The Closer: Season 2 (complete)

With the major problems I had with the first season addressed (the extreme heavyhandedness in the approach to some of the characters and the way so many cases revolved around a woman having been sexually wronged) the show has settled into "comfy viewing" territory for me.  I like it, but don't have much of a compulsion to post on it as I watch.  While I doubt I'll ever like Pope, the rest, even Taylor and Flynn, have grown on me pretty well.

The main draw for me, of course, remains Brenda.  The thing about Brenda is this: Brenda is a wholly traditionally  female character in a traditionally male role, but she never remotely codes as male, nor are any concessions ever made with her.  She's not just "traditionally female," she's also conservative and old fashioned, and is as girly as a 40-year-old woman can be and still act her age.  But there's never the remotest sense of Brenda being in a "man's world."  Everyone, whether they like it or not, is in Brenda's world.  The options are to do what she wants, get out of the way, get bulldozed over getting in her way, or roll over and play dead.  She's a force of nature in a way that few main female characters are allowed to be without taking on masculine traits, and this extends into his personal life.  I adore Fritz, but in many ways, he's The Chick: he's not weak or a pushover in any way, but his role in the series is wholly defined by his relationship with Brenda.

I have to say, though, that while I think the show is moving in the right direction by having 50% of the cast being POC(10 main cast members, 3 black, 1 asian, one hispanic) and portraying them all positively (despite series facepalming issues in season 1, in season 2, he's Brenda's rival primarily in the context of her investigations interfering with other investigations, and other departments being interfered with because of her, and his having to deal with it) it seems that 

( mild spoilers )

 

Shiny!

  Were I not already reading Elizabeth Bear's Promethean Age books, this would probably sway me.

Also this that matociqualahas to say about it:

May I add: enchantments vile and beauteous, swordfights, bear-baiting, pratfalls, romance, espionage, durance vile, and sexy people in beautiful clothes! Blood, love, and rhetoric! Extremely dirty puns!

Also, a very snarky former angel with a complicated agenda.

manga: Yumekui Kenbun: Nightmare Inspector Vol 1

Hiruko is a baku, a demon who eats dreams, in Japan’s taisho era. He operates out of the Silver Star Tea House, and seems to be its only regular customer. The pretty owner seems to blame this on him, but not hold it against him, even though people tend to run into her shop waving knives around. For the price of the dream itself, Hiruko will cure a customer of whatever nightmares plague them, though he may make the dream a little nastier before her does, just to make it taste a little better when he eats it. In this volume, we have silent film stars committing suicide in their fans’ dreams, inanimate objects coming to life so they can hug their owners, people losing body parts that represent enemies, and others.

I was a little bit surprised when I started reading and realized Hiruko was a guy. I…uhm…thought he looked like a girl from the cover, and when I quickly flipped through it at the store. Certainly doesn’t act like one, though. Like most of the “mysterious shopkeeper/deal maker who is part of the supernatural world” he seems to operate in a mostly gray zone. (One day, I should figure out why I seem to grab almost every one of these series I see.) He carries a cane that he uses to open portals into the dream world, and to whack people with knives who go after the as-yet-unnamed waitress. She is either a very tolerant girl, or up to something herself. That, or the shop is her nightmare. Or something. When he goes after dreams, he also has a suitcase that he hangs from the cane, but there’s no clue about what that’s for yet.

The taisho setting, I admit, is one of the appeals for me, though in terms of plot, it’s really only come into play in the chapter about the silent film star, and when the waitress was in awe of a customer who had his own telephone. Visually, though, it adds a great flavor to the book. Come to think of it, outside of Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden, I can’t think of any manga set in that period, and most of FY: GK takes place in a fantasy ancient China anyway.

Anyone know of any other manga set in the period, out of curiosity?