Possession – Roots or Riches

Full transcript of Possession – Roots or Riches.

0:00KT: It's another week in the For Your Reference household, and it is another full review, Friends and Lovers. Um, before we get started into the episode, I guess we just wanted to talk about the recent news of Jason Arday. rest in peace. It- it's not necessarily related to this episode, but I guess in navigating very white spaces, institutionalized corporate, um, sort of spaces, I guess just to be kind, and I And you know, even when we were watching the coverage, quote, unquote, not to dilute the seriousness, but it was like nothing is ever that serious to only find out days later of the onslaught of the media and the reporting. Like, it, I don't think it had to. Like, it didn't have to go down that way.

0:51Oti: It did not. Rest in peace.

0:55KT: So, Friends and Lovers, I think it's just, like, a- a kindness thing whether you are a part of the media, whether you get off on the salacious sort of headlines and details. Just I guess understanding also the power structures as well, which we are going to get into, um, in this episode as well. So, listen with care. Uh, all the love to you guys, and I'm very excited to get into this. Are you ready to get into the Gugus, the Mbathas, and the Raws?

1:24Oti: Always ready.

1:25KT: Yeah, let's get on with the show. Hey, friends and lovers. Welcome back to the For Your Reference podcast. You got your hosts, KT.

1:32Oti: And Oti.

1:34KT: Navigate the corporate and cultural worlds through self-interrogation. Tap in or sell out with Possession this week.

1:43Oti: Mm, mm, mm.

1:44KT: Ooh-hoo, hoo. How are you feeling, Oti?

1:49Oti: Pumped. I'm pumped for this.

1:50KT: Like Joe Budden pump, pump it up? No? Too soon?

1:54Oti: Uh, too soon.

1:57KT: Uh, we are very excited to talk about Possession. Five is a very interesting number, uh, for a series. Um, but hopefully you've had time, friends and lovers. We will say spoiler, spoiler, spoiler after we get, to our first impressions. Uh, this is a series that was written by Karla Crome. I also had a. I, I was checking out interviews. I believe it's called the Black Prose Podcast that she was on, uh, friends and lovers. So I've heard her talk about. And a lot of the things while we were watching and even debriefing, Oti, she answered in that podcast specifically. So, um, I'm happy to pepper that in as we go. Uh, shout-outs to Storm Saulter, who is Jamaican.

2:41Oti: Mm.

2:41KT: And you know, friends and lovers, you'll start to realize that directors and writers are where you should tap into if you're looking for, you know, the, the way, and I guess the, the emotional language of a series and a film. Um, so hearing him talk about particular locations that they chose to shoot in, um, and the visual language of the series was very important as well in regards—

3:04Oti: And really good seeing him just be excited talking about it as well.

3:07KT: Right?

3:08Oti: Mm.

3:09KT: in regards to the cast, we have Gugu Mbatha-Raw, we have Sheldon Shepherd, we have Nadine Rollins, Wow. Are you excited?

3:18Oti: Yeah.

3:20KT: I, I guess off top, Friends and Lovers, Dreaming Whilst Black, we love, we love, we love. We've done a full review very recently. Friends and Lovers, is this the Jamaica road that, uh, Kwabena was trying to make, Oti?

3:32Oti: This is the Jamaica road he was trying to make, yeah. For sure.

3:39KT: we'll get into our first impressions and, uh, I want to get into the meat and potatoes of this series, um, 'cause there's definitely a lot to talk about. There's definitely a lot to talk about. I'm excited for your pull quote. I feel like you'll have questions out of my pull quote, but take us away, my love, but keep in mind, Friends and Lovers, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler if you haven't watched.

4:02Oti: Gugu impresses as, Possession keeps you intrigued, giving us a taste of how past atrocities continue to reverberate in the present. I wanted a little bit more self-reflection from its protagonist, but all in all, an enjoyable watch.

4:17KT: Uh-uh. Not all in all. Keep it right there, baby. We're riding self-reflection. A lot of care was taken to ensure the world in Possession felt real and uncompromising. While the lens centered the right experiences, the weight and follow-through never quite got there in the end.

4:38Oti: Mm.

