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justarandombrit · 2 months

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Well. Here you go, I guess. (To avoid the massive amount of preamble skip to "The return of lines from Spies Are Forever...")

Spies Are Forever is a 2016 spy-parody musical set in 1960s America. It's by the Tin Can Bros and is all professionally recorded on YouTube for free, so I recommend watching it before reading this, as I will be talking about the penultimate in-character song from this musical, which, despite being a parody, is very much also a serious spy story, with a lot of twists and turns.

It is probably my favourite musical of all time, so I'll give you an hour or so to watch it.

…

Back? Has your brain chemistry been fundamentally changed? Yeah, that happens.

Anyway, just in case you decided that you didn't care about spoilers, I'll give you a quick overview of the plot you need for this essay.

Agent Curt Mega has been retired from spying for four years, since his partner (Owen Carvour)’s death due to a mistake Curt made. He decides to get back into the field to fight the enigmatic Deadliest Man Alive and ridiculous Baron Von Nazi, and stop the construction of the “Nazi Super Castle”. Along the way, he works with Cynthia Houston, head of the American Secret Service, Barb Larvernor, scientist, Tatiana Slohzo, Russian spy and the Informant, informant.

Despite being a comedy first and foremost, a lot of the musical hinges on the villain’s plot, and that is important in this overview.

We are led to believe that Von Nazi is the “brains” behind the operation, so to speak (despite him having none himself), up until a confrontation where, after killing the prince of The New Democratic Republics of Old Socialist Prussian Sloviskia and convincing the country's government to sign off on the plans for the Super Castle, the DMA literally and figuratively stabs Von Nazi in the back.

This, like many of the DMA's actions throughout the show, seems completely unmotivated. The main characters question this, and, in a suspenseful, absolutely devastating moment that I cannot do justice through the medium of writing, the DMA is revealed to be Owen.

I could write pages and pages about this moment, about the foreshadowing leading up to it, about Curt's reaction, Tatiana's reaction, Joe Walker and (actor) Curt Mega’s acting, how it's Joey Richter (Owen’s actor) who says the line “Personal history does have its benefits, Mega”, that line itself! This scene keeps me up at night, but this essay isn't about that.

This essay is about the song directly following this scene.

As Owen predicts in his speech, Curt goes after him instead of the information warehouses created by Owen’s agency, Chimera. This song serves as a villain song for Owen, no longer disguised as the Deadliest Man Alive, and also a duet for Owen and Curt.

Although up until now I have been explaining the plot in order, a good chunk of this analysis requires the context of retrospect. So, again I implore you to watch it. It's only 8 minutes long and would really make my job easier. Act Two, Part Six.

https://youtu.be/yMBi9hp2QVQ?si=IUz42a_1DTMi4eNS

So. Curt and Owen were lovers. Even though that moment (along with Curt shooting Owen) had been spoiled for me before watching, I still gasped at that scene. Anyway, with the added context of what sort of “partners” they were, we can now move into the analysis.

I'm no music theorist, as evidenced by most of this essay being about the depth of the lyrics, not the music, but, as YouTube user ConsiderableColors pointed out in their video-essay “Motifs Of Remembrance In Spies Are Forever”, One Step Ahead does not have a single use of the common leitmotifs throughout the rest of the show, symbolising how Curt has moved on from mourning and feeling guilt over Owen, and accepted what he has to do.

(Sidenote; that video is incredibly good, and I'll be linking it at the end along with another SAF video-essay I love)

The return of lines from Spies Are Forever (song), specifically, “Who do you trust, who do you betray?”, really highlights TalkFine’s amazing lyric writing, recontextualising lines from the opening song, which clearly parodies the famously nonsensical Bond songs, because, as we all know:

Foreshadowing is a dramatic device in which an important plot point is mentioned earlier in the story to return later in a more significant way...

I hope somebody got that reference.

Anyway, one important aspect in the structure of One Step Ahead is, for the most part, Owen always sings his lines before Curt, reflecting how he is, a, literally ahead of Curt, as he is being chased throughout most of the song, and, b, was figuratively ahead of Curt for most of the show, knowing and predicting his every move.

Owen sings “One step ahead, that's how it's always been”, to make out that Curt is incompetent, as we see him do multiple times in the previous scene. Of course, at this point, the audience should realise that this is untrue, but it makes complete sense why Owen, the man who almost died because of a mistake Curt made, should think this.

In the next verse, Owen continues with the much softer, although arguably more hurtful to Curt, “One step ahead, I'm sorry my old friend / But I'm still here / After all those years when you thought I was dead / I was one step ahead”

When listening to the song for the first time, “old friend” may sound like a bittersweet term of endearment, but with the context of the true nature of Owen and Curt’s relationship, this can be read more as an insult, as Owen disregarding their relationship, and pretending nothing ever happened between them.

