Parenthood with Lauren Graham (she plays his sister on that show). Have any of you seen those two shows? And if so, any thoughts to share?

Right, on to the premiere episode of season 4 now before we get around to dinner at the Esther household. Luckily, Mr Esther cooks, very much like Peter Krause does, who as Bobby is always cooking on the show.

A year in the life of the Gilmore Girls

Warning: spoilers ahead – lots of ’em! – for Gilmore Girls : A Year in the Life, so read at your own peril! Not only spoilers in text but also in images (yes, I went screencap crazy – you can click on the small images to enlarge them)…

Yep. I did it! Got myself a Netflix trial subscription and binge-watched the 4 new Gilmore Girls tv movies set during a year. Each episode equalled a season, starting with winter, and boy did I love it (excepting a few little things)!

The gazebo in town is still central, it’s where the movie series opens…

Mother Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel) reunite after Rory has been away for her job, living in New York and travelling all over, writing great articles. The movies centre around these two Gilmores but Lorelai’s mother Emily (Kelly Bishop) also goes through an important journey in these episodes. There is a lot of humour here, there is yet again more than enough quirkiness to go around with fast talking and pop culture references, but there is also real heartbreak! The perfect Gilmore Girl mix.

One of the most palpable themes throughout all the movies is the quite recent loss of Richard Gilmore (Edward Herrmann) who was Emily’s husband, Lorelai’s father and Rory’s grandfather. This storyline may have touched me the most, it certainly made me cry the most, and I am very aware that it has a lot to do with the loss of my own father 20 months ago. I have felt the rawness they feel and I have felt the difficulties in coming to terms with such a big loss…The flashback to the funeral made me cry…

Emily tries dealing with the loss of her husband by getting a huge portrait of him painted (measuring mistake!) or not wanting anyone to sit in her husband’s chair at the dinner table with Kirk (Sean Gunn) there as well (love that there’s a good amount of Kirk in these episodes!), or crawling away from the world, or madly trying to get rid of everything that gives her ‘no joy’ and she even wears, GASP, jeans and a t-shirt at one point!

But she finally finds her own way… it is absolutely priceless when in the final episode she calls out her fellow DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) charity ladies on their bullshit! She finds peace in a new home with a more normal portrait of Richard to love, she comes into her own. She even, for the first time ever, has a permanent maid and doesn’t only take her in but her whole family as well! She will always miss Richard, but she will be alright…

Of course there is also the conflict between Emily and her daughter Lorelai about how they deal with the loss of Richard, due to Lorelai failing to open up. It even lands them in therapy together (priceless to watch that, tragic and funny at the same time!). In the end, Lorelai can open up and share herself with her mother in a touching scene of epiphany, that had me tear up again and was healing for both of them.

Focusing on Lorelai now, she has her own journey to travel. Lorelai hears some comments from her mother that hit home in the first episode that slowly send her into her own crisis. She still runs the inn (and yay, Michel (Yanic Truesdale) is still there, grumpy as ever!),

Luke (Scott Patterson) has moved in with her and still runs his diner, they are still not married and life is still pretty much the same for her since we left her 8 or 9 years ago after reuniting with Luke. Her mother’s words start to nag at Lorelai and make her doubt her life. What is it she wants in her life? Is she right for Luke? Did they miss out having a family of their own together? She drags Luke to a fertility clinic, looking into surrogacy options – which brings us to Rory’s overly ambitious friend Paris (Liza Weil) who is still as intense and direct as ever and she runs said clinic, which is of course the best of its kind! I loved seeing Paris again.

Lorelai gets roped into therapy with her mom (as mentioned above), doesn’t tell Luke about continuing therapy on her own, and feels out of synch with the town while watching the rehearsals for  Stars Hollow : The Musical, something that would normally amuse her. Lorelai is never out of synch with the town, she can usually find something to enjoy in anything, but now she can’t which says an awful lot about her state of mind…

At the inn there is no room for expansion, Sookie (Melissa McCarthy) is on ‘temporary’ leave which has lasted for over a year and Michel isn’t happy there anymore and wants to leave… Everything is off and she cracks, needing time on her own to gain perspective. In the last episode she ‘does’ Wild (the book not the movie 🙂 ) where she intends to hike the Pacific Crest Trail…

Of course, nothing happens as planned but it still leads her to her epiphany when she calls her mother in that emotional speech I mentioned above. Somehow everything else falls into place for her as well and she figures out what she wants in her life and finds a new challenge for her career.

Then we have Rory’s journey. She writes articles, her latest succesful one was for The New Yorker, but comes into a career dip. She tries to write a biography of a wacko woman, which doesn’t pan out, other job opportunities fall through as well, she is stuck in her career with no idea where to go… We see her get together with her ex boyfriend Logan (Matt Czuchry) whom she hooks up with on occasion – all non-committal: she visits him in London now and again, they sleep together, talk and then move on to their own separate lives (in which Logan is even engaged).

Logan is charming and rich and spoils Rory, together with the ‘Life and Death Brigade’ friends from college – all filthy rich entitled guys who can buy up the world and be careless because of their wealth.

