Autopsy of a Female Television Character

First, a few basics. For fear of venturing too far into "the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of [blank] is..." you should know that "autopsy" means "see for yourself." This is actually quite significant, for this autopsy today will demonstrate what years of relative progress have obscured in leagues of female television characters. If you wish to deny the evidence, just see for yourself.

An autopsy is performed with respect and the pathologists here today take their task, and the body present, seriously. They are not vultures picking over the dead. You might say they stand in stark contrast to the female's male contemporaries, but that's neither here nor there.

Pathologists wish primarily to gain answers about the body they are investigating. Curiosity and satisfaction at learning the truth, at getting some answers, prevail.

We begin by inspecting the outside of the body, noting the following characteristics:

• Race: the overwhelming majority are Caucasian; minorities are precariously rare.
• Sex: yes, she should be sexy.
• Hair color and length: usually long so as to show she's a woman and differentiate her from her contemporaries. If it's short, she's probably proving a point and its length has been a minor plot point at some juncture.
• Facial features: will usually be wearing makeup, even though she's dead. A woman is rarely seen without makeup, even if she's just woken up. If she's not wearing makeup, then Something Is Up. She might be having an emotional and/or mental breakdown, and someone will always mention that she "doesn't look like herself" or "looks tired" (see exhibit A below).
• Approximate age: no older than 45, unless she is on TV Land or is named Meryl Streep. (Just kidding, Meryl would never do TV.)
• Any identifying features: possible examples include a mole or less-than-perfect teeth (exhibit B). These marks are important as they are usually the woman's trademark (e.g. "Megan Draper and her hideous teeth").

Homeland's Carrie Mathison looks rough.

Google suggestions for Mad Men's Megan Draper say it all: see for yourself.

After superficial examination (which is about as far as most of her contemporaries ever cared to go), begin by making a Y-shaped incision, starting at the shoulders, meeting at mid-chest, and going down below the waist. Cut the cartilages that join the ribs to the breastbone to open the chest cavity. Note the size of the women's breasts: this is a good indicator of her physical desirability and therefore overall worth to her contemporaries (exhibit C).

On Mad Men, Joan Holloway struggles to be seen as more than just a well-endowed secretary, 

but she recognizes their ability to get her attention, whether positive or negative.

Once the chest cavity is open, examine the lungs and then the heart. The lungs often show signs of damage--they may be black or shriveled--from the woman's chronic trouble breathing due to persistent scrutiny from her male counterparts (exhibit D).

Breathe, Carrie, breathe.

Now examine the heart. First, if necessary, take a sample of blood from the heart to test for specific bacterial infections. Possible bacteria that may have infected her blood include chickificicus, which causes a strong and independent female to be stripped of her own power and assertiveness when she shows a morsel of femininity; or careermanoccus, in which a woman is forced to choose between her career and her man (very infrequently does she choose the former; when she does, there have been extraordinary circumstances, such as a massive terrorist attack; see exhibit E). There is often disease languishing in the heart, unbeknownst to the woman.

The point at which Carrie, having "chosen" Brody, realizes she must return to her job.

Examining the heart is tremendously useful in discovering more about the woman's love life (often her most interesting attribute, and often her primary focus, if not her sole reason for existence; see exhibit F). It is important to weigh organs, especially the heart. Large hearts indicate the woman was loving and compassionate and therefore viewed as weak by her male counterparts (exhibit G). Smaller hearts suggest the woman was a bit rough around the edges, not as compassionate, and probably not as receptive to male suitors and therefore viewed as a lesbian, raging feminazi, or else a heartless bitch (exhibit H).

On The Mindy Project, Mindy Lahiri's life seems to revolve around her romantic (mis)adventures.

Enlightened's Amy Jellicoe is loving, hopeful, compassionate, and "emotional": code for "weak."

Elizabeth Jennings on The Americans is a kickass spy but she's ruthless and distant. What a bitch!

An average-sized heart suggests a combination of these traits and is the most common among female protagonists. These woman usually were empathic, sometimes but not always career-oriented, and frequently faced various trials in their romantic lives (exhibit I). They still might have been viewed as weak, heartless bitches, unreasonable feminists, nags, shrews, or all of the above.

On Mad Men, everywoman Peggy Olson is fighting the good fight in a man's world.

Now we explore the abdominal cavity, first freeing up the large intestine. This will allow for the gradual removal and examination of other organs in the woman's body. Once the intestine is removed, we examine the bile ducts. They'll hardly ever contain any actual bile, because when was the last time you saw a woman eat on TV? If she is, it's usually played for comedy (exhibit J).

On Girls, Hannah Horvath's eating habits are the butt of many a joke.

Moving on, we dissect the liver. If the woman's liver is fatty, she was probably a heavy drinker (exhibit K). The woman's liver will often be deformed and degraded from overwork from detoxification. After all, a woman can only take so much of and filter out the toxins from her contemporaries. Occasionally residual toxins will still be in the liver. These toxins are often contagious in that, in close proximity (e.g., for a husband and wife), they will leech from one spouse to the other. Amazingly, these toxins show virtually no symptoms or signs in the male spouse but are horiffically noticeable in the female spouse. If these toxins are found, the woman was often ridiculed and overwhelmingly despised (see exhibit L, although many more examples exist).

 The OC's Marissa Cooper, the teenage alcoholic. See also: Rayanne Graff, most everyone on Gossip Girl, etc.

Skyler White on Breaking Bad is a prime example of a wife and woman reviled for daring to ask to be treated like a human being by her monstrous husband (see also: Betty Draper, Megan Draper, Jessica Brody, Carmela Soprano). For further proof, check out the Skyler White meme (brace yourself for the idiocy).

Dissection continues with the removal of the spleen, stomach, pancreas, esophagus, and duodenum. It is important to open these and check for poisons. Just as toxins in the liver are passed from man to woman (or sometimes woman to woman), so, too, are the poisons leeched. These poisons are slow-working but effective and, over time, kill any shred of dignity the woman once possessed.

We also dissect the kidneys, ureters, and bladder. The small intestine and colon are rarely ever opened.

Exploration of the woman's reproductive region is vital. Here are her ovaries, often seen as her most significant asset and the source of much contention in her life. If her ovaries are dead or dying, her "biological clock" had started to tick or else stopped ticking entirely. If her ovaries are abnormally large, she was desperate for children, and this became the single most important thing about her. Because all women want children. Even the women who don't want children secretly want children. They just haven't realized it yet. Don't worry, they'll come around. Women who don't want children are constantly reminded that they will change their minds, because eventually, they will (exhibit M). Occasionally, a woman will have average-sized ovaries, signifying that she doesn't want children that badly or is not ready to have them; she will have children anyway (exhibit N). Nevertheless, small ovaries, signifying absolutely zero interest in children, are incredibly rare, and their existence is only speculative.

Kickass surgeon Cristina Yang, on Grey's Anatomy, doesn't want children but "it's only a phase"/"you'll grow out of it"/every other inane excuse you can think of, says her husband Owen.

So Mad Men's Betty Draper probably shouldn't have had kids...

The woman's sex organs are also an important signifier of the woman's general worth. In fact, most women come to become completely defined by the state of these organs and the frequency with which they were used. For unmarried women, if they were seldom used, she was a prude. If they were sometimes used, she was a slut. Curiously, there is no middle ground. If the woman was married, frequent use suggests she was crude and horny (exhibit O); if they were seldom used, then her husband was very likely cheating on her with someone else because she drove him away.

