Journey into Mandark :noah - Karakand Watches Blossom

[Kara]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'll serve... as an example in how NOT to live a life.

[close]

[Kara]

Season 2 Episode 10 - "It Happened One Fright"

The kids are hard at work, pops is bringing another girlfriend over to meet them. (You can tell things are srs because Anthony is the most ridiculously dressed of everyone.)



OK maybe I lied about the most ridiculous thing.



idg why everyone is on edge, how could anyone not love this fam?



ANYWAY, pops met his gal in an elevator. (It stopped and he has claustrophobia.)



Pops tells his kids the opposite happened though, because on the list of Russo family traits lying comes in just after lust and disregard for continuity in distinguishing characteristics.

Pops then leaves to go pick up his date (I guess she doesn't have a car or something? I mean I know LA has the bus and all but...) which leaves us to endure carnival of horrors that is 3 consecutive daydreams originating from each of the Russo children. As if the last episode wasn't bad enough?

Joey, who has never really shown any particular nostalgia for having a heteronormative family unit subjects us to some a-yuck yuck post-War sitcom.



I guess the medium does lend itself to illusions of grandeur. :kaibudde:



Then we come to Anthony who may or may not be projecting some insecurities with his daydream.



Did I mention that Blossom and Six joke about going out to run the train with both the football and the basketball teams?

Anthony, is there anything you want to talk about? (Besides that dreadful shirt, that is--I already covered that.)



Speaking of his shirt, when he comes out of this hallucination he's somehow in different threads. Either he can vividly imagine things and change his clothes at the same time or once again this show is insulting my eye for detail and memory of continuity. 



Since we're dwelling on the lack of continuity in this show, while pops is driving his date to the house he's telling her about his kids--which I would have thought had already happened during their previous dates--and he mentions that Anthony is studying to be an EMT even though we had an entire fucking episode already about Anthony becoming an EMT.

Last and definitely least we come to the daydream of our ardent feminist, one in which pops' girlfriend is a gold digger who kills him with too much sex () and takes his lavish estate for herself.



I guess it is not by refusing to drive that we will abolish driving: it is by expropriating current car owners by any means necessary.

Oh yeah she runs off with Buzz or something after flirting with the boys because the typecast struggle is real y'all.



So how does the dinner go? Well we never get that far. After everyone admits they were stressed out and concocting outrageous expectations about everyone else (I can see why this lady and pops hit it off now...) Joey breaks the ice like a Luftwaffe pilot going at the Road of Life by telling pops' date that in his daydream she had huge tits.



Freeze-frame.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Breaking the ice, freeze-frame... get it?

[close]

"Woahs" - 1 in episode, 12 in total viewings

[Kara]

Until I get my latest writeup done, please enjoy this sample from my show notes.



I don't usually share these because they are a rather unfiltered glimpse into my madness. Please understand.

[team filler]

stop watching this chit and jam wit me on plug

[Rufus]

Good to know that I'm not the only person that writes their thoughts out like that sometimes. All caps and more than three of any kind of punctuation mark in succession though? Now that's pushing it.

[Joe Molotov]

The Madness of Vularai III

[Kara]

Season 2 Episode 11 - "Joey and the Amazing Technicolor Flannel"

I rarely notice the names of the individual episodes of this show; I assume my subconscious directs me to avoid them so as to preserve the integrity of my own staid episode names. Anyway, I did notice this episode's for whatever reason (it's "You Can't Go Home" BTW) and have to say I'm rather disappointed with it if it is indeed a literary reference. That shit is nu-Battlestar Galactica tier, Blossom. (That's not entirely fair to Blossom, actually, in nu-BSG the episode is the full title of the book. See also: "Sometimes a Great Notion." )

Perhaps it's a good thing that I did though, for I feel like it inspired me to work that much harder on my title + accompanying media link which are so layered and applicable that it's easily a Top 25 episode title as determined by Green Shinobi.

Tangents upon tangents outchea, apologies y'all.

Pops is actually doing constructive parenting in this episode by teaching Joey how to shave. (Think of all the young men PD mocks who never got to experience this right of passage. )



BTW, Joey is such a fucking noob that he tries to shave with the safety covering still on the razor. Guess it's a good thing pops' trade isn't in the field pedagogy.

But he's not just an archetype of traditional gender roles, no, pops is also cooking a family dinner or something tonight.



The fashion sense of this family. Buzz isn't even a blood-relation! (Well at least not to pops. Well I hope not at least.)

Six and Blossom are upstairs busting sick moves to forgettable music and instances like this make me almost wish I'd go out of my way to .gif some of the in this show that can't be captured with still images but then I come to my senses and realize that is undeserving of such labors on my part.

Anyway, Six's mom calls and asks for her to come home and Six feels like she has to because her pops has been gone (continuity ), took all the couple friends, and mom is pretty much forever alone at the moment.

But Blossom has a better idea, since her pops is a veteran of the divorce wars himself why doesn't Six invite her mom over for dinner too? Could it be? Could I finally have the proof of life that Six has actual parents and isn't some mass hallucination? (That's not an unreasonable position to take given Russo's tenuous at best presence in reality.)



SHE DOES EXIST. (Reinforce the message of a book you don't particularly care for by mediating everything through media y'all.)

