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There are those times on the road, stuck in traffic or rolling down free along the highway, that you are passed by a different car, and, while you can’t hear the music, you can see the people in that passing car singing and dancing and you think and you wish, if only for a moment, to be a part of their world, to be in that particular car, with those particular people, sharing that particular joy.
Carpool Karaoke, a skit that began on James Corden’s late night talk show in the US before evolving into Apple’s first mildly successful TV offering, grants its viewers that wish. Through some combination of a surprising number of cameras you are put in the car with a couple of celebrities as they drive and sing and dance and talk to each other and try to remember to watch the road.
I’ve only ever watched one episode of Carpool Karaoke and that one featured Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner, Arya and Sansa Stark, respectively, from Game of Thrones. I remember less about the songs they sang, and more of how they sung them. For example, in their rendition of “Wrecking Ball” by Katy Perry, they seemed to be competing to see who could render the most tragically wrecked performance. Maisie, at one point, looking over at Sophie’s broken, weeping face, almost bursts out laughing because she can see what we can see which is that her friend is a fucking amazing actress.
There is a somewhat hackneyed, late-night, skittishness still draped over the show—a feeling that these bits are in some uncanny valley between improv, scripted, and actual. One bit, in which they visit a Game of Thrones event at South by Southwest, is both cringey and kind of wonderful. Another bit in which they each read sentences and generally carry on in the voices of Ned Stark and Jon Snow is just wonderful. There’s also a bit where they do some kind of magical psychic mind-reading thing. I don’t really know what that was about, but they made me believe however silly and weird it looked that there was something true and sweet and lovely about it. Much like this episode.
I don’t know if I ever need to watch another episode of Carpool Karaoke, but I’m very glad I watched this one.
the magnelephant review 