`Blue Interviews - Julia Stiles & Co.

Panic attacks are in keeping with a character who has a checkered past, which is so disturbing for Blue that she has had to resort to denial, even repression (i.e., forgetting).  I agree that flawed characters have a visceral realness that makes them more compelling.

What Julia Stiles says reminds me of this bit from Gillian Flynn Author of "Gone Girl":

I have a soft spot for losers, and dopes, and people who do the wrong thing... They're fun people to write.

  

I love the complexity of Blue's relationship with Arthur.  It's an emerging, evolving one:  Arthur unwittingly, at least at first, untangles Blue's defense mechanisms by engaging her services not for sex, but for a make-believe relationship.  The irony is delicious, however, as Blue is called upon to pretend that a real relationship exists between them, on an evening when Arthur's two adult children are over for dinner. 

  

It must be rare for actors to work with their real-life family members, and also play characters who have that same family relationship.  There seemed to have been a hint of nervousness in Jane O'Hara in acting with her sister, but otherwise she and Stiles pull it off rather naturally and effectively.  Lara and Blue have a genuinely caring relationship, in ways that I imagine mirror their real lives together.

  

I love interviews with actors, as I get insight not only into their characters and the drama, but also into the experience of working with one another.  Uriah Shelton is one half of a central relationship for Blue in Season 1, and while more relationships have emerged and evolved in Seasons 2 and 3, mother and son remain integral to the fabric of the story.   

  

Shelton is a delightful actor, and comes across as a believable 15-year old (now 17-year old).  I was serious about that very scene he refers to:  I thought that for the sake of decorum, Rodrigo Garcia filmed Blue and Roy in passionate foreplay separately, that is, from Josh watching them off to the side.  But for the sake of believability, instead, apparently they were all on the same take. 

  

I really didn't pick up Shelton's accent, but this interview illuminates those words that he has to articulate more deliberately perhaps, so as to stay in keeping with his character.  Words like "home," "get," and "around" are draped in Southern culture for him.  Similarly I speak to culturally-derived pronunciation of names in Key & Peele on Race Relations.

`Blue - Season 3, Episode 4

(click here to watch the episode)

Jessica confronts Olsen about his past relationship with Blue. Francesca disappoints Josh who turns to Blue for support. Blue and Arthur discuss their future as things become more personal. Olsen shares some shocking information.

"She accused me of looking the other way, while you were having sex with her, back then, when you and I were lovers, Wayne.  Tell me it isn't true."  "Of course not."

Francesca is a restrained  bundle of curiosity, as she talks with May, a very pregnant girl at school.  It takes May a while to figure out why Francesca is so inquisitive, but as she does, it's a virtually nonverbal realization.    

The family pow-wow between Josh and Francesca sounds more like a therapy session and consequently a contrivance.  It may be a directing issue, more than a writing one, but it's a weak scene.

"I think they wanted our opinion, and they heard us.  But it's in their court.  You have to be prepared for that."  "That's bullshit!"  

It must be a terrible situation to be in, having to decide what to do with a baby.  Moreover, 50-50 responsibility clearly doesn't equate into 50-50 control, as Blue schools Josh on this reality.  But it's crucial to struggle through all of this, and the filmmaking is at its superb self again.

"Do you enjoy it?"  "Not the sex, no, that's just like coming, that's gymnastics.  I don't even really consider it sex.  The game-playing, the role-playing, the dressing up and undressing, the theater of it all, not just for the clients but for me, too.  That's easy.  That is so fucked up!"

"I was crying, because we repeat, Josh.  There's this thing in families, we have these patterns that travel down like shit.  Your grandmother got pregnant when she was 19 and didn't want to, and I got pregnant when I was 16, and... now you.  And I'm not saying that you're doomed.  You're smarter than we are, and you're decent, and straight as an arrow, and I admire you.  But shit happens.  It's partially my fault, because I probably told you about a thousand times to always wear a condom, until it was just background noise.  Shit happens anyway, because God has a sense of humor.  Or at least I tell myself that, so I won't go crazy."

"You've got to come from something really personal, and it's got to come from a place that, you know, that kind of hurts.  And if you don't come from that place, then it's shit."

Rodrigo García* has Alexz Johnson as Satya singing on stage, then wends our gaze from her lover Lara feeling her song, to Josh a bit lost at school, then Blue focused at work, to Arthur and his children with a police officer.  It's not exactly innovative filmmaking, but it's very tender and fitting, and it all speaks to us.