On Happy Endings, Jane's healthy sex life with her husband Brad is frequently mocked ("played for laughs").

Now we replace the organs and close up the abdominal and chest cavities carefully.

Examination of the brain is also a vital step in exploring the woman's pathology. Begin by making an incision across the forehead, cutting across the scalp and past the ears. Carefully open the skin flap and, using a vibrating saw, open the skull. Carefully remove the brain and bisect it into its right and left halves. An enlarged left side signifies the woman was highly logical and adept at analytical thinking. She might have made exceptional connections and realizations and then been profoundly marginalized by her male counterparts. If the right side of the brain is enlarged the woman was particularly skilled at the creative arts and at reading emotions. Most likely she used these talents in service of a man: to show him The Way, how to live his life, how to be a Real Man (exhibit P).

On The OC, Anna Stern serves to show Seth Cohen how to win Summer over and be a Real Man.

In brains in which neither side is particularly developed, this woman was "cognitively challenged." Check her hair; it is usually blonde (exhibit Q), although it is still unclear whether the repressed brain development caused the hair color or vice versa.

Happy Endings' Alex is the stereotypical dumb blonde. How original! ("I'm not as dumb as I am.")

Sometimes, a woman will have advanced development in both sides of the brain. She was especially intuitive and logical, able to speak many languages, may have organized her thoughts visually via color, and had excellent reasoning skills. No one ever listened to her (exhibit R).

Carrie Mathison is the ultimate Cassandra character. She speaks the truth but no one listens. 

Dissection of the hippocampus, which controls short- and long-term memory, is also important. A woman whose hippocampus is plump and healthy-looking was, ironically, never able to let anything go; what a nag! If the hippocampus is shriveled and grey then the woman was probably forgiving or maybe optimistic, but usually she was just clueless and idiotic.

After exploration and replacement of the brain, we close the scalp and sew it carefully.

While dissection of the woman's various internal organs, as well as the superficial examination of her body, is important in learning more about who she was and how she lived, these alone will not reveal her cause of death. Instead, we look at the Achilles tendon. The tendon will reveal the woman's ultimate fatal flaw, impossible to overcome in spite of her other strengths and positive attributes. These may include horrific self-involvement (exhibit S); a profound fear of being alone her entire life (exhibit T); or a strict adherence to and reliance on traditional gender roles that are changing rapidly (exhibit U). We rarely find two Achilles tendons that are exactly alike.

 Amy Jellicoe has good intentions but is horrendously self-absorbed. Me, me, me!

Carrie Mathison: "no man is an island, but this woman is."

Joan Holloway makes the men turn their heads and loves it.

After close examination of the Achilles tendon, we note the cause of death and wash the body. Then the autopsy is complete.

It is important to approach each body with a fresh perspective. Every autopsy is unique. In recent years especially, our methodology has evolved tremendously, growing in sophistication as the bodies we investigate have, too. But there is still great progress to be made. As pathologists, we always strive to glean meaning and truth from the bodies we study. As such, you'll see the sign hanging in our mortuary that reads "Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae," translated as "This is the place where death rejoices to help those who live."

Three Weekends

One of my most treasured television discoveries this year has been Enlightened. Well, a discovery in that I feel as if I discovered it, in all its brilliant, short-lived glory. It actually debuted in fall 2011, but did you know that Homeland debuted then, too? It ate up a lot of press and buzz and attention. It took a complete hiatus in 2012 and then came back at the beginning of 2013 for an eight-episode season. Did you know that Girls' second season also aired then, too? It ate up a lot of press and buzz and attention.

Meanwhile, Enlightened was left in the proverbial dust. But there was a small circle of TV critics, many of whom I follow on Twitter, who kept beating their drum for this show. They tossed around words you don't toss around lightly. Phenomenal. Brilliant. Amazing. Excellent. Perfect. Every hyperbolic congratulatory adjective you can think of, it was used. Except they weren't hyperbolic here.

Because I watched it. I watched all eighteen half-hour episodes and felt overcome. Are you ever moved to tears by how beautiful something is? I felt that way after watching this show. I just sat there and prayed that someday I would have something as revelatory and transcendentally beautiful to my name. There is a quietness to it. It's gentle. One of my favorite season two episodes is called "The Ghost Is Seen." This is how I feel about Enlightened, this ghost of a show, so unnoticed and unseen. And then you watch it, you see it, really see it, and you're overcome. It's a triumph in every way I can explain, and many more I can't.

It's one of those brilliant, short-run series, the kind that doesn't get the attention it deserves. We'll look back on it in five, ten, twenty years and think, that was something. How did we let it slip away, right through our fingers? Remember My So-Called Life? It was the same thing. Did you know it debuted in the fall of 1994 alongside Friends, which ate up a lot of press and buzz and attention? It lasted only nineteen episodes, and then it was over. It came and went before we realized how special it was. 

One of Enlightened's first season episodes is called "The Weekend." As I prepared to watch it, I thought to myself, Hey, that's funny, one of Homeland's first season episodes is called "The Weekend." (Remember how they aired at the same time?) I looked up their air dates and realized they aired within two weeks of each other. What are the odds? And then the final piece of the puzzle: "Weekend," the penultimate episode of My So-Called Life's first and only season. Together they formed a curious triumvirate of Claire Danes and one-season wonders and weekend adventures, and hey, maybe I should explore this further?*

Apart from their respective titles (and blonde and/or Claire Danes heroines), I didn't expect to find so many similarities between the episodes. All three operate on basically the same narrative framework: a supposedly relaxing weekend away goes horribly wrong (note: spoilers from here on out). On My So-Called Life, Angela's parents, Patty and Graham, go away for the weekend to a ski resort with Graham's brother and his girlfriend of the week. At home, hijinks ensue when Rayanne, Angela's crazy (ex-)best friend, handcuffs herself to the bed (oh, the handcuffs are Patty's, too, so... that's awkward) and the key is nowhere to be found. On Enlightened, our main character Amy Jellicoe, in her first weekend back since returning from a clean living rehab facility, books a rafting/camping adventure with her ex-husband Levi, who's struggling with addiction and a whole slew of other problems. On Homeland (for real with the spoilers now, y'all), Carrie and Brody escape to a cabin in the woods and screw with each other's heads (and each other) for a few days on varying levels of sobriety.

The divide between Amy and Levi here is clear. Amy is the ecstatic, enthusiastic one. Levi is hardened and annoyed.

These shows are all markedly different in tone; their universes couldn't be more different (don't try to tell me that Carrie Mathison is Angela Chase all grown up, because I will not have it). But as I re-watched the episodes I was struck by how alarmingly similar some of the themes in these episodes were. In all three, these weekends away are presented as idyllic locales, escapes. Amy and Levi head up to the Kern and as they raft down the river, the sunlight sparkling off the water, the mountains behind them, it's hard to imagine something more peaceful, more heaven-like.

