great episode! it definitely filled in a lot of the gaps regarding jules' emotional perspective. i think a big problem with S1 is that we spent too much time in rue's shoes and only really got to see the major events that were happening in jules' life, which made it easy to vilify her.

I think Levinson has finally found the right tone for his show. But he still can’t get rid of some of his tricks.

Drama relies on tension, tension is built through length. When entire episodes are structured like 50 minutes music videos, you sacrifice drama for trickery. You try to impress your audience with complex setups, cool tracking shots, short and dynamic scenes, cinematography which would make pseudo-cinephiles from Tumblr cream their pants... and that ends up being dishonest. If you want to treat serious themes such as d*** addiction, you can’t film your story like a music video or a commercial. Thats disrespectful. That’s why directors like Scorsese, Gondry or Boyle - who all seemed to have inspired the style of this show - knew when to stabilize their cameras and film drama in a simple shot/reverse shot setup. Just watch Jake’s fights with his wife and his brother in “Raging Bull”, you’ll get what I mean.

Rue’s episode was almost perfect to me. Levinson focused on her because she matters, because her suffering needed to be treated with delicacy. So he filmed a 45 minutes conversation and it felt raw, honest, authentic, real. You were there with her. You couldn’t escape this situation and you could feel the length of this discussion without being bored because what was going in front of your eyes was important and treated as such.

Jules’ episode had some flaws but overall, Levinson managed to find a balance. Fantasies and memories were filmed like a kind of heightened reality so the use of stylish setups was right. Her conversation with her therapist was filmed with long, mostly static takes and it felt also right. But the music was just too much. It felt manipulative and even unnecessary and it took me out of the episode during crucial scenes because it reminded me of things that I hate about the show. Anyway, the episode was good but the f***ing music, man.

I hope season two will be more serious and mature. The other characters aren’t as interesting as Rue and Jules, they need to be put aside. This isn’t f***ing “Skins”.

This kinda how I’m feeling tbh

still excited for s2 though

y'all noticed Kevin Abstract is credited as one of the consultants on the episode?

was also one on the rue one too

noooo i like laxi/maude apatow too

Why dont you like the music?
I personally LOVE the music on this show,especially Labrinths score

The music is great in itself but I don’t like how it’s used. As I said, it feels manipulative and it lacks subtlety sometimes.

y'all not f***ing with Fez????

Did she meet and f*** shyguy in New York?
Couldn’t tell if she just imagined it or it did happen

Fez probably one of my favourites out of the rest of the cast, and I know I’ll probably care more once we get closer to S2, but right now I just want as much Jules & Rue content as possible
Like who wants to go back to watching McKay after these two masterpieces

Imagined. She mentions that they would sext each other often and it was the best s***she ever had because it was “pure imagination” lol

Feel like this episode had a lot of truth stemmed in from what Hunter (Jules) was saying

they did it again

That was a dream she was never in New York.

You’ll be okay, just fast forward through the two minutes they give McKay per episode.

Rue and Jules are obviously gonna dominate the show for however many seasons this thing runs for

Kind of confused, so Jules went on the train to NY but then immediately went back?

Presumably didn't last long yeah. Likely felt bad for her dad and got frantic calls and realized being gone indefinitely wasn't a feasible long-term plan for her as a 17 year old with no income