This will come into play later, but after Six's mom agrees to come to dinner, Blossom and Six both start shipping the parents they live with like it's LiveJournal tumblr outchea. It's possible that pops' odyssey through every eligible woman in the Southland may have had some deleterious effects on Blossom, but seriously girlfriend? I know you and Six want to be sisters and all, but there are other options--a Roman adoption perhaps?

Anthony gatecrashes dinner with some continuity a guest he picked up on the job.



Her name--well they're not sure if it's her actual name--is Alice and she has rather pronounced Alzheimer's. Anthony brought her home instead of taking her to the authorities because this is America and you never want to end up in our public health system.

Alice thinks it's ~1956. How do I know this? Because she came across Anthony canvasing for the reelection of one President Dwight Eisenhower and claims to have worked in the White House during his first administration.

Did I mention Joey has a report due in 2 days about one Vice President Richard Nixon?



Are you really going to exploit some poor soul to do a book report Joey?



Also, Joey, we NEED to talk about that flannel.

Oh yeah, pops and Six's mom kinda connect.



They "go out for coffee" and end up in Santa Barbara , then call and tell Blossom and Six not to wait up for them.



This doesn't have to do with anything in particular, I just thought it was funny that Buzz was playing an O.G. Game Boy, and that no one commented on it.



Oh yeah, even though he exploited an ill person to do a school project he procrastinated on, Joey reminded "Alice" of her grandson and the gang got the dude's digits from her before she slipped back into incoherence. There come moments of great plenty throughout all the land of Studio City. And there shall arise after them famine of the mind.

Six heel turned on the whole shipping mom and pops thing, BTW, and was insufferable all night. Blossom eventually had to get her food drunk to calm her down.



Fake Dunkin' Donuts in the Southland?

Pops makes the mistake of waking the gals up. Six basically flips out on him.



It's cool though, pops and mom just talked all night. He's actually not interested in her. (Six flips out at hearing this too, BTW.)

"Woahs" - 1 in episode, 13 in total viewings

[El Babua]

http://www.clickhole.com/blogpost/we-accidentally-sent-cast-blossom-space-couple-hou-1348?

[Kara]

Season 2 Episode 12 - "Chequeov's Pun"

I usually leave this for the postscript, but there are a lot of woahs in this episode. I'm not embellishing. If my math is right there were 10 in total, though a lot of those stem from the blooper reel in the credits when Joey Lawrence is trying to teach a child actor how to woah properly. (It was very MST3K's The Final Sacrifice.) Even Six gets in on the action.



Speaking of child actors, did I mention that pops trips fucking balls all episode?



I almost wish I hadn't burned my one Proust reference on the family vacation episode because holy involuntary memory Batman this episode is full of it.



Yes that's mom. Well on this Earth in the Blossomverse that is.

Why is pops' daydreaming with such frequency that he manages to stand out in a family as inveterate as the Russos in this regard?



No, it's not the cut--if one could even bring themselves to think of that suit as being tailored --of that jacket. And it's not his sons' choice of attire either.



(How do I know? Because in a flashback we learn that Joey has always dressed questionably.)



A turtleneck. As an undershirt. In Studio City?

BTW, this memory provided an awkward screencap moment™.



I digress, the source of pops' acute pensiveness--apparently he's skint and there's a balloon payment due on the house he can't pay which means he'll have to sell the only house the kids have lived in all their lives and move them into an apartment. (Well except for Anthony, he can go fuck himself. The Titanic is sinking outchea.) Ah, the days when American homeowners lived hand to mouth because their most important nonrecourse debt was structured in an ill-advised manner.

Wait a minute... 



It's almost like capitalism is a series of crises.



Alright, alright. Sheesh, bourgeois lickspittles make for tough crowds.

Pops is a huge when he drops this bombshell on the fam. Previously they'd been celebrating David Lee Roth committing career suicide (Your Filthy Little Mouth may or may not have come out by now, we're too lazy to check. Yes, that's a royal we. -Ed.) deciding to cover one of Buzz's songs from the 50s because pops needs to have even more salt rubbed in the wound after missing out on the Tonight Show to play hookie with his only not-fuck up kid.



It's cool though, Buzz promises he's going to help pops keep the house. His sound financial advice? Raid the kids' college fund that pops and mom started before the kids were even born (this is covered in a flashback, FYI) to cover the balloon payment.



Ah the days when lower middle class parents could own 3 bedroom 2.5 bath homes save and actually contribute to the postsecondary education of their children.

My screencap use here is misleading, BTW. (Wait until you realize I'm an unreliable narrator who could be making up all these synopses safe in the knowledge that no one will actually watch Blossom voluntarily or even bother to read episode descriptions on Wikipedia.) Pops is adamant that the college fund not be raided--Anthony, Joey, Blossom's future is more important than his only significant wealth. Such selflessness, it almost stirs the dormant comrade in me.

This is Blossom though and if there's one constant in the Blossomverse it's that Buzz always makes pops LARP Nas, which means wily ol' Buzz eventually figures a way around pops' commendable if possibly quixotic intractability. How does he do it? Why he gives the kids their inheritance from him early and they all decide to give their money to pops to cover the balloon payment. (In reality it's just the (substantial) advance money from the David Lee Roth cover because Buzz is a spendthrift or something.)



