Apocalyptic media I’ve consumed so far this year: Mr. Burns, a post-electric play; Mad Max: Fury Road; and Station Eleven.
The scariest things:
1. Self-anointed prophets
2. Men who exploit women
3. Remembering the past too much
4. Remembering the past not enough
5. The recurring grief of everyone you ever knew being gone. Reading a hopeful list of names and hearing “no”s. Furiosa falling to her knees in the desert. A man stumbling into a closed-off airport and saying, “I thought I was the only one.”
Mad Max: “Who killed the world?”
Station Eleven: “I stood looking over my damaged home and tried to forget the sweetness of life on Earth.”
Mr. Burns: “And now that I’ve lost everything / Now that everyone I love is gone / All I have left is everything / The river carries me on”
All three of them end with the beginning of something new.