4:39KT: You said the same thing.

4:41Oti: Mm. Mm-mm.

4:42KT: You just rounded that ass— of your quote.

4:46Oti: I'm African. It's the only way.

4:49KT: Well, this is the first theme that I wanna get into, my love. Lens: did we get a thorough reflection of Claudia's character?

4:59Oti: We, we got, uh—

5:03KT: Yes or no, sir. Is this a deposition? Are you Ken from Succession?

5:09Oti: If it is to be said, uh, no, because I felt like the, the areas in which where I'd wanted a little bit more introspection when it comes to Claudia's character and what it means, because she c- she, it feels as if she's quite disconnected from her Black roots.

5:31KT: Mm.

5:31Oti: And coming into Jamaica, she thought she was coming here to do a job, get the job, like just, you know—

5:37KT: Jason Statham's

5:38Oti: Jason Statham's in here. But there's a lot more in that, whereas when you're talking about, even when they're talking, having conversations with Matthew. Though hinting at stuff, but not really covering or holding her in, holding her accountable for some of the thoughts or not, not even accountable. Like, owning the shit that you were f- you know? Like, you don't know what you don't know, but now you know, but then it doesn't seem like you know. Does that make sense?

6:06KT: Yeah,

6:06Oti: you know. She came in, she came into Jamaica not knowing, like, not even thinking about her Black side, and it being, like, a far thought.

6:16KT: Yeah.

6:16Oti: And then she goes into all this and understanding, oh, okay, there's this slavery, or like, oh, this is ages ago. Fair. Not everyone's that privileged.

6:24KT: That's not even the white people, that's her saying that.

6:26Oti: Yeah. That was ages ago. But then the effect, the effects of that and how it means to everyone that he, she interacts with doesn't, it doesn't hold any weight in, when it comes to her self-reflection as a character.

6:43KT: Yeah, I agree.

6:44Oti: At the end of it, I expected it to be more, 'cause then there's a whole lot I know we'll get to, but even the scene where, uh, sorry I'm skipping a little bit, but w- it was a scene where she's l- seeing what happens to her mom. Mm. And that, I think that's where she, it hits her that, brah, these guys still treat us like this.

7:06KT: Yeah.

7:09Oti: And,

7:09KT: um— But, like, it, it's very Jake Sully. You know? Like, you were on, you were with, like, you were with all the white people, and now you're trying to stand there like, "Oh, you'll never understand." I'm pretty sure a couple of episodes ago you were spouting the same shit. Yeah.

7:26Oti: Yeah.

7:27KT: I, I do wanna focus on the lens, but I will add on to what you were saying. Oliver even knew not to fuck around with the spirits.

7:35Oti: Mm.

7:36KT: Like, the Obeah and like, he, he knew not to fuck with that shit, right? Claudia was— Was it in the first fucking episode? Claudia was the one, and I'm pretty sure Matthew was like, "Hey," I didn't think he called it a talisman, but he's like, "If you ever see this, don't touch it."

7:54Oti: Mm.

7:54KT: Right? What did this bitch do? She went and she disrupted a whole coffin

8:01Oti: Yeah

8:02KT: Even if you don't even know what that is, that is a coffin-shaped box, my friend. Mm-hmm. But, coming back to The Lens, 'cause there's so much richness that I definitely want to talk about, but if we just say from a, a, a straight-through storyline for Claudia, she, like you said, and even Karla talked about not necessarily feeling close to her own, Jamaican roots. So I guess there's like a, like a correlation or at least an experience that's being spoken to. She uses her identity in corporate spaces as a way to get ahead, right? Mm. You even see that in the opening scenes of, "As long as I get my cheese, I'm good," right? Like, "As long as you make me partner, I will tap dance. I will shuck and jive for you."

8:52Oti: Get that prop jaw out there.

