The second drop of The End of an Era docuseries has arrived and with it, a scheduling shuffle. On Thursday, Taylor announced on Good Morning America that the docuseries’ final two episodes (five and six) will arrive early, moving their release up from December 26 to December 23. The pivot might be strategic to maximize attention in the pre-Christmas rush when heavy Boxing Day travel would likely thin potential viewership.
It’s also a way to meet demand in the generally warm reception the series has received. Chris Willman for Variety called the first two episodes “entertaining, absorbing, emotional.” AV Club’s Sophie Brookover descibed the series as “prioritizing maximalism and joy while highlighting Swift’s commitment to excellence even in harrowing situations.” Amber Dowling for The Globe & Mail praised Era’s collectivism approach, calling its multi-narrative perspective “a scrapbook of one of the most important moments in pop culture history.”
The sharpest skepticism the series has drawn centers on how intentionally calibrated its candor appears. This, to me, reads as outdated criticism from a time when the word “calculated” was a negatively-charged descriptor instead of an accurate take on a savvy businesswoman. Angie Han for The Hollywood Reporter wrote “The End of an Era is hardly a juicy tell-all”, pointing to the Lana Wilson-directed Miss Americana as a superior example of that genre, and is instead a “flattering portrait that will primarily be of interest to those already bought into the Taylor Swift ecosystem … who should be pleased with the warm intimacy (albeit carefully negotiated, artist-approved intimacy) on offer.” In his three star review for NME, Nick Levine opined that he hoped the series’ remaining four episodes would be “slightly less controlled,” adding the episodes lacked “gloriously off-the-cuff” and “revealing” moments as compared to other tour documentaries. In my view, this docuseries is best viewed in service to her fans, yes, but also to her brand. As a result, it’s natural to be tightly curated. The six episodes crystalize an apex in Taylor’s career, documenting the journey of the tour and celebrating its legacy while also positioning its scale against the physical and emotional labor of the humans at the heart of it. Taylor sits at the helm, adeptly maneuvering the topics of her life and career she wants to rebut or rewrite. Throughout the series, the idea of wanting to set “precedent” feels potent, with Taylor preferring to let her actions demonstrate her beliefs, with leadership as action. A buried example? The brief mention to the 2024 U.S. presidential election. “The one thing I can provide people is an escape. I’m glad I will have given 100% girlhood and hope and belief and sweat and effort because that’s the job,” says Taylor.
To contrast week over week, I found episodes three and four delivered on the minutiae and inner-workings of the Eras machine more effectively than the previous pair of installments. There were so many details that had me delightedly writing notes! I’m sure you can guess which portion of the third episode got me most excited for obvious, read: stylish, reasons.
Below, my thoughts on all that was shared during episodes three and four of The End of an Era: “Kismet” and “Thank You For the Lovely Bouquet.” I’d love to hear YOUR thoughts on the series so far so please click below to discuss it in the comments — I look forward to joining you there!
A few notes before diving in:
Fashion: In case you’re wondering about the outfits Taylor is seen wearing throughout the series, I’ve collected them on Taylor Swift Style as well as ShopMy. There, you’ll find conveniently organized outfit breakdowns which use affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase, I may get a small commission — at no cost to you! Thank you for supporting Liner Notes.
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🎞️ ICMYI: My recap of the first two episodes of The End of an Era is below and free for all to read.
Episode 1 of the series was a requisite emotional tablesetting of the heightened stakes of the Eras Tour. In the first hour, we’re briskly put through Eras 101, hitting a talking points list of the tour’s highs: Its global impact (the “Swiftnomics” effect injecting tourism dollars into every city it stopped in) and unparalleled fan mobilization amongst them. As well as its lows: The devastating acts of violence, both fatal and nearly-avoided.