That "shocking information" Olsen shares with Blue, in the very last scene, is our segue to Season 4.

*By the way, as I edit this article, it is August 24th, and I just found out from Wikipedia that today is also García's 55th birthday.  I turned 55 on July 31st, so he's just 24 days younger than I.  What's more, I found out recently that he is the son of Gabriel García Márquez, the writer who wrote one of my enduring favorite novels Love in the Time of Cholera.  I think I read just a handful of his short stories, no other novel, but I was just enthralled with him.  Márquez died just this year, on April 17th in fact, and at the same age that my mother died:  87.  Now I am enthralled with his son even more.

`Blue - Season 3, Episode 3

(click here to watch the episode)

Blue pays a visit to the therapist to discuss her recent panic attacks. Lara gives Satya an ultimatum regarding their future after Satya performs a few songs for tips. Josh reveals his life changing secret.

"What are your options?"  "I could have the baby."  "Francesca, you've no idea what it's like to take care of a baby."  "But I could learn."

Blue dances a cagey dance in therapy, stepping toward the heart of her anxiety attacks, but mostly stepping away and around.  It is a dance of denial, probably repression, too.

Then, in the next segment, she approaches the heart of the matter closer, yet.  This is the first time that the show strung two segments back-to-back on the same scene.  

"What's he like?"  "He's a widower.  Actually it's a little bit more strange than that.   His wife mysteriously disappeared a few years ago, and is believed to be dead.  So she's like this fucking ghost."

Francesca has an expectedly tense conversation with her father about being pregnant.  He responds caringly but firmly, and doesn't let her off the hook about telling her mother.  

Josh relates the situation on Skype, with Blue at the office wearing earphones, and we hear nothing.  Dead silence.  We see only glimmers of shock on her face.

"If you're old enough to have unprotected sex and old enough to be a father, you sure as hell can give me details!"  "I'm not going to be a father."  "Oh, so you and Francesca have made some major decisions, have you?"  

"You're very beautiful."  "Thank you."  She hesitates to reciprocate his approach, but she kisses him.

"Please come home with me, after dinner.  I would like that very much, Francine."  "It would have to be off the clock.  In fact this whole evening would have to be off the clock."  

Whoa, another tour de force episode from Rodrigo Garcia.  That final scene, as Blue and Arthur return home, is dreamy, hypnotic, suspenseful.  There is such hesitant but growing tenderness between them.  Garcia does it all purely with look, movement and posture, and touch.  No dialogue.  In slow motion.

`Blue - Season 3, Episode 2

(click here to watch the episode)

Blue sees a very different side of Arthur. At home, it’s Josh’s turn to keep a secret from Blue while Lara and Satya get themselves into a dangerous situation they might not escape.

Notes.  As you see, the move to Hulu allows us to watch a full episode of `Blue, as opposed to piecemeal.  Also, I've had difficult embedding video from platforms other than YouTube, which may be a deliberate block by Google.  But no matter, where there is a will there is a way.

"You can tell me what the hell is so funny."  "You pay for sex and dinner-theater.  You don't pay for people's thoughts." 

"How's Francesca?"  "She's fine."  "Oh, trouble in paradise?"  "We're fine, Blue."

"Lara, is this how you live your life now?"  "How?"  "Like a gypsy, following that girl everywhere.  You could've been killed today?" 

"Do you ever think about me in the long-term?"  "No.  Baby, I'm not saying I don't think about you in the long-term.  I live in the moment, I want to take it day by day." 

Such exquisite tension between Josh and Francesca.  Their talk is clipped, even absent.  The perspective is distant, then closer, and mirrors perfectly the wax and wane of that tension.

"In my experience, men who can cook well make excellent lovers.  Are you like that?  I bet you are.  I can't wait to find out.  Am I boring you?"  "I want the other girl back." 

Blue's semblance of control is anchored in having sex, whereas Arthur's, interestingly, is in not having sex."

"So who asked out who?"  "I don't know.  No one.  I guess it just kind of happened.  I don't really think we knew what we were doing."  "Kind of like two planets colliding." 

Such good acting, such a good script, such fine cinematography.

`Blue - Season 3, Episode 1

(click here to watch the episode)

Blue’s sister Lara and her friend Satya pay an unexpected visit and take over the apartment just as Josh and Francesca’s relationship gets serious. Meanwhile, Blue meets a new client with an odd request, but she recognizes its lucrative potential.