Carrie and Brody retreat to this cabin on the lake, completely removed from the outside world. It's just them; finally they are removed from the suffocating presences of the bureaucratic CIA, the military brass, even the heavy demands placed on them by their families. Carrie calls her sister when they arrive to ask where the key to the cabin is. True to character her sister pesters her with questions and demands ("What's going on?", "You sound drunk", "You were supposed to come over tonight to get your meds") and Carrie responds (drunkenly), off-hand ("No one, I'm all alone, I'm meditating", "I have enough pills, I'm fine!"). She hangs up and that's the last outside contact they have. For a relationship previously built on artificial closeness, Carrie privately surveilling Brody for a month, watching him through cameras and screens, they're now precariously stripped of any pretense. The closeness is no longer artificial; it's as real as they let it be. The cabin they stay in is "old school," and it fits within the outdoor setting, the chirping birds and trees overhead. The fire they light at night glows intensely orange, illuminating them in a soft, rich glow. It's in great contrast to the cold John le Carré greys that pervade the rest of the series. Here, the edges have been softened.

 Top: the typical cool greys and blacks that define the series (here in "Pilot"); 

Bottom: warmer yellows and oranges indicate that this weekend is different.

Patty and Graham retreat to the mountains in an attempt to rekindle some lost fire in their own relationship. Back at home, Angela's break from her parents ("what could possibly go wrong?" she asks her worrying mother, which is TV for "shit's about to go down") is interrupted by the arrival of Rayanne, whom Angela isn't speaking to, and then all of Angela's friends trickle in, one by one. Chaos.

At the center of these episodes is the pairing of two volatile, firecracker characters. Amy and Levi, a pair of first loves and first heartbreaks. Carrie and Brody, damaged and reckless together, unable to connect with the outside world. They've had pieces within them shifted, broken, or else completely missing. Only together can they match up. Rayanne and Angela, together forming the kind of friendship you look back on and see as a "phase," but at the time it was consuming, an obsession, a first love of sorts. But Rayanne betrays Angela when she sleeps with Angela's ex-boyfriend Jordan Catalano, and it's never the same again. In all these relationships, the dynamics are constantly at risk of exploding, deteriorating in spectacular fashion before our very eyes. Even though Angela and Rayanne's estrangement has taken place in the previous episode ("Betrayal"), Rayanne's abrupt arrival at Angela's home threatens to boil over the building tension between the two.

In one of her voiceovers (the voiceovers on Enlightened are a thing of beauty), Amy details the destruction of her marriage: "You can try to escape the story of your life, but you can't. It happened. The baby died. The dog died. Heart broke. I knew you when you were young. I knew your heart broke, too." It's an accelerated tailspin into addiction and depression. The loss of control. A deep dive into a black ocean. You never know when you'll be able to come up for air.

Angela and Rayanne, too, have a roller coaster ride of a friendship. Angela, the quiet, contemplative one, eager to be seen as an adult but unwilling to give away the naïve conceptions of her youth. Rayanne, the wild and crazy one, the slut, taking Angela under her wing. She loves Angela so much at times you think she wants to be her. It's the precarious push-pill of teenage female friendship. I'm reminded of the first and only line of Hannah Horvath's novel on Girls: "A friendship between college girls is grander and more dramatic than any romance." This is Angela and Rayanne, but they're not in college, they're still navigating the rough waters of high school, and in that sense the drama is richer and rockier.

Angela's frustration is palpable as she attempts to fix the situation. Rayanne is typically unfazed.

For Carrie and Brody, the balance is even trickier. Never before have two people been so mired in contradictions. At once they are so terrible for each other and maybe, just maybe, so terribly perfect for each other. They simultaneously know nothing about each other but exactly everything, too. As their relationship progresses, it becomes clear that one would die for the other--and also kill the other, if it came down to it. The slightest glitch, the briefest slip-up, and everything goes to hell. Their connection is a high-wire act but they're not easing across it carefully. They're sprinting across it. While doing cartwheels. In the dark. With their eyes closed. In this way, it's not that unlike the bipolar disorder that Carrie suffers from: manic and depressive, high and lows, a tricky cocktail to maintain balance and order. But the plateaus are boring. Riding those highs is essential. It's thrilling to watch but also sort of makes you want to pull your hair out. Within their own world, you can say the same about these two characters. To be with the other is to play with fire. It's majestic, mesmerizing, but so profoundly dangerous. More than that, it's clear that, ironically, these two are never more comfortable than when they're running away together, escaping. It's a cat and mouse game. But who's the cat and who's the mouse?

This is what we're dealing with. A collection of volatile and unstable characters. Put them together--force them together--shake, and observe. The lines between friends and enemies and lovers become so blurred they might as well not exist at all. And as these characters alternately put up walls and boundaries, around themselves and around each other, together, they only threaten to disrupt the order--or the disorder--they've been previously occupying.

Amy attempts to thaw the brokenness that's come to marr her relationship with Levi, but it only serves to alienate him further. "My first love, my husband, my heartbreak, my pain, feels so easy now, here," Amy begins in a voiceover. "You're not the cheat and the liar. I'm not the nag and the shrew. And we're not old or young. There's no bitterness or illusions. No need for fear or hope.... We can be free of our sad stories. They float away 'til they're like memories of a dream from the night before. Shadows under the water. And what's left is pure life. Life is the gift."

But then? Heaven becomes hell. When she discovers a bag of cocaine and pills in his overnight bag she becomes furious. "This isn't a disco!" she tells him. She dumps them in the river without a second thought; she doesn't realize these drugs are the only reason he's able to be there with her at all. In their high-wire act, Amy is pushing him eagerly across, and the pills and powder are his safety net. He pleads with her not to try to save him, because it feels too shitty. She acquiesces to his demands, but she doesn't let go. She's an optimistic person, almost too optimistic, some would say. It's this easy optimism that is so unsettling (especially since it's usually mixed with self-absorption). "I knew your heart broke, too," she says in a final voiceover. "I will know you when we are both old, and maybe wise. I hope wise. I know you now, your story. Mine isn't the one I would have chosen in the beginning, but I'll take it. It is my story. It's only mine. And it's not over. There's time. There is time. There's so much time." That kernel of hope remains in her, as much as she says she doesn't need it. It allows her to let him go, for now, back to the drugs, back to the hell he's built for himself but that he doesn't know any way out of, back to her fight for peace. It is all she wants: peace.

Amy dumps Levi's drugs in the river without a second thought.

For Angela, she's putting up a wall around herself, keeping Rayanne out. But Rayanne literally chains herself down. It's a fitting metaphor for their friendship as a whole: an artificial attachment, but self-destructive all the same. Everyone in Angela's life--from dopey Brian Krakow to the best friend Angela dumped for Rayanne, Sharon, to Rickie, who's caught in between these two girls--looks on and attempts in vain to break Rayanne free, to break Angela free, too. To save Angela from Rayanne.

Angela's friends try desperately to free Rayanne from the handcuffs and Angela from Rayanne.

Like Carrie and Brody, Angela and Rayanne's connection is a toxic one. At least, that's what it seems like in retrospect and to anyone with a different perspective. But for them, standing at the center, it seems grander than any other. Without the walls separating them, it's difficult to see things clearly and objectively.

And even though Angela's not the one in handcuffs, it's clear she is the one who feels trapped--in this friendship, in her own house, in this nightmare of a situation. It's fitting, too, that the only way to remove the handcuffs is to physically disassemble the bed until it's a complete mess, only pieces, fractions.

