Carole and Tuesday Part 5 Episodes 17-20

The road to success just got a bit tougher for Carole and Tuesday.  While the two are in demand, recording their first album and getting another shot at Cydonia Fest, the rest of the world seems to be heading in a darker direction.  In her race for the Mars Presidency, Tuesday’s Mother pushes her isolationist policy further, which forces Tuesday to take a bold step to protect her best friend, Carole.  Angela’s got problems of her own when her cyber stalker begins discretley attacking her associates.  With her situation so dire, will Tao himself decide to intervene?  And when he loses all of his money, DJ Ertegun must confront his own inner demons if he’s going to make it back to the top.  The world is going crazy…so Carole and Tuesday are gonna show it the light.

As much as I love Carole and Tuesday’s eternal optimism, I’ve been wondering how the newly established plotlines that I haven’t been a huge fan of would tie into their story.  Sure enough, we made some forward progress and, for once, things didn’t end on a sunny note for the series (dramatically, all the episodes themselves were fine).

This was arguably the darkest set of episodes so far in terms of content and storylines.  Mental health scares, immigration matters and a psycho killer stalker, this wasn’t exactly sunny stuff but each one was handled pretty well, mostly.  Ertegun was the main focus of a inner turmoil conflict after he lost all his money to fraud.  Seeing the overly confident and arrogant Ertegun confront his angels and demons was chilling.  I’m sure there are many with stress, anxiety and depression who endure this kind of hardship often.  It’s what made Ertegun’s comeback all the more rewarding as he found his way back in a surprising way: teaming up with Tao and Angela.  This was the week that Tao and Angela both got major kicks in their plotlines to various degrees of success.  There should have been a bit more of Ertegun trying to collaborate with Tao on a new song cause their banter was great (all while Angela could only stand there and observe).  Tao also showed a surprisingly more human side as he put the kabosh on Angela’s stalker at the Cydonia Festival.  Sooooo…he’s really cared about her all along?  Like in Severus Snape has always cared about Harry Potter even though he’s a constant jerk to him?  Crossing fandoms I know but that comparison came to mind.  As for Angela, she found herself in a pretty bad position by the end of the set.  With Tao under arrest cause he wouldn’t play ball in political matters, he left Angela his AI replica of herself to finish their work.  Angela finally lashed out at her mother for feeling like these dreams of fame were all forced upon her…which sent her mother collapsing in shock…not a good sign.  An outburst like this though makes me feel like we should have done an episode or two solely with Angela to better set up this shakeup.

The political storyline hasn’t been my favorite element of Carole and Tuesday but man did it heat up big time.  We had a bombing of a weather center that brought Winter to a city on mars and hell to the election as Tuesday’s Mother, Valerie, used this as an excuse to emphasize why Earth Immigrants shouldn’t be allowed on Mars anymore.  It’s hard not to look at how real world inspired this show has been with its backdrops and societal analysis.  So it’s not surprising that there are some like Carole’s old buddy Ezikeil who are using their music to strike back against the government.  It might not end well for the brave rapper but if anything is going to right this world gone wrong, it’s going to be the power of song.  Well that and people standing up to douche baggery, like Tuesday’s brother Spencer, leaving his mothers campaign because…well because he has a heart and she doesn’t and he doesn’t want to be part of her campaign that will ruin Mars.

With all this chaos going on, what about our titular duo?  Well they were involved in some of these story threads while also continuing their own work.  Surprisingly, Carole and Tuesday were both caught up in some potential romances that sadly didn’t end well.  I feel bad for both of them: Carole didn’t have the same success reaching out to Ezikiel that she did making amends with her Dad; and Tuesday…oh man.  Sure Kyle the Reporter is a bit too old for her but the heartbreak was just as real and probably one of the best scenes of the entire show was Carole embracing her tearful best friend on a bridge surrounded by snow.  Outside of this , C&T got a chance to return to the Cydonia Festival and follow up a spectacular performance by Ertegun and Angela.  This was a great music set piece, the exact mirror of their first time to the Festival a year prior (has it been a year?  Yeesh).  Even better, C&T didn’t do anything  flashy but instead just sat on stage and played for the crowd how they play for each other most nights.  It’s both intimate and open and all around great.  With unconventional approaches like this, it’s no surprised C&T have been nominated for Best New Artist on Mars at the Mars Grammys.  The question now is, will their old school style triumph over Angela’s modern day digital style…or whatever Angela ends up doing since she doesn’t want to use AI so she can succeed on her own?

So, Mars is starting to go to hell.  Valerie’s pressure on Earth Immigrants might threaten Carole’s living on Mars.  Angela’s two biggest supporters are either arrested or in prison.  I’ll admit…I did not see going into the last set of episodes looking anything this bleak.  But you know what they say, “The night is darkest just before the dawn.  And I promise you…the dawn is coming.”  Thanks, Harvey Dent.  See you guys next Monday for the series finale of Carole and Tuesday.