Needless to say all I thought about during this scene was the possible tax ramifications of all these transactions that NO ONE IN THIS FUCKING FAMILY THOUGHT ABOUT before engaging in this high stakes heartstring pulling because I'm dead inside and so are you, you just haven't realized it yet.

Oh yeah, enjoy some flashback screencaps I couldn't work up an excuse to include. (I suggest viewing while listening to this for the complete 90s experience.)







Buzz

"Woahs" - 10 in episode, 23 in total viewings

[Yeti]

I've missed these. Could the black widow hourglass on Blossom Momma's shirt be a clue to the real reason she is no longer with the family in the present?

[pollo]

Hi Kara,

What's been good with you man. Been a while

[Kara]

Hey old friend, sadly not much has been good with me of late. How goes life with you?



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Season 2 Episode 13 - "Voyage au bout de la nuit de réveillon de Noël"

I like to think that I am a man of reason. I may not always act reasonably (More like inveterately. -Ed.), but I am generally disinclined to hold to superstitious beliefs. However there are times--however few they may be--where I cannot help but think that I solely exist to engender the laughter of thirsting gods.

On a related note, this episode (which I watched today) is our first Christmas episode.



There will be continuity errors that I rant about at a later point in this synopsis, but at least pops still has the same ill-fitting jacket on this Earth in the Blossomverse.

I'm getting ahead of myself though, first we must trifle with the subplot of this episode: Blossom has her learner's permit.



BTW, notice that land yacht they're cruising around in? Yeah, it doesn't match the hooptie we've always known pops to drive via establishing shots.

They even insult my intelligence by using that establishing shot right after this scene.



Buzz: What's up?
Blossom: Six is quizzing me on the driver's manual. (Beat) Go ahead Six, ask me anything.
Six: Who's hotter, Jason Priestley or Luke Perry? ((How is this even a contest? -Ed.) (ikr -Ed.))
Blossom: I meant a driving question.
Six: OK. Who's a better driver, Jason Priestley or Luke Perry?



Well Six, I'll let you be the judge of that.





Dylan.

Pops has a lot on his plate so Buzz agrees to take Blossom out to practice driving.



Left to her own devices, Blossom draws the attention of the authorities on this sojourn.

Officer: Do you know how fast you were going?
Blossom: Seventy?
Officer: Seven.



Fortunately for Blossom, the officer is a huge fan of Buzz's music and decides to protect and serve by letting them go with a warning--and insisting that Buzz drive home. Hilarity ensues when Buzz, who hasn't driven since the 40s, crashes into the parked patrol car.



So ends the subplot. (I'm not embellishing, no further mention is made of the incident for the rest of the episode. )

You'll remember from our prior episode that pops has been a bit, how shall we say it, salaire de la peur of late. He gets a gig writing a series of jingles for commercials in this episode though and things are starting to look up. That is until the American Federation of Musicians decides to go on strike.



Pops' solution to paying for Christmas? Getting a job demoing organs at the mall. "The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars."



Ah, the low standards of seasonal labor.

He has to work for a 17-year-old meathead, I forgot to mention that. It's important because pops is belittled by him constantly and eventually flips out... then throws shade on Megadeath, Anthrax, AND Slayer and gets sacked. (In his defense, he does it in defense of Zeppelin.)



Elsewhere in the Blossomverse, Anthony is burning down the Christmas tree.



And Blossom forgot to thaw the turkey.



Far be it from me to stand in the way of sexist division of labor, but I think I'd rather have the stoner do the baking and the smart one handle the electrical devices.

Oh yeah, Buzz suggests they microwave the turkey to thaw it. Somehow that leads to this.



Did I mention that on his way home pops stopped to help a pregnant woman with a flat tire and his hooptie got jacked with all the fam's presents inside? Yeah that happened too.

Pops sends everyone out to get pizza so he can rage in peace. Too bad every channel is showing It's a Wonderful Life.



And as if this series of unfortunate events couldn't get any more agonizing, mom's French boyfriend Jean-Claude stops by on his way to Tahiti with presents for the kids. One set from mom, and another set from Jean-Claude.



Partner let me upgrade you indeed.

Oh yeah, after Jean-Claude leaves pops takes his set of gifts, rips off the tags, and puts new ones on saying they're from him. Life, it's so aleatoric friends.



"Woahs" - 0 in episode, 23 in total viewings

[Himu]

Thanks for being a real communist and not supporting thanksgiving, kara

[Kara]

So this is what the great Karakand has fallen to? Greatest holiday of the year, and you spend it watching Blossom?

I also watched 2 episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 that are 4 seasons apart because I remembered that both Brandon and Dylan got into accidents during the course of the show.

[Kara]

Season 2 Episode 14 - "Calm Jabbar"

Because well-worn paths can never be too well-worn, Blossom follows up its Christmas episode with the SAT episode.



OK, technically Six and Blossom are only taking the PSAT, but Joey is taking the SAT as well.

Six and Joey are shitting bricks about their respective exams. Sort of like everyone else.



Blossom wasn't really concerned herself. Well until she sat down to take the test that is.



Choked like a pubescent chicken. The sweet taste of failure.



Meanwhile Anthony is frustrated that his life consists of going to work, going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and nothing else.

(Call me when your life consists of going to work, Tony. )

What does he do? Why he asks Buzz for advice. Because after last episode he certainly seems like an adult with their head screwed on.



