Question of the week #34

[treonb]

What's your favorite season 2 episode?

You can expect spoilers for the entire first two seasons in the comments.

(There's no expiration date on these questions, so if you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)

Comments

A Little Night Music

[jae]

I've been thinking about this question ever since we decided to ask it (yes, I get a heads-up *g*), and I think I finally have an answer. But first, a long intro! :)

Over on Tumblr, one of that crew listed the top five episodes as follows:

01. "Martial Eagle" (2.09)
02. "A Little Night Music" (2.04)
03. "New Car" (2.08)
04. "The Deal" (2.05)
05. "Behind the Red Door" (2.06)

...and my response was that those were the best five as far as I was concerned, too, but I'd put them in a different order. So let me get that off my chest first. Here's what I think are the best five episodes of season two, in the following order:

01. "The Deal" (2.05)
02. "Behind the Red Door" (2.06)
03. "A Little Night Music" (2.04)
04. "Martial Eagle" (2.09)
05. "New Car" (2.08)

Of course, "best" isn't necessarily the same as "favourite." So my top-five list for "favourite" would be the same episodes in yet a different order:

01. "A Little Night Music" (2.04)
02. "Behind the Red Door" (2.06)
03. "The Deal" (2.05)
04. "Martial Eagle" (2.09)
05. "New Car" (2.08)

Which was a rather roundabout way of answering the question with "A Little Night Music." :) I loved "Behind the Red Door" almost as much, and I actually do think it was a better episode, but "A Little Night Music" took the show's ever-pervasive theme of blurring the lines between real lives and fake ones (to the point, in some cases, where the people living those lives can't tell the difference), and put it front and centre. And that more than anything is my own personal crack with this show, really.

-J

Re: A Little Night Music

[sistermagpie]

It's weird that I have so much trouble remembering A Little Night Music beyond the Elizabeth/Brad scenes.

Re: A Little Night Music

[jae]

Heresy! Although luckily, there's an easy solution to that problem. :)

-J

Re: A Little Night Music

[sistermagpie]

Yes! But since I don't have the TV in front of me, what else happens in it?! Wait, it's also the ep where Clark and Martha fight, right? (I remember that from the convo about the lazy morning and Clark having to get out of it to do something else...) But what else??

Re: A Little Night Music

[jae]

I know I'm responding to this too late to be useful, but you can always refer back to our discussions on the episodes, you know. :)

-J

Re: A Little Night Music

[katiac]

I knew I would end up inadvertently leaving out something I really liked. I did love New Car. Through and through. Little Night Music was interesting for me because there were parts that were just amazing (Elizabeth and Brad) but a lot of Martha and some of her parts felt slow. It was one of those like Yousef for me where I fell in love with more individual places than the whole.

Re: A Little Night Music

[sistermagpie]

That's vaguely my recollection of it as well.

Re: A Little Night Music

[jae]

See, to me, the Brad stuff and the stuff you found slow felt like variations on the same theme that I mentioned: of blurring the lines between real lives and fake ones to the point, in some cases, where the people living those lives can't tell the difference. I thought it was incredibly well crafted and very effective (well, it worked on me, at least *g*).

-J