Hello everyone! Today, I wanted to share three shows I’ve watched recently! I’m going to share my thoughts on WandaVision, Emily in Paris (specifically season 2), and Cheer (also specifically season 2).

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Oh, spoilers to come since I’m assuming you’ve watched these too.

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WandaVision

So I watched WandaVision finally! I actually started this show a long time ago on Disney+ but finally finished it. I know I’m super late to this party since I had to catch up on all the Marvel films first and then took breaks in between the episodes too. I really enjoyed the cool format of the show, where Wanda creates a whole fictional sitcom to create her dream life after the traumatic experiences she’s had. Each episode is set in a different “era” so the early episodes are super old-timey in black and white, eventually transitioning to color and more modern clothing/furniture/etc.

I really enjoyed that we got to see Wanda and Vision together, see them raise their kids, and then watch the townspeople slowly reveal that they are aware of what’s happening. It was also cool to see the modern day storyline as the sitcom is discovered and we see the events that led up to Wanda creating the anomaly in the first place. I really enjoyed the new characters, particularly Agatha and Monica, as well. I already knew Agatha’s big reveal due to TikTok since the “It was Agatha all along!” song was so big on there, but it was still really cool to watch the reveal and it was a ton of fun watching it unfold.

Overall I think it was so well done. It started with a real sitcom feel and beautifully transitioned to Wanda fighting to keep the anomaly and eventually the end. I really liked the gradual introduction of the issue and how even when the townspeople noticed something off about Wanda and her family, they would gloss over it because that was their “script”. Even when everything was going well there was still that weird, uncomfortable feeling that something was very wrong it was well balanced with the light hearted fun moments.

After spending such a short but vivid time with Westview, the ending was super sad! Watching Wanda say goodbye to the twins and Vision, leaving her house, and ending the anomaly was so sad! The ending with Wanda though was super interesting and I was interested enough to want to continue to watch the Marvel stuff.

Emily in Paris (Season Two)

After a long wait, Emily in Paris season two was finally released! Again, I’m assuming you watched the first season and even the second as well so I’m not worried about spoiling anything. But can I just tell you how much I enjoy this show? Sure, it’s honestly really terribly and Emily is highly annoying, but it’s so fun too.

I was laughing so hard when the guy Emily was with on the way to St. Tropez literally jumped off the moving train to get away from her. Honestly, that’s how most people would react if they met Emily I’m sure. Also it was so funny how everyone kept saying it was illegal to work on Sundays even though they were surrounded by people clearly working on Sundays (hotel staff, restaurant staff, taxi drivers, etc.) and how Emily was clearly not believing them. I will say it was nice to see her try to take the French classes more seriously though, since he had to repeat her class instead of moving up. I understand that the show can’t make her fluent as I’m sure they’ll lose their audience (people are strangely so against using subtitles I’ve heard), but it is silly that Emily has been in France for months now and still can’t seem to put together a basic sentence as evidenced by her letter to Camille.

Speaking of Camille, that poor girl! I was cringing the entire St. Tropez trip when Emily was trying to get her back with Gabriel while keeping such a big secret from her. Then Camille realizes what happened, drops Emily, and it seemed great! Of course, Camille eventually forgave Emily and it was so crazy to see that she’d moved in with Gabriel. Honestly I was internally screaming at her “No Camille, RUN GIRL” but alas, it does set up season three nicely.

I also really liked Mindy and Alfie in season two. Mindy seemed to be doing pretty well for herself and it was funny to see Alfie as such a strong contrast to Emily and Mindy. Together the three of them are such a great timeline of what it’s like to move to a new place. Alfie is so against assimilating and convinced he doesn’t need to even try to see Paris or learn French even since he’s going back to London as soon as possible. Emily was more open but she wasn’t planning to be in France for long either. Then Mindy is so fully assimilated that I honestly forget that she’s an expat too. I love seeing those characters evolve and it’s really fun to see some of my experiences of when I studied abroad in Spain ten years ago.

Oh, and let’s not forget Madeline, Emily’s boss, who comes in and assumes she knows best and is ready to turn everything around on the Paris team without any thoughts towards the culture differences. I remember Madeline was supposed to be the one to go to Paris until she found out she was pregnant, which led to Emily going instead. Honestly, as terrible as Emily is, Madeline clearly wouldn’t have made it through the year that Emily had to face. I forgot how long Madeline had been in France by the time everyone quit, but it wasn’t long and clearly Madeline had no intention of being sensitive to the cultural differences and wouldn’t have been successful.

As for the end, I thought it was crazy! I thought it was crazy Sylvie invited Emily to their new company. Emily is ultimately portrayed to be good at her job (and she uses hashtags now!) but I can’t imagine inviting the irritating new coworker that was forced upon them that they still don’t really like to join them. Even so, I think Emily will eventually take them up on the offer in season three. Maybe not at first, out of loyalty to Madeline perhaps, but I do think Emily was already bothered by Madeline being so dismissive to how the French conduct business and Emily has created a life for herself in Paris with her new friends. On top of that, she has Alfie and I really want to see a London episode!

Cheer (Season Two)

Again, assuming you’ve seen both seasons one and two, here’s what I thought of Cheer! Starting off, I was so excited for the new season, having loved the first. My prediction going into it was that they were going to cram all of the cancelled 2020 footage that they could into the first episode, maybe two, address but then mostly gloss over Jerry’s scandal, and then move onto the 2021 season. I was so surprised when four entire episodes focused on 2020 and then Jerry got a full episode before they moved onto 2021 for the last four episodes. On one hand, I was glad that 2020 footage was still used and we still got to watch but I did have some complaints.

