ANDOR KNOWS HOW TO TELL A STAR WAR

ANDOR landed last week with its first three episodes, followed by another this week. It's generated immediate attention particularly for the ways in which it feels like STAR WARS while not having a lot of the things we attribute to the property. There's nothing to do with the Force, with Jedi or Sith. There's only one character who is at all familiar, Mon Mothma, and her existence is radically different than what we're used to. In some ways most importantly, it has a whole different kind of sound to it; the score feels very BLADE RUNNER adjacent, which is a whole different kind of thing than STAR WARS. 

And yet, it absolutely does feel like STAR WARS.  How does it accomplish that?

1) It populates the corners of the story with lots of stuff that's familiar: we have droids; we have pistols that behave and sound like what we're used to; we have hovercraft-y speeders; in episode four we also get Imperial uniforms, TIE fighters and Luthen's ship, whose interiors are so similar to the Millennium Falcon.

These may seem like details, but as Walt Disney so often insisted about his parks, it's the very smallest things that is the difference between a world seeming seem real or fake. And in some cases those "details" aren't quite so small, either; the Andor family droid Bee is not just any robot; it has the look and feel of a STAR WARS droid, and behaves in the aide-but-also-protective-friend way that we've been taught is proper for a droid.  

2) Everyone we meet has a story of their own: Obviously this is mostly Andor's story. His name is the title. But lots of other characters get stories and conflicts of their own: his friend Bix; her boyfriend Timm; Andor's mom Maarva; Syril (the guy trying to arrest Andor); Luthen; Bee. Even that random guy who tells the town when it's time to leave work or go to work by banging hammers on metal gets some real moments. 

For me, he and Bee are probably the most STAR WARS when it comes to character touches. Because neither is totally necessary. Yes, of course there should be droids, but writer Tony Gilroy gives him a legitimate conflict between helping Andor and telling his mother what's going on. And Hammer Guy could just as easily have been a sound that we hear ringing in the distance without attribution. But this is STAR WARS, and STAR WARS is always teeming with characters with stories we'll only get a glimpse of. STAR WARS is always telling a story that is only one small part of what is going on in the universe.

And here director Toby Haynes really leans into it, too; he lets that guy have enough time that we see his ritual and learn in a roundabout way from his stretches something of his hardship. It's not easy pounding that metal every day.

3) It has a very STAR WARS-type battle: When it comes to on-the-ground battles, STAR WARS has a kind of type that tend to be its very best. And those are occasions where the setting itself becomes part of the battle. In EMPIRE Luke is crawling around in air ducts; Vader is throwing random shit at him; Luke gets blown out a window where the winds are massive. In CLONES we've got the insane sequence where the characters are all trying to move through a droid factory without getting crushed or burned alive. REVENGE has Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting while floating down a lava field, and as shit is collapsing around them. 

In Episode 3, ANDOR gives us its own addition to this canon, the fight in the abandoned warehouse, and it's pretty marvelous. It starts like just a shoot 'em up, with no hint that this is going to be something special. (So often in STAR WARS they'll give you a hint that this is going to be something nuts; the lights or shapes will echo something from EMPIRE, or they'll just put you in an environment that you instinctively know means it's one of those fights, like the end of MENACE.) 

But then suddenly we've got things that had been hung from the ceiling, engines maybe, starting to fly down. And it's a total accident at first—again, a very STAR WARS beat, the unintended consequence. Then they're shooting things on purpose (and on accident) as they try to get to the device Andor left. And it keeps generating further complications—first there's a thing to dodge, then it's multiple things, then the whole goddamn ceiling is coming down. It's absolutely brilliant.

Obviously there's other stuff you could say that are reminiscent of STAR WARS. It has an older dude with a sword! A handsome reluctant hero, and a middle management villain with fascist tendencies! A rag tag bunch! And the handsome reluctant hero character-type is definitely something I am going to write about at some point, because Andor does not feel anything like Han Solo, and yet I wonder if there's still connective tissue in their DNA (wow, mixed metaphor much?) that makes it feel STAR WARS anyway? 