What follows is a rinse-and-repeat of intertwining storylines, letting the viewer become accustomed to the pacing and soft-focus portraiture that upholds the Swiftian brand. Each subsequent chapter in the series uses an Eras Tour city stop as scaffolding to prop up a theme (choreography, costuming, off-stage heartbreaks) with guest stars both musical (Ed Sheeran, Florence Welch, Sabrina Carpenter) and personnel (Kameron Saunders, Amanda Balen, Mandy Moore, Jeslyn Gorman, Whyley Yoshimura) to act as side studies of the village it took to produce Eras (here’s hoping the remaining two episodes include a dedication to Jan Ravnik and his ladder). These anecdotes add charming, off-canvas color to the main portrait of Taylor herself who provides personal details of her own that often reward a reader willing to read between the lines. Jeslyn, in a team huddle, puts it best when she describes Taylor as someone who “like[s] to shed light on people and make them feel bigger than they are.”
For the first time, I wondered at the title of the episodes and what they say about Taylor’s headspace. Kismet is a synonym for fate. Something Taylor has written a lot about in the past. By contrast, so much of The Life of a Showgirl is about unplugging from the Industrial Fairytale Complex Taylor raised herself on. “Wood”, for all its … er … suggestive imagery, lends itself well to this concept. After Tortured Poets’ “The Prophecy”, we see the romantic whimsies that are the backbone of much of Taylor’s earlier works — where romance is framed as painful twists of destiny in order to arrive beautifully scarred at your happy ending — replaced by a more mature understanding that love is much simpler than she thought. It isn’t some great cosmic power, magnetizing those meant to be. Love is the result of everyday effort. True romance is clear-eyed, straightforward. There is no luck, there are just choices. Much like how the Eras Tour was not the result of good fortune, but of human fortitude required to make it happen - as the series thoroughly documents. The second episode title, of course, is a direct pull from the titular track of Showgirl. Whether simply a reference to her duet partner Sabrina Carpenter’s cameo in the episode or an indicator of more Showgirl content forthcoming (the album was, after all, written on this tour as much as Poets was) is unclear. But I’m hopeful!
Episode 3 captures the feeling of summer break, depicting the relaxation and the revamp of effort in the two months between the European and North American legs of the tour. By now, we’re familiarized with the on-stage efforts to make the three and a half hour show happen that fans see in person (or via livestream). Here, the camera does a lot of storytelling to demonstrate the personnel who step in when the stage lights are off. A trunk tagged “Plane 4” (quietly inferring the presence of at least three other planes) releases a puff of rainbow confetti as it’s loaded away. The short clip does as much as the post-production text overlays to convey the behemoth task in dismantling and transporting the Eras stage across the Atlantic. A feat that, alone, took six weeks.
The concept of family, both amongst the tour cast, is strong. An instrumental of “peace” drifts over footage of bassist Amos Heller with his children at home in Nashville. Co-band leader Mike Meadows unknowingly recreates a lyric from “Wi$h Li$t” as he plays basketball with his family in a different Music City driveway. As we surge past the halfway point of the series and its conclusion looms, the lingering question keeping me up is if future content will address what is next for Taylor.
The Planets, The Fates, and all the Eras Aligned
“She, from a very early age, always knew exactly how she wanted things to be.” - Andrea Swift
What happened: The episode opens with a series of childhood clips of Taylor pulled from the Swift family archives. Here, Taylor’s lifelong wish to have her most intimate songs echoed back to her by a crowd is contrasted against the gargantuan reality she’s built. “I don’t think when you’re doing that you ever, for a split second, think it will become … this,” says her mother Andrea.
My liner notes: I’ll admit I was quizzical at the initial framing. We’re already three episodes deep and the inclusion of home movie footage is the furthest pull back in the timeline we’ve seen yet. The narrative materializes with the following scenes which trace the dramatic trajectory of Eras. The plucking sounds of the “invisible string” instrumental overlaid was a thoughtful - and cinematic - touch. Particularly with Andrea’s narration working to soften the edges of Taylor’s ambition.
