Monday, March 16, 2020

Carole and Tuesday Part 3 Episodes 9-12


Mars Brightest has begun and already several contestants are showing promise.  Carole and Tuesday might be among them but there are those eager to crush their dreams.  And then there’s Tuesday’s family, which has been search for her ever since she ran away.  With the final rounds of Mars Brightest fast approaching, Carole, Roddy and Gus will have to pull off the impossible and somehow manage to free Tuesday and make it to the Mars Brightest finals before they are disqualified.  The race is on.

Music has the power to move the heart, to stir up all kinds of emotions and make a really bad day have a sunny spot which can make you smile.  The art of the Anime OST is a key factor to many Anime titles like Cowboy Bebop, FLCL or Your Name.  Why am I starting this weeks review with this sentiment?  Because it's hard not to be crying a bit after the last moments of Episode 12.  Carole and Tuesday went through a lot this week, not all of it pretty.  But damn if they didn’t get the reward they deserved.  And better yet, the bulk of Mars wanted them to have it too.

I’m not sure what the second half of the series has in store but im gonna miss Mars’ Brightest and again request this get a spin off of its own.  The remaining contestants all brought their own style and flavors to their songs, from GGK’s otherworldly manerisms to Cybelle’s all French lyrics.  HOWEVER, The Mermaid Sisters little number will no doubt go down as the absolute funniest moment of the entire show.  What starts out as a cool little call back to the Barbershop quartet quickly turns into the most vulgar song ever produced with every single swear word in the book being used as a lyric.  Yes, it makes sense that the judges shut it down quickly.  Still, if you’re not laughing at this segment, you should be.  The Mermaid Sisters performance must be seen to be believed.

Actually, The Mermaid Sisters hilarious blunder turned out to be one of the few bright spot moments from an otherwise heavy week of story (until the end).  They Cybelle subplot went exactly where one thought it might.  Getting turned down by Tuesday sent the unhinged uber fan into a frenzy.  It was pretty scary and done that way on purpose.  There’s plenty of examples throughout history of superstar idols and fans of a particular mindset and the collisions that come from a fan being way to into the object of their affections.  This resulted in Tuesday getting her hands burned from an incendiary disguised as a birthday present.  Yeah, we knew it was Cybelle but I’m glad the show did add an extra bit of mystery before dropping the reveal.  While not other contestant had enough ill will to pull that stunt off, could Angela’s mother or Tao have been the culprit?  It did keep me guessing, even if the obvious answer was obvious.

Cybelle’s troubled obsession weighed heavily on our favorite duo and we got some natural fractions.  Tuesday couldn’t process Cybelle’s next level fandom that ended up hurting her.  Carole was becoming more focused on winning she ended up blaming Tuesday for almost costing them Mars’ Brightest.  This didn’t come off as forced at all and that’s good.  As much as I love these girls doing their thing and getting along, good drama can also go a long way.  But this does bring me to my one truly head scratching criticism of Carole and Tuesday so far…when Tuesday was kidnapped and brought back home by her piece of work policitican mother (seriously if she’s gonna show so much disdain for her daughter why the hell did she have kids in the first place?), why didn’t Carole go after Tuesday immediately?  For that matter why didn’t Gus or Roddy get her to act sooner?  It’s not even about winning Mars’ Brightest either, it’s about making sure their friend is safe.  I know Carole and Tuesday had a lot to process from their recent ordeals…but come on, the lack of action made me shake my head a little.

Angela got a bit of likeable screentime this week.  All three of her songs were actually pretty good and even though there’s a lot of Tao’s AI work in the background, the girls got a good voice.  For a moment I was wondering if the odds were always stacked in her favor by Tao and her mothers influence.  But Angela got to show a bit of vulnerability that she’s really needed to show far prior to now.  Her accusing her manager of hurting Tuesday was a jerk move but Angela clearly looked guilty when she learned what wasn’t the case (I kind of hope she and her manager patch things up).  Angela wants to win but fair and square, no cheating, so she has a code.  And to top it all off, she asked the judges to give Carole and Tuesday a chance even though she’d won by default in the end.  I wonder how much of this development will stick in the second half of the series.  Who knows, maybe she could even be the Anti Virus Program that reminds Tao he’s a human with a heart (maybe im reading too much into that but who knows).

During my first review I said that “The Loneliest Girl” was going to be the signature song of Carole and Tuesday.  So it only makes sense that for their final number on Mars’ Brightest, the duo would bust that one out once again and deliver the best sounding version of it so far.  Even the audience (and to a degree the Judges too) all wanted Carole and Tuesday to be the clear winners.  This was such an earned win for the pair.  And in a way, this feels like it could be the end of the series right here and now.  Granted there’s still that “legendary performance” Gus was narrarating about at the very beginning that we’re probably headed towards.  But see Carole and Tuesday share the stage with Angela, almost as equals, was one of the best feel good moments of the show so far.  None of it would work without the combo heart that is Carole and Tuesday.  I’m glad they both realized that they needed one another in order to be truly happy.  This is a pure beautiful friendship between two girls that isn’t being pushed for a romance and it is simply great.

So yeah, there were a lot of high marks for the midseason episodes.  I know the score I’d probably give Carole and Tuesday now were this the end of the road…but we’re not quite there yet.  The second half and the continuation of the journey of Carole and Tuesday begins next week right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.  See ya then.

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