While I know this reads like a STAR WARS post, it's really about coming onto a show as the newbie. Your job is going to be to pitch and write stuff that seems consistent with the house style. And how do you do that? By taking note of the things that make your show the show that is. Sometimes it's obvious stuff, like make sure you have surgery scenes on GREY'S ANATOMY. Sometimes it's a bit more subtle, maybe even stuff that some of the writers of the show themselves don't know they all do. (Probably they do though.) And the more of that you can bring, alongside your own voice, the more you'll have to offer.

EUPHORIA KNOWS HOW TO HIDE STORIES IN PLAIN SIGHT

EUPHORIA 207 is one of those moments in television that is going to be remembered: a series regular who has been mostly operating in the background, who suddenly steps forward and takes over the show by recreating it onstage for everyone to see. It's just a wild idea, and brilliantly executed. The show does such a great job of weaving back and forth between the events of the play and the "real" events, also switching back and forth on stage between the characters and the actors playing them. It's a dense and yet completely enthralling piece of work. 

The thing that most stood out to me was how the episode highlights the concept of narration. Just as Rue narrates most of the events of the series, so in this play within the play episode, Lexie is our narrator, telling the story of life as she sees it. And it's a remarkably different story than Rue's. While she touches on some of the same moments or topics, Lexie is far more interested in family and the relationships amongst her friends than Rue. We barely saw Rue's sister Gia and mother this season before she went nuts on them in 205. One scene, and I'm not sure Gia was even it. 

Meanwhile Lexie's story features her relationship with her sister and their father, a character I'm pretty sure we've not heard from before. It also shows us a lot of moments of Rue in the early days of her drug use that we haven't gotten before, and an innocence that we haven't seen.

We learn a lot more about Maddy leaving her parents' home, what that was like for her and the bond it forged between her and Cassie. Cassie sleeping with Nate means a whole different level of bad with that information. 

It's all very much like the guy holding an apple in the middle of a room and saying Tell me what you see. The people in front of the apple say, it's an apple. It's red. It's shiny. It's brand new. Meanwhile the people on the other side say who took a bite out of that apple? We've been seeing everything through Rue's eyes, and that's been great. As I've written about here before, it's been a brilliant way of keeping us from really dealing with what is going on in front of us; Rue is the absolute definition of "disarming." 

But there's also so much we've missed. 

And that insight goes two ways. Consider the ending, that insanely sexualized scene of the football team with her fake-Nate the center. Does Lexie really think she's not being mean when she calls out Nate like that? Or when she's painting Rue wide-eyed with bobtails, just chatting about life up on the roof—is that really how Rue was? Because that Rue seems a lot more like Lexie would want her, and like Lexie sees herself. Or consider Kat, who basically gets nothing to do in the entire play except one moment where she's wearing her kitty-cat outfit. Why isn't there more of her? Maybe because that is literally the only moment she's made any real impression on Lexie. 

In a sense the whole episode is about the act of narration. It highlights that every narrator, whether they're a heavily-using drug addict or the sweetest kid in school, is both revealing some things and hiding/ignoring others. Every narrator ultimately is an untrustworthy one, even if they're also in some ways a worthy one. 

And for us as writers, 207 is a great example of how narration works, how it should always be illuminating things about characters (versus simply telling the story) and at the same time obscuring other things (whether intentionally on the part of the narrator or unintentionally so).

EUPHORIA KNOWS THE POWER OF KNOCKING DOWN YOUR EXPECTATIONS

For me EUPHORIA 206 runs in parallel with 203. In both episodes we're dealing with our "villains", Cal (203) and Nate (206). And at first 206 seems like it's going to take us through the same humanizing moves. Cal was in love with another boy as a kid and then had his life turned upside down. Nate, we learn from his mom, had something terrible happen at 9 and then changed. 

But where 203 builds on that introduction, in 206 its echo is really a sleight of hand set up. We expect more pathos, but instead we get Nate breaking into Maddie's apartment, drawing a gun on her and threatening to kill first her and then playing Russian roulette with himself until she reveals where she has the DVD of his dad having sex with Jules. It is one of the most disturbing moments in the entire show (and honey, that is saying something). 

The crazy thing is, the episode refuses to leave us with our renewed understanding that Nate is a Monster, either. He brings the DVD to Jules so that she can choose what to do with it; and he's nothing but good to her, although given what we've just seen we spend the whole sequence living in fear for Jules, a brilliant choice on writer Sam Levinson's part. It's such a great technique to remember: Each character scene delivers an emotional package that we the audience carry with us into the character's next moment (and sometimes just the next moment period). If you see Nate threatening to murder Maddie in scene one, we are definitely going to be terrified of him the entire next scene, no matter what. 

