Life’s not just a bag of shit, but a leaky one.
You can’t help being touched by it.
— 1. “ Bad News ”
Patrick Melrose (2018)
renniejoy
moffatappreciationlife
steven moffat is a good writer. people think he’s a mystery-box writer, and he isn’t. he spins plots that are like … mystery-box-adjacent because the characters are scared of looking into the box and finding something as mundane and powerful as “love” at its center. the object for the characters’ quest is the relief that comes from realizing they are loved and won’t be abandoned and that they don’t have to be excessively smart or cynical or isolated to succeed. one of my favorite things to see in fiction is a.) a writer who is not cynical writing b.) characters who are afraid to stop being cynical. The structure of the narrative becomes a way to show how far the characters have to go to avoid sentimentality, only to run smack into it and become completely unnerved for the better.
