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Lovely Little Losers E06
Lovely Little Losers E07
PREVIOUSLY on Lovely Little Losers, Balth joined Ben for some silliness in some old school bathtub videos, and Alexis and Melissa discussed the point of pointlessness.
Welcome back, you lovely losers! How are you feeling? Overwhelmed by everything that happened in LoLiLo this past week? Us, too! Apologies for another post coming so late in the weekend. In another week or two all our summer travel will be settled and we will be able to stick to our planned Friday afternoon schedule!
Melissa:
Well these episodes were certainly the plot-filled episodes I wanted, even if the information revealed wasn’t.
Alexis:
Yes, if you wanted something less meandering than Balth in a Bath! you sure got it.
Melissa:
I really like how they’re using Freddie to help develop the story further. She’s brand-new to this situation, just like the audience, and having her lead us into the drama amongst the boys is a great tactic. I like being able to identify with Freddie. In my notes I wrote “Freddie is brilliant and speaks the truth and everyone should listen to her.”
Alexis:
Her character is being wielded wisely, I agree. She is the perfect audience surrogate for NMTD fans and new viewers, both, providing a bridge for those of us who need hand-holding to get from NMTD: LEAVES to LLL: RETURNS, and also putting herself forward as the obvious leader of this new Wellington crew. Everyone’s theories that hers is the role of the King from Love’s Labour’s Lost still seem spot on.
Melissa:
I will say, I’m more confused now than before though. Yes, we got more flashbacks to establish that Pedro and Balth weren’t really ever together (and that their names are actually nicknames!). But then Ben rattled off something about Pedro not applying to Uni in time, and he might actually be an alcoholic? Maybe that’s the reason they finally kick him out of the flat.
Alexis:
I’m not sure we were meant to take Ben’s un-joke about Peter’s alcohol consumption as a piece of true, dire information so much as as a dumb joke in bad taste about that species of underclassmen who spends more of his/her first year drinking than attending class. Those kids definitely have drinking problems, but do not all turn out to be alcoholics. But any hard partier would definitely be awful to live with, for sure.
The more detailed history we got from Ben about Balth and Peter was helpful for me, at least— especially paired with the particular edit Ben made of the NMTD videos, which really highlighted Pedro’s descent from Golden Boy With Every Good Decision Resting On His Shoulders to Tarnished Golden Boy Who Made Big Mistakes And Still Can’t Forgive Himself. If anyone thought that the fallout from Hero’s birthday party was shallow and forgiven/forgotten by everyone a bit too quickly, we are seeing with Pedro/Peter that that isn’t universally the case. He was the pivotal actor in that hurricane—tuned out enough to have been fooled by John, but tuned IN enough that he should have known better. And he knows that. And tie that failure in the goodness he always expected from himself with both the major life transition to University/living without any parents around AND the major personal transition to publicly identifying as bisexual, it makes for a perfect storm of Jekyll & Hyde disorder.
Melissa:
That’s an interesting interpretation! I hadn’t really thought about it as being a fallout from Hero’s party. I think you’re right—the edit that Ben made of the videos definitely helped show the changes that Peter went through over the months during the last series. I think that I was just assuming his change was based on those terrible first months at university, where you don’t know who you are and you make those new friends who never really stick around long, but definitely impact your personality and approach to university. I had those friends, and even though I can’t really remember those names now, those first six weeks at college definitely helped me start learning who I was as an individual away from my family for the first time. Granted, I didn’t go through such big changes and hopefully wasn’t a raging asshole to anyone. Mostly, I just drank a lot and went home for fall break where my best friend told me that I was already less high-strung than in high school (which is saying SOMETHING).
In any case, I’ll be interested to see if we’re going to be getting a redemption arc for Peter in this series. It’s difficult because I want to hate him, so very much, but knowing who he used to be and who he can be—I find it hard to dislike him as much as I want.
