Ask TV Scholar: 'I'm scared to drive, what to watch?'
Sharp Objects once inspired me to grip the wheel with confidence, hopefully it can for you too.
Dear TV Scholar,
I just got my first car ever and I’m terrified of it! I’m scared to go on the highway, and never use it. I had imagined myself driving all the time and going on adventures (pandemic not withstanding) but I just haven’t. What show will spark the dream of the drive in me again? Don’t say Top Gear even as a joke.
Sincerely,
Driver’s License by Olivia Rodrigo
Dear Driver's License by Olivia Rodrigo,
I would never wish Top Gear on anyone.
Your question has sat unanswered in my inbox for a year, from during a time when I tried to start a TV advice column on Medium which I’m feeling newly inspired to continue, but here on Substack. I hope by now that you’re whipping down the left lane of the freeway, gripping the wheel with confidence and still avoiding Top Gear at all costs. But in the interest of my newsletter and opening the door to future folks wanting advice via television recommendations, I’ve been reconsidering your question in case you still feel that twinge of fear at the bottom of your stomach when the engine turns over.
On a fateful warm spring evening in 2021, I purchased my first car. At the time, I had accepted a full-time administrative position on-site somewhere slightly outside of the acceptable bus commute distance, and the car became more of a necessity than a desire. In the midst of a haze of fatigue and low tolerance for salespeople, I ended up walking out of the dealership with the keys to a stick shift. I had been driving an automatic for a decade, I’m not completely sure what came over me—aside from my father’s assurance that if everyone in Europe can drive stick, so could I.
There are plenty of examples of cars as recurring characters on a television series. Think of the 1969 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser on That ‘70s Show, which was a recurring setting for character interactions and kisses, from what I can remember in my childhood viewing. There’s also the Mystery Machine on Scooby-Doo, which was definitely not hot boxed by Shaggy and the crew. In the fourth season premiere of Better Things, Sam (Pamela Adlon) buys a used El Camino after weighing its impact on the environment against how much she adores it. On Maid, a car is an expensive and inaccessible lifeline. On period shows like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Mad Men or The Americans, cars are crucial in establishing our sense of time and place. On Grey’s Anatomy, you can bet a car scene will end up in a fiery crash and life-saving surgery, or maybe a musical scene if you’re lucky.
Jean-Marc Vallée, the Quebecois filmmaker behind the camera of HBO’s Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, had a very specific way of focusing on life in a vehicle. BLL’s opening credits simply contain the five leading actresses driving. In BLL and Sharp Objects, the car becomes a space of contemplation, of quiet conversations, of angry phone calls, and of soothing drives along the Californian coast. Over the course of the pandemic, folks ate their lunches in the cars, being one of the few spaces of maskless safety. In the car of my near future, I told myself, I would be Camille Preaker on Sharp Objects minus the alcoholism, roaming the suburban streets of Vancouver Island with my windows down listening to low-fidelity Led Zeppelin from an iPod Touch with a cracked screen.
The reality of my driving for the first few months was more shock and terror than Vallée’s soft sunsets streaming through a sunroof. Here I am, in the learner’s empty parking lot with my dad in the passenger seat, a decade after we did it the first time. I’m once again terrified of this giant death trap and its ability to crush a human in an instant. I stalled and stalled and stalled. In the middle of traffic, I stalled. At a street light, I stalled through two cycles. I stalled up a hill and screamed. My skin broke out and my visions of Vallée filming me in the backseat disappeared.
But I did go back to Sharp Objects, the only show I have dared to rewatch more than four times since its release in 2018. The series is gorgeously produced, from using only natural lighting for a stunning visual effect, to its use of quick cuts to flashbacks (a staple of Vallée’s style), to a haunting and engrossing story about intergenerational trauma. The performances are impressive and complex, too, between Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson and Eliza Scanlen. The series didn’t win a single Emmy, facing harsh competition in the limited series category that year from Chernobyl, Escape and Dannemora, Fosse/Verdon, and When They See Us. It is the final directorial project by Vallée before his death on Christmas Day last year.
Since its release, my desktop background has permanently been Amy Adams, falling asleep drunk on her knuckle in the driver’s seat of her 1980s Volvo, only visible from the rear-view mirror. As Tegan Jones wrote for Gizmodo, "Camille’s Volvo is an automotive manifestation of her character—unwashed, scarred and in desperate need of some water." Jones explores the emotional connection to their own Volvo and the way your first car can become your link to autonomy of movement and freedom.
Although it took me a solid six months to stop stalling at red lights, I eventually adjusted to the rhythm. I was also eventually able to listen to something other than Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club, which for some bizarre reason was the only album that soothed me enough to focus on the road. I did grow fond of my little powder blue 2016 Kia Rio. I loved seeing it against the lush forest of my work’s parking lot at the end of a long day. I loved it even more when a gas shortage hit the province from unprecedented floods, knowing I could run on fumes longer than most. Eventually, I got a new job off the island and moved to where I am now, which meant coming to the difficult decision of selling it less than a year after my purchase.
When Lorelai’s brown 2000 Jeep Wrangler breaks down beyond repair on Gilmore Girls, she refuses to replace it. Her attachment to the car holds true for the viewer, too. At this point we’re nearing the end of the series, and we’ve seen Lorelai drive that thing everywhere—on a road trip with Rory when she avoided breaking up with her boyfriend, and again and again to Emily’s for Friday night dinners. The last thing you want to see on your car is a blinking light or an off-putting sound, an indicator that your bank account is about to suffer. Later at the dealership, Lorelai can’t get convinced to buy a newer model of the same vehicle. To Luke’s frustration, the car just feels different.
In reality, Rodrigo, what you probably need is to stop thinking about driving when you’re not driving. I used to watch Youtube videos to practice the clutch-release-to-gas ratio on my days off and I’m not sure it did much more than stress me out. Try putting on an episode of Abbott Elementary, the darling new ABC mockumentary comedy, for a cozy giggle and to forget about your driving stress for a minute. Try getting absorbed into the lush worlds of Pachinko or My Brilliant Friend, international dramas so absorbing that you’ll be too busy keeping up with the subtitles to think about your car. If like me, driving brings complex emotions to the surface, try detangling them by watching a therapy-lite episode of Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart on HBO Max. Or soothe your eyes to a screen of green by watching The Green Planet, Sir David Attenborough’s latest.
When I finally waved my car goodbye and sold it off, I wondered if the months gripping my steering wheel with sweaty palms had been worth anything at all. But I’m actually quite happy to now be in a city where public transit gets me everywhere I need to be, and sometimes I use a car share for other needs, but Lorelai’s right—it just feels different. The space of your vehicle, whether we mean it to or not, becomes a sacred and personal space. It’s where you collect yourself, where you can find immediate stillness, or where you rip your mask off like Meredith Grey on Grey’s Anatomy.
I’d love a deep archival dive into Sharp Objects if you ever get the time. Definitely one of my fav series. 💛