Matadors represent y'all.

What's Buzz's suggestion to his recovering alcohol and drug addict grandson? Joining him at the tracks.



Establishing shots.

Like a stereotypical regular gambler, Buzz has a series of rules he abides by when he goes to see the ponies. 1. Pick your horses the night before. 2. Stick to your picks no matter what. 3. Keep betting until all your picks have raced.

How does the Buzz Method™ work out?





However things take a turn for the worse when Anthony discovers that there's been a late addition to their final race. It has Blossom in its name and because of that they just have to bet on it despite this not being part of the Buzz Method™.



Buzz relents and lets the boy cook, which to be more precise means Anthony goes and drops 78 thousand U.S. dollars on a horse just because part of its name is his own sister's name. I'll let you figure out how that goes for ol' Anthony.



Speaking of humiliating defeat, Blossom is dealing with hers in an adult manner.



Pops does pops things to cheer her up.



Unfortunately Blossom doesn't want to know she's unconditionally loved and things will work out.

Joey's on the case though. He tells her that now everyone thinks she's dumb and there won't be any pressure on her anymore. For reasons I cannot comprehend exactly this works and Blossom is ready to go out and face the world again. Too bad the door broke and they're all stuck inside.



Did I mention that pops fixed this door earlier in the episode?

As an addendum, just a reminder that y'all by picking this one as the whitest sitcom.



Why yes, that is Omar Gooding reprising his role as a studious young man dear reader. How observant of you.



Did I mention that Omar Gooding was last seen in a class that Joey and not Blossom was in and that because of the tests they took today we can infer they are not in the same grade?

"Woahs" - 0 in episode, 23 in total viewings

[Kara]

The commentaries I could write for my last 3 synopses.

I think Voyage might be my finest one yet.

Too bad I got more episodes to watch instead of getting exegetical outchea.

[thisismyusername]

OMG that dreamy emote edit. 

[nudemacusers]

kara i'm worried about your health brah

[kick51]

this is hilarious.  can you do Jem and the Holograms next? 

[Kara]

Are you manually doing all the screen captures for this?

I am, yeah. It disrupts the viewing experience I admit (especially in the beginning of an episode when I'm not quite sure what will and will not be important to screencap), but it allows me to watch an episode once and be done with it.

kara i'm worried about your health brah

In the darkness a blind man is the best guide. In an age of madness look to the madman to show the way.

[Kara]

Season 2 Episode 15 - "Love's Labour Tossed"

School ep!



Substitute teacher ep!



He's like so over reading essays, so instead of writing essays about the Shakespeare play they're reading they're going to perform it in class.



Why yes, that is Omar Gooding yet again in Blossom's class. How observant of you, dear reader.

What a dreamboat. Am I right, girls?



Omar Gooding makes a pretty good Prince of Verona.

Blossom has it really bad for teach though. Even more than the other girls.



like my name is Mercutio.

Did I mention that this episode's official name is a song David Lee Roth--who last time we encountered was buying the rights to songs Buzz wrote--sang?

Speaking of young love, Joey is trying to impress a girl with poetry he wrote himself.



While Joey is obviously a man of letters, he's just a bit frustrated by writer's block.



He talks Blossom into writing his love poem for him because his stuff is crassly misogynistic, even for Joey.



The proof of the pudding lies in its eating.

Elsewhere, the Rolling Stones are in town and Anthony wants to see them because it "might be the last time they ever go on tour."

He asks pops if he knows someone who knows someone who can hook him up with tix. This offends pops because he's that guy with the hookup.

He calls Mick Jagger's home number to make his point.



Too bad it's a Chinese restaurant's number now.



indeed, Anthony.



It's substitute teacher's last day of school.

How does Blossom handle this? Why she waits after class and gives him her digits and address. Then asks if he'll contact her in 10 years when she's old enough to be pursued by him.



ikr Six? That was almost as stupid as wearing that jacket out in public.



BTW, subbie is married.



Looking like an amethyst monolith in that ensemble, g-friend.

The girl Joey was pursuing found out he was a too when she asked him to freestyle a poem on the spot and he sang her a stanza from "I Touch Myself."



At least pops and Tony got to see the Stones.



But maybe that wasn't the only victory in this episode.



(Sheesh pops you look like hell. Take a chill pill or something.)




For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.


"Woahs" - 1 in episode, 24 in total viewings

[chronovore]

My friend tells me that I never watch TV shows or movies, but that I just read other people's reviews of them and then comment on that instead, elevating the review of media to its metacultural significance.

I've never seen a single episode of this show.

My favorite aspect of this thread is that it cements me as the premiere post-modern media consumer.

[thisismyusername]

(Image removed from quote.)

OMG, I've been looking everywhere for this.  *right-click->save*

[Kara]

My friend tells me that I never watch TV shows or movies, but that I just read other people's reviews of them and then comment on that instead, elevating the review of media to its metacultural significance.

I've never seen a single episode of this show.

My favorite aspect of this thread is that it cements me as the premiere post-modern media consumer.

I'm kind of on the fence about writing a manifesto explaining the exact nature of this project because it would stunt self-reflection like this.

On the other hand I can't exactly launch the tumblr without an introduction.

[chronovore]

Please let me know when the Tumblr goes live; extending my second-hand review across multiple social networks can only cause more fracturing of the prism.