And even at this point we're not done with Nate. He calls Cassie and tells her she's coming home with him, which while not as bad as holding Maddie at gun point is definitely messed up.

The roller coaster of all this serves a character purpose, right? By the end of the episode we no longer have any idea what Nate might do next. The writing has effectively blown past our expectations so many times that there's really nothing left for us to do but surrender. Which is terrifying, and also exactly what Levinson wants us to feel when it comes to Nate. 

In a lot of shows that I've written about, we've seen a writer do one twist on expectations. And that seems to fit the structure of TV: a character enters with a problem or question, and the ending should resolve that issue in an unexpected way, but also one that builds over the course of the episode. 

But in 206 Levinson makes it clear there's more room to play with expectations than we might think. You can overturn expectations far more than just once in one ep. And if you do it well (i.e. it's justified, not just random twists for the sake of twists, which an audience will always recognize on a gut level), the power of those twists upon the viewer grows almost exponentially.

EUPHORIA DELIVERS A GREAT CHARACTER BOTTLE

In television, a bottle episode is an episode that takes place in just one location for its entirety. It was originally used as a way of saving money. One location means no travel, fewer lighting set ups, almost certainly fewer characters. 

But it also posed a fun challenge for creators. If we're just going to be here, how do we keep it interesting? How do we keep the audience not just engaged but on their toes? Some of the best episodes of some shows have come from bottle episodes. (It's a great reminder that Constraints can often feed creativity.)

There's another kind of bottle episodes that occurs in ensemble shows, and that's a Character Bottle: instead of shifting among characters, as the show normally does, it stays for an entire episode locked in on one. 

EUPHORIA 205, written and directed by Sam Levinson, is a Character Bottle. We start with Rue being confronted by her mother about her relapse. And we stay on Rue pretty much the entire time. No flashbacks, no dream sequences or cutaways. I think there's one moment where we see Rue's mom and sister in a car, or maybe two, but otherwise, it's all Rue. And at the same time, she delivers no narration.  That's probably the most important choice of all; her narration is how she escapes her reality into fantasy and wins us over. But now she's simply trapped in this moment, and we are trapped with her. 

The power of a character bottle is very much in its unrelenting quality. We never get a break from the character, which means it's a phenomenal way for us to get inside their head. We go through exactly what they go through.  

The long first sequence at home is particularly riveting; Rue shuttles through so many different feelings and actions, many of them frightening. And just when it seems to calm down, we get the reveal that Jules and Elliot are in the living room, and have heard everything, which leads to a whole new set of reactions. 

And here's the crazy thing: that whole sequence is only about 13 minutes long. But I swear watching it, it feels like at least half the episode. 

When Rue's mom and sister leave to take her to treatment—again, it's a character bottle, so they can change locations, we just have to stay on Rue—Levinson has us move back and forth inside the car, where Rue is ramping up again, and outside, where we can't hear anything, we just see Rue. It's sort of a microcosm for the whole episode: we're literally watching Rue trapped, desperate to get out, and then eventually breaking out. But of course you can't escape yourself, and so we can't escape her either. 

If you're working on an ensemble series, especially one that's been on a while, so the episode structure has been firmly set, a character bottle can be such an effective choice. Simply by throwing out the pre-established structure, you create an energy and sense of uncertainty in the audience that is really compelling.

EUPHORIA KNOWS HOW TO MAKE A SCENE WORK

EUPHORIA 203 features one of the more unexpected turns in the show (until 205) (and then 206)...the start of a redemption arc for noted crazy person and monster Cal Jacobs. 

Well, not a redemption arc per se. It's not like he's trying to help anyone or fix the messes he's made exactly. More like an empathy arc. You know that noted crazy person and monster Cal Jacobs? Well here's where he came from. 

The opening sequence with him as a boy and the best friend he was in love with packs a great punch. And 204 will take all of that in interesting ways. 

But the scene in 203 that really grabbed me is the moment that he gets grabbed by Ash outside his house and then questioned by Ash and Fezco. 

