Max – Supplemental Post 4

I watched I May Destroy You and it deserves a post. The show’s clearly amazing. As a TV newb one aspect that really stood out was a digressive quality in the structure of the show, so that some narrative doors are allowed to slam shut. Likewise, the meaning, substance, resonance, ultimate importance of certain narrative threads is allowed to remain ambiguous. In most movies (with this much investment in production value, this much interest in accessibility) it sometimes feels that narrative elements pay off or don’t occur at all. The mixed serial/episodic quality also affords the opportunity for a more mutable relationship between the text and its “main” characters. (Not sure I actually believe that; I’ll have to think more about it. But I definitely haven’t seen anything like the way this show handles its limited ensemble. I’m not sure how my investment in Terry and Kwame affected my investment in Arabella’s story. I can say that the show’s balance between these investments allows it to offer a portrait of friendship (rather than of individuals with friends) in a way I’m not sure I’ve seen before, although again I’m hesitant to say right now how intrinsic that is to serial, narrative TV as a form.)