8:53KT: Maybe not sleep and eats, who knows? Bamboozled friends and lovers. but it was bluh, it, it did feel a bit bluh because I don't necessarily. And I think it's cool that you were able to identify it. I wasn't a— I didn't necessarily feel that she was potentially distant to her Jamaican roots. Even the fact that, like, her mom wasn't in her life, I wasn't necessarily able to identify that until we got further into the series. Or even just the way she was moving, the way she was carrying herself was a very, ve- very questionable, not just, individualism versus community, just the. It, it just didn't make sense culturally to me. Like ethnically, don't fucking touch graves. If you see talismans and shit, don't go near there. Like, I feel like that's a universally ethnically understood thing to do. Don't. And I was even saying to you, I was like, "These aren't even my spirits. This isn't even my lore, but I'm not fucking tempting it." Mm. I was like, "I'm not gonna find out that I'm, I'm doing what I'm not supposed to be doing. If you told me not to touch things, bet." You know? Shout outs to Matthew. Shout outs to Alfred. I will listen. You told me not to touch something, I'm never gonna touch it, right? What are we watching, Dark now?

10:10Oti: Mm.

10:11KT: No spoiler, but there was a moment of like, "Don't open this letter until then," and I told you that you would have opened it.

10:17Oti: Immediately.

10:19KT: I wouldn't have. And that's why I said to you in our Odyssey episode, you absolutely, absolutely would have swum towards the beautiful siren women. Because you're curious—

10:29Oti: I would have made it as well, yeah.

10:31KT: You sorry?

10:31Oti: I would have made it there.

10:33KT: I don't think— Okay. Everyone else failed, it's just you're the one to make it. Yeah. But the point is you're too curious, my love uh, for your own safety. But I guess to go back to the lens, if we, 'cause there is so much richness, there is so much lore in regards to this series, which I think is really great, and it should also be applauded. However, Claudia is our main protagonist, and if she started the series not giving a fuck about her Jamaican roots, you know, trying to climb the corporate ladder, she didn't really learn anything. We said spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. She was still trying to nickel and dime that little baby at the end in the funeral.

11:23Oti: True. I- i- it v- it felt like— It felt like Pamela Anderson's, um—

11:30KT: The Last Showgirl.

11:31Oti: Yeah, where you're like— You're trying

11:33KT: to do a thing

11:33Oti: you're trying to do a thing, but it's still not really there yet.

11:38KT: Yeah, I get you.

11:39Oti: Because w- we, we're still trying, with everything else that feels wholly realized, we get a character in Claudia that is confused about her identity, but we still, we can understand the shift, like whatever epiphany she has, after seeing the vision and having, like, brain flip of, "Damn, this is, this is what it took?" 'Cause everyone plays it down. You know, even the dad, I'm pretty sure when he was seeing that, doesn't take that as an effect of why the mom lost her life.

12:20KT: But he. Okay. All right. Okay. 'Cause we're going to get into the medical field, but I guess just very clearly, because I'm going to, I would like to praise the show for a lot of things, but one of my fundoc- fundamental qualms, my Kwabena qualms I know, I know this is not Dreaming Whilst Black. Um, one of my qualms with this series is she never really learnt anything, and the next theme that I wanna come into, which you can talk about her dad again, but we've talked about this, oh, man, I can't even nail it down, 'cause we s- we talk about it in every review, is don't, don't piss off white people, don't make them uncomfortable, don't make them upset, and if possible, give them an attaboy. Give them a thumbs up and say, "You're doing a great job by maybe acknowledging you got fucking bloody colonial history." Right? And this is what I wanna talk about, 'cause when we first watched this, I think it might have been the first episode, I was saying to you, "I hope we're really going there. I hope the lens is going to be where it should be." And if the lens is where it should be, which I, I agree with myself, the question I'm posing myself, I do feel like the lens was, uh, centered on the right experiences. However, I do feel like it pulled a lot of punches, and my, I, I guess my argument for my thesis is it's to not piss off white people, not make white people feel uncomfortable. Whether it's a studio thing, whether it's an audience thing, I feel like that hampered, hindered, diluted the potential impact of this story

14:11Oti: And I wouldn't really disagree with that just because when you cover certain topics, you can't do it half-baked. You can't half-cock it. You—

14:23KT: And it's been done before, so why are you diluting it now?