BTW, I am having to get by entirely on this thread for insights on Blossom versus Big Bang Theory's Amy, as well as the actress' relationship to the characters she plays.

[Kara]

I'm going to launch it with season 3. I'll still post here and crosspost there. TBH it's why I'm kind of burning through eps atm. (Also I was MIA for awhile.)

[pollo]

My friend tells me that I never watch TV shows or movies, but that I just read other people's reviews of them and then comment on that instead, elevating the review of media to its metacultural significance.

I've never seen a single episode of this show.

My favorite aspect of this thread is that it cements me as the premiere post-modern media consumer.

in other words you : blossom gaffer : video games

[chronovore]

There's no need to be mean!

[Kara]

Does this fill your endless emptiness, Karakand?

It is no sin to wish for a life with meaning.

[Kara]

Season 2 Episode 16 - "What Is to Be Won?"

Joey is going to eat 5 thousand peas at lunch and break the school record.



Because he wants to ask Taylor to go steady with him and thinks such a labor will demonstrate how special he really is.



Who's Taylor? Fuck if I know. True to form, Blossom introduces a (presumably) serious romantic interest with zero context or continuity.

Meanwhile in statistics class...



The class has to partner up in heteronormative couples and build a family budget using depressing American household income statistics.

Blossom gets partnered up with a total rake.



Sorry for the tangent, but I really hope Zane fucking Buzby's parents are ashamed of giving a child a name like that. There's only one Zane, and it ain't fucking Buzby. (Gravediggaz represent.)

Where was I? Ah yes, her partner isn't actually so bad. When Blossom wonders how a family of 4 lives on the average household income of 29 thousand dollars a year (thanks Obama) he tells her that his parents raise 7 kids on far less than that.



Ball don't lie, pops. No more whining about toiling away in the soul crushing field of popular music performance.

Blossom starts crushing on her partner--his devil may care attitude to the class character of bourgeois society being simply irresistible. There's only one minor problem, he's sort of attached at the moment.



I saw season 4 of Saved By the Bell too.

Speaking of minor problems, because Anthony exists and this show is creatively bankrupt we have to endure another sober #struggle subplot involving him. He's having his wisdom teeth taken out but isn't sure if he wants to be anesthetized or prescribed analgesics because he'll go from EMT to Robert Downey Jr. in no time flat or some shit.



The thrilling conclusion to this? He decides he'll take the pain pills if he can't endure the pain anymore.

Since we're on the topic of pain, Blossom's partner's... well partner? wants to lay it on her for moving in on her man. She politely tells Six to tell Blossom to meet her after school so they can settle their dispute like gentlemen.



Blossom shows up and makes quite an impression.



Or rather an impression was made on her.

Since I know you were all dying to know, Joey did manage to eat 5 thousand peas.



And he impressed Taylor, who remarks that if the world stopped fighting wars and had pea eating competitions then we could all enjoy world... peas.



I was thinking more than Six, but .



O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Before we go, enjoy a montage of a subplot about pops meeting the guy voted most likely to succeed in his graduating class from high school.






If only I'd known not to blow my trapped in the closet material early.

"Woahs" - 0 in episode, 24 in total viewings

[Kara]

While I agree she's a bit sheltered and that the point of introducing this character was to shed light on that, that's not a lot of money to raise 4 people on, especially in the Southland.

Then there's the thing about median income not being a meaningful metric in large population samples.

[pilonv1]

Taylor is Tiffani from California Dreams

[Kara]

Season 2 Episode 17 - "The Twelve Pairs"¹²³

I've been keeping something from you for quite some time, reader.



There has been a long running thread in Blossom I have chosen to not discuss until now. Why? Well, in the beginning I didn't believe it would amount to much⁴ and also because it never really lent itself to substantive discussion, but as time went on it became clear that not only did this thread transcend the various planes of the Blossomverse, but it wasn't going anywhere. When I reached this conclusion I decided that eventually it would crescendo and then I could reveal a truth you had been ignorant of because you are relying on an unreliable narrator⁵ to recount the contents of a piece of cultural refuse to you.



So much build up for something so trivial... a thousand curses on the writers of this episode.

Six has had a mad crush on Joey. For a long, long time. She will always take the opportunity to indulge in it too. With Blossom. Blossom would initially respond with revulsion, but has since wised up to the fact that it's best to just ignore her friend's behavior. Unfortunately for all parties involved Six can't take a fucking hint.




No, Six and Joey aren't an item. That would be too much payoff for this fucking piece of shit show. Joey thinks kisses from Six are the cause of his red hot hitting streak over the last few weeks so he goes out of his way to get a peck from Six before every game⁶.

Well until Six starts getting exploitative with Joey.



Eventually suffering this kind of abuse breaks Joey down to the point where he celebrates the fact he went 0 for a million in a game because it disproves the power of Six.



Anthony had a bit of an experience at work. He got called to the Playboy Mansion to save the life of a Playmate during a calendar shoot.



This being Blossom however, all the men in Anthony's life make him tell the story over and over because licentiousness is so despotic, friends.



Hands where I can see them, gents.

The payoff for this is that all 12 calendar girls show up at the house to "learn how to perform CPR"⁷ from Anthony.



Naturally Joey volunteers to be the practice subject. Luckily for devotees of Momus, Six busts in to snatch another kiss before Joey can fulfill a teenage fantasy.



