Bindulge – Scenes and Speeches – Collecting Zip Codes

A few weeks ago, I found myself compiling a list of some of my favourite scenes which were primarily speeches or monologues from TV series. The reason for my compilation is beyond the genre of this website and probably the interest range of my audience. However, I’m bringing it up due to the fact that I thought it would be a good idea for a post to be read (and the clips watched) on a day you’re feeling a little sentimental, in need of something a bit mushy, as the majority of these scenes are tearjerkers, well, at least my tears did not need convincing…

Sherlock’s Best Man Speech

If there is any series in the last couple of decades that combines mystery, comedy and drama well, it’s The BBC’s version of Sherlock Holmes. And Benedict Cumberbatch’s deep voice and sharp jawline and high cheekbones (my gosh can you see me drooling?) don’t have anything to do with my admiration for this show. I lie. His visual and audio attributes (much to my friends’ dismay, as apparently when it comes to personality, he’s as chauvinistic as my other celebrity darling, Leo Dicaprio, but I digress) have a lot to do with my immense interest in bingeing this show (at least) once a year.

Anyhow, it is the British humour intensified with the thrill of a good mystery, interwoven with drama concerning human relationships that makes this show nothing short of outstanding.

Sherlock’s best man speech was perhaps the highlight of the entire series for me. In an episode revolving around the relationship between two main characters, it was the third wheel (although Holmes is THE wheel) that stole the show. His arrogance, unimpeded, his utter ignorance infuriatingly adorable and his sudden humility completely unexpected…

2. Midge Maisel’s Accidental Entrance into the Stand-Up World

The Marvellous Mrs Maisel deserves a whole Maisel-Appraisal post in its own. But for now, I’ll stick to Midge’s first and last stand-up skits, not only because of what they are as independent skits, but also what they represent in terms of how Midge changes and develops while staying true to her essence throughout the show.

Miriam “Midge” Maisel bursts onto stage on the night her husband, a mediocre man of barely much importance with a combover, after failing at his own comedy skit, tells her he is leaving her for his secretary. Having had made a brisket and taken and left it at the venue, Midge returns to the Gaslight Café (which actually existed in Manhattan and unfortunately closed its doors in the 70s) to salvage her Pyrex bowl. She wanders on stage and after realising she has a half-attentive audience, unknowingly begins her career as a stand-up comedian.

The last skit presented on the show, is definitely not Midge’s ultimate show, but one of the most important of her career. It beautifully portrays her progress as a dependant-woman-turned-independent, mother, daughter, friend, client, ex-wife, employee, colleague.
Staying true to the Midge style of ending up on stage, she very much hijacks the microphone and endearingly bullies her boss out of the frame.

The scene is filled with goosebump-inducing moments; from the second she comes up with the idea to take the stage to the internal struggle of making the decision to the absolute kick-ass of a skit to Ford’s invitation on the couch, to my favourite part of the entire scene; the response of those near and dear to her; admiration, pride, respect (the comedic bowing and hats-offing of her fellow writers), awe and absolute adoration.
(If you have access to Amazon Prime Video watch it there, since you’ll get the full experience and all the details I described. I could not find the whole scene on YouTube.)

3. Tony’s Dialogue with Anne

Ricky Gervais. What can I say about this man that can do his genius in humour justice?

I am a British Humour fan. The dark comedy portrayed in the Brits’ daily dialogues when they are not even trying to be funny is absolutely mesmerizing to me. I am envious of how they as a nation have a knack for making the darkest, sharpest and yet at times most politically incorrect (not always a bad thing especially in this harrowing “Woke Culture”) jokes without batting an eyelid. To be able to emulate discomfort in a somewhat comedic setting in an intelligent manner is a trait I aspire to have.

This differs from the humour in which the people of my own culture and nation possess huge amounts of aptitude. Iranians, due to the socio-political pressures from left right and centre (the West being the “left” from this idiom”), have developed a tactic that allows for a release. Self-deprecating at times yet nearly always on point and quick-witted. I have learnt that this happens in many countries fighting similar suppressions. This “finding humour in the darkest of times” must be a survival mechanism, one that comes in handy if you want a career in stand-up. Then again, in a country like my own, where freedom of speech and freedom of pen are just as real as mermaids, unicorns and goddesses, that skill has no financial benefit.

Back to Gervais; I’ll probably at some point dedicate an entire post or two to his works but for today I’ll stick to two of my favourite shows by him. Morbidly enough they both revolve around death, or the path to it.

After Life is filled with “pass me the tissue box” moments and the bitter, suicidal protagonist, Tony, is rarely seen without a frown, rolling his eyes or at best a smirk. He is adamant in professing that life is shit and people are even shitter. But it is in those conversations with Anne, a kind and soft-spoken widow who he’s met during his trips to his late wife’s grave, that we see a more sentimental, or dare I say, optimistic Tony. This conversation in particular may be the cheesiest of them all, but somehow it manages to push all the right buttons in me; a person who truly believes that kindness is the most important quality in huma and who has managed to convince her 5-year-old boy that “kind people win at life”. In a show revolving around death and the life of those after the death of a loved one, dialogues about kindness have to be my favourite moments.

4. Derek’s Kindness

And then we have Derek; what I consider the most heart-warming work of Gervais’.

Derek, played by Gervais himself, a man with an unknown mental disability, works in a nursing home, where “people come to die”. In an interview Gervais was asked what kind of disability Derek had and Gervais slyly answered “Does he? What does he have? Who says he’s disabled?” His response displays his reluctance in labelling Derek as someone mentally challenged. He has no blood-related family; his mother is dead and he has no relationship with his father who abandoned the family when he was young. Yet Derek is not alone or lonely, for his colleagues and patients are his family. Derek has a heart of gold and as you will see in this clip, he has won at life as he is the kindest of them all.

Referring to Gervais’ remark (or lack thereof) on Derek’s disability, one can easily understand Gervais did what Gervais had set out to do; depict the protagonist as an Everyman yet Superman, for he possesses the most important trait of all; kindness…

5. Sheldon and Amy Receive the Nobel Prize for Physics

The very last episode of the entire show is home to one of my favourite scenes of all time. Sheldon, upon receiving the Nobel Prize for Physics with Amy, steps on stage to give his acceptance speech after Amy knocks it out of the park with a “look girls, science is cool!” speech. Sheldon, just as we’d expect from him after ten seasons, flashcards and notes in hand, ready to self-praise his way through the speech, steps up to the podium, but after thanking his family and his beloved “Meemaw”, he has a change of heart. The flashcards are ignored as he dedicates his speech and his prize to his “other family”, his friends, who are in the audience, asking them to stand up one by one. (I am covered in goosebumps even writing this) And each and every time he addresses Howard with his proper title, after a decade of mocking him, I am in tears…