I was so annoyed with how much TVCC was featured! They came across as so rude and immature with their anti-Navarro rhetoric and their horrendous chant against Navarro and any judges that don’t think TVCC is the best. It was honestly shocking because in my experience the coaches generally go out of their way to make sure that athletes are professional and behave, especially in competitions. But then the TVCC coach was revealed to have said nasty things about Monica and was super ageist against her so I suppose it wasn’t surprising TVCC athletes lacked that class. (And, to be fair, cheer seems much more high-strung than my D3 cross country/track and field teams were). Anyway, I can understand why they were featured, especially when I learned TVCC and Navarro are the only two teams in their division, but it was still annoying and I honestly tuned out most of the TVCC scenes. Sorry, I’m Team Navarro all the way!

It was really sad to watch the last bit of the 2020 season. I remember those days when we were all in denial of how bad Covid was and seeing the Navarro team’s amazing routine, hard work in those weeks leading up to the event, and everyone’s determination to make it to Daytona was crazy in hindsight. I do think Navarro was beyond prepared and likely would have won in 2020 but I’m no cheer expert! But come on! They were well on their way to doing 51 full outs and were performing amazingly in those last few weeks while TVCC was barely completing their full outs at that point.

I do have to say, that it was interesting to hear from the athletes and Monica how they felt about their rise to fame. I found it funny how the other cheerleaders were featured who were all like “yeah we weren’t featured in the series so we are just regular cheerleaders not celebrity cheerleaders” as opposed to the newly famous cheerleaders who were honestly struggling to deal with their new fame. It was such a big difference from say Gabi Butler, who has been known in the cheer world and was just expanding her circle of fame, to Morgan Simianer or Lexi Brumback, who were completely new to the fame and willing to try it out. They, and other featured athletes, were having to hire managers to help them work through various brand deals, schedule appearances and commercial shoots in between their practices, and still at least make an effort in their schoolwork. I do think that they were losing sight of their cheer goals, but I can’t say I blame them like others do. Honestly, it’s hard to stay relevant as an influencer and I do think they have to seize the opportunity because it can go alway so fast.

That’s why I was thrilled that Monica did Dancing with the Stars, since she said she was a long time fan of the show and it was such a cool opportunity for her. Yes, I did feel bad for the new cheerleaders who had gone to Navarro to work with Monica only to suddenly be working with an inexperienced coach in Monica’s absence. But in the grand scheme of things, both sides were understandable. Monica’s long term is Navarro and cheer, and DWTS was a once-in-a-lifetime experience she couldn’t turn down. For the athletes, their few years of eligibility is their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cheer and, as the show states many times, there’s no real way for them to continue their sport after they leave their college team. Ultimately, I side with Monica on that issue, but it is a tough situation.

Moving onto the whole Jerry thing. I have to admit, I wasn’t the biggest fan of him in season one because I did find him slightly annoying with his “mat talk” but I was thrilled when I saw he was able to compete on the mat in Daytona after all. After news broke out on his scandal, it was shocking! I do think that Monica didn’t regret DWTS but she did regret that she wasn’t with the team during that part. As for the athletes, I thought it was a quite self-centered for the rookies to say they were the “most negatively effected” or whatever from the revelation. I could see how they would be embarrassed, having just joined Navarro and thinking they were getting the best cheer experience only to have the Jerry scandal and Monica’s absence to deal with. But it was obviously very traumatic for those kids that Jerry harassed. I was glad that the boys were the ones featured the most and they got to tell their story, especially since they admitted their cheer friends pretty much ditched them after the allegations. I was disappointed that the Navarro team didn’t speak out more against Jerry though. Some did, as they admitted Jerry had been someone they considered a close friend but dropped him after, but some wanted to stand by him. It seemed wild that the victims were the ones that still suffered socially the most while Jerry was the one that wasn’t completely cut off.

Okay, onto the 2021 season! How crazy was it to see everyone taking Covid tests and wearing masks? Weirdly enough, even though I’m used to masks in real life, seeing them on TV is still weird. I am going to admit, I did know that TVCC was going to win already from social media, and maybe that’s why it was obvious to me that Navarro wasn’t quite as prepared. I think the shock of the 2020 season was still lingering for them because they never had a clear goal of how many full outs they wanted to do (that I can remember anyway), as opposed to 2020 when they were aiming for 51. Also, since Monica wasn’t there for half the year I do think that was also a strong contributor. Anyway, they just didn’t seem to be as strong as the years prior to the 2021 season.

On the other hand, TVCC had their new tumblers, choreographer (who was previously working with Navarro), and were practicing so hard their athletes kept throwing up during practice (ew). As much as I don’t like TVCC, they did earn that win. Also, it was crazy to see how different the funding is for each program. Navarro invested in a stage, flew the entire team out to Daytona, and stayed at the Hilton right next to the stage. TVCC was practicing in a big church building, spent 20 hours on a bus to Daytona, and stayed at the Hampton Inn. Again, the TVCC team didn’t seem to have much class as they rushed to “scare” Navarro after a great final performance which seemed silly and immature. Also, I did find it crazy that they weren’t docked more for their preliminary performance fall while Navarro was for their final performance fall. It did seem like TVCC was favored a bit based on the editing!

Also, real quick, can I just say how cool it was that the Cheer film crew was finally allowed to film the performances? Season one had to be pieced together via cell phone recordings but season two was filmed in Daytona!

In the end, I was sad Navarro lost but I did really think that they hadn’t prepared as diligently as before. Hopefully the loss reignites their passion and drive to win so they can get those 51 full outs for 2022! I can’t wait to see how the 2022 season unfolds and get to know the new cheerleaders for Navarro (and TVCC I suppose).

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So that’s my thoughts for WandaVision, Emily in Paris, and Cheer! Let me know your thoughts if you’ve seen any of these shows. I’d love to know.

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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