Bridgerton Squid Game

 

Time to avoid anything Christmas-related (the timing hereof to the contrary notwithstanding) and instead review two one-season Netflix series, “Bridgerton” and “Squid Game”.

Bridgerton.  A few months ago I tuned into “Saturday Night Live” and the guest host was Rege-Jean Page, a handsome black guy.  No clue who he was.  Later I ascertained that the Netflix has a show called “Bridgerton”, set in an alternate 1813 London where Queen Charlotte – obviously of German descent – somehow became black, and likewise the most eligible bachelor, some sharp guy with an anarchronistic perpetual five o’clock shadow courtesy of modern electric razors, is likewise of African descent.  To make matters worse, almost all the white males on the show are of extremely poor ethics.   If you’re amused or offended by this recent business of turning white characters (fictional or historical) black en masse (e.g. “Foundation”) fair warning there’s more here as well.  Naturally the villains remain white. 

Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dinosaur) has just turned 15 or 16 or whatever and is now being pimped out by her family to whichever ugly, repulsive noble from a prestigious family wants to claim her as his own.  Aghast at the frontrunners, she befriends Simon Bassett, the Duke of Hastings (the aforementioned Page), who himself is trying to avoid being set up.  His “deal” is that his father was a major league asshole who mistreated him so badly, that on his father’s deathbed he swore a vow never to have children and continue his father’s bloodline.  So the two of them pretend to hook up with each other to satisfy their respective families’ crusade to marry them off.

Naturally this is originally intended purely for show and naturally – can we see it coming from the next galaxy – they wind up falling in love with each other.  Sorry to spoil it for anyone of you.  Oh, and there’s a gossip columnist, Lady Whistledown, who scoops the dirt on everyone.  Her name is an alias, causing rampant speculation as to her identity, and even the Queen herself wants to know who she is.  Plus there’s a babe who got knocked up by a British officer – down in Spain fighting Napoleon – who her family wants to marry off before her pregnancy become obvious.  And her hypothetical husband (and his entire family) is supposed to be too clueless to do the math when their first child pops out less than nine months after the wedding.

There’s some sex, as tastefully simulated as you might imagine on a show on Netflix and not Pornhub. 

Modestly enjoyable.  Season 2 is on the way for those of you who enjoyed it more than I did.

Squid Game.  South Korean miniseries about a bizarre game show on a remote island.  They manage to kidnap 456 players to participate in this thing.  It’s a series of games, some blatantly childrens’ games (e.g. red light green light) where the winners survive to the next round, and the losers wind up in gift-box designed coffins and into the crematoria.  As the games progress and the players become fewer, the pot grows larger.  Players are permitted to opt out at any point, however they will forfeit any winnings if they do so.  The staff members all wear pink jumpsuits and black masks, there’s a Front Man with a different mask – ostensibly the Manager but somehow not the person ultimately behind the whole thing. 

What’s really interesting is that after the first round, everyone is sent home.  Then they’re given invitations to return – 100% voluntary.  And sure enough, all of them do.  Each of them has some compelling reason to decide to continue, mostly because they screwed up somehow and ended up billions of noodles (whatever South Korean currency is) in debt, and might otherwise simply kill themselves in despair absent the chance of fixing everything in these lethal games.  Nominally they go by numbers, but as they get to know each other, they learn each other’s names.  Frequently the games require the players to choose teams, but they have to do so before they learn what the game is. 

A cabal of elite douchebags are also behind the scenes betting on the games, and a Seoul cop manages to infiltrate the complex, which is plausible given that all of the staff members wear the black masks. 

Some of the more colorful characters: a gangster with tattoos; a cynical older woman who briefly hooks up with him; a cute chick from North Korea trying to smuggle her family to South Korea or China; an elite business school grad who somehow managed to lose billions in noodles through incompetent trades; a Pakistani guy; and an old man no one can figure out why he’s there.  The show does a good job of making us empathize with desperate game show contestants.  You don’t need to be Korean (north or south) to relate to this whole shebang.

Warning, though: as you might imagine on a show where half the contestants die in every round, it’s fairly violent.