Superstar LeBron James stunned the basketball world in 2010, when he said he would take his talents to South Beach.  He fled the Cleveland Cavaliers, to play for the Miami Heat, in what has become known as The Decision.  He returned home to Cleveland this summer in a similarly stunning reversal of The Decision.

It was disheartening to see `Blue, and WIGS overall, fly the coup of YouTube and take its standout talent to Hulu.  But the story behind the move is, in and of itself, intriguing from a media business standpoint, as CNET writer Joan Solsman explains in a very informative article:

WIGS move highlights how the YouTube audience may not be perfectly suited for content that wants to move up the food chain. As Fox takes WIGS further along the path to potentially appearing on its own channels, it's expanding the series to a platform with a fraction of the viewership.

For Google, "Blue" and other WIGS shows expanding to Hulu raises their profile to YouTube's benefit. Viewers who see "Blue" elsewhere and want more of WIGS will come back to YouTube to get it. The expansion, YouTube would say, confirms the value of its site for premium content, rather than questions it.

James Dix, an analyst for Wedbush who covers Google, says advertising prices on a program typically are higher the greater the reach of the program, so it makes sense for YouTube get as much distribution as it can. Though a portion of the advertising revenue is lost to Hulu, "if it's reaching a million people versus 100,000 people, in theory that would help YouTube."

Reference: 'Blue' expands to Hulu too, spreading beyond YouTube.

I imagine this is a highly calculated gamble for Fox, that is, expanding its reach for WIGS by sidling into a much smaller platform.  The endgame may not just be Fox.com, as Solsman points out, but perhaps a movie for the big screen and-or an outright TV series on either free or paid channels.  Such tried-and-true media are where Fox excels.

For Google, beastly parent of YouTube, its formidable platform is not fazed in the least, and the Fox gamble may indeed pay handsomely in return: not just with more views to the WIGS content it already has, but also with a bigger draw for both advertisers and creators.  In other words, if quality content can establish an amazing footing on YouTube, then it makes sense to come to the giant's lair.

All that said, let's enjoy Season 3 of `Blue!

"Looks like you're good at that, Mom." "Practice, Josh, practice makes perfect."

"Hey, Josh, what up, bitch?" "If she gives you permission, you're still whipped, Joshua."  "Fuck you."  "Yes, please."  

"I don't do that." "You don't do what?  You don't pretend to be someone, in order to give a client what he needs?"

"She's older than me, by a couple of years." "Cougar, fun." 

"Did Dad approach you?  He's not the smoothest operator." "He's totally awk."  "I'm not fucking awk.  I've got game."  "Yeah, 'paralympic' game." 

"So what do you think of my sister?" "She's uptight.  Why'd your Dad call her Blue?" "He said, sometimes she has a sad little face."  

`Blue - Season 2, Episode 5, Parts 1-6

Savages

"I know I'll have a good time.  Not as good as you.  You will be through the roof." "Great, so the sky's the limit." "$600."

Role Play

"What's the other one?" "RPG, it's a role playing game.  It's like a fantasy world.  It has a quest, like you have to make a potion... it's a lot of strategy, a lot of work, too much work." 

Winning With

"This is not a chess game.  This is not some fancy opening move.  When people play chess, only one person wins.  I'm looking for someone I can win with."  

A Straight Answer

"I was out on a date." "Wowza." "Is that so strange?" "A straight answer is what's strange, Blue." 

Choices Add Up

"Choices add up, Josh, that's what they call character."  This really is good stuff.  The story line is deft, and I marvel at the writing in particular.

Where Were You?

"I've looked in the mirror, believe it or not." "Yeah, what did you find?" "Mistakes."  

`Blue - Season 2, Episode 4, Parts 1-5

Hard Time

"Look, if he starts coming here, after a while, the novelty will wear off, and he'll stop coming, and it'll eat away at him. He'll feel like crap, that every minute he's out there living, I'm in here dying." 

The Details

What a person says is telling, but how she says it and how he reacts to it are just as telling. Counseling peels back layers of meaning.  

You're Not a Freak, are You?

"Is that what was stuck in there?" "You had a few other things going on down here, too." "What is that?" "Uh, looks like a condom."   

Getting to the Point

"Just get to the point." "What point, there's no point... I found a condom in the garbage disposal."  

I'm Not a Stalker

"I'm not a predator, OK, I'm a serious person. I'm law-abiding, hard-working, Christian, family-oriented, I'm sober. I don't mean in the sober-alcoholic. I like to make sober choices."