14:26Oti: Yeah. Yeah. a- and it's not to take away from because there's a lot of love you can tell that's been put while making this. You could tell, you know, it's been shot beautifully. even just making sure that, 'cause we had the director made sure that every- everything that we saw on screen was calculated. From the festivals, it was real. You know, they didn't get. It was just real people. They didn't get actors or background actors. It's just trying to get the vibe right, and you could feel it. In that aspect, it felt au- authentic, sort of how that word sort of lost meaning now. But it felt like it's been done by someone who understands. So when the pen doesn't really meet there—

15:18KT: Yeah

15:19Oti: then how are you supposed to dissect it? Because overall, from an entertainment perspective, I enjoyed the show, but then when you. There's this messaging, and I feel like this is where we had a disagreement when we were talking about, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, I was like, "Mm, but there's this other thing," where I'm very keen on getting a certain message because there's a depiction out there that you have to fucking—

15:44KT: I think you called it a responsibility, right?

15:46Oti: Yeah. So to me, I'd also feel a way of there's a responsibility when you're penning this to make sure, be it Claudia, if you're using Claudia as a vehicle to, to sort of navigate all these different issues and, or trying to understand, yes, I'm Brit— I'm sort of far away from my Jamaican roots. I didn't really think too much about what that side of my family is—

16:19KT: Mm

16:20Oti: what they're going through, what the reparations are for that, if they should even get reparations. So, yeah.

16:30KT: Man, just take that Atlanta episode if you're gonna talk about reparation. Just show up to a white person's house. but I think, I think just closing off that theme about, like, making white people uncomfortable, comfortable, et cetera, especially given the climate that we're in and how Black people in particular, by the UK media in particular, are badgered, harassed, dehumanized, I think white people can handle the fucking bloody truth of their own history. You know what I mean? There's so much contorting and bending over backwards that even in a show that is fictional can't even speak the whole truth with their full throat and chest, right? And Claudia's character, she gonna go back to those dinner parties with her white friends, with her white everyone, her white dad, and never be able to fully express herself.

17:33Oti: Yeah, 'cause it felt like a bookend. Like it felt, oh, that's that part of my chapter done.

17:37KT: Yeah.

17:38Oti: Now let's continue. I'm like, "Okay."

17:41KT: I also, actually, while we're on this topic, how did you feel about, 'Cause Karla talks about Matthew Not necessarily as an entity, but he is a symbol of reparations.

17:55Oti: Mm.

17:55KT: So I. It's interesting 'cause I wanna talk about it, but I am a bit conflicted at the literary device of a character So, so, so Karla's explanation is, which is kind of you hear it, you know, in Claudia's character. I feel like there's a lot of echoing, with Claudia's character, in that, you know, people wanna talk about reparations, but what does that mean? And it can, it— This is also what I didn't like ne— And this is also, it revealed maybe the people that were holding the pen of the pen, if, if we can be a bit coded, and I'm pretty sure it was Rachel that was saying it. Ugh, what was she saying? Like, the, the Romans, or I don't know, some fucking white people fucking colonized another white people, the Britons. We're not asking for reparat— Shut the fuck up. Because if that is even a conversation in this supposed to be 10 toes down biracial show, how the fuck are you really going to be saying anything?

18:56Oti: Mm.

18:56KT: Or are you tucking your, your, your biracial tail between your toes? You know what I mean? Like, are we actually really getting anywhere? Anyway, back to Matthew's character. Karla thought it would be interesting because the conversation about reparations can, uh, be a bit too abstract. To me, it's not abstract. To me, it's actual fortunes that have been built, but anyway, to, to stop it, I guess, I guess to address it from being abstract, Matthew exists because he's lived for that long, and he's experienced all of it. So when people are like, "It was a long time ago," in this world you can't say that because Matthew has lived it.

19:38Oti: Mm.

19:38KT: Which feels very much Manbearpig. Like, I don't think, um, I don't think, uh, those that, uh, you know, were enslaved not being alive anymore is why white people can't talk about it. You know what I mean? So I, I would like to hear your thoughts about, I guess, the decision to have a symbol or I, I guess a literary, a literary manifestation of you owe me.

