Month: September 2020

My problem with ‘The 100’…

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I watched ‘The 100’ relatively recently after having tried to watch it a few times in the past. I will say, I honestly do like ‘The 100’, I have enjoyed watching it and I’m excited to watch the final season once it is available on Australian Netflix, so I have currently only watched the first 6 seasons. But, I do definitely have some problems with it.

Firstly, much like my 13 Reasons Why post, access here if you haven’t checked it out yet; https://simplymythoughts.blog/2020/09/05/my-problem-with-13-reasons-why/

I feel like, ‘The 100’ deviated from their initial story line a lot. ‘The 100’ starts out basically about whether a bunch of kids can survive and create a livable society without adults (much like The Society, Under the Dome, The Rain, and Between), granted there was all that stuff on the Ark but honestly I didn’t care about that at all. Then we throw in the grounders – fair enough, I guess if you’re telling me they survived fine but I wonder how from the Ark they couldn’t tell there were people down there. But fine, if that’s what they want to say, okay.

But then, by season 3 ‘The 100’ just became so political. Granted some might say it was always political with the Ark and the grounders but suddenly in season 3 there is whole clans of grounders from all around who each have their own government and treaties and a coup to overthrow Lexa. What happened to just surviving on the ground and creating a society. The entire third season was just politics and honestly that is why I struggled to get through ‘The 100’ the first few times. The sudden appearance of hundreds if not thousands of grounders who were living, not that far from Arkadia?

I also can’t say I enjoyed the whole AI story line. It was just really annoying and dumb for me, I didn’t like it and it went on for so long. In my opinion, the only reason for the AI season being put in was so they could shift the story line basically to the few guys in the sky, Clarke on the ground and ‘Wonkru’. So, why did I need to watch all that AI crap?

Then they basically just repeat the entire story line, if we’re being honest, the prisoners coming down and taking over a piece of land vs the Wonkru is literally just season 1 over again. Now, I enjoyed this plot and all. I really did. I like the later seasons but I can’t ignore that they kind of recycled the early story line.

So, we watched the AI try and turn everyone to save them from the 2nd doomsday just to re-watch season 1 but basically from the grounders perspective.

Like I said, I really liked the later seasons (reminder I haven’t seen 7), but when you look back, where they are by season 6 is almost and entirely different show. They deviated literal planets away from where they started!

I also just really don’t care for Clarke, but I guess that’s a personal thing and maybe lots of fans like her – but I really have never liked Clarke and I can’t figure out why.

Another thing I just can’t understand and I would love for someone to explain if they know is; how do the grounders survive the initial radiation? So according to the 2nd radiation explosion only Nightbloods can survive the radiation as proven by Clarke and Maddy. However, would that not mean for the grounders to survive to begin with they would have all needed to be Nightbloods, which means that no regular bleeders could survive the radiation therefore Nightblood could not be bred out to become so rare and important? I don’t know honestly, someone please tell me because didn’t the Nightblood come from Becca?

Lets also talk about language. So, all the grounders still speak English as far as we can see, which means they likely spoke English before Praimfaya, also the mountain men speak English so that leads me to believe the land they are on is an English speaking country (if we’re being honest there is no way the show didn’t drop the Ark and the 100 on U.S. soil). SO, this begs the question of why they created their own language. It had only been 97 years in space for the Ark so in that time we are to believe that Becca came back down, gave chips to some of the grounders (remembering Becca spoke English too), they created whole legends about Becca and a new language whilst still speaking English. Seems suspicious to me…

So, although I really enjoy ‘The 100’ season 1 and 2 and the later seasons, I can’t say I don’t have a bit of a problem with how much the show changed. When I first watched ‘The 100’ season 1 it was a show about kids trying to live on the ground after having never seen the ground in their lifetimes, now it’s about kids on space ships with prisoners and AI’s and they aren’t even on Earth. I get that maybe you can’t have as much run time when it’s just about them trying to survive but it just bugs me. Let me know if you disagree because I know many people may, but those were my problems with ‘The 100’. I look forward to hopefully seeing season 7 soon on Netflix.

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The scary truth about ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

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‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is a series currently available on Australian Stan which was adapted from the popular book “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood. I haven’t personally seen all of the series but I have seen the first few seasons and that is enough for me. The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in a not too distant dystopian future where a new government has taken over amid an infertility crisis threatening mankind.

