Favorite Characters: Nathaniel Buttons (Our Flag Means Death)

*Buttons-related spoilers.*

Yep, still tapping that Favorite Characters well for Our Flag Means Death. When it comes to the crew, there honestly isn’t a bad one in the bunch, and even characters who didn’t grab me at first eventually won me over. It’s basically faves all the way down! And the fave I’m talking about today is Buttons.

There’s lots of silly humor on Our Flag Means Death, but Buttons is probably the show’s best source of pure whacked-out humor. Stede’s first mate practically runs on bizarre one-liners and wild non-sequiturs, and he pads that out with doing inexplicable things. When the Revenge runs aground, his first line of action to prepare for the eventuality of eating some of the crew, and he “yearns to make sweet love to the sea.” He enjoys “basking in moonglow” (nude) with his seagull friend Karl, who he has detailed conversations with. Oh, and when the crew is temporarily stuck at the Republic of Pirates at the start of season 2, they seemingly need to keep Buttons on a leash(?)

Some of the irreconcilable aspects of Buttons get a little more context aboard the Red Flag in season 2, when Auntie refers to him as a Sea Witch and offers him a book of spells. This tracks with someone whose first response to Calico Jack drunkenly killing Karl is to hex him, and he not only knows the Gravy Basket by name, he’s been there multiple times. And it might explain why, when he meets new people, he often feels the urge to clarify that they’re human. He says, “You’re not ghosts, are you?” to Izzy, Fang, and Ivan, and when Calico Jack first shows up, he asks, “Are you real, or a filthy phantom?” Our Flag Means Death isn’t a supernatural show by any stretch, but in most of the places that it flirts with the supernatural, Buttons is involved.

Buttons doesn’t seem that close to many of the crew. In group scenes, he often just stands very still and straight in the background, not interacting much. However, it’s not really in the sense that he’s intentionally spurning them, a la season 1 Izzy. Rather, he just kind of keeps more to himself and prefers Karl’s company over any human. He’s still a member of the crew, though, and after Karl is killed, Stede kindly arranges a memorial for the seagull.

I still associate Ewen Bremner with his role as Spud back in Trainspotting, but he’s terrific as Buttons! Here are a few of my favorite lines from him:

·        In the aforementioned run-aground incident, when Stede assures Buttons that there’s no need to start eating each other, I just love the way Buttons replies, “Aye, no, no, of course not. Not until…absolutely necessary.”

·        When Blackbeard demonstrates “the art of fuckery” to the crew, Button panics and bites Lucius’s finger, thinking he’s a demon – Afterwards, he says, “Sorry, laddie. Ye triggered my fight-or-bite response.”

·        And just before we get the wildest bit of the series, wherein Buttons seemingly transmogrifies himself into a seagull, he tells Ed this lovely line – “To love the sea as she must be loved, requires change.”

The Color Purple (2023, PG-13)

*Premise spoilers.*

Okay, so I’ve never read The Color Purple or seen the 1985 film adaptation, but I do have the cast recording for the musical (the revival with Cynthia Erivo.) As such, I’m probably well-positioned to watch this new film: I’m already familiar with a lot of the songs, and I’m not comparing the actors to performances that have had almost 40 years to cement themselves in the cultural memory.

Life has brought Celie hardship after hardship. Sexually abused by her father, her children taken from her as babies, married to a hard man who beats her—even her beloved sister Nettie, one of the few good forces in her life, is separated from her. But although Celie has been beaten down, she keeps finding a way forward. As she develops new relationships, especially with her formidable friend Sofia and the vivacious jazz singer Shug Avery, Celie learns to find strength and happiness within herself.

I’m aware that that plot summary goes on quite the roller coaster, but that’s a bit how the film is, albeit at a more gradual pace. This is a story that contains suffering and indignity, along with joy and triumph. And that’s an important combination. Over the years, a lot of Black movies that have gotten Oscar attention have done so by focusing on Black pain. The Color Purple shows us the pain, but it shows us a lot more too, such as many varieties of love and different ways for Black women to take up space for themselves in a place that doesn’t value them.

I haven’t listened to the soundtrack since watching the film, but based on my single viewing, this adaptation does fairly well from a musical standpoint. Many members of the cast have already proven their musical talents through other projects, and the comparative newcomers acquit themselves well. The film makes strong use of the ensemble, with some terrific choreography throughout—that said, certain numbers have a bit of a “proscenium” feel, not taking full advantage of the range of motion provided by a film.

I didn’t watch Fantasia Barrino’s season of American Idol, so I wasn’t as familiar with her previous work, but I think she does a beautiful job as Celie (along with Phylicia Pearl Mpasi, who plays the younger version.) You really get the sense of this woman, who’s had to make herself so small, slowly learning to love and appreciate herself. I’ve loved Danielle Brooks since the first season of Orange is the New Black, so I was excited that she reprised her role as Sofia from the Broadway revival. She’s a force to be reckoned with from start to finish, and I’m very happy for her Best Supporting Actress nomination, even if the rest of the film didn’t get any recognition. Taraji P. Henson is on record as being one of the only main cast members without professional singing experience, but she does great with Shug, delivering a lively performance that pulls you in. The film also features Corey Hawkins, Halle Bailey, Colman Domingo, H.E.R., and David Alan Grief, along with a welcome cameo from Whoopi Goldberg.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements, violence (including domestic violence and sexual abuse,) language, sexual content, and drinking/smoking.

The Book of Rannells: Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake: Season 1, Episode 9 – “Casper & Nova” (2023)

*The only real way I can talk about this episode at all is by including a major spoiler for the end of episode 8. Consider yourself warned.*

It’s the penultimate episode of the season! The middle of the season, while exciting and entertaining, has fallen into a routine of “travel to new world, search for the crown, get entangled in an adventure, repeat.” Here, though, the different threads start coming together in a big way before we head into the finale.

At the end of episode 8 (which I didn’t review,) Fionna and Cake just barely managed to escape the Scarab. They’re now back in their own world in Simon’s mind, but although they finally found a version of the Ice King crown they could use, the world isn’t yet magical. As Fionna meets up with Gary and Marshall, catching them up on her adventures, she starts to wonder whether their world should change.

When Fionna and Cake first get back to their world, they have a shared dream that its magic has been restored but that it’s gone horribly wrong. This greatly informs Fionna’s doubts, along with her growing understanding of what wearing the cursed crown will do to Simon. But Cake, who’s retained her voice and abilities from the Land of Ooo, is all in on bringing the magic back.

From inside Simon’s head, though, there’s not much they can do about it. Whether or not their world becomes magical, it depends on his choice with the crown. But while he’s eager to do his part, he very much has his own thing going on right now. It involves the physical embodiment of Chaos, which is also the lost lover he’s been mourning throughout the series—I’m still a bit sketchy on these details, and I assume there’s a lot more backstory between Simon and Betty in the original series. Standing before this immense being, Simon softly asks, “Betty, are you in there, even a little?”

Even though this episode features a fair amount of both Gary and Marshall, neither Andrew Rannells nor Donald Glover have that much to really do. They’re mainly just there to react to what Fionna and Cake are telling them, trying to wrap their heads around it. “So you’re not a robot; you’re a magic cat?” Gary asks Cake. And as things inevitably go sideways, they pitch in to help, more or less as a unit.

Fionna and Cake’s opening shared dream gives us a look at alternate versions of Gary and Marshall, but this doesn’t give the actors much to do either, since it leans more on the animation than the dialogue. Rannells only has a few lines as the alternate Gary.