A big part of what makes it work both as a scene in and of itself and for Cal's arc is that it is absolutely NOT the tone you would expect. There's no danger here, no ranting or guns. Instead we get screwball absurdity. Cal thinks Fezco has the disc of him having sex with Jules. Fezco has no idea what he's talking about. And it's very much played for the misunderstandings of it all. At times we're about two steps away from someone shouting "Third base!" 

(Yes, that is a "Who's on First?" reference, and I am old, but also if you haven't already you should watch that Abbott & Costello routine because it is the basis for so much comedy writing.) 

I could dig into the beats of their back and forth, but what's really essential is the comedic tone, and the fact that it emerges very naturally and believably. In the abstract it absolutely shouldn't. There is nothing about Cal that is funny. But somehow dropping him into that low status position really lands, maybe  because we already dislike him so much, it's enormously satisfying to see him getting beaten on, let alone by a middle schooler. 

There's definitely some interesting takeaways for our own work. First, there's what you might call Chekov's Asshole. If you establish someone is a real monster in the first act, we expect them to get their comeuppance at the end. 

And there's a corollary: If you can find a way to undermine the fearfulness of the monster, make them an object of ridicule rather than fear, it can actually change our hate for the character into something more sympathetic.  Even though he's doing it with a shotgun, Ash beating on Cal is funny, because he warns Cal what the rules here are and then Cal keeps breaking them anyway. Rather than in danger Cal just looks stupid.

And Fezco saying "What is it with your family?" is one of the great lines of the season. It's exactly the question we have. What is the deal with these people? In hearing a character say it, we laugh. When a character says the thing we've been thinking (but no one else in-world is saying), it's satisfying and so unexpected it often feels funny. 

There's more work for Cal to do (understatement of the year), but we really leave him at the end of that scene no longer pissed at him or freaked at him. He's been revealed to be the Emperor with no Clothes. And so now he's an object for our entertainment and curiosity. 

EUPHORIA DOES A GREAT FANTASY SEQUENCE

The early going of season two of EUPHORIA has so many fantasy sequences. Each character seems to get at least one: so in 203 we've got Lexie coping with her place in her family and life by imagining herself as in a TV show that she's creating; or we've got Rue in 203 back in the classroom teaching us about how to prepare for the moment when your friends and family discover you are still using; or we've got Kat imagining that instead of Ethan coming back from the bathroom in 202, Khal Drogo kills him offscreen and then savages her. 

Part of the secret sauce of a great EUPHORIA fantasy sequence is having it flow right in and out of reality, with no break. Ethan leaves for the bathroom, and we stay with Kat, all of which tells us we're still in reality. But then there's smoke and blood and then Drogo.  

Lexie's fantasy sequence likewise comes on the heels of a slo mo nightmare moment in which she is sitting at the head of the table watching as her parents and Cassie all yell at each other. The look on her face is heartbreakingly sad. And Rue narrates, "She often imagined that her parents weren't really her parents, that her sister wasn't really her sister, that her house wasn't really her house. That it was just the movie. One that she was writing."

Until that last line, nothing in this moment suggests we're going to cutaway to some kind of fantasy, or even that such a turn is possible. She leaves the table and it still seems very sad, but then suddenly it turns out she's outside the set and she's talking to her an assistant and others and then watches her "parents" doing the scene at video village. And interestingly, that sequence maintains the emotion of what had come before, it's just now it's the stress of making a show, rather than of living in a nightmare.

But then we cut to this behind the scenes interview where Lexie talks about her show. And it's just hilarious, with her deciding what her sister should wear (and just being devastating in the process), or Rue being called out for being high on the set. 

I think my favorite so far this season, though, is Kat being confronted by super models in 202. She's on her computer watching make up tutorials and feeling ugly and weak, and suddenly there's a super model there telling her how much she envies Kat, how brave and confident Kat is. So again, we're starting in reality and then without warning it's a fantasy. 

But what really sets this fantasy apart is that it also plays out in such an unexpected way. Kat insists that she is not who the model thinks she is, that she hates herself. But the result is only that more models show up and pile on more empty affirmations. And Kat keeps calling bullshit on them, until her room is filled with super models screaming at her to love herself and her running out of the room screaming back. 

It's all pretty much the opposite of every other take on this kind of moment that we've seen on television. Which makes it both delightful for the audience and also a great way of capturing Kat's very specific point of view on things. 