In the absence of pinning a performance rehearsal to a surprise cameo like the first pair of episodes, we get a delightful amount of footage of Taylor, solo, practicing her acoustic mashups for the show. Sans makeup, hair mussed, in a tee and ripped denim shorts - the image harkens to her childhood bedroom beginnings of writing songs to put into the world in hopes of documenting her feelings and connecting with others who feel the same.
The end of the episode provides a neat, ribbon-tied conclusion to the concept. It’s there, nestled amongst Taylor’s dreamily-hazed voice overlay with the image of her twirling on stage in sparkling Roberto Cavalli interspersed with clips of her similarly spinning around as a towheaded toddler with Andrea’s laughter bubbling behind the lens. Taylor abuts the idea of her lifelong desires and decades of manual labor with the sliver of magic and happenstance that life is still capable of delivering. “I’m very well aware of mysterious forces at play that I will never have control of. So all I can ever do is say to myself I’m going to use every tool in my toolkit and I’m going to paint with every single brush I’ve got … I’m going to try as hard as I can to give these people everything they want … But sometimes … there’s something you can’t plan for or something you can’t manufacture. There’s still got to be some magical, beautiful mystery to life.” The tour’s supernova success is the direct result of her exertion, her sweat, her tears, her labor. Perhaps there really are still beautiful things.
The Story of Us Looks A Lot Like Eras Now
“It’s never me. It’s always we.” - Jeslyn Gorman
What happened: The episode largely concentrates on the logistics of furiously running through the tour in preparation for its comeback in Miami, FL. The crew refamiliarizes themselves with the thousands of particulars the show necessitates, led by Rick Berger “stage managing the shit” out of the runthrough (and who, for the degree of dizzying specifics he cues, might find a fulfilling second career in air traffic control one day) amidst weather concerns tracked by the dedicated Swift Metereology Department (who knew this was a feasible career path? I would have loved to know it was an option!) tracking wind speeds with fully branded Eras Tour reports. The directors peg the supporting storyline of the episode to background singer Jeslyn Gorman’s moving cancer journey from diagnosis to her triumphant return to stage.
My liner notes: After the initial installment of episodes, the format of The End of an Era solidifies. We are deeply embedded and fully acclimated to the glittering, intensely emotional world that is Eras. It’s the personal element that drives the Eras machinery, a concept that is hammered in with each episode. Taylor, after all, once described how she is in the “business of human emotion.” It’s clear given her oversight of the series that she wanted to center the stories of everyone who took part in Eras, letting those human components complete the project’s vision.
This was particularly true of background singer Jeslyn Gorman’s story revealing she was battling cancer in the wings of the Eras Tour curtains. As someone whose life has also been impacted by breast cancer, I felt a deep pang in my heart when the distinctive guitar pickings of “Soon You’ll Get Better” played overtop her emotional telling of undergoing treatment. There was a period in my life where listening to that song was too hard, too close, too much. The fact that Jeslyn hopped on a plane to rejoin her “Eras family” the very moment she could? My heart!
Eras Never Go Out of Style
“We chose to be reflective and sentimental and tie in the designers who had been with Taylor from the beginning.” - Joseph Cassell
What happened: Of course, the thing I was hoping for most! We enter a wardrobe fitting with Taylor and her longtime stylist Joseph Cassell as she tries on new costumes slated for the final North American leg of the tour. Cheers to going out with a very stylish bang! Like much of Taylor’s inner circle, Joseph has been a long-standing constant at her side. Proof of Taylor’s preference for loyalty and track record for employee retention. The episode also goes deeper, literally, diving down into the labyrinthine underworld of the Eras Tour stage and the intricate logistics set up to facilitate the tour’s quick changes.
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The Eras Tour fashion choices that are doing more narrative work than they get credit for, Taylor’s relentless work ethic, and my unfiltered liner notes on the rest of the two episodes. Including the Travis Kelce of it all.