The thing about TMA season 5 is... okay, so, the first four seasons of TMA generally follow a pattern of "(nominally) standalone scary story with framing content." Sometimes, particularly in the season finales, the framing content and the scary story are one and the same, but that just serves to emphasise the framing content.
The scary-stories in S5 are fundamentally different, in ways that fit perfectly with the framing content. The thing about S5 is that the way the stories were presented actually disturbed me several times. Like, for most of the first four seasons my reactions ranged from "neat!" to "pleasantly creepy" with genuine tension a few times (especially in the Unknowing sequence at the end of S3). And then beginning with "Hello, Jon" in the S4 finale and on through, mm, probably the second midseason break in S5 when they reach London, the scary stories began to genuinely freak me out.
This is probably worth exploring! Some of it's that they're describing fundamentally hopeless situations, not "what horror is this?" but "here, laid out, is the horror, with no escape." And 'no escape' is a thing that is ... triggering is a strong word for the response but I think it's the right one? It's I think why I had an internal shutdown/breakdown after reading 1984 in eighth grade and why I won't read The Handmaid's Tale.
Anyway, with that kind of response, it was difficult for me to engage well with the framing story, and the framing story is the whole point of S5, especially the last third.
So I don't really have an intense emotional response to the finale, certainly nothing on the scale of 160. It... worked? It ended in I think the only way it could and still be honest to itself, and the final statement did make me quite happy (and drove home the horrific nature of the ending).
I'm quite glad I listened. A+ would experience again. I'm just ... also feeling a bit deflated / let down, I guess.
Statements end, as I believe someone on my flist posted a week or two ago.
The scary-stories in S5 are fundamentally different, in ways that fit perfectly with the framing content. The thing about S5 is that the way the stories were presented actually disturbed me several times. Like, for most of the first four seasons my reactions ranged from "neat!" to "pleasantly creepy" with genuine tension a few times (especially in the Unknowing sequence at the end of S3). And then beginning with "Hello, Jon" in the S4 finale and on through, mm, probably the second midseason break in S5 when they reach London, the scary stories began to genuinely freak me out.
This is probably worth exploring! Some of it's that they're describing fundamentally hopeless situations, not "what horror is this?" but "here, laid out, is the horror, with no escape." And 'no escape' is a thing that is ... triggering is a strong word for the response but I think it's the right one? It's I think why I had an internal shutdown/breakdown after reading 1984 in eighth grade and why I won't read The Handmaid's Tale.
Anyway, with that kind of response, it was difficult for me to engage well with the framing story, and the framing story is the whole point of S5, especially the last third.
So I don't really have an intense emotional response to the finale, certainly nothing on the scale of 160. It... worked? It ended in I think the only way it could and still be honest to itself, and the final statement did make me quite happy (and drove home the horrific nature of the ending).
I'm quite glad I listened. A+ would experience again. I'm just ... also feeling a bit deflated / let down, I guess.
Statements end, as I believe someone on my flist posted a week or two ago.