Speaking of nudity, Blossom discovers she has a fear of public speaking during her tryout for drama club. Wasn't she nailing Juliet in English class 2 episodes ago though?⁸

At least we get a continuity bone when she connects this cracking under pressure with her laudable PSAT performance.

Oh yeah, what does this have to do with nudity you ask? Well pops tells her to picture everyone in their underwear which means we get treated to sit-up camp for shirtless boys.



Maybe I shouldn't have said boys...



Those of you familiar with Mayim Bialik's irl political leanings may find this moment from her daydream about delivering a historic speech to the United Nations amusing.



"Woahs" - 4 in episode⁹, 28 in total viewings


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¹An unimaginative if not problematic play on the title of the 1928 novel The Twelve Chairs which no doubt references the mammary character of the 12 guests that make an appearance at the end of the episode. Inaki suggests that we are also meant to connect the deception of Karakand with the behavior of the various con artists that populate the pages of this frenetic comedy while Huldrych believes this to be baseless conjecture. As Ostap Bender would say, "God only knows . . . And since there is no God, nobody knows. We are in a terrible bind."

²Lucious Jackson's name was itself a pop culture reference.

³"I tried to be dignified . . . Naked is a state of mind"

⁴No doubt to avoid something like the incorrect prognostications about Jewish jokes being a running undercurrent to the show during season 1 that turned out to be an error.

⁵Besides taking the opportunity to indulge his grating Gallophilia, it can be assumed that Karakand intended this to be a reference to Humbert Humbert in the superficial sense that the character was also a rather infamous unreliable narrator. Inaki and Huldrych take this further and connect Humbert's obsession with a teenage girl to Karakand's obsession with the travails of a fictional teenage girl.

⁶"I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look." On a related note, this happens to be the sixth footnote to this synopsis. Coincidence? I think not. (17 (as in the episode number) less 12 (as in the number in the episode synopsis title) is also 5. -Ed.)

⁷Ironically this reference comes 7 months into Karakand's time on the leaky boat one might metaphorically describe his personal life as resembling.

⁸Bizarrely Blossom failed to perform to expectations while auditioning as Hamlet too.

⁹Karakand's show notes make mention of the fact that 2 characters both woah simultaneously at one point in the episode and that this caused a great deal of categorizing consternation. (For those of you wondering, each character's woah was treated as a distinct woah for tallying purposes.)

[TVC15]

Should I do a thread where I watch all of Friends?

[pilonv1]

Should I do a thread where I watch all of Friends?

Yes.

x infinity

[Kara]

Should I do a thread where I watch all of Friends?

I've got Wings after this, have at it.

[Joe Molotov]

Dem footnotes. This is becoming the Infinite Jest of Blossom threads.

[pilonv1]

Should I do a thread where I watch all of Friends?

I've got Wings after this, have at it.

So excited, Wings is one of my secret shame favourites in a completely non-ironic way. Just the fact it lasted so long with a stupid premise deserves praise.

[bluemax]

Its been almost 2 weeks. I hope the void has not consumed Karakand.

[toku]

Its been almost 2 weeks. I hope the void has not consumed Karakand.

hes been camping so in a way, it has.

[Kara]

Season 2 Episode 18 - "Je suis dans le pastiche"¹²

Blossom gets a letter from mom.

Dear Blossom STOP Still dating hunky Paul Gauguin wannabe³ STOP Went to the opera together the other night STOP Drank wine at a little cafe afterwards STOP Then danced the rest of the night away under the Eiffel Tower FULL STOP

Blossom reads this letter and concludes mom is like *totally embarrassing*, living like a "lovesick teenager" when she's turning quarante soon. Sounds like a pretty sweet setup to me, Blossom, but I have seen Jean-Claude while you haven't. Ah, the days when you could willfully abandon your parental obligations. .

Speaking of living in the past, pops is cleaning out his performance wardrobe.



Needless to say it was probably ill-advised to try putting on some of this stuff.⁴ In the present I mean, not back then.



Because questionable clothing no longer fits, pops decides to join the gym and get in shape. (When you don't have a problem getting laid as a single father with irregular employment I guess you have to reach for anything you can to get motivated. )



Establishing shots.

Even though he hasn't worked out possibly in forever, pops refuses to take much input from his trainer. I'm going to go ahead and leave this one packed up nice and tight in the "problematic power dynamics" box.



A nice warm serving of comeuppance⁵ arrives at the stair machines however and pops ends up like this.



Harkening all the way back to the pilot⁶, Blossom decides to create a video journal instead of sending her mom a birthday card for her previously mentioned upcoming milestone. Our past is not merely something to depart from; it is to commune with, to speak with.⁷



Everyone gets in on dis shit.



Even Salt-N-Pepa. Ah, the days when we got regular celebrity cameos on this show.



Bea tea dubs, they perform "Let's Talk About Sex." For Blossom's mom.

Anthony tells mom all about how he's an EMT and sober. I'm starting to think Anthony gets paid off by Alcoholics Anonymous for every mention of sobriety he can unnecessarily work into any conversation or episode⁸ possible.



Mise-en-scene.

He also takes the opportunity to let us all know that the Playmate he saved last episode and he are dating.



Having the rare opportunity to communicate with his mother, Joey makes sure she knows he's still a kid at heart.