This new world they create is a world where women once again become shadows to men, with no personal agency, no ability to control their own lives or any political power. The fertile women, the “handmaids”, are carted around to different powerful families who cannot conceive and are raped and abused month after month for the sole purpose to bring a baby to a powerful family. Once they have given birth they are moved to another family for the cycle to begin again.

Those women who were infertile move into select other jobs such as training the fertile women, marrying less powerful men, being cooks to the political families and so forth. These women have nothing anymore, no right to vote, read, write, even think realistically.

This world they have presented is honestly incredibly grim and for me was hard to watch at points. However, the scary truth is, now more than ever we can see this isn’t impossible. With the Corona Virus pandemic covering the globe and governments enforcing lockdowns we can see that it would really not be so hard for those with radical views to make their way into power and be able to make such terrible changes. Governments around the world did strip many liberties from citizens in order to keep us safe from the outbreak and limit loss of life. Which I totally agree with. However, they did strip our liberties, they decided where we could go, who we could see, for how long and when we could return to our lives. Although this was made for a good purpose, to save lives and control a pandemic, those in The Handmaids Tale thought they had a worthy cause. For them, they were trying to save mankind from going extinct because of infertility.

Now, obviously people rioted these changes, particularly women rioted against their loss of power, land, agency, ability to learn, read, work and more. But, when you have enough political power behind you, you can fix this problem.

We now can see that all it would take for this to become a reality would be for the wrong people (with enough support) to gain power. It would be difficult but it is not impossible. And that truly terrifies me.

In the past you could watch the show or read the books and think ‘man I wonder how they were ever able to do this, turn fertile women into baby factories and reduce women’s rights back down to where they were long ago’ but now… we know how much power the government has over us and what they can legitimately make us do with force and punishment.

So, that’s just something to think about, I’ll be back next week with hopefully a less depressing post but I really felt this was interesting to point out and explore. Subscribe down below to get emailed when I post.

Thanks for reading!

Netflix’s ‘Baby’ is super weird…

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I watched ‘Baby’ on Netflix with my best friend because we were hopeful, based on the trailer and YouTube edits, that it might have similar vibes to SKAM. Boy were we wrong about what we were going to be watching. I have also not heard really anything about other people watching Baby so I thought I’d write my take on it.

Firstly, for those of you who haven’t seen Baby it is a Netflix original title set it Rome, Italy and therefore original audio is Italian so we watched it with the subtitles. As a show, Baby is relatively similar to ‘Elite’ a different Netflix original show I’ve written about (check it out in my previous posts). Even their uniforms are kind of similar.

Okay, they aren’t exactly the same but they have a similar private school vibe. And like Elite we also have a bit of class drama between the characters who came from the poorer side of town, Damiano who has just moved into money and status and Ludovica who is poor but has been to the school for years and the wealthy rest of the school. Baby follows the lives of several of the students from the Istituto Collodi school but mainly focuses on Ludovica (Ludo) (below left) and Chiara (below right) as they struggle through many high school issues and become escorts working for an escort ‘agency’. Yes, that is the main plot of Baby, they are sugar baby’s and work as escorts. These are under aged girls who we follow going into the escort and paid sex work industry. I checked, you’re a minor until you’re 18 in Italy so that makes them underage. I guess the intention is empowerment for women and their sexuality but they feel too young to me for that to be the message.

“The best thing about having a secret life is you never know what’s in store for you…”

— Baby

… and I definitely didn’t when I started watching this. We have some casually aggressive bullying, drug problems, cheating, lying, stealing, destruction or property and much more to get this show going, and that’s only the first episode.

So, I’ll start with a bit of a character recap just for arguments sake.

Chiara: Chiara is the rich girl with family issues who just wants to act out and chooses to become an escort for the fun rather than the money.

Ludovica: Ludovica claims her mother is crazy but seems to me that her mother is just bad with money and is a bad parent, her father isn’t much better refusing to pay her school fees if she didn’t attend his wedding. This all leads Ludovica to agree to working as an escort and push her previous personal boundaries because, it pays better to do more. Ludovica is being brutally bullied at school by seemingly everyone, for getting with a guy? Which so far has seemed quite commonplace at this school but I guess they just hate her cause she isn’t rich or isn’t popular. Ludo seems to me like quite a loose cannon.

We also obviously have to have a few side characters and love interests. Introducing Damiano, Nico, Camilla, Fabio and Brando.