Carrie and Brody, though, spend the weekend letting the walls down around them. Letting the other in, weakening their own defenses. Carrie tells Brody about her nightmarish experiences in Iraq, and it's obvious he's one of the few--if not the only one--she's ever revealed this to. She tells him also of her childhood trips to this very cabin. "My sister and I would hike to [the waterfall] every day in the summer," she tells him. "We'd take our compasses and notebooks. Play Lewis and Clark," she says, laughing at herself. The moment would seem insignificant if she didn't reveal it to him so easily. She's sharing parts of herself, exposing herself to him. Again, they're only as close as they allow themselves to be, and she's saying to him, "You can be close to me. I will let you."

Brody, in his own right, lets Carrie in, too. As they hike to that same waterfall, Brody tells her how hard adjusting back to normal life has been. He can't talk to his wife, he tells her. "It's like she doesn't know who I actually am now. I can't be with her. I just can't. But I can with you. It's different with you, it's free." Carrie deflects his sentiments: they were drinking heavily (well they were). "It's the first time I've been back that I've found some fucking peace," he persists. "Me too, actually," Carrie admits. "That's pretty rare for me."

Brody and Carrie hike to the waterfall in their first meaningful sober interaction.

Peace. It's all they want. They are damaged and tortured souls, to be sure, and here is where you think, yes, maybe they really do belong together. If anything, they can be damaged and tortured together, achieve peace and a wholeness together that they could not apart. Later, when Brody has a nightmare and wakes up screaming and sweating, Carrie comforts him: "You're with me, you're safe, everything's fine."

While Levi protests to Amy not to try to save him, Brody seems to subconsciously plead for it. And if Carrie can save him, it's only because he might also be able to save her. Maybe they can save each other. Months later, as their lives threaten to collapse around them, Carrie tells Brody, "I think this might be a way out for both of us. You said you're all alone. You're not." Are they alone if they have only each other?

One of my favorite metaphors for their relationship comes from Grantland's Andy Greenwald, who posits that Brody doesn't love Carrie "any more than a drowning man loves a slowly leaking life preserver." Overwhelmingly they are both drowning, Carrie from her debilitating disease and her inability to properly manage it and her obsessions, Brody from severe post-traumatic stress and also a rather traumatic secret. But for just a moment, as they cling to each other and stay afloat, haven't they also survived, haven't they also saved each other?

The next morning when Carrie slips Brody's favorite tea into conversation, he pounces: "How do you know the tea I drink?" Strangely, Carrie is a horrible liar (truly, she is unable to think of a convincing lie on the spot) and he figures it out. The ruse is over, her lies exposed, the entire thing unravels. When she admits to him that she believes he's a sleeper agent working for Al Qaeda he challenges her to ask him anything she wants so he can show her how wrong she is. They're falling now, both of them, off the high wire, a long dive, clinging to each other as they fall further... further. (At this point I'm also clinging to my hair. "Noooo, it's ruined!" I sob.) The dynamic is now shifted irrevocably; now Carrie has wronged him, accused him of something so atrocious and betrayed him so profoundly that the last thing he says to her as he leaves, abandons her there, is "Fuck you."

The interesting element of this shifted dynamic is that it at once has nothing to do with this weekend and exactly everything to do with it. Because the basis of their relationship relies so heavily on everything that's not "Carrie the CIA officer and Brody the turned POW" and everything that is "Carrie and Brody, damaged and adrift souls," in a way, Carrie's revelation that she had been spying on him and suspects him to be a traitor doesn't really affect everything that weekend had solidifed--as Carrie says, "the important parts": finding peace, finding each other. Because Carrie had let Brody in, had let those walls down in spite of her conviction, in spite of herself.  Has she forgotten who she believes Brody is or just decided that it doesn't matter?

As Amy holds a kernel of hope at the center of her existence--for Levi, for herself--so, too, does Carrie hold a kernel of hope for her and Brody. Indeed, she spends the next few weeks attempting to gain his trust back. For her part, Angela seems to have abandoned any kernel of hope for reconciliation. "The truth is that it happened," Angela tells Rayanne, referring to Rayanne's decision to sleep with Jordan. Amy reflects a similar sentiment: "You can try to escape the story of your life, but you can't. It happened."

How much these characters wish it hadn't happened. Levi hadn't cheated. Amy hadn't fallen apart. Rayanne hadn't had sex with Jordan. Brody hadn't let Carrie in, close enough to hurt. But they all happened.

This motif of salvation--of these characters saving each other from themselves--hinges greatly on another recurring motif that weaves itself throughout these weekends: sobriety. For Amy, she wants badly to show Levi a new way, to "enlighten" him. When he discovers she's dumped his drugs in the river, gone forever, he freaks out and leaves. Amy follows him--she wanted to spend the weekend with him after all. Drugs or no drugs, she'll be there. And she is. She's there as Levi buys cocaine and snorts it right next to her, chasing it with a half dozen beers, in a seedy motel room. She's there as his demeanor seems to change almost immediately in his high. He talks mile-a-minute of their dead dog and their adventures together in the wilderness so many years ago. Amy looks on dejectedly at this man. She could cry. Instead she hugs a pillow and falls asleep. This is the hell she's built for herself -- stuck in the past with this man, this addict, stuck with these memories. "We can be free of our sad stories," she says before everything unravels. But is she? Later Levi tells her that when he's high is the only time he doesn't feel completely consumed by Amy's shame for him. For him, sobriety is the hell, sobriety is the prison. The drugs are the reprieve.

Levi comes down from cocaine- and beer-fueled high.

At the ski resort, Patty, ever the high-strung and uptight mother and wife, lets loose at dinner and gets slobbering drunk. It's the most unbuttoned she's ever been, even if it is fueled by Dr. Allen's Ginger-Flavored Brandy. She doesn't have to be "the nag and the shrew" just like Amy doesn't have to be. It's a truly liberating moment, masked somewhat by the physical comedy infused into the situation. Patty leaves behind the handcuffs that were supposed to liberate her and Graham from the rut and funk they'd entered. Instead, she liberates herself and removes that wall she'd always put up around her.

Patty lets loose.

Back at home, Rayanne, whose overarching storyline throughout the season deals greatly with her struggle with alcoholism and drugs, and who suffers the consequences of her struggle with sobriety often (she was drunk when she made the decision to sleep with Jordan), asks Angela's little sister Danielle to get her a drink from the family liquor cabinet after everyone's gone to bed. Rayanne treats alcohol and drugs the same way Levi does: as an escape from the prison of just being her. Rayanne is smart and beautiful and funny and kind, and she's a good friend, but her self-image is distorted. In her mind, she'd rather be like Angela: delicate and sweet, with an angelic beauty and a present and committed family. The alcohol, at least, allows her a reprieve from the reality of who she is and who she will never truly be.

For Carrie and Brody, the weekend is spent first getting ridiculously drunk (as in, provoke a neo-Nazi drunk) and then getting dead sober. Their relationship is established drunkenly. Indeed, the first two times they have sex it's with the cloak of alcohol clouding their decisions, weakening their inhibitions. When they wake on Saturday morning with massive hangovers, they swear off the stuff. "I overdid it," Brody says. "No more booze." Suddenly the prism through which they see each other, through which we see them together, has altered. The drunk goggles come off, the walls come down.