20:07Oti: I thought it was a cool pl- uh, narrative device of how they used Matthew in that regard, because remember, I think we found that out at the start of episode two, and it made it more interesting. It made it more, it made me at least feel a bit more entrenched into finding out, oh, let me see how they're pulling this thread so that I could see exactly where they're going, and Matthew being a manifestation of everything that has been done to their people, I thought it was cool. The only issue now is, at least for me, was the big bad of Charlotte, where it felt very mustache-twirling— to the extent of fam it made it feel less reparation-y, so you sort of forget what Matthew is just by the base of the action Charlotte's, Charlotte takes throughout.

21:14KT: I thought it was interesting 'cause Karla was saying, she essentially wanted to give dimension to Charlotte's character, and I was like, "I did not give a fuck about her." Yeah. I wouldn't say fuck her baby, but the fact that she sold off Matthew's kid, I'm like, "Hey, man, apparently kids are free game in this world," so, like, why do I give a fuck about you?

21:34Oti: Ja, fair

21:36KT: Yeah, I didn't necessarily care about Charlotte's character. I, I guess a little, a little bit going back on the lens, I didn't like, and I guess maybe we can have a conversation about it if you're, you know, if it's something that's piques your interest. But if you notice at the start of the series, even throughout the series, Claudia was, I guess you could, if I'm being kind, I would say she was fearful of her fellow Jamaican people. And if I'm being very honest, I think she, she was repug- sh- what's the word? Repugnant. Like she was not, she did not wanna be there, and she was always so ready to run to Oliver or to run to her dad.

22:25Oti: Oh, some normalcy.

22:25KT: She was always so. Sorry?

22:27Oti: Some normalcy once Oliver was, came in.

22:31KT: But she was so mis- like, she was so non-trusting.

22:37Oti: Mm. Yeah, she, she did go. Like, granted, you can understand it's new. Everything's new to her. She doesn't really believe in the spirits. A, a lot of stuff going on, she was not even really keen on understanding who the mom was. And one of the most interesting bits, at least for me, was when the aunt— Mercy uh, yeah, comes to, tries to reach out, and she just like She wasn't keen until she was in danger, that's when she was like—

23:13KT: Yeah.

23:14Oti: "Let me pull up."

23:15KT: Yeah.

23:17Oti: Bruh, I would have closed that door. I'd be like, "It's your fight."

23:21KT: Spirits are closed. Spirits can't hear you.

23:25Oti: Mm.

23:27KT: And you know what was really interesting? I, I, I'm trying, I'm trying to give a kindness because I listened to Karla talk about it. She did say her first draft is very different from, um, what came to screen, but she's still proud of it. Also, that's an interesting note for Tomi. Um, I know we're gonna get to Children of Blood and Bone eventually. It comes out in January here, friends and lovers. but she talked about, uh, you know, wanting to explore different sort of topics, including the neglect, of Black women in healthcare, especially deaths during pregnancy. And I think that is not just noble, but very important to normalize and have a specific lens, a very important, the right lens on that story. However, Claudia's. She only cares about the Black people she cares about. Like, she doesn't care about institutions or whatevs, and obviously it was very traumatizing to see her mom go through that. But the same thing like you said, like, she only reached out to Mercy when she needed help. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say it in totality, and I wouldn't say it as a generalization, but given the evidence that we were given in Possession, Claudia only seemed to care about her mom dying in the health system, or maybe the kindnesses she never had to consider the hardships that other Black women experience because she was in such a privileged world where she didn't need to think about the cultural, sort of biases.

25:13Oti: Mm. No, 100%. it's, it, it's one thing to witness that and use it as your moment of epiphany on everything that you thought you knew—

25:28KT: Mm

25:28Oti: to change, but even after the fact, she doesn't move differently. Or at least— No she understands the gravity, but she still talks to Oliver as if they're the best of friends.

25:40KT: Right?

25:41Oti: Which—

25:41KT: Even when he was possessed, bruh.

25:43Oti: Yeah. I'm like, I didn't understand that interaction because after everything you've seen, and you know exactly who you're talking to—

25:52KT: Mm

25:54Oti: there wasn't enough venom.

25:56KT: Yeah.

25:56Oti: There wasn't enough venom in that. I wasn't expecting her to go through some, you know, spiritual healing moment, you know, when she got to Jamaica.

