Kareny

Beautiful and haunting so far. I know there's probably no direct connection to Brit and Zal's The OA, but the "O A" graphics during the film linking Darby to Lee had to be deliberate. Zoomer is almost 6... and it's been 6 years since the events of The Silver Doe? The title seems to give it away that the death was a murder, but something tells me there's a lot more at play here. Glad we've got a few weeks to work through it - very much looking forward to the rest of this journey.

That's Rachel Brosnahan's real-life husband (Jason Ralph), so I think that's a good bet - surely they wouldn't have cast him in a throwaway role that never interacts with her.

To me, the thing that gets lost in all of this back and forth and comparing of facts and narratives, is that if you believe Dylan (which I do, and I think at this point anyone looking at the evidence objectively would have to), one thing is explicitly clear: Woody is lying, and has gone to great lengths to do so for years. He knows exactly what happened in the attic that day, same as she does, and yet he's ruined lives and relationships and careers just to keep lying and acting innocent. He was there. He knows exactly what he did. He's not an idiot. There's no way around it. You can't separate that from the art at this point.

If they were past the sourdough phase of the pandemic, every single one of those staffers should have had a surgical mask on. I know they're trying to make it watchable, but I can't watch without cringing at the poor and unrealistic infection control. "I assume the Go Team tested negative?" Even if they did, you still mask them in a hospital! Have these people never heard of asymptomatic carriers and poor PCR results? It's like they're all screenwriters and not healthcare workers or something...

Maryssa is free! Hallelujah. Two down, two to go.

I can only imagine how Maryssa feels. This is terrifying to follow from afar. This is going to end badly. I just hope that the kids aren't involved when it does.

Oh my god, f*ck her.

Yes, but David... most of them will pass.

I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe something was happening behind the scenes to manage the crazy, but it's been days. Just canceled my DVR series pass for this show. I'm out. It's gone from guilty pleasure train wreck to actually sickening. This is no longer entertaining, MTV.

I don't know why She swallowed the fly...

Ooh! I'll play. I think "University" was NYU - I can't remember the context, but they implied it was a private hospital associated with their public one, which would match for NYU/Bellevue. Based on that, I think "Baptist" is Presby, and Mount Zion is Sinai.

Funny enough, it's exactly the direction I expected from what was set up in those last few scenes of Part I. But seeing the characters reacting to it is better than I could have imagined. Can't wait to see the whole thing. Warning: There are lots of spoilers in the trailer, so if you don't want a lot of hints about the mythology and major changes for the characters - wait til March 22.

Okay, so, seems like Ophiuchus is most likely a separate character possessing Isobel. (Makes sense - the “fraudulent zodiac”, the thing that’s a part of them but still on the outside. Yep, I’m with them on this one.) Wonder if we’ve also seen them by another face... like maybe Wyatt, when he went off the rails? Or Noah, when he was hunting for Isobel? If Noah was Ophiuchus, that would be pretty messed up. Anyway, the “where is Ophiuchus” story is gearing up to have shades of Nasedo, but I’m already confident they’re going to do it better here. The de-aging wasn’t too distracting, and they nailed it with Michael. Baby Guerin was so huggable, you really can’t blame Alex.

I've been binging some of the old series on Hulu for the first time in years. Aside from missing the original music (stupid rights issues), in watching it again after so much time, it's clear that they plain ran out of story once they started having to answer actual questions. Once Tess shows up and the Smallville rip-off origin story kicks in and the writers start humoring the actors (oy), it's all downhill, with a few great character moments in between. RIP to Liz Parker's journal. That's what makes me so excited for this new retelling - the layers of mystery they've added like "who killed Rosa?" and "what happened to Michael's hand?" and "who is Ophiuchus?" and "what exactly is the military building on Foster Ranch?" and "why is Isobel blacking out?" and "what the hell with that creepy basement in Alex's cabin?" all are going to take time to answer, and that's time that can expand the story and not have to rely on cheap payoffs just to move episodes forward (i.e. "she's not Nasedo - OMG THERE WAS A FOURTH POD ALIEN!"). Getting to the actual origins of the aliens is naturally going to take longer this time around, which is perfect - it gives them more time to build and develop the explosive relationships between the characters, which is what always made this franchise work, and they aren't shying away from that element at all (helloooo, Malex).

One thing I'm reflecting on now that I've had a couple days to digest is this complicated dynamic between Alex, Kyle, and their dads. There's a clear consensus between them that Kyle's dad was the good one while Alex's was not, but you have Kyle's dad reaching out and being a father figure to Alex, and Alex's dad we know has been trying to loop Kyle into the alien investigation. It's like a weird father-son love rhombus and it definitely creates an interesting dynamic.