[AYAOTD? Recap with Erin Callahan] S06E01 "The Tale of the Forever Game"

RECAP

Tucker convenes a new Midnight Society and, in classic Tucker fashion, tells a story about an arrogant older brother saved by his clever younger sibling.

Monica’s toxic older brother Peter is the literal worst, but she’s stuck on a bike ride with him and his friend Mark, who confides in her that Peter used to be just as mean to him until he somehow proved that he was worthy of Peter’s respect. Monica hesitates when Peter finds a hidden bike trail, but follows him anyway, not wanting to bike back home alone. After realizing they’ve been riding in circles and keep returning to the same twisted tree, Peter has the brilliant idea to split up. Mark and Monica end up back in the same spot but, after touching the tree, Peter is transported to an underground room where Nathaniel, a boy in old-fashioned clothing, challenges him to a game. As Peter and Nathaniel play, each space they land on results in real-world consequences for Mark and Monica. Nathaniel explains that all four of them will be stuck where they are until the game is finished. If Peter wins, he’s free to leave and so are Mark and Monica...as long as they survive. If Nathaniel wins, he’ll be free to leave and Peter will take his place. Monica takes the lead, using her smarts to protect herself and Mark through each turn of the game. Peter’s impressed by her and, when faced with a choice between his own freedom and Monica’s safety, he chooses to protect her. Monica eventually realizes the tree is the key to the entire game and tries to knock it over. Peter helps her out by moving back eight spaces and causing a lightning storm. Once the tree and game are destroyed, both Peter and Nathiel are free. Nathaniel immediately ages into an old man, and Monica leads the way home.

The new Midnight Society are impressed with Tucker’s story and agree to keep meeting. Tucker is thrilled.

REVIEW

T: It’s an (almost) all new Midnight Society! Wow, Tucker’s sure grown up in two years and now he’s a baritone. He’s finally starting to look like he did when he shot Mean Girls a few years after this.

E: He looks so much older! I love the explanation for the time that’s passed. It really is believable that the Midnight Society would go dormant for a while with Gary gone and that Tucker would eventually want to revive it with kids his own age. It’s a nice echo of the grand human tradition of storytelling, and the way it gets passed from generation to generation.

T: So we have Megan, Vange, Quinn, and Andy. My first impressions are mixed. Andy is excited to be there and helpful, and he’s queer, so all good things. Vange argues a little bit, but I’m on her side, so I like the spitfire attitude. Megan and Quinn are complainers who I don’t care for here. But this is just one scene so there’s lots of room for them to grow on me.

E: I feel similarly and I think the reason I struggle with Megan and Quinn is the same reason I struggled with Louise from the recent revival. These characters want to be part of the Midnight Society but don’t want their school friends to know because it’s somehow uncool? I get not being daytime friends with all of your fellow Midnight Society members--the social diversity is part of what makes the group interesting--and I get not wanting your parents to find out, but being embarrassed about sneaking out of your house at night and telling stories around a campfire? I just don’t buy it. In what cruel world would this ever be perceived as uncool?

T: I’m going to say it feels like a ’90s thing, because it was uncool to show interest in anything. Wasn’t “aloof” the main goal?

E: Ah, excellent point. Sometimes I forget that we were so obsessed with a toxic conception of “chill.”

T: Tucker says that Gary formed the Old Midnight Society with his friends. When we meet them in season one, they’re from different schools and don’t all know each other, that means it’s already evolved somewhat from Gary’s initial group, right? So Gary started that when he was like ten? That’s cool.

E: LOL. Yeah, I’m going to chalk this line up to Tucker not being there for the initial formation and not understanding that, though the group became friends, they didn’t all start out that way. But the fact that he thinks this is pretty absurd, right? Like, Stig was obviously not Gary’s friend. Tucker is the one who vouched for him and brought him into the circle. Or maybe Tucker knows this and is really just trying to sell the whole concept to this new, semi-reluctant crew.

T: He did say “formed” so I think it’s vague enough not to be an error.

E: I’ll let it slide.

T: Is it me, or does the picture look sharper? Like they jumped from 480 to 720?

E: Oh totally. Looking back, I think there was a general improvement in picture clarity in the late-90s/early-00s. I’m sure showrunners and networks were eager to create content to coincide with the shift from clunky CRT TVs to flatscreens.