You don't want to be programmatic about fantasy sequences. But if you're looking for ideas on how to weave them in, definitely check out EUPHORIA.

EUPHORIA HANDS OFF ITS NARRATIVES

 

As I've written about before, EUPHORIA is a really interesting show. It has a lot of creative ways to tell story. 

I'm just now working my way through season two, and I was really struck by the way writer Sam Levinson interweaves some of the character narratives early in the second episode. He begins one character's story, then has that character intersect with someone else, and basically does a hand off. But unlike say, THE WEST WING, the handoff moment doesn't involve that new character's story going forward, but rather a time jump back that shows us how they got to the point where we find them as they've intersected with the first character. 

So, we start with Rue, Jules and Elliott. And when Jules finds out Rue met Elliott at the New Year's party where she was using, Jules walks away, very upset. And she goes into the bathroom, passing Cassie. 

And instead of following Jules into the stall, we instead cut back to Cassie's drama about Nate, how in fact Maddie had warned her before she hooked up with Nate that she is so desperate to be loved, and the trouble that brings upon her. She has to say no.

Then we follow Cassie doing exactly the opposite of saying no, all the way to Nate having to deal with all her neediness after the fact.

Other than one quick Maddie/Nate moment we stay with Cassie until she's talking to Maddie on the phone while Maddie is babysitting. And then we get another hand off to Maddie, in which we learn all about this babysitting job she's got, and how she's trying on the wife's fabulous clothes and almost gets caught. 

And then we cut back to the bathroom, but now it's Maddie and Kat talking, which becomes a way to hand off to Kat and her fantasy that instead of having a nice guy for a boyfriend she would basically have Khal Drogo come and savage her, which she then tells the girls is what Ethan did to her. 

Then things get a little bumpy for a moment—we're with Nate and his dad and then through him Cassie. There's no handoff per se, but it is the way that the show brings us back to that moment in the bathroom that began the sequence, except now we're focused on Cassie, until Jules comes in, at which point the story gets handed back to her.  And start to finish everything is accompanied by Rue's narration.

There's lots we could say about this approach. Thematically it seems like a great way of representing the experience of the characters, how everything is always shifting and nonlinear for them, past and present and one another are all sort of happening at the same time.  

From a storytelling point of view, it's also a way of keeping the momentum going. You could very easily break these individual stories up and tell them separately. Really, with the exception of Cassie the stories are separate, one following the other. But by giving them a beginning that you have to return to, Levinson creates a sense of orientation and expectation. We are headed somewhere. 

I think there's also a way in which because these stories are framed as one story bloc, each next story sort of rides off the energy of what's come before. Maddie's story, for instance, is great on its own; but coming into it straight off of Cassie's increasing craziness gives it extra oomph. It's a bit like drafting in team cycling or skating; in traveling behind one of your teammates you end up having to work less hard, so that when they fall away you can really kick it into another gear. 

It's satisfying, too, just for the sheer craft of it. It's just fun to start on one character, see the story get passed around and then wait to see how will they get back to where they began. It's like a game that the show is letting us play with it.

There's a couple pretty standard ways of telling a story on television. And they're the standard ways because they work. But they're not the only ways to tell a story. And watching EUPHORIA is a great way to be reminded of that fact.

THE RINGS OF POWER: A GREAT CHARACTER ARC

When I'm doing these posts I tend to focus on really specific moments or choices in an episode. But today I thought I'd instead trace the arc of a character in a given episode. It's a key skill, and RINGS OF POWER gives a good example in its pilot. 

OPENING:

The series opens on the child Galadriel building a very cool paper boat, which is then attacked by doofy elf kids. And when Galadriel jumps them, she ends up getting pulled away by her older brother Finrod. And he gives her two pieces of advice. First, to keep your eyes looking up toward the light, rather than dragged down by the dark. And the second we don't hear at this point. But what we get instead is just Galadriel's question: What do you if you can't tell the difference between what is up and what is down? 

Just like that, the show sets up Galadriel's conflict in the pilot: She needs to decide whether to do what looks right to everyone else, or to do something else that doesn't. She needs to figure out what's right for her. An open question, a very tidy way of setting an arc up.

It's also a moment that establishes the most important relationship in Galadriel's life, her relationship with Finrod, which is the engine that is going to drive her.  

