The Take

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Susan Mayer was Desperate Housewives’ ‘anchor character’ – the everywoman who show creator Marc Cherry designed to be loveable and relatable. But although on paper Susan was inoffensive, there was something about her that audiences loved to hate. Over the course of eight seasons, the Housewives met with murder, fraud, bribery and so much more – so… what exactly was it about Susan, a seemingly innocent girl next door type, that made her the show’s unintentional villain for so many?

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Gilmore Girls is of course the story of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore both figuring out how to grow up into the people they want to be – but there’s a third Gilmore woman who provides a very different perspective to the show with her own biting wit: matriarch Emily Gilmore. Emily was constantly at war with daughter Lorelai, over everything from major life decisions to the minutiae of her outfits. She is uptight and close-minded, the total antithesis of the fun and free Lorelai, and she can often come across as suffocating and even straight up mean. But, if we take a closer look, we can begin to better understand why Emily behaved the way she did, and why her evolution was actually just as important as Lorelai and Rory’s.

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The Penguin’s Sofia Gigante (formerly Falcone) is a departure from her comic book and animated film counterpart. Showrunner Lauren LeFranc gave the character depth and complexity, turning her into a more than worthy adversary for titular Oz Cobb. Both are strategic, observant, and know how to appeal to other peoples’ egos. Sofia sees people for who and what they are, and often isn’t afraid to confront hard truths head-on. Along with her controlling family, Oz knows this highly intelligent, chillingly calculated woman is usually right, prompting them to do whatever they can to minimize her power.

In this show about villains and criminals, LeFranc views Sofia as “the closest thing we have to a hero”, but also knows that she can be just as cruel and ruthless as her enemies and allies. So let’s take a look at Sofia’s evolution from mafia don’s daughter to empowered mob boss, and how she stayed true to herself despite many attempts to make her into someone else

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🍿When you’re a teenager, every emotion is dialed up to a hundred, but fortunately, the teens aren’t alone! Enter teen movies, especially teen movies geared toward teenage girls – capturing so many of the issues and emotions that teen girls find themselves experiencing, including romance, comedy, angst, friendship, awkwardness, anxiety, and desperately wanting life to be a little less complicated (preferably with a happy ending!)

Let's take a look at three particularly iconic eras for teen movies and go through some of our favorite movies from each! (And we definitely couldn't fit *every* great movie into this video, so if we missed your fave let us know in the comments so we can make sure that it's in part 2!)

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There’s so much talk about how different generations are, about how we’re all constantly at war with one another… but, for as much as we may disagree about hair parts and sock heights, Millennials and Gen Z have actually come to have a lot in common. The next, younger generation coming in and taking over is par for the course because… that’s how the forward movement of time works; but, underneath the aesthetic differences between these generations, there are a lot of commonalities both in how they approach the world and how the world tries to bring them down. So what are some of these big similarities, and are there some actually useful lessons that Gen Z could take from Millennials’ struggles? Let’s take a closer look!

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Weeds’ Nancy Botwin began the show as a very sympathetic figure – newly widowed and left to figure out how to keep her family afloat while struggling with her own grief. But over the course of the show’s 8 seasons, a different, darker side of Nancy made itself more and more apparent. She remained entertaining to watch, but became harder and harder to side with. By leaning into her anti-hero nature, instead of pulling back and softening her edges, the show managed to create a portrait of a complex, messy woman and the more sinister sides of her personality that cause her to harm everyone around her in her quest for more. So, what does Nancy’s story really reveal about the reality of diving into the darkness to chase a high you can never really catch? Let’s take a deeper look.

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Go to http://zocdoc.com/thetake to find and book a top-rated doctor today. || Wondering what else is out there is a core part of the human experience – whether it’s taking a peek into a dark forest or looking out into the cosmos, we can’t help but imagine what we might be missing. And in this world of ghosts, cryptids, aliens, and all other sorts of phenomena, there’s a big emphasis on belief. This, of course, has led to a split: the true believers and the skeptics. But while skeptics are often thought of as wholly against accepting any sort of otherworldly phenomenon, when we look a little closer we often find that isn’t the case at all – they just want proof. And that drive to disprove, or maybe even possibly prove, these seemingly unexplainable things often means that some skeptics can’t help but get drawn into this world. So, what keeps pulling us skeptics in? And… could we even be the key to unlocking the truth about these kinds of mysteries?

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It’s been a decade since David Fincher’s adaptation of Gone Girl hit our screens and sent waves through society. Amy Dunne was villainous, vengeful, and… also kind of relatable. And while the story was grounded in its era, it’s in many ways even more relevant today. So let’s take a look back at the film, how its commentary on splits of the self, existing in the public eye, and the problem with the media all fit into our current world, and why Amy’s wrath still connects with audiences.

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From Wednesday to The Wilds to Euphoria to Stranger Things and beyond, the 2020s have already been filled with awesome Scary Teen Girls across the spectrum. Sometimes she's still a tyrant, or based on adult's fears of what teens are like, but no matter what, these modern portrayals have a new level of sensitivity and introspection, and have ramped up the horror to match the terrifying world these girls are up against. So join us in analyzing the newest crop of Scary Teen Girls in movies and TV to find out what makes their stories so impactful!

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In the 2000s & 2010s, the Terrifying Teen Girl - from Jennifer's Body's Jennifer to Mean Girls' Regina George to Thirteen's Tracy & Evie and beyond - started taking back her power in movies and tv by getting to tell her *own* story.

The teen girl had become a rather terrifying force in movies and tv at the end of the 20th century – adults just couldn’t understand what was going on with teens, and so this fearful, outsider perspective informed on screen portrayals. But as the 2000s and 2010s rolled around, the terrifying teen girl on screen began to enter a new, more powerful phase. These stories actually grappled with the harsh, conflicting realities that teen girls have to deal with (and many felt much more real because now they were actually written by people who had, y’know, actually experienced being a teen girl instead of just outside observers. From lack of control to oversexualization to the intricacies of war in Girl World, these teens were constantly being pushed to the edge – but they were always up for the challenge.

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