Damiano:

Damiano is ‘from the wrong side of the tracks’ as they say but has recently found out his father is an ambassador so he is suddenly rich but has a lot of daddy issues. He’s also selling drugs because, well, he used to be poor I guess. Although, Damiano does get a lot of attention from the girls of the school particularly Chiara and Camilla. Damiano ends up working for Saverio and Fiore for, I’m really not sure the reason… he wanted to stop dealing drugs so I guess his alternative was…. driving around escorts for a pimp? Then there a bit of rivalry for Damiano’s attention from the besties (that is, Chiara and Camilla) when really, we haven’t seen or spoken to Damiano enough to make up our minds about him but you know its gonna be a problem. He also appears to have a real complex about not letting other people drive him around, on their own mopeds (cause lets not forget this is Italy).

Fiore:

Fiore likes to believe he’s in love with Ludovica, but like, Ludovica is in high school. Feels a bit weird to me that he’s like obsessed with her and gets super jealous of her work considering it was him who brought her to become an escort. He also beats up a teenager – yes he deserved it but still.

Saverio:

Saverio has really very little character traits except he is a pimp and he’s a bit too interested in young girls, but then again so are all his clients.

Fabio:

Fabio is Chiara’s long time friend and befriends Damiano. He is dealing with the struggles of being the principals son and his sexuality although, other than this he is irrelevant.

Camilla:

Camilla is supposedly Chiara’s best friend but I’ve seen no evidence of them actually being best friends, but that’s high school friends I guess. She basically is there to cause tension between Damiano and Chiara and judge Chiara’s every move.

Nico and Brando are just bullies and there is really no substance to either of them except that they’re not good guys. However, Brando is a bit of a stalker too just to add some spice.

Anywho, now you know the players I’ll tell you about the game.

My biggest issue with Baby is, it is incredibly slow. Season 1 has 6 episodes, when I tell you I did not know what this show was about until probably over four episodes in, I mean it. Baby is about, in my opinion, them being escorts but they don’t even become escorts until the end of episode four of season 1. Honestly, nothing really happens in the first 3 episodes to make it take this long. This makes it incredibly difficult to get invested in what is happening.

I truly have to wonder how they released season 1 as an entire season because so little happens in the 6, 40 minute episodes, a story wasn’t told. Season 1 felt entirely like set up, but how can you make a season which is just setting up the rest of your show. Also, the only thing that happens for the final two episodes of the season is they go to a party and there’s a car crash.

Then in season 2 they waste even more time just sitting around trying to decide if they should go back to being escorts. THERE ARE 6 EPISODES!!! How can we still be talking about whether they should do it. AAAAND for the rest of season 2, also almost nothing happens except a video being sent around about Chiara but apparently it still isn’t out that she’s a escort and Ludo getting herself a stalker.

However, all this irrelevant crap happens which wastes so much time out of the 12 episodes. For instance, we have a teacher sleeping with Nico during the show, fine it may happen but why would they promote the idea of this, that is entirely unethical and in Australia anyway is illegal for good reason. Statutory rape. The moral compass of this show is just bizarre.

And honestly, the bullying at this school is outrageous, no one does anything about it.

Then finally, we have a girl pretend to be pregnant to get back with her ex-boyfriend which I don’t see how matters.

Now, I don’t know if this issue only occurs because of translation and culture variation but I honestly feel like none of the characters have an actual personality. Delivering lines and actions don’t equal a personality and it really feels like they are just being given actions (like becoming an escort or dogging your friend) and they are just delivering lines. But even the script (as translated to English) has very little personality in it, the characters don’t have little quirks or moral standpoints or hobbies which is a big part of who a character is and their depth. That is, for me anyway. Also, Chiara and Damiano have no chemistry at all so I don’t see how I am supposed to care about their relationship at all, so I don’t care about it.

The show really seems to idolise or romanticize the life these girls are living. And to be fair, a woman can do whatever she chooses with her body and sexuality however, it is an interesting standpoint for a show directed at teens, about teens to take and shows very little of the negatives or risks they are taking.


My favourite parts about Baby are; Ludovica’s hair cut. This for me is such a boss haircut. Ludo knows who she is and the haircut shows her confidence and power. And secondly, I like to support Netflix making shows in non-english speaking countries, I really do love being able to see a Netflix made Italian show in Australia.