26:07KT: Mm.

26:07Oti: You know, like we went to watch Dar- at the, uh, Sydney Film Festival, you know, where it, it felt like the director wanting, you know, it was three hour long, very, very good, but it felt like the director wanting us to experience everything because it was like—

26:21KT: It was a meaningful cut for him.

26:22Oti: Yeah.

26:23KT: Yeah. Not a theatrical cut, and I guess they're, I guess that's where we see the difference between this is a home video for you compared to this is what is for audiences.

26:34Oti: Mm.

26:35KT: Right? The same way you would hold your own family lore, not that you would be hiding details, but some things don't matter unless it's a, a trigger in a good way for you.

26:46Oti: Yeah.

26:47KT: Right? So yeah, I, I absolutely agree with that. you know, the more we talk about it I'm just like, "Come on." Um, but I do f— I do think it's interesting because I think if you were to map out all the interesting talking points of this series, it's cool that it was explored, but the fact that it came through Claudia makes it feel mismatched because her character development wasn't to care all the way, right? Her unknown of her Jamaican side wasn't curiosity, it was judgment and like, "I'm just here for my own purposes, my own Black capitalist purposes-" Mm-hmm I suppose. so it wa- it was definitely interesting, but I guess let's talk about the visual language of this show. again, shout outs to Storm. It was really nice hearing and, he, s- seeing how excited he got being able to talk about the visual language. I won't spoil it, 'cause it is quite to the very end, but there was a mirror of two scenes that is really cool because it's intersecting between, you know, the past and the present. And th- there were even locations that they were talking about filming, and I think Storm had said it was a mineral place. Like, there was somewhere that they weren't sure whether they should film, but then he decided that it was important because Jamaica and a lot of countries around the world that have been colonized are very resource rich, and this is where a lot of the resources were taken as a result to the benefit of colonialism. So to even have that in this show amongst all of the bountiful, you know, paradise visuals that you see in this show, that's when that shit means something, you know?

28:39Oti: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of countries resource rich, cash poor.

28:45KT: You said it. Mm-hmm. and I, I really appreciated the way it was done. Um, I guess one thing that we, my love, we don't need to go into too much detail, but I do wanna have it in this recording. you know, I think emancipation was your, the last straw in your back, babe.

29:03Oti: The lastest straw.

29:06KT: The lastest straw.

29:06Oti: No more beyond that.

29:07KT: I guess, you know, we covered the film Till, but even in the real-life case— That was important. And having an open casket for Emmett Till was very important because of the circumstances and the brutality and the savagery in which that young, young boy passed away So there's a general conversation on Black pain, Black trauma, depictions of slavery, and we, we know friends and lovers why these films are the ones that keep getting nominated at, you know, award shows. But I guess just focusing on this, I, I don't. I, I'll just say it. Like, I- if I'm sensitive, I don't like it. I don't like seeing gratuitous violence, whether it's, whether it's towards enslaved people, whether it's towards women in regards to assault. Like, I don't need to see graphically something go on to be able to understand it's fucked. And we had a little conversation, you know, after seeing Alfred be lynched, I, I think. Well, I think, I think they were saying Charlotte convinced him to, so I guess wording, friends and lovers, I guess is depending on your interpretation. and I was saying I didn't like that.

30:46Oti: Mm.

30:46KT: It made me start to think, "Did a white person write this? Did a white person direct this?" Because to me, first off, I did, I did not need to, I didn't want to, but even from a story point of view, I didn't need to see him be hung to know that that's what happened. There's obviously many different ways that can be depicted. and second of all, they kept going back. I stopped counting after six times. Like, they kept flicking back to the visual of it. And, y- you know, I would love to hear your thoughts on this, you know, from the conversations we had as well. But I'm saying personally, I understand there are young people that maybe aren't aware of it and they need to be aware of it, but I'm saying there's a lot you can do in, in regards to storytelling visually, sonically, without having to show. 'Cause to me that feels like you're re-inflicting harm. To, you're saying you care about, you're saying you care about particular experiences, but you're potentially harming the people with the same experiences. But you go, my love.

