Watching 'Carole and Tuesday' Episode 2

We pick things up the next day with Tuesday living with Carole. In the morning Carole wakes up for another of her part time jobs, and what is noticeable is that Carole has a great fashion sense. On her way out she notices just how much of a mess they had made the night before, so asks Tuesday to clean things up in the meantime. Right away, if you have seen any story where a privileged individual attempts to clean, then you can guess what happens next. Tuesday attempts to clean only to end up making the mess even worse than it already was. The best part about this episode is Carole at her part time job. The description is simply to mourn the death of an individual, an odd job to say the least. The events that transpire is hilarious to say the least.

Once she arrives home, the two clean up the place together, following which they decide to talk to each other about themselves. Here Carole becomes one of my favourite characters, primarily because she wears the same shoes as I do. This segment is brilliant to listen to, the chemistry between the two is wonderful, and you get the sense that you would enjoy them talking for an entire episode with nothing else happening. During this conversation, we get an insight into Tuesdays family, her mother in particular. Her mother is an incredibly powerful individual, who has ambitions of becoming the president. Carole tells Tuesday that it would be better if they are able to play using a proper piano on a proper stage to see how the sound that the two create together would sound. She then remembers a contact that she has and decides to head to a stage.

Tao is an interesting character, he is portrayed as more robotic than actual robots, someone so detached from his humanity that he only seeks success in his endeavours with maximum efficiency. He is quite emblematic of the music producers that we have seen in music related films recently, such as Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman. Only, Tao is taken to an extreme to make the point that much more obvious. Tao is someone that uses the instruments at his disposal in order to calculate the best possible chance of success, and this is how he views Angie, to him she is a tool that would bring him yet another hit song. As you watch more and more of him, you start to wonder why he is producing music when he is clearly so much more intelligent. Perhaps he is not as robotic deep down as he is written and portrayed. This is an interesting character duality that I hope is explored in his journey.

This is the episode where we meet DJ Ertegun. Ertegun is, curiously, also the family name of Ahmet Ertegun, the co-founder of Atlantic Records. Which is an interesting bit of information that I found when looking up the character. Another example of Shinichiro Watanabe going so far to make reference to music history indirectly. When we are introduced to DJ Ertegun I immediately thought of the likes of DJ Tiesto, or Fat Boy Slim. Only the personality of Ertegun is very much larger than life, with the right amount of arrogance mixed with confidence in himself to make him appealing rather than annoying.

Carole and Tuesday force their way into the very same stage that Ertegun was having a rehearsal just moments earlier. At this point only his AI technician Rody is present with the security, and they witness the performance the two girls put on. Rody goes so far as to record the two and upload the video onto the internet. As it usually is the case with other music related stories, the video goes viral almost immediately. What I love about the stage is the design of the grand piano that is there.

Gus is a character that was introduced in the previous episode as a drunk that wastes his days in a bar. In a throwaway line of dialogue it was explained that he was a big music producer. Typically enough, he hears the girls singing, and gets in contact with Rody right away. It just so happens that Gus is also the narrator of the episodes, which is great on its own due to his personality. After a brief exchange of information and an online search Rody was able to find the girls, and so the two head over to their home and Gus offers to be their manager.

So far the show has been fairly predictable, so much so that if you make a guess as to what happens next, there is a good chance that you would be right. What really makes the show great is the characters, and the interaction between them. That coupled with the music references, and the metaphor that is used to portray the state of both the music industry today and the music that is performed at the independent level. As such I can understand why the show is set on Mars. By making this the setting it makes the two types of music that much more distinct from each other, and gets the message across that much more effectively.