I'm hardly a LEGO connoisseur, but those pieces seem like fairly recent releases Joey.



Ah, the days when toilets in California could flush small LEGO creations.

(Joey, I know I'm not exactly on terra firma when I proffer life advice, but if I was sending my mom who thought acting the fool in Paris for years while her kids grew up without her a message I probably wouldn't use toilet flushing imagery. )

Buzz demonstrates that empires rise and fall but ageism is eternal by gracing us all with a demonstration of his proficiency with modern marvels like VHS camcorders the size of a gym bag.



Even pops sneaks in a quick message reminding mom that she'll always be 3 months older than him until the day she dies⁹.



Speaking of mom, we get a Dr. Claw scene of her watching the tape.



I wish this could have screencapped better but it's much more important for you to know Paul Junger Witt¹⁰ executive produced this episode than it is for you to know this video visibly moved Dr. Claw Mom.



I've got a bad fucking feeling mom is coming to an episode of Blossom soon.

"Woahs" - 0 in episode, 28 in total viewings


---------------------------------------------------------------------

¹Inaki believes this is a play on the French expression "je suis dans le pastis."  Huldrych challenges this assertion, pointing out Karakand formally studied French as a child and the odds of encountering a liquor-based colloquialism in such an environment are exceedingly small. Additionally, a well-documented ideologue and absintheur would be disinclined to celebrate pastis, a drink that both arose in the aftermath of absinthe's ban in France and was invented by a man who receives his due credit for doing so (Paul Ricard) while absinthe was likely invented by a woman (or women if her daughters are included) while recognition for its creation was historically given to various men like Dr. Pierre Ordinaire. Inaki counters that even though pastis and absinthe have a complicated relationship, Karakand was quite familiar with the myriad of anise liquors available for consumption as evidenced by some of the more sordid anecdotes found in his overbearing autobiography If I Drank That: The Mystery of the Ham in the Bowl and Other Struggles of Socialism.

²Despite several opportunities to use the two Leonardo DiCaprio emoticons through which Karakand comments on the various continuity issues that plague Blossom, he conspicuously avoided using them for entirety of this synopsis. While the title of the piece could be literally applied to various threads of the episode's plot, it is also possible that the amount of continuity consistency found in the episode made him give up on his deranged hypothesis that the show actually takes place across several parallel Earths which eliminated the philosophical basis for the use of the emoticons as well. Norwood asserts that for the sake of readability Karakand eschewed the use of the emoticons entirely for this synopsis because the frequency with which they would have had to appear would have irreparably damaged the flow of the work. For further discussion see Conception, Inception, Deception: An Analysis of DiCaprian Semiotics.

³Given the reasons for Paul Gauguin's Tahitian residency, Karakand's choice of aspersive tone is curious here.

⁴An obvious instance of Karakand's use of the formulaic plant and payoff device.

⁵Readers of Karakand's previously mentioned autobiography will no doubt recognize the uncharacteristic personal references that lace this.

⁶And the opening credits of all of season 1.

⁷Syntactical discrepancy betrays this meditation as not being original thought on the part of Karakand. Inaki and Huldrych offer no theories as to why he would conceal his familiarity with the work of Wendell Berry.

⁸Assuming Anthony was capable of comprehending that he only existed in a terminating, episodic state.

⁹Specifically, Nick Russo uses "till death do us part," a fragment from the traditional English language marriage vow.

¹⁰Per his show notes, this executive producer's name served as the inspiration for the title "Jung Love" so the singling out this individual in a negative manner is difficult to understand. With a great deal of self-control we eschewed appending a Freudian slip joke to this observation.

[Kara]

The intertextuality of the tenth footnote.

[Kara]

Aside from the fact that I never want to eat trail mix or beef jerky again, amazing. I got to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, however I wanted. On Christmas Eve I fell out of bed my sleeping bag at sunrise and went on a all day hike Bataan Death March off-trail¹ using nothing but a compass, my wits, and my obnoxious memory² without having to suffer the incessant whining of weaklings people unenlightened by masochism, or being bound by their physical limitations and fear.

My only oversight was nighttime, which I'll have to think up a solution to before the next time I go. I brought a lantern but it gets so fucking dark that it wasn't copacetic as a reading aid. It's a shame I'm not loaded / don't live in a pseudo-theocratic shithole that masquerades as the land of freedom, puppies, and ice cream because hiring a sex worker for this part of the sojourn would be perfect.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

¹This isn't really saying much considering I was at Mojave. An "easy" trail that runs near one of the two major campgrounds is only a mile and quite easy to lose track of. It also concludes with two vertical cliff climbs.

²I was actually surprised at how useful this was. When backtracking or trying to return to my main path after taking a scenic detour (climbing to the top of a steep hill, sitting on a rock, eating Gruyere and reading Lucian of Samosata for your lunch break in complete peace and quiet ) I was able to instantly tell if I wasn't where I wanted to be by picking up on minor differences in what is admittedly a very consistent landscape. I guess self-preservation augments the family curse.

[bluemax]

There are ways to make a lantern a bit better for night reading that aren't overly expensive.

I will say my favorite part of camping once I became a sullen teenager was finding somewhere where no one could see me and I couldn't hear anything but nature, and then I could sit and read and not be bothered all day.

