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bedlamsbardSo, I didn't watch the first season. I saw about half of the first episode, and got bored. I started watching the second season because, well, it was on, and this is the year I spend all my time writing, and I like (hand)writing best when there's something on in the background. Cane (pre-writers strike) annoyed me too much for it to be good background material. So I left Jericho on, figuring that if I hated it that much, I could turn it off and go to bed an hour early. Or go screw around on the Internet. (I'm serious about the handwriting.)
And, you know, getting into the second season of a show when you haven't seen the first season -- I didn't even look for the episode summaries online! -- is something. And I liked it.
See, one of my literary kinks is the whole "forging a new country out of the shards of the old" thing -- one of my very favorite writers is S.M. Stirling, and my favorite series ever is his Island in the Sea of Time series (which deals with the island of Nantucket being thrown back in time 3500 years or so); he also has his Dies the Fire series (where the entire world loses, oh, electricity and gunpowder and technology). In both series, new countries are forged. And Jericho totally hit that kink. A lot.
The only episode this season I missed was last week's, because I was at a friend's house watching Madagascar. (Yes, we're high school seniors about to graduate in two months, and two of the smartest people in the entire damn school. Modest, too. What's your point?) I'm not going to talk about season-long specifics, because I don't have the background. But, oh, this last (NO) episode.
The Allied States of America flag makes me twitch and always has. You know what else makes me twitch? Seeing red and white and blue silk crumpled on the ground, even if that's goddamn verticlal striped flag.
Texas. Oh, Texas. Seriously, the Independent Republic of Texas, which I can just imagine going, "Yes! Finally! Once more!"
And, soon-to-be-AF geek that I am, I squeaked at the fighter jets, both from the A.S.A. and the Texas National Guard. "I think I just declared war on Cheyenne."
One of my favorite characters all season has been Major Beck (seriously, military geek here), and I've been hoping and hoping he'll come to see the light. AND HE DID. Seriously, you could see his whole world crumpling when he opened up Hawkins' laptop. (Why do all laptops in television have inexhaustible batteries? My laptop won't even last through a whole movie.) His still-in-shock expression when he came to Bonnie's graveyard. And when he was waiting in his office.
And -- and I'm big on symbolism, and always have been -- but this hit me the hardest out of anything in the ep: the A.S. Army captain ripping off his vertical stripe flag patch. "What are your orders, sir?" And the flag patches that followed. No hesitation. And Beck hadn't taken his patch off yet. Beck hasn't (yet) defected from his new country. His men take that extra step, not him.
The "Don't Tread on Me" flag (I have that on a t-shirt) is a little heavy-handed. I would rather have seen them flying the American flag -- Old Glory -- but there's also something that is glad they didn't. There's a line in A Meeting at Corvallis, the third book in S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire trilogy, where Mike Havel, head of the Bearkillers, says (and I'm paraphrasing), "That country is dead. Flying that flag would be like digging up my mother's grave." And that's why I am, at least in part, understanding in why Old Glory is long gone. I wonder if we would ever have seen the Stars and Stripes (the right Stars and Stripes) ever again?
God, I wonder what's going with everything east of -- Ohio?
Seriously, fuck you CBS.
And, you know, getting into the second season of a show when you haven't seen the first season -- I didn't even look for the episode summaries online! -- is something. And I liked it.
See, one of my literary kinks is the whole "forging a new country out of the shards of the old" thing -- one of my very favorite writers is S.M. Stirling, and my favorite series ever is his Island in the Sea of Time series (which deals with the island of Nantucket being thrown back in time 3500 years or so); he also has his Dies the Fire series (where the entire world loses, oh, electricity and gunpowder and technology). In both series, new countries are forged. And Jericho totally hit that kink. A lot.
The only episode this season I missed was last week's, because I was at a friend's house watching Madagascar. (Yes, we're high school seniors about to graduate in two months, and two of the smartest people in the entire damn school. Modest, too. What's your point?) I'm not going to talk about season-long specifics, because I don't have the background. But, oh, this last (NO) episode.
The Allied States of America flag makes me twitch and always has. You know what else makes me twitch? Seeing red and white and blue silk crumpled on the ground, even if that's goddamn verticlal striped flag.
Texas. Oh, Texas. Seriously, the Independent Republic of Texas, which I can just imagine going, "Yes! Finally! Once more!"
And, soon-to-be-AF geek that I am, I squeaked at the fighter jets, both from the A.S.A. and the Texas National Guard. "I think I just declared war on Cheyenne."
One of my favorite characters all season has been Major Beck (seriously, military geek here), and I've been hoping and hoping he'll come to see the light. AND HE DID. Seriously, you could see his whole world crumpling when he opened up Hawkins' laptop. (Why do all laptops in television have inexhaustible batteries? My laptop won't even last through a whole movie.) His still-in-shock expression when he came to Bonnie's graveyard. And when he was waiting in his office.
And -- and I'm big on symbolism, and always have been -- but this hit me the hardest out of anything in the ep: the A.S. Army captain ripping off his vertical stripe flag patch. "What are your orders, sir?" And the flag patches that followed. No hesitation. And Beck hadn't taken his patch off yet. Beck hasn't (yet) defected from his new country. His men take that extra step, not him.
The "Don't Tread on Me" flag (I have that on a t-shirt) is a little heavy-handed. I would rather have seen them flying the American flag -- Old Glory -- but there's also something that is glad they didn't. There's a line in A Meeting at Corvallis, the third book in S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire trilogy, where Mike Havel, head of the Bearkillers, says (and I'm paraphrasing), "That country is dead. Flying that flag would be like digging up my mother's grave." And that's why I am, at least in part, understanding in why Old Glory is long gone. I wonder if we would ever have seen the Stars and Stripes (the right Stars and Stripes) ever again?
God, I wonder what's going with everything east of -- Ohio?
Seriously, fuck you CBS.