Kel Varnsen

Just watched it and I am not super sure what I watched. I was actually kind of expecting that at the end it would cut to like I don't know Shang-Chi and Katy walking out of a movie theatre and talking about the crazy monster movie they just saw.

It kind of makes sense to me. I mean she doesn't need a mask, because she does have a secret identity, she doesn't need armour/a helmet because she is pretty indestructible and she doesn't need a bunch of pockets for weapons and equipment because she just punches people. So it is basically about comfort and mobility and fitting when she turns back into Jen.

Speaking of electricity, if those power lines and towers were in Gilead, why have they not been sabotaged? Also while not getting to political, I live in Ottawa and I thought it was funny that there was a big rig truck parked to the side as part of the anti-refugee protest.

The issue I would see is that Gilead leadership is full of hypocrisy. They talk about how the whole point if their system is to promote population growth, but as we have seen many times (including Lawrence in this episode), it's really for the men who make it to be commanders to have power (especially over women) and enjoy the "perks" as it were. So I can't see any commander lining up to marry a widow like Serena just like the commanders wouldn't go for handmaids not being in their house. Sure their former dead husbands might care, but there dead so what are they going to do about it?

I wonder about that, like logically it would make sense, especially if the wife gave birth to her child instead of it actually being a handmaids kid. At the same time I am not sure that Gilead men give enough of a shit to bother taking care of women whose husbands are dead, or to differentiate between a widow and other types of single mothers. Plus I can totally see single Gilead men, especially future commanders wanting young new wives, not the "already used" wife of some dead commander.

There must be some kind of process for wives who become widows with children, especially since Gilead has been at war for it's entire history so this must happen a lot. Because women can't work, or own property or control money or read. So what happens if their husbands die and they have kids who exactly takes care of them. Or does the rest of society not really care because they are "just women". Or even weirder, what happens if you are the mom of like a 10 year old boy. He can read and you can't, does he become the head of household and can make decisions and boss his mom around?

That seems like a damned if you do damned if you don't issue though. Since in the past marvel has been criticized for basically being a factory with all their movies looking the same, and not allowing directors to have any creative freedom. Now they let directors have some control and people take issue with that. As for Raimi it was more like it just had a lot of his signature elements, not necessarily horror stuff (other than the whole evil book thing). I watched Darkman this past summer and when watching Doctor Strange it definitely reminded me of that movie.

Yeah it would be pretty stupid if the most technologically advanced nation didn't have some sore of back up plan for the heart shaped herb, considering how important it is to their culture. Something like a seed vault or a way to clone it or something.

Looks fun, although this show always did make good trailers. I guess I just need to bite the bullet and power through the last 4 episodes of Human Resources. But it's hard because I really don't find it funny.

Finally catching up on the last few episodes and I would have actually kind of preferred Beverly and Veronica stay over the brothers. I mean the brothers are solid racers but with a their annoying talk about being in the pocket and all the moustache stuff and talking about how much they love Guru or Marshalls it all just seems like schtick designed to get them more camera time. And the moustache stuff in this episode specifically was super annoying.

I kind of do too. I really hope that when Wanda comes back they don't just say it wasn't her fault that she murdered a bunch of people, it was all because of the book.

Not sure it's reasonable to apply the same time frame, considering the time frame between Marvel movies has been all over the place. GOTG2 happens a few months after the first movie. Plus if Strange is the one who bailed on Wanda that should have ruined his character not hers (although he always seemed like a self-centered asshole to me so that kind of makes sense). How would it not be consistent? At the end of Wandavision she was in pretty extreme emotional distress, had crazy amped up power levels and then was all alone in a cabin with a book of evil. In the comic book world that absolutely seems like a reason for someone to become a villain. Especially when you add to the fact that she had been kind of villian-ish before.

Do you really think that the guy that wrote doctor strange came up with the idea to make Wanda evil (well more evil) on his own? It seems like that is way more power than any MCU screenwriter would have. It would seen more likely that that direction came from way higher up. Also it's not like her being evil wasn't pretty much set up at the end of Wandavision.

That's what I was thinking. Being the title character in a marvel movie is a massive commitment that not everyone would be interested in taking. I am mostly curious how they explain T'challa's death. Especially from a country that is so advanced there should basically be no disease or injury they can't cure. And that is before you account for outer space tech.

