I was attracted to Shining Vale, a horror series that aired on Starz before being transferred to Hulu, because the icon looks like The Stepford Wives, with a lot of women forced to wear paper smiles, and one of the episode titles reflects "The Yellow Wallpaper," a feminist classic about a woman trapped in the attic and not allowed to write.
Prelude: A heterosexual nuclear family drives through the barren northwoods of New York:
1. Focus character Pat (Courtney Cox). Monica on Friends? I just reviewed a show starring her brother Ross.
2. Hubbie Terry (Greg Kinnear). Remember "Talk Soup"?
3. Their surly teenage daughter, Gaynor (Gaynor?) The actor is named Gus, so maybe they're nonbinary, but Gaynor (Gaynor?) herself gets a boyfriend later on.
4. Their portly teenage son, Jake, who is attached to a video game at all times. Jake has sort of a femme look, but will get a girlfriend later on. Actor Dylan Gage is gay in real life, and played a gay middle schooler on Pen15
The son and daughter are angry because they have to uproot their lives and leave their friends just because Mom had sex with some random Muscle Guy. Flash to the encounter; all we see is Muscle Guy flexing his biceps in the mirror while doing it. Weird.
Muscle Guy is played by Jonathan Higginbotham, but the top photo is Max Carpeter as Stanley in "A Streetcar Named Desire," for reasons that will become evident.
Suddenly a little girl in a 1950s costume is standing in the road! In the wilderness a hundred miles from the nearest town? Mom screams that they hit her. Mom screams that they hit her. Nope, no one there. Dad suggests that it was a deer. That was no deer, buddy.
They arrive at the huge mansion. So if your partner cheats, your first reaction is to buy a huge mansion in upstate New York? Excuse me -- I have some cruising to do.
Mom notes that Daughter Gaylord gets a room on the other side of the house for privacy, and Son Jake gets his own bathroom with a door that locks, for...well, you know.
A sinister lady dressed as a 1950s socialite, who will eventually be identified as Rosemary (Mira Sorvino), is staring at them. Mom screams; she vanishes. Dad says that it was probably a deers.
Flashback to the realtor showing . Upstairs, there's a huge stained glass window depicting St. George and the Dragon, but George is a lady, Rosemary.
Back story: 17 years ago, Mom wrote a bestselling novel referred to variously as "lady porn" and "female empowerment." She hasn't written a word since, but she hopes that moving to a mansion upstate, far away from Manhattan and its distractions -- museums, art galleries, bookstores, restaurants, gay bars -- will in spire her.
Sunday night: It's very cold in the house, so they light a fire. and the dining room table was lost, so they eat on the floor for "family time." Or you could eat off tv trays in the living room.
They have to say what they're looking forward to. Everyone chimes in: "Family! Spending more time with family! Family is everything! Family!" Ugh!
Son Jake and Daughter Gaybor were just paying lip-service to the family ideology. They rush off. With nothing else to do (no WIFI?), Dad suggests that they have sex. "We haven't done it since you cheated on me." Way to put her in the mood.
Left: Not Jonathan Higginbotham the Muscle Guy, for reasons that will become evident. Matthew Higginbotham, a jungler who plays for the TSM Academy. After googling it, I still don't know what that is.
3 months earlier: Mom telling her therapist, "I didn't plan on cheating" She was in her tiny, tiny, tiny apartment, bored (half a block from the Metropolitan Museum of Art?) and sad. Muscle Guy came by to fix the faucet, and she tripped and accidentally fell onto his penis. . The therapist asks if she's on anti-anxiety medication. She's suffering from depression, not anxiety, but he gives her a prescription anway.
Back to the mansion: As Dad goes upstairs to get ready for sex, Mom stalls by saying she wants to clean up the dinner dishes. Whoa, someone is playing the piano! And there's a tap on the window -- Rosemary, the lady from before, hovering ten feet off the grond! Monica runs upstairs, where Greg is ready for sex in -- boxers and a t-shirt? He rushes down to check. No one there. "It must have been a deer." That was no deer, but Mom has been established as crazy. Maybe she's hallucinating.