[pilonv1]

Why am I waiting so long for the next update

[Kara]

Because I wrote a manifesto, which I'll summarize when I'm not mobile posting.

But the good news is that I can get back to work now that someone has asked.

[pilonv1]

I'm just waiting for you to get the few Blossom episodes I actually remember, like the one where Blossom thinks Six is bulemic or when

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Six dates David Spade

[close]

[Kara]

Season 2 Episode 19 - "Never Sit Up Front at the Ballet"¹

Annnnnnnnnnnd we're back. It doesn't seem like much has changed in our absence.

Buzz is still barging in unannounced.



(You'd think someone would lock the fucking front door if they supposedly hate this guy so much. )

Questionable fashion choices aplenty.



(To be one day revived by Hermès. )

Poorly tailored suits.



(Seriously are there no fucking tailors in the Valley. )

Sight gags on the porch.



(The why and the how aren't interesting, but we'll get there. )

TIL at the kitchen table with an adult.



Even some classic Blossom stuffed-in-the-closet plot point.



Hilary Banks appearing in character.



And, last but certainly not least, Paul Junger "Sexually Assault Karakand Without Consequence" Witt.



*record scrach* *spit take* Did you say Hilary Banks? In character??

Did I stutter? Let this boy cook.

Now, allons-nous'en à le recap, meufs et mecs!

Blossom is hosting a slumber party.



Dramatis  personae:

Blossom

Six (not pictured)

Tweedledork and Tweedledorkier



(Tweedledorkier's resemblance to is PURELY coincidental, I swear.)

Allison Sparxxx, an almost 18-year-old (presumed) senior classwoman.



Let the music play discoman. No one want to hear that record scratch again.

Several of our dramatis personae were angry that Joey left for date night, BTW.

I bet Joey was too when he pulled up to this dump.



BTW his date's dad is on script psycho my daughter is property stock character.



He insists that they go on a date at LAX (ah the days when airports weren't fortified police states ) and bring back Hare Krishna brochures as proof of (having no) life.

So yeah, Allison, she's grounded but her parents let her go out to hang with Blossom because Blossom is a loser who won't get her into trouble.

What's really on the menu for Allison? A Madonna cosplay.



Seriously doe, she's got a date lined up with some guy whose name she doesn't remember and needs the gang to help get her outta dis joint.

The plan the come up with, of course, is extremely logical and intelligent.




BTW she talks down to them when they their first attempt and they literally construe her order to get her down now.



Debt enchains us. Work exhausts us. You disgust us.

TIME DILATION (woah )

Allison comes back perfectly fine.





And the gang have to get her upstairs in between appearances by pops.



At least there were no ha-ha date rape jokes this time?

BTW the next morning Blossom tries to "talk some sense" into Allison and Big A just like never sit up front at the ballet Blossom.



You go girl.

Oh yeah, Joey's date and Joey didn't go to the airport.



's cool doe, she has like a big ol' stack of dat Hare Krishna stuff.



All the ladies, who independent, throw your hands up at me.

AND Hilary fucking Banks and Tony discovered that while they both come from separate worlds and lead different lives, they both love Breakfast at Tiffany's.



indeed, A.H.

WHICH HAPPENS TO BE PLAYING TONIGHT ACROSS TOWN. Luckily for our intrepid duo, they happen to be in a public safety vehicle not meant for private misuse.



"Woahs" - 1 in episode, 29 in total viewings

spoiler (click to show/hide)

¹It spoils the illusion.

[close]

[benjipwns]

[Great Rumbler]

Can't believe that Kara just abandoned us. And Blossom.

[benjipwns]

We all deserve a fairy tale.

[benjipwns]

I was hoping he'd finish so that he could someday review Til Death after that show was abandoned by FOX to fill the syndication number and they just did whatever they wanted including casting Bialik as the one characters therapist (and Blossom?!?) which I assume was done almost entirely as a joke build up to:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

everything the Doug character describes happened to Til Death, including Krysten Ritter's brief stint as his wife/the daughter, not to mention half the cast and the original premise of the show being dumped so Brad Garrett could have adventures with J.B. Smoove using rejected Curb plots

https://tv.avclub.com/nobodys-watching-the-strange-genius-of-the-fourth-seas-1798220591

Nobody's watching: The strange genius of the fourth season of 'Til Death

Imagine for a second that you've been handed a TV show. It's a long-running show, coming up on 100 episodes, yet it's been off the air for almost a year. You have almost complete assurance that when this show gets on the air, no one will be watching it. The show has been retooled over and over and over again until it barely resembles itself, and the whole thing is here only because the production company cut a crazy deal with the network so the show would be on the air long enough to get to syndication.

But wait! There's more! Doug went to therapy with a therapist played by Mayim Bialik, who was gradually revealed to be the actress Mayim Bialik, who was filming a reality show based on her practice, all the better to further disorient Doug. And there were suggestions that she might actually have been the character Blossom

[close]

[Great Rumbler]

Can't believe that Kara just abandoned us. And Blossom.

.

[Yeti]

[Joe Molotov]

Actioning Kara's account for watching Blossom in bad faith, drive-by Blossom viewing.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Was it ever figured out what blackmail threat was used to get Dr John to do the theme song?

[Brehvolution]

Watching Blossom grow up and marry Dr. Sheldon Cooper is just the icing on the cake.