THE HUNT

After a history lesson that explains what happened to Valinor, home of the Elves, the war against Morgoth and the death of Finrod at Sauron's hands, and her promise to finish her brother's quest, we find Galadriel leading a team of elves in some crazy northern wasteland, looking for a sign of Sauron. 

There's a number of beats in the section, but in a sense they all amount to the same thing: Galadriel wants to push on, and everyone else thinks that's crazy. So at the beginning of the section she's far outmatching her companions in climbing; and at the end, despite finding Sauron's signal, they all still elect to go home. 

So, basically we have young Galadriel's hypothetical problem made real: she sees things completely differently than everyone else. And they say her way is wrong. 

LINDON

Galadriel comes to the capital city of the High Elves intent on demanding the king send her back out. (Scene 1) Instead she is surprised to find he publicly announces wartime is over, Sauron is clearly no more, and missions her and her companions to Valinor as a reward. (Scene 2)

This ups the ante, right? She's the one who never backs down, but she's been warned by Elrond that she is already on thin ice with the king, that he finds her continued drive disobedient. And so she's put into this situation of having to decide, will she trust her instincts or not? 

At first, she confides to Elrond that she is going to refuse the offer, she will go on alone if she must. And for a moment she actually seems to have the compelling argument--"Evil does not sleep," she tells him. "It waits." He presses back with the key Galadriel question: And what if you're wrong? Who will die as a result? And what will happen to you—you'll be trapped here forever. 

We get a new argument in the midst of all this, the trauma that Galadriel has been through, the darkness she carries inside her, and also the way her identity is tied up with her long career as a warrior. And the scene ends with Elrond begging her to put her sword down and rest.  

The next thing we know she's on the boat, leaving Lindon for Valinor with the others. Which is a little surprising—we've had no moment of real choice! But that's because her moment of choice is not at Lindon but out on the ocean, as the passage to Valinor opens.

THE BOAT

We get this extended ritual of preparation. First their armor is taken off, then their weapons from their hands. And she resists, until someone else stares at her. Then she releases. Again, at the heart of deciding what is right is also having to deal with others' point of view on the matter. 

We get the light, the birds, the angelic song, which all the others join in on, but not Galadriel. And this time, there's no resolution, she just doesn't join in, looking confused.

The doorway opens. And as everyone looks forward, she looks back to her sword. And as others step forward, she steps back, while her second in command begs for her hand. At first she gives it, but then she looks back again to the sword. And we hear her question to her brother again about how to tell the darkness from the light, and her brother's whispered answer: "Sometimes we cannot know, until we have touched the darkness." In other words, Galadriel, trust your own experience. 

Her friend again calls for her, and her hand is still extended, in fact reaching for him—that's how near a thing this is; even as she comes to believe in staying, still there is a major part of her that is intent on doing what everyone else believes. In fact our last shot of her on the boat has her staring seemingly into the light.

But then no, she dives off the boat, her decision finally made. And the decision is not simply to not to go to Valinor, but to trust her own sense of where the light is. She's answering the question she asked as a child. 

It's a really well made arc, isn't it? I especially like that deferral of her decision at Lindon; that's the key to her arc, and so of course she should decide only at the end. And there's also the specific way the writers choose to deepen her conflict over it. She seems so sure of herself on the hunt. Even in Lindon, mostly. But then she leaves without deciding, and on the boat it gets harder and harder for her not just to leave but to stay. You might think, given her initial resistance the conflict should be she wants to go but she does not feel allowed, but no, they find an even deeper well of struggle, which is that she more and more wants both things. In the end her decision to refuse Valinor is less than inches. 

A writing hypothesis worth considering: There's more conflict to be found in a person wants two opposing things than having them want one thing they can't have.

THE RINGS OF POWER: WHEN PAINTING YOURSELF INTO A CORNER DOESN'T QUITE WORK

 

The new LORD OF THE RINGS prequel series THE RINGS OF POWER debuted this week with the first two episodes. And I think there's a lot to like, like some strong female leads, great production values, and an interesting "PHANTOM MENACE, but done right"-type storyline. (@ me all you want, Prequel lovers.)

