Room 104 - All Episodes
My wife convinced me to keep HBO for a little while longer, considering I was done with Game of Thrones, so with Big Little Lies second season ongoing, I decided to try Room 104, too.
Out of *****
Ongoing...
I tried, FOMO, and afterward I was pretty confident this might not be my kind of series. Three friends together in Room 104 celebrating a birthday. It's full of spirit and camaraderie, helium from balloon squeaky voiced, vaping pot, bubbly swilling smiles throughout the room....the works. Looks to be quite a weekend together. Until the conversation switches to the birthday gal's sister, seemingly an on-edge nuisance, not recovering well from a broken relationship. Charlene Yi is the birthday gal, Tom Link and Pia Shah is Yi's pals, with Jennifer Lafleur as the disturbed sister. Lafleur basically crashes the party, inviting herself in as the others look disappointed, bothered, unsettled. Yi tries to assure Lafleur her invite was lost in spam email while her buds play along. It doesn't work. I was really unnerved by Lafleur's aggressive groping and demeaning verbal assault on Link, regarding his probable interest in women despite being gay, and Shah, violatingly touchy-feely while mocking her breasts as teeny tiny. Unstable, clearly she's holding on to a thread before even walking into the room. Because she wasn't truly invited, coupled with Yi telling her friends that Lafleur was born when her parents were young along with Yi being adopted and spoiled as overcompensation for not being the biological daughter, Lafleur going homicidal was just the next step in the process of mental deterioration. While the violence in mostly inferred not elaborated, Lafleur gets her actions across through dialogue with Yi, Shah killed outside (Lafleur says she left because her aunt got sick), hidden behind a dumpster, Link strangled while showering in the bathroom (a weed-induced "anxiety coma"). When Yi tells her sister she's fed up and leaves the room, this is unacceptable to Lafleur, resulting in a head bashing via champagne bottle! Lafleur makes sure ALL FOUR OF THEM takes a selfie. That's the ironic visual the writing team goes for. The show is quirky and the interchange gets plenty awkward when Lafleur arrives. Intense and uncomfortable. You certainly do feel what the trio does. Uninvited guests with issues clearly won't typically yield net results! **
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Swipe Right
Out of *****
Ongoing...
I tried, FOMO, and afterward I was pretty confident this might not be my kind of series. Three friends together in Room 104 celebrating a birthday. It's full of spirit and camaraderie, helium from balloon squeaky voiced, vaping pot, bubbly swilling smiles throughout the room....the works. Looks to be quite a weekend together. Until the conversation switches to the birthday gal's sister, seemingly an on-edge nuisance, not recovering well from a broken relationship. Charlene Yi is the birthday gal, Tom Link and Pia Shah is Yi's pals, with Jennifer Lafleur as the disturbed sister. Lafleur basically crashes the party, inviting herself in as the others look disappointed, bothered, unsettled. Yi tries to assure Lafleur her invite was lost in spam email while her buds play along. It doesn't work. I was really unnerved by Lafleur's aggressive groping and demeaning verbal assault on Link, regarding his probable interest in women despite being gay, and Shah, violatingly touchy-feely while mocking her breasts as teeny tiny. Unstable, clearly she's holding on to a thread before even walking into the room. Because she wasn't truly invited, coupled with Yi telling her friends that Lafleur was born when her parents were young along with Yi being adopted and spoiled as overcompensation for not being the biological daughter, Lafleur going homicidal was just the next step in the process of mental deterioration. While the violence in mostly inferred not elaborated, Lafleur gets her actions across through dialogue with Yi, Shah killed outside (Lafleur says she left because her aunt got sick), hidden behind a dumpster, Link strangled while showering in the bathroom (a weed-induced "anxiety coma"). When Yi tells her sister she's fed up and leaves the room, this is unacceptable to Lafleur, resulting in a head bashing via champagne bottle! Lafleur makes sure ALL FOUR OF THEM takes a selfie. That's the ironic visual the writing team goes for. The show is quirky and the interchange gets plenty awkward when Lafleur arrives. Intense and uncomfortable. You certainly do feel what the trio does. Uninvited guests with issues clearly won't typically yield net results! **
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Swipe Right
I’m going to keep this short and sour. “Thirty minutes of my
life I’ll never get back.” A vet assistant (Judy Greer) agrees to meet a
Russian “writer” (Michael Shannon) in Room 104 on a date after the two
supposedly “matched” on a dating app. Greer tries her best, bless her heart, to
determine just who Shannon really is (he is elusive about his real name) and if
he is married or not (or has an open relationship arrangement or not). The
entire episode has Shannon bobbing and weaving from personal questions that
would allow Greer to get to know him. The endgame is as elusive as Shannon is.