Curt, still reprising lines from Spies Are Forever, next sings “It's time to save the world again”, making no mention of beating Owen or “overthrow(ing) (...) an evil power” like the ensemble sings at the start of the song, because at this point, Curt still has hope for Owen. He still believes he can get Owen to leave Chimera and he can get the Owen he knew in the opening song back.

Owen quickly shoots down this idea with “Typical Curt / And pretend to be a hero again”, which both takes a shot at Curt’s saviour complex, but also all of the duo’s previous beliefs, which we know Owen now believes were not really the right thing to do. Thus, this line could also be read as Owen showing his disdain for both A.S.S and MI6, and, by proxy, who he used to be, and who Curt still is.

Curt retaliates, now giving up on reprising SAF and instead following the tune Owen sang, with “Typical jerk!”, showing that he's now somewhat accepted that he won't be able to easily get Owen back, and has fully joined in on the fight. (Also I don't know how to include this but, after this line in the live version of the song Joey (Owen) says “Ooh, sick burn” in the most sarcastic way you've ever heard and it's amazing)

He then asks “What happened to the man I knew?”, implying that he's realised that Owen is no longer “The man [he] knew”

Owen gives a snarky response in, “It's a little late for an interview”, further showing his hatred of the man he used to be, and refusing to defend himself and his beliefs, despite going on to do exactly that after this song.

“Feelin’ a lot of déjà vu again” This line is sung one inch away from each other’s faces… I'm just saying, they knew what they were doing.

We can see that all of the quipping in the previous lines got to Curt, as he sounds much angrier than at the start when he sings “It's time for you to feel the heat”

Of course, Owen retorts with the much calmer “Revenge is going to taste so sweet”, once again reminding Curt, and us, the viewers, of his motivation throughout this song. In this song, Owen doesn't attempt to hide or downplay how much his trauma from Curt leaving him to die, or his desire to get revenge influenced his actions, unlike later, in The Staircase Scene, where he seems to genuinely believe he is acting for the good of spies, and humanity as a whole.

In fact, pretty much the only time revenge seems to play a factor in his choices when he's monologuing in The Staircase Scene, is when he says “I'm going to single-handedly dismantle everything you've ever believed in”. This, along with how his voice breaks when he says that line, tells us that he may be being more honest about his true motivation during this song, and lying, to an extent, about it afterwards.

They both proceed to call each other platonic, and slightly condescending nicknames (e.g. pal, buddy), both to try and undermine each other, and also possibly because they're still rightfully cautious to admit that they were anything more than that, in a society that demonised and criminalised homosexuality, especially for government workers, like secret agents.

Afterwards, Curt tries to retroactively justify Owen’s betrayal to himself, as we see in “You played me from the start”. He tries to convince himself that the betrayal was inevitable, and that Owen had been lying since they met, unable to accept that Owen really had changed because of Curt’s own actions.

“Well look at you / Without a clue” Owen quickly refutes this, unwilling to let Curt believe he is completely innocent, by reinforcing that he really did love Curt once.

Instead of doubling down, Curt goes with what Owen said, attempting to appeal to his emotion with “You know you broke my heart”.

“Don't deny I was the better spy” This line breaks me. Genuinely, I've spent hours thinking about this line. Think about the implications. PROMISE ME YOU'LL THINK ABOUT THE IMPLICATIONS.

See, the reason I love this line so much is that Owen is right. Objectively speaking, Owen is the better spy. And not in the way that Cynthia thinks, and not in the way he implies throughout the show. Curt is not incompetent by any means, but he is reckless. Owen is not.

The only reason Owen even survived at the start of the musical was because he took the proper safety precautions to limit the blast of the (completely unneeded) bomb Curt set the timer purposefully too short for. It makes complete sense why Owen would think he's better at spying, however I don't believe that he does. Maybe to an extent. But not fully.

“Don't deny” shows he really wants validation via this statement. He wants Curt to admit that he's better. That what happened was Curt’s fault. Maybe Owen does believe he's the better spy, maybe he doesn't, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that Curt believes he is.

(I had a lot more to say about that line than I thought…)

Instead of succumbing to Owen’s demand, Curt retorts, “I liked you better when you were dead”, which seems harsh, but utterly understandable. Owen’s betrayal hurt Curt so deeply, so intensely, that he preferred the years spent in mourning for his lover, quitting his job and drinking so much he hallucinated Owen’s ghost, because at least that Owen was the one he knew. The Owen that died a hero, rather than the one who lived long enough to become the monster.

Please forgive that cliché, but it seemed applicable.