I have often wondered if the refugees thing might actually be a benefit to Canada. Now of course the double whammy of steadily declining birth rates and our biggest trading partner disappearing would hammer the Canadian economy. Especially since I doubt a lot of people from overseas would be interested in emigrating to Canada based on them sharing a border with Gilead. So in a case like this, a bunch of people from the former US, most of whom are working age and can speak English, showing up could potentially be a boost to the economy. Especially when you consider that the real Canadian economy ships a lot of natural resources to the US and the buys back finished stuff. If people in Canada still want to have that stuff, manufacturing in Canada would have to ramp up crazy fast, which means you need workers.

You would hope they wouldn't. On the other hand it is also kind of scary how in like a couple of years, Canada's position has gone from believing the letters from women trapped in Gilead and telling the Gilead representatives to get the fuck out, to actually welcoming Gilead representatives and letting them set up an official location in Toronto to promote their way of life. That seems like a pretty huge change to me and makes me think the fringe groups have a surprising amount of influence. Especially when what is happening in Gilead hasn't really changed for the better at all.

It's not official, but it seems like enough of a grey area that no local building official would want to step into that political shitshow. You wouldn't do them all because there are only so many hours a day, especially when you are trying to take care of a baby and support a partner who needs a lot of help. As for Serena, I am pretty sure she left because of the security risk. Because I would really love to know what would happen if she said no we aren't going to make those changes to our building.

He's not really though. We saw in that episode where he was the speaker at that event that the whole refugee movement has rich and powerful friends. Meeting with those people and using their political influence seems like it would be better use of his time than reporting building code infractions. So would making speeches, doing interviews or actual protesting. Plus say the building inspector does issue citations and Gilead ignores them, then what? If they issue fines and they aren't paid are they going to arrest Serena because the building doesn't have enough smoke detectors? Is Luke also going to follow Serena's driver around to see if he makes any turns without using his turn signals. From the eyes of some crazy wannabe Gilead person, she has power, she is going to have a baby, she is famous, and she is beautiful. There are obviously people out there that want to be her. Not sure, but June made a comment that she was pretty worried that Gilead policies would be spreading to Canada. Having like actual diplomatic relations would be a first part of that. If a Gilead style political party started up in Canada, that wouldn't be too surprising at this point. Sure it might not actually make sense but not a lot about this show does.

The whole centre is all a propaganda thing though right? Gilead leaning people in Canada can now look at how successful Serena is as proof that their way of life is not so bad. And if they can convince their government to adopt some Gilead-lite policies it would be a big win for the commanders. Also Fuck off Luke with the building code violations. If like Tuello said that centre is considered Gilead territory, why would they have to follow the Ontario Building Code. And even if it was some kind of grey area due to the federal government not being clear, I doubt some local building/fire official would be the person who would want to sort that out. And the protests outside of the centre were also super disappointing. Like there were more people at the charity event that Luke spoke at. And speaking of which, it still makes no sense that Moira and June and dozens of other people aren't on every news channel speaking out about this. Lastly for a second in the car, I really thought that Lydia was going to give Janine a job as an aunt.

Is that how they went from "were looking from a guy from Cassian's planet" to "here is the exact name and picture of the guy we want"? Because I like this show, but so far the first two episodes I have watched on weekend afternoons with my daughter after doing a bunch of chores so I am already a bit tired. But I had thought it was the bar girl they brought in who gave the positive ID.

I used to watch that as kid back in the 80's. Looks like I would have been about 8 when it premiered so I probably didn't get the satire. But I still thought it was funny.

I feel like the really well developed across multiple movies background characters like Nebula are kind of uncommon. It's basically her, Nick Fury and maybe Happy. On the flip side you have characters like Ned, Maria Hill, Pepper, Heimdall and even Kraglin (from the same series as Nebula). So someone like Bucky not being well developed shouldn't be that much of a surprise.

I like Star Wars movie but I will agree that for the movies especially there is more bad then good in those things. Although with Rise of Skywalker I would say they probably did the best they could with the options they had at that point (what with one of their stars dying before filming started). Someone can correct me, but wasn't a big reason that Shawshank ended up as number 1 because a bunch of Batman nerds started giving 10 star ratings to The Dark Knight and 1 star ratings to like Citizen Kane and The Godfather. And then when the dust settled those movies had moved down but TDK hadn't hit the #1 spot.

I am confused then, what kind of storyline would it take for her arc to be related to her being a women? Because a lot of her story changes if you change all of Gamora's lines from "sister" to "brother" or "sibling". Are we talking a storyline where Nebula is pregnant?

I am not sure it would have worked the same, at least for me if she was instead Thanos's son or Gamora's brother.