Shannon talks to, we can only guess, a member of his government, discussing
causing chaos by pitting different political and ideological groups against
each other in an effort to cause confusion. Interrupted by whoever that is does
sort of create disquiet, with dialogue shared between Greer and Shannon often
at a standstill or disrupted before any real chemistry can be developed. Shannon
can’t seem to be bothered to care too much about what Greer really has to say.
Does he want just sex? Is he looking for something substantial? Is this all
just a waste of time? I just couldn’t care less by the end of it. The WTF
moment comes when Shannon, after Greer continues to pursue his identity
(eventually Googling him), breaks out (with his Russian body guards and an
actual band with instruments!) in a rap complete with mood and strobe lighting.
I love Greer and she is like the only redeeming quality in this. I despised it.
Maybe its quirky and odd enough for the right viewer but I just found this
pointless. Shannon even recites Shakespeare with a vodka bottle skull in his
hand in the bathroom. The author he claimed to be is actually just identity
theft with Greer even patient enough to forgo that if he would just talk to
her. Because his living seems to be to use people against each other and incite
societal disarray, Shannon doesn’t appear to have any qualities worth Greer’s
time. And when she tries to leave at the end Shannon and his body guards won’t
allow it! So she flops down in a chair and waits Shannon out, probably hoping
it all eventually ends. Sheesh. *
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Dolly Wells hears the voice of Leonora Pitts in the wall of Room 104, believing initially that it was just a loud occupant in the adjacent room. Pitts’ voice, at first jarring and irritating, takes on a sense of serene, calm, and soothing comfort, seemingly aware of who Well’s Catherine is and what she is suffering from…not just physical ailments (aches and pains throughout the body that no doctors or therapies can answer for) but deep down inside, at her very emotional core, it would appear. Surreal as you might imagine, a woman is taken into the vacant next-door room to see no one is there and yet a voice without a body serves as a type of healer, communicating to Catherine as no other seems to. The voice asks personal questions about family friends, trying to understand why she is so alone, tired, without the “right kind” of love and support, holing away in a hotel room during a sleepy, rainy day. Talking to a voice in a wall, it would appear that Catherine might be “slipping”. The voice indicates to us through a conversation with her that Catherine could be “going away”. Whatever the case, the voice convincing Catherine to masturbate, even creating an illustration of her resting in a valley with the wind tickling her body like loving fingers! Catherine leaves the room after the pleasurable experience, and believing that it is herself causing her miseries, needing to "let go" in order to truly find happiness and health. But upon returning (there is a fade to black for times away) she is furious with the voice for making her believe what was happening to her wasn't a literal physical condition, when it was lyme disease! Once again the melody from the voice calms and restores her peace. Then again Catherine returns, no longer in a wheelchair and debilitated, healthy, in love, and seemingly okay. But the voice, seemingly accepting of Catherine forever leaving her, eventually allows her to know a truth...something happened to the person connected to the voice and Catherine, wanting to try and soothe her in return, approaches and eventually touches the section of wall that might be hiding her body. The conclusion where Catherine is literally absorbed into the wall as the two were singing together is just as surreal as the entire episode. Just a weird half hour. **
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Dolly Wells hears the voice of Leonora Pitts in the wall of Room 104, believing initially that it was just a loud occupant in the adjacent room. Pitts’ voice, at first jarring and irritating, takes on a sense of serene, calm, and soothing comfort, seemingly aware of who Well’s Catherine is and what she is suffering from…not just physical ailments (aches and pains throughout the body that no doctors or therapies can answer for) but deep down inside, at her very emotional core, it would appear. Surreal as you might imagine, a woman is taken into the vacant next-door room to see no one is there and yet a voice without a body serves as a type of healer, communicating to Catherine as no other seems to. The voice asks personal questions about family friends, trying to understand why she is so alone, tired, without the “right kind” of love and support, holing away in a hotel room during a sleepy, rainy day. Talking to a voice in a wall, it would appear that Catherine might be “slipping”. The voice indicates to us through a conversation with her that Catherine could be “going away”. Whatever the case, the voice convincing Catherine to masturbate, even creating an illustration of her resting in a valley with the wind tickling her body like loving fingers! Catherine leaves the room after the pleasurable experience, and believing that it is herself causing her miseries, needing to "let go" in order to truly find happiness and health. But upon returning (there is a fade to black for times away) she is furious with the voice for making her believe what was happening to her wasn't a literal physical condition, when it was lyme disease! Once again the melody from the voice calms and restores her peace. Then again Catherine returns, no longer in a wheelchair and debilitated, healthy, in love, and seemingly okay. But the voice, seemingly accepting of Catherine forever leaving her, eventually allows her to know a truth...something happened to the person connected to the voice and Catherine, wanting to try and soothe her in return, approaches and eventually touches the section of wall that might be hiding her body. The conclusion where Catherine is literally absorbed into the wall as the two were singing together is just as surreal as the entire episode. Just a weird half hour. **
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