Holy shit, they didn’t get a female writer for this episode. Holy shit. Marcus Dalzine. Holy shit. I thought it was….
Wow.
Okay.
So this episode is about Brendan Fraser—guest starring in person and turning out to not be anywhere near as occasionally amusing in person as when he’s voicing and they’re filtering his voice—but it’s about Fraser going into Diane Guerrero’s mind to help her. The sequence where they go into the mind is good. Like, there are good moments in the episode, and it truly doesn’t seem aware of how cringe-y the whole “Guerrero overcomes a history of profound sexual abuse because she’s got a new father figure in Fraser” thing plays.
Though when they turn in into Guerrero and Fraser fighting a figurative Jurassic Park T. rex… I mean, they had to know. But they were too enraptured with being able to pull of a figurative Jurassic Park T. rex with their geek streaming service CGI.
There are also some other interesting creative choices in the episode, which may or may not be better or worse; it’s impossible to know because Guerrero’s such a bad actor. See, inside Guerrero’s mind is a bleak, vaguely City of Lost Children but the trailer world where all her sixty-four personalities co-exist. Guerrero plays some of them, but not all of them. We finally “meet” tough personality Hammerhead (Stephanie Czajkowski) and, well, okay, they don’t credit the Baby Doll one because it’s non-speaking just weird objectifying—but the thing is not giving Guerrero the chance to play all these parts, sort of appropriately CGI-ed, the show misses the chance with the character. If Jane isn’t about her performer playing her personalities, inside and out, what the hell is the character for? Except to give Fraser something to do.
Also, stereotypical nineteenth century British street urchin Anna Lore shouldn’t be able to act circles around Guerrero (and Fraser) by literally laying a bit. Yet, Lore does.
Maybe Matthew Lillard as Cliff?
There are technical strengths to the episode and it doesn’t seem to realize its tone—which seems like it’d be from a Grant Morrison comic in the nineties, which were a long time ago when it comes to female characterization (not to mention multiple personality tropes)—but holy shit, how did they not think they should have a woman’s name credited on this one? Like. Wow.
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