So, speaking of flashbacks and characters of yore, it looks like we’re getting some NMTD crossover, with Meg helming the response videos. Which makes me sad, mostly because I love Beatrice. I could have watched 75 more episodes of NMTD because of her. I know there is probably a good reason behind it, but I still miss her. I wasn’t as attached to Meg as some of the other characters, so watching those videos is going to be hard. I’m not sure the character is strong enough to pull of her own videos (we can’t all be Lydia Bennet).
Alexis:
For me, the revelation of Meg as our Wellington reporter, I found that twist bittersweet. Just like it wouldn’t make sense to make Ben the main character of this, a completely different adaptation, it wouldn’t make sense to make Bea one. They’ve each had their turn in the dramatic/comedic/dramedic spotlight, and in the tradition of Shakespearean comedies, their happy ending is set. As is Hero’s, which knocks her out of the running as Ben’s Wellington correspondent. Meg makes a lot of sense for the position, both because she was obviously more comfortable in front of a camera than was Ursula, and because her NMTD story ended in a very “with this crap over, my life can start a new chapter” way. Well, here’s her new chapter!
And as for why Ben gets to host one half of the conversation while not the LoLiLo lead, while I’m claiming Bea can’t, the answer runs right back to your comment about Freddie: she is clearly being set up to be the driving force behind these characters who have known each other forever to finally change. And just because it has started as Ben’s Sociology project, doesn’t mean it will end that way. After these episodes—especially Episode 7, after Freddie catches up on all of Ben’s videos and calls him out on his utterly unhelpful boyness—I’m suspecting that Freddie will slowly wrest control of the project from him, scheming new schemes, with Meg in the Love’s Labour’s Lost role of Princess.
Melissa:
I’d be down with that. I love Ben, really, but mostly I love his character and the changes he goes through in NMTD. Seeing a new character (especially a female!) being able to lead this series, with so many boys around, could be a lot of fun. I hope that Freddie is able to do some scheming! She’s so awkward, but genuine, that I would love to see her try to pull off something. I did feel more attached to her when she was trying to figure out all the relationships – my shipper heart knows how to find kindred spirits.
Now—can we please talk about all the great one-liners and jokes they’ve crammed into these videos already?
Alexis:
Yes! So great! I mean, you already know how much I loved Ben’s hungry fox mom voice last week. And I know YOU loved Fridgris Elba this week. Which was just fantastic, and is the exact kind of pun Ben AND your bae Bea love. And stays consistent with the college flat decor we raved about last week! Those gigantic googly eyes are DEFINITELY the exact thing a bunch of goofy nineteen year olds would buy instead of, like, a mop.
Melissa:
FRIDGRIS ELBA. COME ON. I love it— I never had that much fun decorating my dorm rooms or group houses. Now that I’m an “adult” maybe I’ll just make it happen. I also appreciated the discussion among the flatmates when picking out a movie to watch. Freddie doesn’t like wizards (isn’t that illegal in NZ?) and Ben WOULD love RomComs, mostly because I imagine Bea hates them.
That interaction though, between Ben, Freddie and Balth, that’s the kind of stuff that I’d like to see more often. It seems like they’re having a great time living together—even if Peter is having lots of sex in the next room—and you know, all I ever want for my characters is for them to be happy. But I have a feeling with the overall arc of this story—something bad is going to be happening to them very soon.
So, lovelies! What are your thoughts? There’s plenty we haven’t covered here that we’d love to talk with you about below!
Lovely Little Losers is new every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday (Kiwi time). We will be posting weekly discussion recaps on Poptics on (usually) Friday mornings, and here on FYA on (usually) Friday afternoons. Episode 8: Running Mad is up now—and spoilers: Balthy’s got some feelings to get out musically.
This discussion originally appeared on Poptics. It has been reprinted and (slightly) reformatted here with permission.
About the Contributor:
Alexis Gunderson is a TV critic and audiobibliophile. A Wyoming expat, she now lives in Maryland, where she runs the DC chapter of the FYA Book Club. She can be found talking about Teen TV on Twitter, and her longform criticism can be found on Authory.