After this, Owen reiterates “One step ahead / It's how it's always been”, but this time, Curt responds directly to Owen, with, “Can't let you win”. He's now outright saying that he and Owen are on opposite sides, rather than speaking vaguely about “saving the world”.

Owen, while still angry, again seems to be more interested in reminding Curt of his mistake and making him suffer emotionally. The “I'm still here” has an unspoken “Even though you weren't”.

Then, after Curt’s line, he goes back to the superiority idea, “And I'm better than you again”.

Interestingly, Curt doesn't attempt to appeal to Owen’s emotions again, or even insult him, instead just responding, “This is the end”. Either, at this point he has fully given up on reasoning with Owen, or, the earlier “You know you broke my heart” was a mistake, an accidental show of vulnerability Curt didn't mean.

My personal interpretation was that the line was a last-ditch effort from Curt, a sort of hail Mary to try and get Owen to see sense by alluding to their relationship. We see him do this later on in The Staircase Scene, by outright stating it, and it almost works. Almost.

Owen's line, “No one's innocent” shows a lot about his character. Even though he's trying to shift blame onto Curt, he still acknowledges wrong-doing. After all, he can't pin the over 1,000 people he killed as the Deadliest Man Alive on Curt, that was all him.

“My friend, you lost your mind” Here, Curt does the exact opposite of what he was doing before. Instead of making it out that Owen never loved him in the first place, e.g. “You played me from the start”, he disregards the reasons Owen joined Chimera, blaming it on Owen “going insane” or “losing his mind”.

As we've now come to expect, Owen immediately shuts this down, determined to make Curt feel the full gravity of what Owen sees as his original betrayal. When he says, “And you've been blind”, Owen is talking about how, in his opinion, Curt is blind to all the pain he caused, which we know is actually untrue, and we also know that Owen knows this, see “I spent as much time hating you as you did”. This, like so much in this song, is a way to guilt trip Curt, despite being an obvious lie.

This line could also be interpreted as Curt being blind to Chimera, and being so enamoured by spying and taking down governments that he is forgetting to notice (what Owen thinks is) the bigger picture.

“Now we're at the end” is pretty self-explanatory. This is the climax of the show, the point all of this has been leading up to.

The line “This is what you made me do” is sung by both Curt and Owen and has different connotations for each. Owen is once again referring to Curt abandoning him in the warehouse, causing him to join Chimera. Curt is talking about the fight itself, as he's tried to reason with Owen, but, after all of this, he's now at the end of his tether.

In the lines

“We're done”

“We're through!”

Owen sings first, symbolising how he moved on faster (well, visually, but I stick by the “Owen still had feelings for Curt until his real death” headcanon - I mean, he could've shot Curt at basically any point throughout The Staircase Scene, he chose not to). But Curt shouts louder, showing his anger about how Owen has acted after “coming back from the dead”. Also, this is their official breakup. Just think about that for a second.

These lines could also link back to the fact that this is the climax of the show, the writers are sort of telling you “This is it guys, we’re almost finished”.

The finality of the moment is emphasised by “I've nothing left to say to you”. They've both made their cases, neither was convinced, but they've said all that was needed.

After this, there's a direct homage to The Sound of Music,

“So long

Farewell

Auf Wiedersehen

Adieu

Goodbye”

…only in a minor key, taking the music from a romance and altering it slightly, depicting Curt and Owen’s own relationship. Furthermore, this is the goodbye hinted to in both Spies Are Forever and The Coldest Goodbye. This is the coldest goodbye. Why did I reread that in Eleanor Shellstrop’s voice

In conclusion, One Step Ahead is a song about truth, betrayal, tragedy and love. Curtwen is one of my top ten ships (and just character dynamics in general) of all time, and I hope this essay did them justice. Hopefully I didn't repeat myself too much? I love this song, show and characters so much that I got incredibly overexcited for massive parts of this.

I hope you at least got something out of reading this, and so one last toast. To honour-

Links:

ConsiderableColors’ essay: https://youtu.be/cS05pAQAFaY?si=16BHM3eU-gEUkxXE

Spies Are Forever: Decoded:

https://youtu.be/OYAbmbKoaqc?si=9EpZ1wYr_SMBPCP0

Ooh! New one!

How Spies Are Forever Defies Cliché With Parody

https://youtu.be/QhIwDhZKPvM?si=h6IFpKoFCHR0T-iK

(I can't believe this is also about Argylle lmaoooo)

#well enjoy this #this is the biggest analysis ive ever done... if it does well i might continue my grace chasity analysis...#or the one about starship's soundtrack #let me know if anybody would actually be interested in those #spies are forever #saf #tin can bros #tin can brothers #tcb #one step ahead #agent curt mega #owen carvour #tcb spies are forever #curtwen #tcb analysis

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