rab01

I haven't read the book so whenever the plot centers on Wednesday I can only think of Norse equivalents, which could be either a seedling from Yggdrasil or more interestingly a sprig of mistletoe like what killed Baldur. But since the mythologies always cross on the show, I have no real clue.

Isn't that why she burned the library, rather than him?

Damn, I now remember reading that article before the season started and planned to lower my expectations accordingly but I guess I didn't lower them enough. What really stands out as sad from that article: (1) Gaiman helped push out Fuller and picked the S2 showrunner who promised to be more faithful to Gaiman's story; (2) how often do you hear network notes that turn out to be right? (they were worried that S2 was too prosaic and looked cheap); and (3) that the cast hated next week's episode as much as this week's episode.

Sigh. The show is so drab compared to last season. It's ok that the plot doesn't make much sense to me because why should I understand gods' motivations but the visuals are so ordinary now and the dialogue with the girl who picked up shadow was so on the nose. Also, I get that new media would be into tentacle porn (well new as of a decade or two ago) but if I'm siding with technical boy in a scene, the rest of the characters have dropped their level immensely.

I've seen some people saying that Whittaker's run as Doctor Who tanked in the ratings but I don't think that's right. According to the articles I've found it did better than a lot of nuWho: https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a870425/doctor-who-series-11-ratings-down-success-decline-jodie-whittaker/ and even an article that spun the drop from opener to finale as a huge death knell still had to admit that it did better than Capaldi's finale: https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/12/female-doctor-who-season-ends-with-35-ratings-drop-and-37-rt-user-rating/73549/ Personally, I've liked but not loved this iteration -- none of the scripts have made me go "wow", and I like Whittaker but not really loving the companion dynamic -- but I don't think critics should pretend that it's some titanic failure.

They work for a secret spy agency. Keeping the Pierces' secrets probably doesn't rate in the top-10 of shady stuff they had been keeping quiet in their careers up till now. Also, the ASA may want to keep it secret so they can blackmail the Pierces but I don't think that option is really mission critical for the ASA. You are absolutely right within the framework of the show but it still doesn't make any freaking sense to me. (Just like I didn't understand and couldn't accept the same scene in Suicide Squad.) As for your questions, Tobias' plot-armor is darn near impenetrable. Sigh. I think Tobias is a decent enough villain but the lady he killed in Season 1 was such a better one.

It feels like there was a plan for the first season but not much of one for this season. I still like the show but it's being carried by the acting along with the fight choreography and music cues. I hope that next season can get back some of the interactions with ordinary people - the danger in the first episode came from Jefferson being in a traffic stop and Jen going to a gang-run club - situations that felt like they had real peril. This last episode I can't think of anyone they spoke with who wasn't powered or part of some conspiracy so I wasn't really worried for anybody's safety. Also I have a pet peeve -- Can the villains please stop killing their competent underlings? Agent-guy killing a roomful of useful surveillance people; Tobias killing his computer hacker, etc. Have the villains go back to threatening and killing innocent people so I can be scared of them again.

I was fine with Jefferson deferring on taking back his job but I wanted him to say something like: "I know what it's like for a principal to be judged by the pubic perception of a single incident. While his acts were worse than my supposed responsibility not somehow stopping a super-powered battle inside the school, I wouldn't want the Board to repeat with Lowry its mistake with me. His policies should be given a full term to see if they fail or succeed. I may be open to considering the position next year." As for the computer hacker, we didn't see his face on a corpse so I don't think he's dead. I wouldn't be surprised if he discovered the bomb plot beforehand.

It helps that I first watched and enjoyed Shawshank before the overpraise that it's received in the last ten years. I'd never have thought to compare Deer Hunter and Shawshank but now that I've fallen down that rabbit hole -- Deer Hunter is by far the better movie. It's a great movie with great performances by a cast full of that generation's very best actors. But, it's not a fun movie to rewatch. To me, Shawshank doesn't belong in the list of top 20 best movies but it is very rewatchable. While both movies have dark and light moments, Shawshank makes audiences feel good and Deer Hunter makes them sad. Both movies are doing their jobs in that manipulation but which one makes for a more pleasant weekend afternoon?

Has anyone mentioned Stephen King yet? I've read a bunch of his books and seen a ton of movies based of his books but not necessarily the same ones. Of those, I'd say "The Dead Zone" is a better movie than book (because of Walken's performance) and that The Shining is a good Stephen King book but it's an amazing movie, even if the two may not be as closely related as King would have liked. Also, I love The Shawshank Redemption as a movie but it's just a cute short story. (As King books where the book is better, there are probably too many to count.)

Agreed, the Godfather is so much better as a movie than a book; the Hollywood portions are so unpleasant to read. Silence of the Lambs is a good book but I think it's an even better movie. 2001 is a better movie than book but I'm not sure it counts because the book was written simultaneously with the movie.

What the hell is a "criminal motion" that Matt is supposedly going to file? He's supposed to be a lawyer - just serve a fucking subpoena and get your documents or file a contempt motion in 20 days. Then it would be crystal-clear that burning daddy's papers was spoliation of evidence and sue his ass.

I thought it was all right. Her main concern was to get Jessica to stop blaming herself. If that requires telling mean truths about your dead spouse, then so be it.

