Their Importance: In season three of The Last Man on Earth Melissa is shown to have a mental illness that has re-asserted itself now that she can’t get medication for it. Mental illness doesn’t tend to get shown as a non-villainous thing in post-apocalypse shows, or as a non-funny thing in comedy shows, so I was glad when the show did this arc and treated it seriously. Although the writers never specified what mental illness Melissa has, they did do a bit of work with it –
ANDY BOBROW: When we first decided to do this thing with Melissa, like back in July or August, I called up my brother, who’s a psychiatrist (hi David!) and I asked for some help on it. The gist of it was, it’s definitely not Schizophrenia, but beyond that, it could be a few other things. Could be PTSD (which would really make sense for any of these characters), or it could be Manic-Depressive or Bi-Polar Disorder, or it could be just what they in the psych biz call a “transient psychosis.” [x]
Melissa’s storyline throughout season three involves her suffering more and more from psychosis until her boyfriend Todd locks her in a room for her own safety (which he’s devastated about), and then the gang spend a couple of episodes finding the right pills for her. It’s seen that Melissa has had her mental illness through all of her adult pre-apocalypse life, and took Clozapine as part of her daily routine. After the characters find out what pills Melissa needs, there’s a six-month time skip, and on the other end of it Melissa is back to how she was prior to her breakdown.
Issues: After the season finale aired, the showrunners did speculate on whether giving Melissa an arc about mental illness was the best thing for her character, or if it counted as a kind of temporary fridging:
ANDY BOBROW: So I’d say the lesson for me was that giving someone a trauma is not the same as giving them a story. I wouldn’t say I regret it, but the lesson for me was, like, when we decided to give Melissa a mental health issue, what we were really doing was giving Todd a story. Because Melissa necessarily kind of dropped out, and all the emotion of it was on Todd’s side of the equation.
But me personally, I think they did a good job with the arc and kept Melissa pretty relatable throughout.
In honour of the 155th year since the last portion of Les Miserables was released on June 30th 1862, Google has dedicated a doodle to Victor Hugo.
Google says the following:
Today we celebrate world-renowned poet, statesman, and human rights activist Victor Hugo. The final chapter of his epic novel Les Misérables was published on this date in 1862.
Before he turned 30, Hugo was already an established poet, dramatist, artist, and novelist. Today’s Doodle depicts some of his best-known works, includingNotre Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) (1831) and the poetry collection Les Contemplations (1856). Between those milestones, Hugo began his legendary novel Les Misérables, about social injustice, redemption, and revolution.
By the time Les Misérables was published in 1862, Hugo had been exiled almost 10 years for his political views. During that time, he produced three poetry collections, plus numerous books about social and economic disparity, including Les Travailleurs de la Mer (Toilers of the Sea) and L’Homme Qui Rit (The Man Who Laughs). Hugo later founded the Association Litteraire et Artistique Internationale to support artists’ rights.
Hugo appeared on a French banknote and is honored with streets, parks, hiking trails, and statues in most large French cities, as well as in Guernsey, where he lived in exile. Today’s Doodle is a fitting addition to the long list of tributes to the venerable Victor Hugo.
A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.
Just before astronaut Tim Peake went into space, we had a chance to send a little something up to the ISS for him to open when he got there, as a thankyou for being involved in the 2015 CHRISTMAS LECTURES. This is what we sent.
Gina Rodriguez tagged [Melissa Fumero and I] in this Facebook post, and was like ‘I’m so proud of these Latinas that are killing it!’ And I was like, ‘Oh my god! I guess I’ll friend Melissa.’ And we were friends on the internet before we even met in real life.
Now, I had a google alert for Brooklyn Nine-Nine because I had auditioned and then gone for a screen test, and then gone for a second screen test, and I was waiting to hear… And I had a google alert, and it came up that Melissa had been cast in the show.
And I was so happy to see a Latina on the show, but also so devastated, because I knew… I knew there was not going to be any network that would cast both of us as ensemble leads on a show.
So I cried a lot. And I was devastated. And I showed a couple of friends at the time and I was like *imitates crying noise*, ‘I’m really happy for her but I really wanted that show.’
It was like two days later when I got the call, and I was gobsmacked.
The world is fucking changing.
And it’s such a testament to the show that they cast both of us! And not only us, but also Terry Crews and Andre Braugher – two black men in positions of power. It was sort of an amazing thing to see.
But yeah, now me and Melissa are real life friends.
Can I just quickly say that I love and adore how much the Les Mis (and specifically les Amis) fandom has adopted diverse headcanons about all the characters?
As a half-Chinese guy who’s like…really short and isn’t a master of fung fu, I don’t expect to see myself in any kind of media. It’s just a fact I’d come to accept about life.
So when I got here and looked through the various amis tags, I expected every piece of fanart to look like the characters from the 2012 movie. It was what I was seeking out, even. But instead, I got this cast of wonderful kids who are diverse in race and gender. I fell in love. And? I don’t think I can describe the feeling I got when I found all the Asian Joly art and saw myself represented in a character that I already adored (small boy!! Fluffy hair!! Sometimes even big round glasses!!).
What I’m getting at is that I’m so, so grateful to this fandom for being so open to it all. You’ve given this particular small Asian boy one of his first tastes of good representation. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Apparently it’s 15 years today since the original Spider-Man first hit theaters. Happy birthday, Spider-Man! You’ve been with me just over half my life and I’m very grateful.