All in all, I would have expected a show about teen escorts to be far more interesting or at the very least entertaining than ‘Baby’ is. The point of the show is that Chiara and Ludo are doing these things and it’s dangerous and what if they get caught but also they like it, so, why does more than half of the runtime have them not being escorts?

The show ends, as far as has been made yet (SPOILER), with Chiara and Ludovica feeling more comfortable and more in control of their work now working directly with Fiore. So, classic happy ending I guess, at least until season 3 which comes out on the 16th of September and I truly can’t believe they were renewed for 3 seasons.

So, if you’ve seen Baby please let me know your thoughts and if you haven’t and choose to check it out also let me know! Don’t forget to check out my socials @simplymythoughts_blog on Instagram and Simply My Thoughts Blog on Facebook. Check back next week for a new blog.

My problem with 13 Reasons Why…

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When 13 Reasons Why first went live on Netflix I was a high school student and I like most people around me, watched it. For anyone who has not seen it or read the book, 13 Reasons Why is about the aftermath of a suicide by a female student at a school in America. Hannah Baker committed suicide and left 12 tapes naming those who caused or added to her pain. The show follows the other characters hearing their own and the reasons the others caused Hannah Baker’s suicide.

The first season of 13 Reasons Why, for me, is good. The messages and themes which were brought up really resonated with the high school experience. They presented many issues which are prevalent for teens and continued over the next few seasons to present even more. These include;

  • Bullying,
  • Rape,
  • Sexual harassment,
  • Peer pressure,
  • Addiction,
  • Abuse,
  • School shooting,
  • Criminal justice,
  • Depression,
  • Anxiety, and more.

The first season presented an important message particularly on how you can never know what is going on in someone else’s life, any small thing may make a massive impact on them and to be mindful of your actions always.

However, 13 Reasons Why has had four seasons. Season one telling Hannah Baker’s story, season two overseeing Hannah’s trial and the case against her rapist, season three about said rapist’s murder and season four about trying to get away with the murder. 13 Reasons Why began telling a story about a girl’s pain and suicide and the impact this suicide had on those around her and her family. But for me, it appears as the seasons go on this story is watered down. Season two even undermines some of the ‘reasons’ presented in season one like with Zach and the notes he didn’t throw away, but then finding out they dated after and she was happy with him for a period of time, begging the question how does him taking her notes become a reason? This made Hannah less believable and undermined somewhat the message that all these little things can equal something terrible for someone, when they made Hannah look like a liar.

Somewhere along the way this show about bullying and suicide turned into a crime show with a murder mystery third season. This for me is such a deviation from the point. I have the utmost respect for shows who make their story and they tell the tale they intended and don’t drag things out for the sake of money in a show which doesn’t support that length. For me, 13 Reasons Why is not one of these. I could appreciate the creation of Season two showing the trial processes and the importance of coming forward for victims. But to make four seasons feels like a money grab. If I wanted to watch How to Get Away With Murder, I would be. Now, I recognize that it was always a bit back and forth with the timeline. But for me, when it became a back and forth about a murder it was too much like Elite or How to Get Away With Murder that it felt almost like they were ripping off the success of crime shows.

Furthermore, 13 Reasons Why was about the 13 reasons Hannah Baker killed herself, to introduce characters who never even met her into the show makes no sense to me.

Thankfully, 13 Reasons Why did become very popular which is good for the message they were trying to tell, but because of this popularity, I feel like the third and fourth seasons were created to make money and turn it into a drama. 13 Reasons Why was no longer about suicide or the 13 reasons. 

I did not personally feel a need to watch season four when it came out, I won’t say I will never but I have yet to watch it because I feel like they deviate so much from their original purpose. 13 Reasons Why wasn’t a crime show it was about bullying. But the characters keep bullying each other. So I may be wrong in my assessment of season four but I have heard it resembles season 3 in not having anything to do with Hannah anymore. Having her mum come back for a few scenes isn’t enough.

I feel like 13 Reasons Why should either have had a one season run or the two it began with. If they wanted to make a show about all these other issues they could have, they didn’t need to use the characters or story line from 13 Reasons Why, they could have made their own show to continue on and have a murder mystery or made a show to tackle the issues like steroid use, drug addiction, depression, anxiety, trauma, and more. And that’s my problem with 13 Reasons Why…

Let me know your thoughts on the show and whether you think they’re dragging it out to make more money or if you watched all four seasons. Thanks for reading!

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