31:52Oti: No, I, I remember when you brought this up. At the time I was like, "Mm, I didn't see it that way." I was like, "Yeah, some things, it's just part of the story, has to be shown." It didn't feel like D'Artagnan in Django Unchained, you know? You're, we're not showing any. It didn't feel anything like that. But with just the fact that. And that's the thing, right? It— They, they don't need to show it in that graphic details which nothing, it, it doesn't add to the story—

32:29KT: Mm

32:30Oti: at the end of it. it doesn't. Yes, he took his own life, but there's zooming and the staying in that, in as much as it's uncomf- uncomfortable— I guess they're playing into the, the atrocities of everything that's gone through, and especially knowing that now it was Charlotte doing it all along, who was a slave master. Is that still what they're called?

32:58KT: Mm.

32:58Oti: That's what the, you know, that's how she moved And this is sort of what happened because she is still there I don't know. Uh, I, I'm two worlds with this. I do still see your point though

33:17KT: It, I, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, but I'm saying, like, even for women and, like, assault scenes, I don't want to see it. To me it's harmful. I don't want to see it, even if it's done with the best care. you know, I always talk about She Said all the time. Sam Morton, Samantha Morton, hello. but I, yeah, it, I guess it is an interesting point, but at the same time, like, it's feeling very frazzled. The, the way in which— 'Cause I think on paper it says biracial lawyer goes back to help the Connaught family. you know, and she struggles with her identity and Jamaican roots, et cetera. So on paper it is very clear what the premise of the show is, but even trying to discuss this meaningfully and try to assess the layers of it, it kind of got a bit limp, didn't it?

34:15Oti: Yeah. No, I see your point. I see it.

34:19KT: Karla talked about, uh, zombie not necessarily being a part of Jamaican lore but Haitian.

34:25Oti: Mm.

34:26KT: And, you know, people are always like, "Why do you need to make r- things about race, et cetera?" But the fact that zombie, like the notion of a zombie has roots in enslaved people, and the way that they were worked to the bone and there's no reprieve even in death, bruh— There's history.

34:48Oti: What is history? Yeah.

34:49KT: Ooh-hoo-hoo. Thank you, friends and lovers, for joining us another week in the For Your Reference podcast. We don't do ratings, uh, so much as our Christmas episode. I, I'm just gonna say you can keep it to yourself until Christmas or until the Tomato, Rotten Tomatoes rating. I felt a four at the start. I thought by discussing I, I might have, you know, leaned towards a 4.5, but I, I think I'm still a four.

35:18Oti: Mm. Fair. Uh, yeah. I don't know. I'll think on mine.

35:26KT: Okay. It's unfortunate 'cause there was definitely a lot of beauty in the show.

35:31Oti: Mm.

35:31KT: But that's not necessarily where we were going in regards to Claudia. I think I'll also say at first I was wondering why we had to focus on her, but hearing Karla talk about it, there's actually not a lot of h- written history from, enslaved people in Jamaica, which makes sense. A lot of the accounts are from the slave masters and the plantation owners. So I guess it makes sense from a story point of view to not wholly make it on accounts that don't exist. You wanna try and root it to, an inn. But yeah, interesting I suppose. Uh, friends and lovers, hit us up with your thoughts. Uh, we're gonna finish off in a segment we call For Your Reference. Oti?

36:16Oti: I'm gonna reference Dao because it talks about people going back to their homeland to reconnect with their roots.

36:24KT: Guinea-Bissau.

36:25Oti: Mm-hmm.

36:27KT: Uh, I'm gonna reference Roots.

36:31Oti: Nice.

36:31KT: Malachi Kirby. Could have even referenced A Thousand Blows.

36:34Oti: Yeah. Get your Chicken George wherever you can.

36:37KT: Yeah, we didn't even call Matthew Chicken George. There you go. Uh, if you wanna find Oti's Chicken George on Twitter and Instagram, we're @foryourrefpod.

36:46Oti: Write us an email at hello@fyrpodcast.com.

36:49KT: We're also, uh, Cultural Corporate Reflections podcast if you'd like to leave a review, and we'll see you guys next week.

36:56Oti: See you.

36:56KT: Bye