It's only when they're sober that their connection begins to deepen, begins to become something more than superficial. Later that night, they have sex for the first time while sober. Carrie looks at Brody's scars for the first time, traces them with her fingers. It's the first time she's really seen them. The following morning, after everything's gone to hell and Brody climbs in his car to leave, Carrie pleads with him to stay and tells him profusely how sorry she is. "I was wrong, I made a terrible mistake," she tells him, referencing her misconception that he was a turned POW. "This weekend, this time that we spent together, it was real. The parts, that... that we both... the important parts." She means the sober parts.

Carrie really sees Brody's scars for the first time.

But he drives off anyway, leaving her cold. When he returns to his house later that night, he weeps into his hands. She got as close as he let her and she left him cold, weakened, destroyed. As adulterous and illicit as their affair was, ironically it contained an element of purity. Pure connection. It was dirty but it was also untainted, for a brief moment anyway. There in that cabin, they are untouched by anyone and anything else. When Carrie's boss Saul calls at the end of the episode and reveals to Carrie that Brody wasn't in fact the turned POW, that she was wrong, he breaks the spell that had bound them together for so brief a time. And they can never return to that. They can never return to that paradoxical innocence. From then on out, the betrayal hangs in the air over them, heavy and unmoving. It happened. 

It happened: The dynamic shifts. Brody confronts Carrie after she reveals he's been secretly surveilling him. 

Likewise, as Amy and Levi return to Riverside after their weekend, there is a similar sense of resignation. Back to normal life. Back to real life. Amy's innocence is marred by Levi's request not to save him. She thinks that, as much as she has cleaned herself up, she can remove the tar from Levi and from their relationship. But she can't. He won't let her. He kisses her softly and the kiss hangs there, too, dead and rotten. It's all their relationship could have been, infused into everything it had actually become. They return to their homes, resigned. They do not find peace but rather a stalemate, an armistice.

For Angela, after her parents have returned home, Rayanne has been uncuffed, the house has been cleaned, everything returns back to normal, and the last of her unwanted guests leaves, she closes the door and sighs. It's probably the first easy breath she's had all weekend. "Weekend from hell," Angela says to no one in particular. "That was the best weekend of my entire life," Angela's sister thinks to herself.

And that is life. That is pure life. Levi and Amy return to a life apart. This weekend has not brought them closer, as Amy hoped it would. Angela breathes a sigh of relief but nothing is necessarily patched or fixed. It just hasn't gotten any worse. Carrie and Brody, meanwhile, once each other's guideposts, each other's life preservers, however faulty, now stand on their own, abandoned. They weep together but alone for what they have lost.

*If you've gotten this far, I applaud you and thank you for allowing me to explore this further, aka be self-indulgent and write about my favorite TV shows. 

The state of television, the state of me

It is a great irony of the Internet that a medium that is widely acknowledged as fostering anonymity among its users actually makes me feel more self-conscious.

To be clear, I'm not one to go trolling on a YouTube video and post comments like "carly rae jepsen is an old hag! God doesn't exist!!!!11!!!!" or even go trolling on the most niche of niche posts--things like this--and spew about how "the season finale of Homeland was a pile of dog poo and anyone who thinks otherwise is a first-class idiot!!!!"

No, if anything I'm extremely delicate with whatever I post on the Internet, in a public forum, mainly for fear of sounding like a first-class idiot, or maybe an old hag, or maybe just someone who's grammar illiterate (always proofread everything).

As it is, I am afraid of ruffling feathers (and in the wide expanse of Internet, I seem to stand squarely in the minority on this). I never want to say something offensive or ignorant, so I find myself using lots of "I think"s and "I feel"s and "Maybe it was just me"s. Some could call this timid; I call it cautious (spin!). There's really nothing worse than an obnoxious troll who for some reason derives pleasure from ticking people off. It's like going to someone's birthday party and stealing all the presents; it's a bitch move.

But I am also a very defensive person. I don't want to ruffle any feathers, but if a few fly off, I'll be prepared to defend their dislodging. It is certainly not my favorite quality about myself, but I'd be dishonest not to admit it. I've always been sensitive. Now it's manifesting itself in my love for certain television shows.

. . . .

It is hard to deny that, at least looking at the more narrow realm of cable (both basic and premium), and thus excluding the sorry Big Four networks, we are living in a golden age of television. Never before have we had such a glut of shows to enjoy.

Do you like your drama moody (or mod-y) and office politicky and with smoke in your eyes from the slow burn of stakes creeping higher? There's a show for that. Or maybe you're fascinated by a man who, in the span of a year, is ripped from our hero-loving hands and presented to us as a truly despicable, merciless villain, preferably with Southwestern backdrops and some meth alongside? What are you waiting for? Maybe still you're an Anglophile who's got a thing for post-WWI settings and lap-it-up soap? Here you go. Or maybe you find yourself diagramming on a massive cork board what it would be like if a manic depressive female CIA agent fell in crazy stupid love with a POW who also happened to be an Al-Qaeda sleeper agent? Look no further. (And that's just on Sundays!)

There's really something for everyone, whether you like your television to be thrilling, gripping, and twisty or slow, artful, and character-driven. Or maybe you like a mixture. (Maybe you like zombies!) Cable television is in the midst of a great golden age. More and more television shows begin to look like movies in their cinematography. Production values are getting higher. The writing is getting smarter and cleverer as audiences are becoming more devoted and invested in the medium. The acting pool is a wealth of talent (take your pick from any of the following: Bryan Cranston, Maggie Smith, Mandy Patinkin, Kevin Spacey, Laura Linney, and the list goes on for days. Every year pilots with A-list movie stars are being produced. This go-round you can add Robin Williams to the list). Even first-class feature directors are getting in on the action: Ang Lee, David Fincher, and Jonathan Demme have been at the helm (or will be) of many top shows.

So it's no surprise that as the quality of shows themselves become greater, so too does the involvement of fans themselves. I've long thought that television is the most personal and intimate of all entertainment mediums. More so than film, which we view in a theater as a single confined experience, for only about two hours of our lives. More so than books, which for all their ability to craft a vivid universe can never be rendered fully the way that something on a screen can. (When you read, do you picture things in color? I feel I'm always imagining in black and white.) More so than music, which is grand in its ability to inspire emotion (hate, love, joy, sadness, disgust), but still remains fleeting. It is for our ears only.

Television hovers over them all. Television is ritualistic, it is habitual. When you love a TV show, you know exactly what you are doing every Sunday at 9 pm. You are sitting down on the couch and watching Mad Men. When a show is really good, it becomes "appointment viewing." As in, "I own a DVR and could totally watch this in two hours or tomorrow or the next day but I have to watch it rightthisverysecond." We make an appointment (with ourselves, with our TVs, with perhaps millions of other people around the country doing the same thing) to sit down--maybe on the edge of our seats--and watch a program for an hour. It's like meeting a friend for coffee every week at the same time (or, if you're like me, it's like having a job interview every week at the same time for the sheer amount of anxiety and anticipation that precedes the actual appointment).

And we let TV into our homes, into our living rooms, into our most personal and intimate spaces. When I think about some of the most successful or long-running TV shows, I think about the characters on these shows and how close I still feel to them to this day. Monica and Chandler and Phoebe and Ross and Joey and Rachel felt like my friends after ten years. (It's no coincidence that the final shot of that series was of the famous frame on Monica's apartment door, a clever wink to the audience, for we, too, had had such an intimate and up-close look at the lives of these six people for a full decade.) On Gilmore Girls, the quirky Stars Hollow townies were so endearing--despite their sometimes over-the-top annoyingness--that I still feel strangely protective of them (I love you, Kirk! But Taylor Doose can go fall in a hole).

