Free Association

Let’s play a game: what do the four quotes below have in common?  Trust me, it’s worth reading through to the end.

   

One:

In September 2001, when Jay-Z dropped his sixth album, The Blueprint, fans and critics alike wondered whether or not Jay had lost his edge. Other rappers greedily clutched at his King of New York crown. Then we heard the album, which was masterful, and specifically Blueprint’s second track, “Takeover,” in which Jigga addressed his rivals, laying into them with the kind of abandon Texas state troopers save for pulled-over motorists with New York license plates.

Two:

Werner Heisenberg, the father of quantum mechanics, stated in his uncertainty principle that the observer in any situation inevitably influences the very thing he or she is trying to analyze objectively. The act of surveillance in itself taints the subject. (I think that’s what he was saying. I am remembering this all from high-school physics.) Heisenberg’s theory plays out in practical, human terms as well. Think of the anxiety produced when a doctor with a stethoscope tells you to “breathe normally.” All of a sudden, a function that your medulla oblongata controls all day without incident becomes a source of conscious despair. “How the hell do I normally breathe?” To realize you are being watched strips away the idea of normalcy.

Three:

Brownies from a mix are fine. There’s nothing wrong with brownies from a box. They’re maybe not as fudgy as you’d like, but if you throw some ice cream on them, they’ll do in a pinch, especially if you’ve gone a while without having brownies from scratch. The longer you consume only Betty Crocker products, the easier it is to convince yourself that they’re as good as the real thing. Then you go home for your father’s 60th birthday party and you taste a real brownie, and you remember how vast the difference actually is. You understand from the first bite that you’ve been lying to yourself. Your last several brownie-eating experiences flash before your eyes one after another, like you’re Bruce Willis at the end of The Sixth Sense. You immediately understand that you haven’t really been living.

Four:

In the years since The Sixth Sense, the name M. Night Shyamalan has become a punch line, synonymous with feeble attempts at suspense. This reputation is not unearned. It does, however, ignore some good stuff like the polarizing but interesting Unbreakable and the mostly delightful alien flick Signs. Unlike, say, The Happening, which creeps its way toward a final twist so weak it couldn’t open a pasta jar, Signs skips amiably to the finish before hopping genially off of a cliff into a chasm of nonsense. The aliens were allergic to water? Was that from a first draft or something? (No apology for giving the ending away. It’s not a spoiler if you wait a decade to reveal the conclusion of a movie that is nonessential viewing.)

If you answered, “they’re all incredibly boring and painful to read,” you’re right!

If you answered, “they all have nothing to do with television comedy,” you’d also be right!

And yet, these are the openings of four of the six recaps of Community episodes this season by Vulture reviewer—and apparently big M. Night Shyamalan fan—Josh Gondelman. 

Look, Gondelman: holy shit is this awful.  You’re not particularly stupid when it comes to your recaps, though they are totally overwritten and rife with food metaphors (FJM reference!).  But really--would writers please stop fucking doing this?  The random tangent Pitchfork intro: it’s not smart.  It’s not edgy.  It’s not creative.  It’s terrible.  Get to the fucking point.