Life is a party, they live in this alternate universe with no care for money or other people and Rory, while having fun, doesn’t feel right with them. I really didn’t like that there was so much of Logan in this, I don’t see why she would still be with him like that.  Luckily she saw that as well in the end.

Rory still has her friends to fall back on as well. There’s the aforementioned Paris, all business and ambition and intensity. She freaks out students in her intense way at an alumni event and has a freak out of her own in a bathroom at one point which I loved. She’s also going through a divorce from Doyle (Danny Strong) that shouldn’t really be happening, I felt. Those two have always had intense arguments, it’s who they are, and the chemistry is still there. In my mind, in the future, those two will make up and just stay together forever after all…

We also still have Lane (Keiko Agena)! She has her twin boys and is still married and the band still plays and practices and really sounds quite good! Her mother Mrs Kim (Emily Kuroda) is still around, strict as ever, intimidating young Korean youth and for one brief glimpse we even meet Mr. Kim! In all 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls I have never seen Mr. Kim, he was never around. I sort of assumed Mrs. Kim was a widow but apparently not… that was a fun little surprise!

There’s still a lot of fun to be had around town, such as the town meetings that are still going strong and the movie nights…

… there was the aforementioned musical, and the summer pool (with Lorelai and Rory observing and commenting in sunny outfits and notice that Lorelai is reading Wild)…

… there’s the secret bar that gets dismantled in record time as soon as Taylor (Michael Winters) walks by (notice the ‘Shhh’ logo on the wall!) and the spring festival with Taylor and Kirk in their element…

… and, near the end, we also get Sookie back! I love Sookie, wish she could have been in this more!

There is also the very funny storyline of Rory’s ‘boyfriend’ Paul who is just so forgettable, no one remembers his name or that he’s around or what they may have talked about with him before. Rory hardly ever sees him, she means to break up with him but always forgets!

Rory also briefly runs into her first boyfriend Dean (Jared Padalecki), who is apparently still married and has 3 children with a 4th on the way, and she visits her dad Christopher (David Sutcliffe), asking him all sorts of questions on how he felt about not being around to raise her…

… but the most important men in both the Gilmore girls’ lives are Luke for Lorelai and potentially Jess (Milo Ventimiglia) for Rory (even though Rory doesn’t realize it yet).  Jess isn’t in this a lot (more’s the pity!) but when he is, in his own way he makes a real difference! He is there for his uncle Luke when Luke is despairing and thinks he’s losing Lorelai and supports him when things are right.

Jess even solves Luke’s wifi problem (Luke hates phones and wifi in his diner)…

… in the most hilarious, no bullshit kind of way. Jess has the rebel vibe but inside he’s a softie.

When he comes by to visit Rory (apparently the first time they have seen each other in 4 years), he is the one with the insight into who she really is and gives her an idea that can define her further career. He helps her understand where her heart truly lies and gets her out of her career ‘what should I do next’ dip…

On a side note, Rory has become the temporary editor of the local newspaper and in her office (where Jess visits her) there is an Esther! Esther is only ever seen filing… could this be me in years to come? I have a librarianship background, after all, am (dark) blonde and wear glasses as  well… 😉

Anyway, back to where I was… Rory lets the idea Jess gave her gestate. It doesn’t go down well with her mother who is dealing with her own demons, but Rory goes ahead and does as he suggested anyway. There is this one small scene when Rory enters her grandfather’s study just before she embarks on her project and in her imagination she sees her grandfather sitting there at his desk. That little scene really hit home for me, because often in my mind’s eye I too can still see my dad sitting at his desk when I enter his study…

At the end, with Lorelai happy again and finally accepting Rory’s project, Rory excitedly shows Jess the first beginning of her project, just as he is set to leave again…

He has been ‘over her’ for ages he tells his uncle Luke who watches the brief exchange, but then we get a parting shot of Jess looking at Rory longingly through a window just as he leaves…

Yes, it looks like Jess really is to Rory what Luke is to Lorelai… Rory just needs to wake up to that and Jess needs to be in the right place in his life; they just one day need to get their timing right. That leads me to Lorelai and Luke, their timing is finally right!

Lorelai and Luke live together, hang out together, and yes, go through a bit of a crisis as well…

… but in the end, all is well and they finally decide to get married! “The only way out of this is in a body bag”, Luke tells her. Well, that’s the wedding vows fixed. 🙂

They plan the wedding…

… and then elope, in a way, after all…

Then, to end it all, we go back to Lorelai and Rory again, sitting in the gazebo, just like at the very beginning of this series…

Lorelai is married now, Rory is single, and the show ends with a bang, when the last 4 words (that have been teased for years by the show runners) are uttered…

These 4 words also explain Rory’s interrogation of her dad a little better and shows yet again how many parallels there are in the lives of Rory and Lorelai. Does this leave room for Gilmore Girls : The Next Generation? Do we all really turn into our mothers? I wonder if this really is the end… I for one wouldn’t mind more episodes of Gilmore Girls in the future…