Television infiltrates our lives in aspects that other mediums simply cannot. For many people, it's what brings them together at night after long days of school or work. It bonds them still the next morning with their peers and coworkers. Are people talking about Silver Linings Playbook or the new Taylor Swift album around the watercooler? No, they're mostly talking about "Zou Bisou Bisou" or who got killed off Downton Abbey or the gutting interrogation between Carrie and Brody.

Television brings us together. But it also tears us apart.

By its very nature, because it is so personal, television can hit at something deeper. Or at least that's what I'm finding. Maybe I'm just getting older and more cynical and hardened and jaded (I'm all of 21, by the way). Maybe it's that I've begun reading more entertainment and culture blogs (like Vulture, AV Club, and Salon) and am more exposed to differing opinions on shows that I previously only viewed in a vacuum (how the hell else can I explain watching Grey's Anatomy into its eighth season?). Maybe it's just because of my obsessive, addictive tendencies that lead me to latch onto certain TV shows and defend them at all costs (hey, the first step is admitting you've got a problem, right?).

Whatever the reason, TV shows are becoming a lot more serious for me. I frequently have to remind myself that 1) It's only a television show and 2) It's okay if my tastes and preferences don't jibe with other people's.

Recently, the FX drama The Americans debuted to widespread critical acclaim. The show takes place in 1981, shortly after Ronald Reagan was sworn into office as President, and follows a husband-and-wife team of "deep cover" KGB spies, played by Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell. I was excited to watch the pilot, which was hailed as the best since Homeland's in 2011. Of course, the magic word for me is "Homeland" so I tuned in, waiting for that magic to strike.

And I kept waiting. Three episodes in, and I'm still waiting to feel compelled by this show, to understand what all the critics are so swoon-y over, to finally "get it." True to form, I found myself both on the offensive ("These characters aren't compelling. This guy's annoying. How is this great TV?") and on the defensive ("Maybe it's just me but..." and "I think the reason why I don't like this show is...").

And on the surface, I think my reasons for feeling apathetic toward this show (and also toward ones like Mad Men, which I feel is overrated and whose creator/auteur I find abhorrent) are perfectly rational, if also incredibly subjective. But I think my irrational problems with The Americans hit at something more, hit at the pervading bully culture that thrives on the anonymity of Internet culture.

In a world and a culture increasingly governed by extremes, it's hard to have your opinion heard when it's not easily crafted to garner a reaction. And our society's insistence on overexposure, the proliferation of media outlets devoted solely to telling you who just dyed her hair (er... is this groundbreaking?) or who is the best- or worst-dressed (but don't objectify women! that's bad!), naturally leads to pedestals and to people to push others off of them. The higher up they prop you, the farther you have to fall. Thus the backlash is born.

The entire notion of a backlash suggests something deeper in our culture. Why do we feel so inclined, entitled even, to become bullies to people's work, to people's living? As consumers (of media, of products, of everything) we are of course entitled to our own opinions. When people make anything designed for consumption, whether it's the super corporation making a gadget, or a local producer of handmade marmalades, or Steven Spielberg, or Mike White, they open themselves up to the public discourse. They become susceptible to extremes: unreserved love or unreserved vitriol. Very few people garner unreserved apathy, and curiously that might be the cruelest fate of all.

When I think about the term "backlash" and the competing sides of the "unreserved love and unreserved vitriol" coin, I think first and foremost of Lena Dunham, the multi-hyphenate behinds HBO's Girls. I feel like the term "backlash" was invented for her, but the truth is that she is the not the first and surely won't be the last to come under public fire for literally anything and everything.

Most critics love her show. We normal folk? It's a mixed bag. Why? Take your pick of reasons: she's too fat, too naked, a bad actress, a horrible writer, not funny, the product of nepotism, #firstworldproblems. Think of something horrible and it has probably been spewed at this woman, who's five years older than me and, for her work on Girls, has received two Golden Globes, a Writers Guild of America award, a Directors Guild of America award, and four Emmy nominations. So is it jealousy? Why do people feel so personally repulsed by Dunham and her TV show (repeat: It's just a television show)? What's more, why do they feel the need to comment on it every chance they get? (It's ironic that a show about the hipster culture in Brooklyn brings out a greater legion of "too cool for it" haters than I've ever seen. Then again, hipsters do love irony.)

. . . .

The culture surrounding television these days is also a mixed bag. There is a lot to hate: the obsession with meaningless violence; the reliance (in network TV especially) on old and tired formulas (two people move in together! throw in a baby! and a grumpy neighbor! and a salacious old lady!); the double standard of likability for men and women (a topic that endlessly fascinates me); and pretty much everything on CBS. But there is also a lot to love. Television is an incredibly rich medium these days, and the longform narrative is tough for film to compete with. The storytelling is richer. Especially for women, in which, once past the age of 40, the good roles continually diminish (unless you're, say, Meryl Streep) until you're just playing the mother to an actress probably 12 years younger, television offers dynamic, bold roles for women of all ages. Glenn Close was 65 when Damages finished the run that earned her two Emmys. Kathy Bates was 62 and Emmy-nominated on Harry's Law. Connie Britton is 46 and playing a kickass-and-taking-names-type country star on Nashville. Jessica Lange, 63, scares the bejesus out of me in her Emmy-winning role (and general existence) on American Horror Story.

Even relatively younger actresses like Christina Hendricks, 37, or Claire Danes, 33, have found comparatively greater success on television than in film. In an interview last year, Danes accurately summed up the general film/TV quandary: "I remember, [the Homeland role] came up on the same weekend that I had read for the secretary role on that J Edgar movie and I was like, 'Do I want to play the secretary to some really compelling person, or do I just wanna play the f-cking compelling person?'" (Amen, sister.)

And more so than film, television culture is one built on minutiae. It's no surprise that the recap atmosphere has made us hyper-critical, often overwhelmingly so. Would we ever judge a 12-chapter book by the state of things after chapter 10? I doubt it, but that's basically what happens at 12 am Monday morning when reviews of Sunday night shows go up. Part of it is, of course, the water cooler environment that TV fosters. Some shows, too, reward attention to detail; it's just how you watch them (think Mad Men). There is certainly value to be found in engaging in meaningful discussion about this increasingly richer medium. But you need only engage in the conversation for a few moments to realize that someone has already crashed the party. And what about this person? He's not looking for meaningful discussion. He watches the show and then berates every aspect. He picks it apart. He is a bully. What about these people?

. . . .

And so when the Homeland backlash began, which started in early December 2012 and lasted a few weeks, I felt correspondingly annoyed, defensive, and outraged. Homeland had swept many of the major categories at the Emmys in September, the target was squarely on its back, everyone was waiting with bated breath for a single misfire. It'd be futile to attempt to defend certain plot points (I'm looking at you, Carrie chasing Nazir with a metal pipe!), but the truth is that some people will hate anything no matter what. They'll hate it because they'll be the first ones and feel a sense of superiority. It's the hipster mentality: I loved this before it was cool or I hated this before it was uncool. These people are the most infuriating to encounter, because they're not looking for lively and intelligent discussion, only to spew hate about a show (apparently they're the only ones who notice how hideous of an actress Claire Danes is; who'd have thunk it?). There is no hope for these haters. They jump the shark on jumping the shark!