But there's one moment that I just can't get out of my head. About 25 minutes into episode 2, we check back in with Galadriel, who ended episode 1 having jumped off the boat that was going to take her and the other hero elves back to Valinor, which is presented as sort like Elf Eden. And really the entirety of episode one built to that decision on the boat in a really nice way (in fact I like it so much I'm going to talk it about tomorrow). 

So she leaps off the boat and watches the light to Valinor die--yet another bold move from her in the episode, cementing her hero status with us. Super solid. 

But then when it comes to episode two, that story choice has left us with a pretty huge problem. She's in the middle of the ocean. What do you do with her now? 

You can could create a coincidence—that's where the writing goes eventually. But you don't want to start there, because it undermines the sacrifice she made. She made a big decision, and we love her for it, but now she's got to pay for it.

The writers make a choice that fits the character well: she doesn't freak out, she doesn't really even blink an eye. She just turns back the way she came and swims for it. That's Galadriel, focused and determined. 

But onscreen it looks kind of silly. I get it, she's an elf, they don't die. But again, she's in the middle of the ocean. That should be a problem.  

One thought might have been to have her start swimming but immediately run into problems. Like, it's freaking cold. Or there's cloud cover so she has no way of knowing where she's going. Or hey, maybe she could get attacked by something. What if there's a some kind of underwater kelp that grabs hold of anything that touches it and tries to pull her down? Or she has to swim through razor sharp coral? 

Whatever happens, it shouldn't be easy, because again, she just made a huge sacrifice. And the cost can't be just that she isn't going to Valinor now, because she didn't really want to go in the first place. No, we need something tangible, aka suffering. If you're going to have your character take a big risk, there needs to be a cost for any payoff to feel earned. (So Daemon in DRAGON 103 has to get shot and stopped short of his goal. He can't just make it all the way to the Crabfeeder.)

Personally I'd bet the writers had an idea that didn't end up getting used because it didn't work when shot or it proved to be too expensive. The show's production values are just too fantastic for such a kind of goofy shot to get through. 

But there's something about the reality of television to be gained there, too. Sometimes the best you can do is move the story forward, even if it is in a way that is not pretty and brilliant. That's a hazard of both taking a big swing as writers, and of the business, which does not have unlimited resources. Like Galadriel herself, really, you have to just shake it off and keep going.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 103: ONCE AGAIN, IT'S ALL ABOUT BEING BOLD

 

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON had its third episode on Sunday. And it's an interesting study in contrasts. King Viserys spends the episode...well, drinking, mostly, and arguing with/worrying about his daughter.

Meanwhile Prince Daemon, who has been mostly offscreen for the last two years losing his war against the Crabfeeder and his Triarchy, gets word that his brother is finally going to send ships and save the day--and kinda seems to lose his whole honking mind, first beating the king's messenger and then taking on the Crabfeeder's forces literally on his own. 

It's a trap, of course, but it is dangerous in the extreme, and he gets shot twice in the chest in the process.  But his risk succeeds in drawing out the Crabfeeder's troops, which allows the Sea Snake's forces to finally once and for all destroy the Triarchy. And Daemon, who let's be honest has had a pretty checkered record so far when it comes to being the badass that he says he is, emerges from the moment seeming just the cat's meow of cool, even though the whole move is really predicated on him not wanting his brother to show him up. 

Meanwhile Viserys, who was finally doing the right thing by sending men, looks that much lamer. Seriously, V., save your "troops" and your "boats." We're rock and roll down here, we just need a guy with some guts. 

[And for me a big key to the scene is the archers. They get off SO MANY rounds while he's running for the Crabfeeder. They're the threat that you know is eventually going to take him down, because there are just too many of them, he has no defense against them and too far to go. And yet he keeps running. They embody the level of risk he is taking.]

How do you get people to root for a character? Have them be !%!%ing bold. They don't have to succeed. In some cases they don't even have to be talented. They just need to be willing to put it all on the line to attain their goal. 

And how do you get people to turn on a character, even a good one? Do the opposite. Have them be wishy-washy, whiny, indecisive, helpless, inert. Viserys really is in a shitty position. He's the king, he rides a freaking dragon, for gods' sake, and yet all anyone wants to talk about is his heir. Oh, and also, he really is still backing his daughter, despite all the pressure against him to do otherwise. We should be on his side. But because all we get from him is words and foot stomping, he's very hard to root for.