Monday: Inm the morning, Mom pops a bunch of pills, criticizes Daughter Gaymer's short skirt, and listens to Son Jake's complaint that she forgot to cut the crusts off his PB*J. They criticize her for giving a blow job to a rando and forcing them to come to this haunte mansion.
When the school bus comes, Daughter Gazebo gazes at a hot guy (Derek Lah, left) and takes off some of her clothes to entie them. Why is Mom waiting with them? Helicopter parent. She asks Gayborhood to make good choices (e.g., no sex) and Jake to try to make an age-appropriate friend, instead of hanging out with hunky older guys. Say what?
Mom's agent calls: We gave you an advance for your new book six years ago, so get it in, or give the money back. She goes up to the dark, scary attic, full of leering dolls and clowns, to start working. You've got 300 rooms. Find yourself a proper home office.
The dog wants to play, but his ball rolls under a dresser, where Mom finds a picture of the two ghosts she's seen so far, the little girl and the socialite Rosemary. One whispers at her!
Hubby takes a $250 cab from the city to investigate, but finds nothing. Or you could call 911 and report a home intruder. He thinks that it was just the wind.
More after the break
Mom reasons that her mother went psychotic at her age, and psychosis often manifests in mid-life, so maybe she's crazy. "Do you think I'm gong crazy?" she asks. "No, I think you've always been crazy." Har-har.
Hey, she could be the crazy lady in the attic! The Madwoman in the Attic, by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, is a feminist classic about the portrayal of women in the 19th century novel.
Friday: How many closeups of Mom's face do we need?
Left: Not Jonathan Higginbotham, for reasons that will become clear. This is Joshua Higginbotham, who was elected to the West Virginia House in 2016, at age 20. In 2021 he came out publicly, becoming the first openly gay Republican legislator in the state. Of course, he was quickly voted out. In 2024, he announced his candidacy for Commissioner of Agriculture, but didn't make the primary. But even running takes a lot of guts.
Back to Mom: She has written only one sentence...but then she switches to a horror novel about a crazy house, and the words pour out. Where are all the "Stepford Wives" wives? This is more like "The Shining," with a little "Haunting of Hill House."
After a very productive day, Mom goes downstairs to the family eating ice cream and laughing -- I'll bet they are gaslighting her for a nefarious purpose. Maybe we have some "Rosemary's Baby" going on.
No, they are laughing because Son Jake joined a sports team -- Minecraft. They have practices, and you need a permission slip, so it counts.
Left: Not even close to Jonathan Higginbotham. This is Kurt Wild, who starred in 20 gay porn movies, including Colllege Dudes, Endless Crush, Gigolo, and Hot House Backroom, Volume 5.
To get even with the family for having a good time without her, Mom insults Dad by revealing that he was a girly cheerleader in college. He protests that he was a macho yell leader. Daughter Gastronomy stilll thinks that it means "you didn't get laid in college." The association of sexual practice and one's worth as a human being is problematic here.
Cut to the middle of the night, where Mom hears the ghosts whispering her name. "It's probably a deer," Dad says. Screw that: she goes outside to investigate, and finds -- a deer. Rather a magestic patronus. Har har.
But inside -- Rosemary, the ghost of the 1950s socialite, lighting up a cigarette, asking "What are you doing in my house?" The end.
Beefcake: That's the problem. No one appears in Episode 1 except the family, four women (socialite, little girl, agent, realtor), the therapist, and the guy on the bus. Some appear later, including -- spoiler alert -- the demon who is possessing Dad, but finding beefcake photos of any of them is fruitless.
The Jonathan Higginbotham who plays the Muscle Guy, left, shows his stuff only in this series, so I had to substitute other Higginbothams and guys who popped up during a photo search.
Gay Characters: I doubt it.
Will I keep watching: Probably not. I've already seen The Shining.
Bonus: We see Greg Kinnear's butt in a later episode.
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