And yet... they are the ones I always feel most compelled to respond to. Because when someone insults a show, a show that I watch every week and enjoy watching and really love, they're insulting more than just the show. They're insulting my taste. They're insulting me! You can imagine the rabbit hole this quickly leads down. But it's only a television show. And that's what I continue to tell myself. 

Still, it wasn't hard for me to recognize that in many ways my irrational distaste for The Americans feeds from my irrational love for Homeland, the first show in which watching made me feel a part of the zeitgest. The first show in which watching made me feel a part of the conversation. The first show in which watching made me feel smart and adult. (Never underestimate the power of wanting to feel part of the "in crowd.")

 

It's not off-base to attribute my dislike for The Americans to my proclivity to defend Homeland. The minute I began to view it in that prism, it never stood a chance. It's a hard thing to watch a show and accept that you will never really love it, or that it will take some time until you do. When there's so much matter swarming around for your attention, why bother with the things you only like? More and more I'm finding that something that is good just doesn't cut it. "Like" is not good enough (hey, maybe that's why I've grown weary of Facebook). Something either needs to be terrifically awful (and so it was that hate-watching was born) or just plain terrific (Homeland, Girls, Mad Men, for me at least). At the same time, you want to be a part of the conversation. To not watch is to be left out of the conversation.

. . . .

And so I can't help but wonder: am I a product of this culture, or is this culture a product of people like me? I am certainly no saint. I really can't be bothered to block parts out of my week to watch a television show that I don't love, and I especially can't see the appeal in then actively participating in a conversation about it. But I caught the last half of Grey's Anatomy a few days ago (for the first time in months) and tweeted about just how awful it was (it really was, though, I promise). Nikki Finke, the founder of industry website Deadline, does some deliciously hateful live blogs for awards shows that I love to follow. The website Television Without Pity has built its entire reputation on being snarky; the best, if harshest, dialogues about television also happen to take place here (in my opinion, at least).

Still, I find myself eager to change my trajectory, to avoid becoming one of those hardened, bitter, cynical viewers. I don't want to derive some kind of masochistic pleasure from watching something I hate. I certainly don't want to become a spoil sport.

All of this, too, may seem silly. (Remember, it's just a television show.) It may seem like I'm overthinking things. Making a mountain out of a mole hill, and all that. Maybe I am. But television, and the ways in which we consume it, reflects on other aspects of our lives and personalities, too. What you watch, how you watch, when you watch, and most importantly why you watch seem to hint at something beneath the surface, something elementary.

For example, I recently started watching Scandal. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what attracts you to a certain television show. This one is addictive and crazy and kind of escapist. There is a procedural aspect to it that's comforting in its repetitiveness and reliability. I also cannot underestimate the power of feeling a part of the conversation. Scandal has seen a big surge in popularity these past few months, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Watching this show was a reflection on the innate desire to belong; it was also a reminder of the power of the delicate balance between being pushed but not being pushed too much. We like our habits and our routines. In the words of Lorelai Gilmore, "As long as everything is exactly the way I want it, I’m totally flexible." Bend, but don't break.

And what do I have to say about this show? Well, it's guilty pleasure TV, first and foremost. I make sure to preface all of my opinions about this show with this disclaimer, lest someone think less of my taste. I make no qualms about my problems with this show, but I also give credit where it's due. It's fun, a thrilling ride, entertainment above all. But I'm still taking it (too?) seriously: there are issues with character development and narrative structure and yada yada yada. I tell myself that its creators would want their art to be taken seriously and judged. But do they? No artform is perfect, and often imperfection is still beautiful.

But is it possible to love something and just let it be? Is it possible to hate something and just let it be?

. . . .

But the question remains: what's the best way to self-correct? Again: am I a product of this culture, or is this culture a product of people like me? (Which came first: the chicken or the egg?)

The question begins to morph when I look at it as a wheel instead of a defined sequence of events. It's not A, then B. Rather, A is B. And who knows when this cycle started. Could we trace back one from the other, spinning around counter-clockwise until we arrive at the singular start point? Perhaps there was some sort of immaculate conception and it just began to be?

But this vicious cycle--of simultaneously feeding into the culture and feeding from it--seems like a waste of energy to me. A waste of mental resources, of time, of breath. Our hours could be much better served doing something else, something progressive, something good.

And yet... and yet. I'm still drawn back. I still look at the grade for each episode of The Americans and feel something (is it pleasure? I-told-you-so catharsis? I can't be sure) when it's B-level. I'll still follow Nikki Finke's live-blog of the Emmys in September because it's hilarious and I enjoy her insight. I will watch Mad Men this spring and enjoy it when it's good because I enjoy good television; the scary part is that I might enjoy it more when it's not so good because I think the show could be taken down a few notches.

I am a product of this culture, and this culture is a product of me. I am this culture. To change one is to change the other.

It is hard to change a culture. I think it might be even harder to change myself.

angsty ladies

Oh, hey there.

I'm currently sitting on a very long post that's proved rather difficult to parse through and arrange in a way that isn't just "here's what I think about x, y, and z in order b, g, m. Oh and this: it's only semi-related." It's proving rather manic and looking like this so far:

And what I need is my inner Saul to come in and arrange it in a neat little timeline. Like this:

Preferably color-coded. And preferably as some sort of compelling string ensemble plays in the background. Is that so much to ask?

Anyway, to fill in the time in this fallow yellow (I promise that's the end of the Homeland references) period I thought I'd revisit a topic I just covered (sorta). A few months ago I posted about my favorite gloomy songs. It was perfect for the doldrums of winter, but now we're easing into spring, and I'm feeling a bit livelier.

Enter angst. Specifically lady angst. I made a great little playlist on iTunes called "angsty ladies" (which I alternately pronounce in my head like "hey angsty ladaaay" and "all the angsty ladies") which features ladies being angsty, obviously.

It's filled specifically with some 90's ladystars but no matter the decade they hail from these ladies make me feel broody and riled up and simmering with righteous indignation. GIRL POWAH.

THE ORIGINAL LADY ANGST
"Cherry Bomb" by The Runaways: There is no better lady angst song than this. I feel like any song that uses the word "daddy" in a kind of bratty, whiny tone is firmly in angst territory. Also any song in which the vocalist is literally yelling (a common theme, as you'll see below). There's something kind of seductive about this song. Perhaps it's the sultriness that cherries suggest (I personally find figs to be the most sensual fruits but "Fig Bomb" just doesn't have the same ring to it, y'know?), or the "ch-ch-ch-ch-ch" repetitions. There's something kind of badass and angsty about being one of the first all-girl rock bands, too, am I right?

HONEST ANGST THAT OWNS IT (it being everything...)
"Bitch" by Meredith Brooks: For some reason the lady who sings this song reminds me of the character Heather in The Blair Witch Project which I can only rationalize because both have brown hair and are bitches. But don't try to tell me that you can listen to this song and not start breaking out in a kind of angry, bark-esque yelp when the chorus plays. "I do not feel ashamed" that this happens to me regularly and "I wouldn't want it any other way." Let's revel in our various personas: bitch, mother, child, lover, sinner, saint, tease, goddess, angel undercover. Hell yes, Meredith/Heather!

For comparison...

