Monday, April 15, 2019

My Review of Now Apocalypse's 1x02: "Where Is My Mind?"


Written by Gregg Araki & Karley Sciortino
Directed by Gregg Araki

Ulysses: "I feel like you're not taking me seriously."
Carly: "Your feeling is correct."

Of course, because if your main character on a show like this admits to witnessing the most strangest of alien encounters, it's natural that his sarcastic, cynical best friend would be less than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here. Then again, if I were Carly, I probably wouldn't be so quick to believe Ulysses's outlandish story either.

I did however like that Ulysses at least told someone and that he made something of an effort to actually do some research into reptile aliens, even if said research just extended to watching a conspiracy theorist named Mitchell Kent (Henry Rollins) online, whom Carly wasted little time in ridiculing as well.

Still though, between brooding over Gabriel, who clearly is ghosting Ulysses, at least the latter also managed to bag himself a security job and ended the episode encountering another weird sex encounter, this time at his place of work. Two episodes in, and I do wonder if this will be a recurring trope that might lose momentum, even if Ulysses's screaming is too funny at times.

Moving away from Ulysses for a bit though, this episode did a bit of a job trying to flesh out his two friends a little more though. With Carly, I quite like her spiky nature and watching her making no effort to mask her disdain for her fellow classmates during her acting classes was more amusing than her cam girl antics in the first episode.

However, it was the spanking scene with Jethro (Desmond Chiam) that seems to draw a bit more of her inner self out. Jethro seemed frustrated over not connecting with Carly and she was more than annoyed that he was on the phone while they were doing, so the discovery of Carly's sex toys managed to provide an outlet for both of them. I did like the commentary about Jethro being an alpha male and letting himself submit to his girlfriend's own kinks, so good points there, show.

Then there was Ford's own sex issues as well. I guessed from the last episode that Barnabus wanted to fuck him and the scene with the two of them at a premiere party along with Otto West (yeah, no idea who he was meant to be based on) screamed of any bog standard gay porn scene that even Ulysses clocked on about.

As for the three way scene with Ford, Severine and Daphne - I'll admit it was the least interesting part of the episode but there is something rather endearing about Ford as a character. He's not the brightest bulb out there but he does seem to genuinely like Severine and even opened his mind to her more European side of things in the bedroom.

- Mary Lynn Rajskub popped up as Carly's acting coach, Frank and going by that exchange in the bathroom, it did seem like she was trying to come on to Carly as well.
- According to Mitchell the likes of Obama, Beyonce, Hitler, the Queen to name a few are shape shifting reptile aliens. Severine was also looking at alien pictures in this one.
- Standout music: Gusgus's Teenage Sensation during that Carly and Jethro scene.
- Chronology: From where the first episode left off with a few flashbacks thrown in for good measure.

I liked enough of Where Is My Mind to know that I want to stick with the show for the remainder of the season. While the sex scenes can be a little hit and miss in parts, I do think this episode did a better job with making both Carly and Ford as interesting as Ulysses and I do like how shady Severine kind of is as well.

Rating: 7 out of 10

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