T: The fashion’s evolved! We’ve moved into the late ’90s clothing and hair. Honestly, it’s “better” because it’s not as goofy, but that means I think we’re going to lose a lot of laughable ensembles.

E: Gah! You’re probably right. So long hair curtains and color-block jackets. It’s been fun.

T: Wow Peter is such an asshole right from the start. This is Sam in “Crimson Clown” territory--he’s so awful, I’m actively rooting against him.

E: You’re 100% right -- this is absolutely another example of making an unlikable character too unlikable. Peter. Is. AWFUL. And I’ll get more into this later but I deeply resent the fact that he’s cruel to everyone until they prove themselves to him. I resent his friend Mark even more for thinking that’s okay and encouraging Monica to engage in Peter’s...um...game. Really, I wanted Nathaniel to just crush his soul. I wanted to see Peter crumble under the realization that he was going to be stuck there forever.

T: Are you victim shaming Mark?

E: Hmmmmm, fair question, but I think it’s less victim shaming and more criticizing someone for perpetuating a cycle of abuse. It’s not Mark’s fault that Peter was an asshole to him. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay for Mark to just shrug and tell Monica she should try to impress her brother so he stops being a dick.

T: It’s probably a coincidence, but is the rusty old bike a reference to “Shiny Red Bicyle?” It’s a nice early-episode creep factor either way.

E: Ooooh! I didn’t think of that, but it definitely looks too modern to be Nathaniel’s bike, so that seems likely.

T: Getting sucked into a tree is a decent effect. Did you notice how quick it is though? I have a feeling we’re venturing into CGI territory. Uh oh…

E: Oh noes -- as our readers may know, I have very mixed feelings about CGI. Sometimes, it’s great. Other times, it’s really not the best option.

T: Okay, so Nathaniel is Peter Kirlan III take two, right? Creepy old timey boy in a button up shirt, black pants, and suspenders. They did the same thing with Joshua in “Jagged Sign.”

E: LOL -- I thought the same thing. It’s like the show has exactly one vibe for creepy-old-timey-boy-ghost and they just keep recycling it. That said, I really like Nathaniel. He’s dark in a way that’s completely relatable and, because Peter’s such a dickweed, you root for Nathaniel to win.

T: I like that Nathaniel isn’t some mustache twirling gamesmaster, he was just the last dude stuck playing the game. There could be some sportsmanship themes thrown in there, like how your opponent is a person just like you (kind of like how your sister is a valuable human), but there’s not much room in the episode to address that. My notes mid-episode: “Peter’s awful and I hope he gets stuck there forever.” So true.

E: Yes. YES. Exactly this. My god, the dark retribution that could’ve been. 

T: So Mark is basically useless the whole episode and Monica is the MVP, right? Why does she even want to hang out with Peter?

E: I have so many thoughts on this but I’m going to save them for the QUEER OR NOT? section since that’s where we typically delve into feminist analysis.

T: What did you think of the Burden Beast? The name’s cool, and I like that they added a monster, but it’s missing something for me that I can’t quite place.

E: It’s a cute play on Beast of Burden, especially since he hangs around for the whole game once he appears, but think I might’ve liked a monster more specifically related to the forest theme? He’s got a whole bigfoot vibe, but the game seems ancient and possibly rooted in faerie magic. Maybe they should’ve used Badge here.

T: As much as Peter is an asshat, actor J. Adam Brown is solid in the role. He really sells his anger when he’s offered the switch and he chooses not to put Monica or Mark in his place.

E: Very good point. He looks genuinely conflicted and I FELT it, even though I’d spent the last fifteen minutes wanting to see him lose.

T: Peter taking a page from Nathaniel’s book is nice, the way he keeps the lightning going. Actually, this whole climax is more intense than I thought they’d go. Very well edited.

E: Agreed. This is another episode where we have characters in two different places but trying to achieve the same end goal, and the editing sells the stakes for both of them.

T: They tweaked the end music! I’m not a “the original is so perfect it can’t be touched, never change a thing!” person but this specific change speeds it up slightly and “modernizes” it, which loses just a bit of the creep factor.

E: More than a bit, I’d say -- it feels like a really thoughtless remix and I think we saw a lot of that around that time. Like, once upon a time, it was okay for kids’ music and TV theme songs to sound timeless and a bit childlike. Then, as if prompted by some poorly-run focus group, content creators started stuffing it with guitars and bad imitations of hip-hop beats because they thought that’s what kids wanted. The good news is, as the mom of a five-year-old, I can assure you that most of that has fallen by the wayside and we’ve returned to more timeless sounds.

