Monday, March 23, 2020

Carole and Tuesday Part 4 Episodes 13-16


With their success at the Mars’ Brightest competition, Carole and Tuesday have crossed a major hurdle in their dream to become recognized singers.  Now comes the toughest part: being famous.  Between legions of reporters looking for an interview and a foul mouthed record producer who cant be impressed, the duo face constant struggles in light of their recent brush with fame.  But there are those who have become inspired by Carole and Tuesday’s music and they want to show their appreciation.  Meanwhile, Angela’s newfound stardom comes with a severe drawback: an obsessive stalker.  No one said being famous was easy.  

Mars’ Brightest was a solid way to wrap up the first half of Carole and Tuesday and left me kind of wondering if the show could have just ended there.  Well after a little bit of a rough beginning, this weeks episodes showed that these two stars have more stories to tell and aren’t done tugging at the heartstrings, even when new plot elements don’t feel like theyre gelling well with the overall show.

Part of me wants to start with the negatives this week because the success are far more monumental…so I’ll do that.  There’s a new interest in exploring the political race with Tuesday’s mother that…kind of like the Angela storyline (more on that in a sec) feels like it belongs in a whole other Anime.  I mean yeah, Tuesday’s Mom is a heartless monster and this show is always interested in showing how free spirited believers in love and music like Carole and Tuesday will always be superior.  But is this going to go anywhere?  Why make such a big deal about Tuesday’s Moms intentions to make Mars an isolationist planet?  Then there’s Angela.  Ive mentioned in prior reviews how her scenes with Tao feel like something out of a twisted, futuristic Saw film.  But now she’s being taken in a new, arguably darker direction with a new psycho stalker.  On the one hand, this could be the shot in the arm her storyline needs considering all of Angela’s story so far has been arrogant attitude and trying to impress Tao.  On the other, does Carole and Tuesday really need to do a Perfect Blue esque storyline (as much as I love that movie)?  Seriously, it’s like Watanabe is trying to fit three Anime into one when one will do.

It speaks volumes to Carole and Tuesday themselves that they manage to make their plotlines tower over everything else, so much it makes all the negativity I talked about above feel minimal.  I mean look at what happened to them this week:  Carole got to meet her long lost dad, who felt he wasn’t deserving of forgiveness from his daughter but Carole gave it anyway; they got the blessings of a music legend and got to hear his final song before he passed away; and they reignited the spark of music and imagination in the woman who inspired them both to sing in the first place.  Honestly, why does this show need to be about anything else other than these two (and Gus and Roddy I guess)?  It kind of goes without saying that the music was more on fire than ever before and I think the choices of tunes are only getting better and better.

Carole and Tuesdays encounters with two mega music icons were the biggest highlights of the week.  Desmond’s episode in particular was beautifully animated and filled with haunting and inspiring dialogue and a vocal performance so grand it transcended pretty much everything.  Desmond’s words of wisdom and encouragement to Carole and Tuesday, about finding the right person to make music for and aim to reach at least one person with their songs, was beautiful.  I know ive already said this about Mars’ Brightest, but a prequel with Desmond’s life story wouldn’t be a bad project to explore.  Floras was a heartbreaking tale that is a definite take on many who enter the music industry: starting as a wide eyed and gifted vocalist, climbing to the top, spiraling out of control and landing at rock bottom while losing everything that mattered in the process.  I wonder if we’re going to see more of Flora as Carole and Tuesday reignited her soul with their rendition of her signature song…which it’s going to be hard to judge who sang it better cause Flashback Flora and Carole and Tuesday both killed it.  Also it was nice to tie Flora’s tale into Gus.  The guys got a long history in the bizz and losing someone like Flora to the powers of greed shows us why he’s so overprotective of Carole and Tuesday.  He saw power and fame take away a woman he cared about and doesn’t want history to repeat itself.  Here’s hoping he and Flora can start fresh as the show goes on.

When Carole and Tuesday focuses on its titular duo, this show can do no wrong.  You want them to succeed and brighten the world with their overwhelming and infectious optimism and love.  I wish the show could find the same way to inject the same kind of enjoyment into Angela’s and the Mars politics storylines cause whenever we cut back to them, it kind of kills the momentum.  Still, we have two weeks and eight more episodes to go.  There’s plenty of time to tie everything together and stick the landing as a whole.  Though if C&T’s central story stuck the landing on it’s own…I might be ok with that too.  See ya back here on Friday for a special extra review of Carole and Tuesday right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.

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