BREATH-Y ANGST
"Breathe Me" by Sia: Okay, this song makes me feel so many things, chiefly angst, but also sorrow and trepidation and anxiety. It's so perfect. Just the way she says "Ouch": resigned, like she's stubbed her toe but could hardly care, like she's reaching out to something that's too far beyond her grasp. This song is purest prose in lyrical form. It was famously used in the final minutes of the Six Feet Under series finale. Now, look, I've never seen this show but I watched that montage and felt drained and gutted and weepy and also in awe of the power of music and film when in perfect synergy.

QUINTESSENTIAL 90'S ANGST
"Stay (I Miss You)" by Lisa Loeb: Okay, y'all. This song plays in the movie Reality Bites, which is the most 90's movie you'll probably ever see. And when I say "quintessential 90's" what I really mean is Winona Ryder, whom I kind of secretly LOVE, and find endlessly interesting, and I wish she was working more than she is now (that is to say, at all) because I think we need more 90's realness in 2013.

So many things about Winona Ryder (pre-shoplifting, that is) fascinate me. Like how she was engaged to Johnny Depp! Or her super angsty role in Girl, Interrupted. Or her friendship with Claire Danes, which is the most 90's friendship I can ever think of.

 Winona and Claire, BFFs until they weren't. 

There is a documentary about Ben Lee called Catch My Disease about his musical career and life and, back when Ben Lee and Claire Danes dated (yes, let that sink in for a hot sec), they were part of a social circle that is kind of astoundingly cool: the aforementioned Lee and Danes, Ryder, Michelle Williams (who seems in a perpetual state of shy angst/gloom), Jason Schwartzman, Zooey Deschanel, Christina Ricci, and the list goes on. Apparently they'd all hang out in Claire Danes' SoHo loft and shoot home videos and play guitar and lay in her hammock. It's so 90's. Anyway, this song makes me yearn for that alternate reality. I wonder if Claire and Winona still talk....

Claire Danes' SoHo loft, so very 90's. It looks a bit different today.

BRUSH YOUR TEETH WITH A BOTTLE OF JACK ANGST
"TiK ToK" by Ke$ha: I know, it seems kind of odd to include Ke$ha on this list. But I sense some form of inner angst in her that manifests as CRAY in all her life endeavors. She doesn't sing, she sneers, she doesn't laugh, she cackles (a variation on Megan Draper's "you don't smile, you smirk" line from Mad Men, and by the way I LOVE MEGAN DRAPER). The same way that a starlet like Lindsay Lohan or Amanda Bynes has acted out lost her mind as a result of likely inner turmoil, I get the feeling that Ke$ha's shenanigans are the product of some past trauma.

PUNKY ANGST
"Just a Girl" by No Doubt: I'm trying really hard to think of an opening riff that's more awesome than the one on "Just a Girl." As far as I'm concerned, this was Gwen Stefani at her finest, pre-B-A-N-A-N-A-S, pre-L.A.M.B. This song has a great "suck it! I'm a lady"-ness to it that's infectious. It's aggressive but taunting; it's the person that insults you and says "but no offense." None taken, sista.

PUNKY ANGST, PART THE SECOND (aka Angst with a Bindi)
"Don't Speak" by No Doubt: Written after the break-up of Gwen Stefani and that guy in No Doubt who plays the bass, this song has a yearning angst. You can really feel the emotional turmoil bubbling beneath the surface. And if the actual lyrics weren't indication enough, the music video of Gwen flailing and doubling over while her bandmates look on unaffected ought to do it. What's more angsty than half whining, half singing to a garage full of "meh" dudes?

 Oh hey, bindi...

EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME ANGST
Pretty much everything on Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette: Y'all, I LOVE angsty Alanis Morissette (so much better than VH1/vanilla Alanis) and she was never in finer form than in her debut album that is basically just Angst: In Musical Form. Let's take a gander.

"You Oughta Know": This one starts off hushed, kind of ominous. Then the hissing starts. I find this song is excellent to play in the car with the volume turned way up (to drown out your angst, and your singing voice). The chorus is infectiously, deliciously hateful (as is the entire song) in a big "eff you, man!" way. If the five stages of grief were accompanied by songs, this one is pre-packaged already for anger.

"Hand in My Pocket": If "You Oughta Know" was "eff you!" then this song is like "eff this!" It's kind of lackadaisical and "fine, fine, fiiiiiiiine" (three cheers for AM's pronunciation of most words). And you can never go wrong with a harmonica solo. This song also seems very quintessential 90's because it always conjures the images of plaid shirts (preferably one with pockets).

"You Learn": My favorite part of this song happens at the 38th second with the background whisper of "like a jagged little pill." What a perfect title for an angst-filled album. It's very Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted. By the way, this is the acceptance stage in lyrical form.

BONUS! "Ironic": After "You Oughta Know" this might be AM's most popular, quote-ready song, and mostly because she has absolutely no idea what irony is. But! I present to you a defense of the many situations in her song.

I don't think it's that far-fetched to assume that Alanis was watching My So-Called Life one night and heard Brian's explanation of irony and then decided to write a song filled with the most weird situations ever. Let's collectively give Alanis a break.

TERRY RICHARDSON ANGST
"Criminal" by Fiona Apple: Okay, so maybe anything by Fiona Apple would qualify in this category. But watch this music video and tell me you don't feel icky. This is what would happen if that Emma Stone for W Magazine shoot were translated into a music video 15 years ago. Nevertheless, Fiona's deep, kind of husky voice translates well to angst. Especially when she's wailing about "need[ing]... a good defense / cause I'm feeling like a criminal" and being a "bad, bad girl." I mean, I guess it's supposed to make you feel uncomfortable.

BONUS! "Valentine" is superb and makes me want to jab my finger at people and tell them "I root for you! I love you! You you you you!" "Paper Bag" is similarly awesome, if not so recent, and also perfect for singing in the car, although don't ask me how I know.

TEENAGE ANGST
Anything by Birdy: This lady is all of 15 years old, and as such imbues her (beautiful, lovely, perfect) music with tinges of angst and sorrow and I sort of just want to give her a hug. She manages to take a rather upbeat and jaunty Phoenix song and turn it on its head and make it sad and mournful. She does the same thing with Fleet Foxes. She even makes "Skinny Love" bearable. Kudos, girl. Keep on angstin' on!

BALD(ish) ANGST
"Nothing Compares 2 U" by Sinead O'Connor: In the words of Lorelai Gilmore: "When life gets you down, Sinead's really the one to teach you some perspective." AMEN. Nothing compares to you, "Nothing Compares 2 U."

There are few other ladies who are only sometimes angsty, and I present to you a completely non-inclusive list below:
"Paris Is Burning" by St. Vincent: Ominous, somewhat dissonant, basically what a psychological thriller would sound like if condensed into a song.
Most stuff by The xx: Moody, electronicky, deep, broody.
Rihanna on "Love the Way You Lie": Don't try to tell me that Rihanna is not the most angst-ridden pop star living.
"I Knew You Were Trouble" by Taylor Swift: Don't try to tell me that Taylor Swift is not the most angst-ridden pop star masquerading as the most angst-free pop star living.

Like my gloom post, I want to leave off on an anti-angst note. What's the opposite of angst? It's got to be carefree goodness, and, you know, I really don't listen to much sickly sweet music like that. But you know who I think of when I think of music that gives me a headache for being inconceivably twee? Hello, Zooey Deschanel! She masters anti-angst with her black tights and hula hoops. Ya, girl!