>SPOILERS below!

i want to talk about some serious thoughts i had about the show but i also just want to share bits i thought were funny. scroll down if you'd like to see either and they'll be labeled.

exploring the reshoots

one scene in particular that stuck out is from episode 3 "Royce" when Paul goes to the adult video store to inquire about "Audrey Almond". he goes through the scene with the clerk confirming his suspicions about Audrey. but after, Jason pops in and pushes back against the scene, asking Paul if this is what actually happened. when he asks "Did you ever find confirmation that Audrey was doing porn?", Paul immediately responds "No, I didn't" without any defensiveness or pause to indicate he is processing this direct contradiction to the scene he claimed to be fact.

that lack of pause made Paul's belief in the whole story feel so fragile. that he had let the idea of this larger than life crime ring blind him to any reality where it wasn't true.

all of the scenes that Jason reshoots with Paul are so interesting too. you see exactly where the "from wimp to warrior" mindset came from when Paul shares the original confrontation scene with Audrey had him crying with her. it feels almost narrative the way Paul shares his father's feedback. being called a wimp by your father for writing a self indulgent scene with your ex wife that scammed you out of 7k really fucks with you.

did he just MISS the red flags?

i don't fully blame Paul for being fooled though. he didn't seem to have many people with his best interest in mind around him at the time. his wife was scamming him. Terri Jay is just as much of a scammer. she is the reason he pursued legal action so hard, she "revealed" to him that the ring was larger than a few girls and that he MUST destroy Audrey if she destroyed him. and he believes her 100% while still paying her for every call, probably by the hour, never considering the possibility that she could be wrong. i don't think Terri Jay was intentionally trying to scam Paul, but i'm sure she was still gladly accepting his money every time.

to me, that interaction is a perfect depiction of Paul's view of himself and his connections with other people. he believes he is a good person who is preyed upon because he is good. he writes a dinner scene with Audrey and his painting business partner Daniel — another person who scammed Paul out of money AND a business — and talks candidly to the crew about how Daniel took the checks for a huge job, never paid the staff, and ran off with the money. Paul then says he never tracked Daniel down or spoke to him again.

and this all came to light WHILE he was with Audrey who was also taking money from him. i couldn't help but wonder how that experience wasn't a wake up call for Paul. he had someone he trusted hurt him, and then his part-time wife is asking him for thousands of dollars a month because she doesn't want to have sex with him.

granted, i want to say i would be better than him in the same situation. but honestly, i think i would want to believe so hard that the people around me are good and true that i'd turn a blind eye to things after an experience like that. at least my wife. i do think there's a bit more to Paul as a person that sets him up to be susceptible to these types of people.

everyone says the same few things about Paul in interviews and to his face. he's nice. he's "pure" in the way that he trusts everyone. he's naïve. and those aren't bad traits inherently, they're often seen as good. but everyone tends to allude more to the negative side of these traits. that Paul trusts without care for himself. that he is easily fooled and doesn't have proper judge of character.

but when they say it to him, they say it like they're good qualities. and while they're not bad objectively, i think Paul receives these comments as a sign that he is on the right path and shouldn't adjust his course. to start doubting people or questioning people's motives would be straying from that person that Paul knows other people see him as. or that he's been TOLD other people see him as.

so i think he wants to hang onto that perception of who he is. he likes that version of himself that others see as "pure" and "good". and that leads him to give so much of himself at the start of a relationship, because that's "who he is". and the people who stay around for that level of honesty burden to reinforce and confirm his status as a "good" person are people who take and don't give back.

to be a little vulnerable, i see myself in that part of Paul, so maybe i'm projecting a bit. click the arrow to read more abt this ramble if you want

i've just had people who did not care about me as a person but still took whatever i gave them. but i didn't hold them to the same expectation so i allowed the dynamic to continue. part because i believed other people weren't thoughtful like that, like i was. it was a self-centered belief that put me in this morally superior position where i was good because i was selfless and i gave and people told me i was such a good person. then that led to the part that others just didn't like me enough to do the same. not even considering that what i was doing was just a bit too much. because no one tells you that. not the people that take. that means you might stop giving or expect them to give back.

but the other part is me believing the only way people will like me is if I offer something. i always assumed who i am as a person needed to be made up for with something. so i bought food and planned group hangouts. i tried to be the most low maintenance person to be around so people wouldn't have any reason to dislike me. so you give and give and never hold the people around you accountable or even consider viewing them as bad people.

which i guess thats literally anxious attachment style lol, thinking highly of others and low of yourself.

and now, it's not that i don't give, but i understand exactly what i'm giving and what it means to me. is it a gift i want to be acknowledged? to have the effort i put in recognized? what am i giving and how much do i have left for myself? i need to be someone i give to as well.

so i guess i think that's why Paul ends up in these situations time and time again. both because he chooses to ignore the signs and because they had been normalized in his life.

some of my favorite moments

this show is just so crazy. it starts already as a wild story and progressively gets even CRAZIER. the screenplay including scenes of Royce and Audrey that never happened was the first REAL sign that this was getting out of hand. the book was already 99% true, the screenplay is 97% true, and everything continues to lose percentages as it goes on.

the reveal of the Chronicles was SO FUNNY. the show does a great job of understanding what the leaps in logic are. there is no mention of the spy series or Ryan Sinclair until the last scene of the screenplay. then suddenly there's all these interview clips of him talking about the chronicles. i really admire the care put into the pacing of this show. after narrative shows like All Her Fault and Friend of the Family being all over the place, having this carefully crafted journey feels like a treat.

for me, the funniest parts came as the story expanded. i started laughing at the absurdity more during episodes 5 and 6, after the screenplay concluded and the Chronicles were revealed. i thought i'd just share a list of moments that i loved because reading through my notes i just keep laughing while remembering the show.

• in episode 4, when Paul walks into the FBI office and is CAPTIVATED by the poster of Osama bin Laden. oml i couldn't stop laughing, it felt so out of nowhere. no one would have questioned it if he didn't put it in at all but it's a whole emotional moment for him.
• at the end of ep 4, when Audrey and Royce run off and the boat just EXPLODES loll, then it goes right into THE CHRONICLES too.
• when asked why he did the Chronicles he said "the thing in Hollywood today is franchises. so i made duplicity into a franchise." which is such a sign of how he views this whole experience. why does it matter what the THING in Hollywood is?
• in episode 5, when he's talking about the website he made to advertise the books and it's called "stopchildsextrafficking.org" and the director asks "is there anything on there about child sex trafficking?" and Paul genuinely pauses and responds "No there isn't, we should probably add a bit about that" lmaoo.
• when they start going through the Johnny Goldman chronicles and The Dreamcatchers loll, i was wondering how many shows they were going to make. i think Paul just started writing them while the filming was happening to keep things going.
• the photo of the girl found in "Royce Rocco's" trash was actually an orphan that Albert Borelli had a photo of because a pastor friend of his adopted 17 orphans from a tsunami and needed to get them passports. i absolutely did NOT expect that and Paul had nothing to do with that one.

i got my friend hooked too, we're on episode 6 and it was just as interesting the second time around. i feel like there's so much room for further analysis when anything can be false.

life updates

i think this is one of my favorites now tbh. i'm going to add it to the top grid where it deserves to be.

i'm rewatching stardust crusaders right now too, i want to make a tierlist of all the enemy stand fights bc i do think there's some better ones in the group. but it's such a fun season overall, i don't see myself ranking anything below a c lowest lol.

i want to add stars to the posters on my page too so people can see at a glance what the high rated media is lol.

until next time,
amber <3

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