I think that comment is part of why Trish was so very traumatized by her reunion with the director. She feels complicit in the relationship she had with him and he pushed all of those arguments directly back at her. But she was only 15-years-old at the time. She couldn't know how entirely fucked up that relationship was, which is why the law puts predators like him in jail when they can catch them at it. Her mom convinced her to cozy up to him and his 40-year-old ass was totally into having sex with a girl who was just FIFTEEN. The adults are the ones responsible but the victim is the one carrying the guilt. Pretty realistic.

Just getting to Jessica Jones. (I was delayed for a long time by trying to slog through Punisher, Iron Fist, etc and failing at it.) NY lawyer here -- you are exactly right that Jeri and her firm CANNOT represent Cheng against Jessica. It's not even a gray area. Assuming that Jessica isn't a current client of the firm - not a safe assumption given the nature of their relationship (and the issue is considered entirely from what is reasonable for Jessica to expect as the client, not Hogarth's perspective) - she is still a former client of the firm. A lawyer cannot represent anyone against a former client in a matter that is substantially related to the prior representation or in which confidences learned previously would be helpful. You could make an argument about the first test but Jerri has absolutely learned things from the prior representation that would be incredibly helpful in a lawsuit by Cheng. In addition, Hogarth engineered the confrontation between the two so she has a financial interest in that fight (because of Hogarth's potential liability to Chen) so she is conflicted for that reason too. One nitpick - Chinese Walls are still used in NY and are recognized by the courts. They don't apply to current clients and probably would not be tolerated here because it's one of the name partners who was handling the prior representation. And one caveat - big firms draft retainers for some clients that include "advance waivers" against certain claims of conflict. It might be possible to draft one that would technically cover this situation but given what we've been shown in Season 1, that waiver would be held ineffective by a court if it were presented with all the evidence truthfully. (A big "if" in Hogarth's case.)

I remember that brush and I remember a little bottle of fluid that came with ours that you dribbled on the brush so that it picked up the dust -- In other words, it wasn't you it was your equipment.

Wow, that's an amazing career or an amazing several careers actually.

I wish that Netflix had ordered their episodes differently and put this one ahead of the Christmas bake off. The bakers on this episode were fine enough choices and baked well but not as well as in the Christmas episode (and Christmas also had two of my favorite contestants) so this episode gave me a little letdown. If I'd only had an inkling, I would have swapped the order I watched them in and loved both episodes.

If they're gonna do another outbreak show (after having botched it in FTWD's 1st season), I'd like to see them set it in England. Two reasons - (1) we don't know for sure what happened in other countries (the Americas may just be quarantined) so there isn't the prequel problem of knowing where things end up; and (2) the actors can use their natural accents. (I sometimes feel like Reedus and McBride are the only Americans on the show.)

I think that most of the sexism on the show is intentional acts by characters, rather than the show's sexist attitudes. In the last scene, they show Ambrose being skeeved out by all the patriarchal bullshit that the High Priest is spouting to make sure that we know it's a problem. Similarly, his treatment of Lilith is shown to be idiotic and her plans shown to succeed while all his fail. For me, some of the early episodes and some of the later episodes were pretty good but the middle ones dragged a little. Also, they need to do way fewer close-ups of bad prosthetic monster faces. I know that the show will go to a showdown with the dark lord but I would prefer it if they really treated it as choices between two worlds, rather than good vs evil. There's no reason why they can't focus on the devil as being for pleasure, free will, pride, and unconstrained ego more than causing others pain. They're never going to show god anyway so I'd enjoy a show that toyed with expressly accepting that witches praying to Satan can be the good guys, rather than our religions.

Successful storytelling by them -- I'm pretty sure they want us to be rooting for her to live and them to die. I think the Fair is Ezekiel's idea and various people are trying to help him make it come together, Jesus having been one of them.

Wait, but River Song also had regenerations just from having been conceived on the Tardis, right? She used up one or two before meeting the Doctor and then gave him all of her remaining regenerations to undo his death in the Kill Hitler episode ... So, are regenerations related to the TARDIS technology and then bestowed by the Time Lords? And, are ordinary Gallifreyans really OK with some people in their society being granted multiple lives but not them?

Aren't they all time lords?

In TWD-land, it's always dumb to ask "does that make sense" but ... does it make any sense for Oceanside to still be all female several years after the war? I'd get that it would always be a matriarchy but surely by now *some* of the women there would be interested in allowing the occasional man to apply for entry? Or at least be interested in having children and not exiling their male children? Oceanside was not an enclave established by women solely attracted to other women but one where the men were all killed by saviors so wouldn't a few Oceansiders choose to resume male companionship?

Nashville -- That's a pretty good start towards the speculation but there was probably also a specific inciting incident, not just a gradual drifting apart and not just political disagreements. I think that because while at Hilltop Michonne mentioned a specific decision they didn't agree with but that it kept them alive to disagree. Add to that the complete absence of any mention of Sanctuary and I'm guessing that Michonne burned Sanctuary to the ground after they had proven themselves unsustainable and refused to follow orders. It would also explain why there's no coldness between Carol and Michonne even though the Kingdom is suffering worse than Hilltop. I know that sounds like something that Maggie or Daryl would have done, rather than Michonne, but the show loves having the characters randomly switch sides on the big arguments so I could see them justifying the character change with Rick's death.