QUEER OR NOT?

T: Um, not. But this is another episode that looks at female roles, this time a toxic relationship with an older brother. Any specific thoughts on the Monica/Peter relationship?

E: Soooooo many thoughts. Peter is a perfect example of a specific kind of toxic masculinity -- the kind of toxic masculinity that convinces you that your fellow humans don’t deserve your respect until they somehow prove themselves to you. In other words, respect is not a default, it must be earned. If you think about it, this is at the root of soooooo much bullshit in the modern world. If respect is not your default, you’re not viewing ninety-nine percent of your fellow humans as actual humans and, thus, have no reason to care about their well-being or how you treat them. I HATE that this episode reinforces that idea, especially because it’s otherwise a pretty good episode.

And even though I love that Monica gets to be the MVP, I see the dynamic here as seriously flawed and deeply gendered. Peter is a dick to Monica because she’s small, doesn’t have the physical strength to keep up with him, and expresses fear. All of these things echo ways in which the patriarchy denigrates and devalues the feminine. Monica then has to prove herself with stereotypically masculine traits (intelligence, physical strength, perseverance) in order to get her brother to stop being a dick to her. Her girlish existence is not enough. She must become boy-like. God, it’s so gross, and the really sad thing is the guy who wrote this episode (who also wrote “Chameleons”) probably started out with good intentions. He probably thought he was writing a “girl power” episode but wasn’t well-versed enough in feminist theory to pull it off.

TRIVIA, USELESS TRIVIA

T: The fourth and final appearance of Griffith Brewer. Besides the manager of the Phone Police and Captain Westchester in “Water Demons,” he was old Peter Kirlan in “Captured Souls” just like he’s old Nathaniel.

E: Love it -- his first and last roles on this show are such great bookends.

T: Nathaniel’s played by Kyle Downes, who most notably played Larry Tudgeman on Lizzy Maguire. We’ll see him again this season.

E: Fun! And Monica is played by a very young Sarah Gadon, who’s gone on to have a hugely successful career in film (Enemy, Cosmopolis, Black Bear) and also plays the indelible Gae on Letterkenny.

T: I love her! I’m so glad that as we’re getting into later AYAOTD? years, we’re seeing more Letterkenny recurring actors. There’s at least one more later this season…

E: Squeeeeee!

T: Vange refers to the Midnight Society telling “scary tales,” which was the original working title of AYAOTD?

E: Ha! Oh, that’s great.

T: At one point, the studio was playing around with making a real Forever Game board game to sell, but plans fell through.

E: What??? That would’ve been so fun.

MODERNIZE ’90s CANADIAN KIDS

T: This is basically Jumanji, right? So there’s hundreds of things you could do with “gameboard comes to life” ideas. I’d throw out the protagonists to come up with a different storyline, but keep the creepy kid player role, since it’s fun to have an opponent in this type of story.

E: Yes, totally Jumanji! The core idea is solid, but, yes, we need to strip out the toxic masculinity and replace it with a protagonist who isn’t such a dick. Like, the character forced to play the game can be a little bit of a dick, but there’s a limit. Make them flawed, but not wholly unlikable.

JUST GIVE IT A NUMERICAL RATING ALREADY

T: I like it. It feels like AYAOTD? which I was fearful it wouldn’t. It’s fun for the most part, although Peter’s character arc is rushed. Maybe it starts too extreme? If he wasn’t quite so bad at the beginning, it might work better for me. You know, I think I just figured out the elusive problem I have with this episode – they try to do too much. There’s so much going on that things like Peter’s redemption and Nathaniel’s backstory and how the heck Monica knows they’re in a game are glossed over. I’d rather an episode too ambitious than the opposite though. I’m going to say the revival seasons start off with a respectable 7.5 CAMPFIRES OUT OF 10.

E: That’s a really good point. Maybe you don’t need a complicated, toxic brother-sister dynamic -- you just need three kids stuck in an impossible situation. I love the core idea here, I love the creepy-old-time-boy-ghost even though we’ve seen it before, and even the design of the game board is cool. The pacing is nice and the editing makes the stakes for all the characters crystal clear. But I’ve got to dock some serious points for the girl power messages that fail so hard. I’m going with an even 7 CAMPFIRES OUT OF 10.