Ankai

Was this the first time that Jack and John have met on screen? Maybe, they could have in the first season, especially when everyone was trying to get that map that John had.

Actually, this was one of the shorter episodes. It was, what, 50 minutes?

Very nice. I did find it a little amusing that the battle, as big as it was, was almost treated as a prelude to whatever might happen in Season 4. I mean, Hornigold, Scott, Vane, and that guy whom Billy's group killed are dead. Pretty much all of the other important players on both sides are still around. That council of...five? Yeah, that might not hold for long. And do they plan on still using that island as a base? I kind of liked how the talk between Flint and Silver was spread out through the episode, as if that was the crux of the episode as opposed to the battle. I did find it a little odd that they skipped over Flint telling Silver about his relationship with Thomas and went right to the fallout. On the other hand, I did not mind the more "tell" aspects of it. Silver's insistence that his men would not betray him framed that sequence leading to the ambush in a different light, less of a "will he/won't he" and more of a how. And all that stuff about Silver noting a pattern and refusing to be part of it was just his laying his cards on the table. While he may have tried doing stuff behind Flint's back before and may do so in the future, I think that he respects Flint too much now to pretend that their relationship will not be tested and be found wanting. And I think that Flint may not have liked what he heard, but he at least respected Silver for not lying to him about it. Actually, the whole back and forth reminded me a bit of the Red Cliff movies, even though it is not quite the same. The two protagonists were military leaders of two rebel groups and formed an alliance to repel the Empire. They also formed a pretty easy-going friendship, based on respect for each other's character and strategic intelligence. Throughout the movie, however, they each casually alluded to the distinct possibility that they would end up on opposite sides of a conflict in the near future. According to the histories, the two actually would become bitter enemies, and the audience is expected to know this going into the movie. The movie, however, ends long before this happens, with them bidding goodbye not just to each other, but also to a friendship that was genuine, if only temporary. It is as if that they knew that it would not last, but instead of that knowledge keeping them at a distance to each other, it brought them closer, as if this is something that should be cherished before it is destroyed. So...yeah, not quite the same, but it did remind me of that.

Well, he did peg someone while getting head at the same time. To be fair, haven't they all given up their claim to the gold at this point? At least temporarily? Except for the black stones that Woodes plans to give to the Spanish along with Jack, the Urca treasure is not coming back unless the Spanish are keeping it nearby for some reason. What is the plan, exactly? I think that I may have missed something. 1) Anne turns over (supposedly) the rest of the Urca treasure, appearing to hold up her side of the deal. 2) Woodes is forced to break his part of the deal, and transports Jack to the Spanish. 3) Flint and Co. paint Woodes as a man whose word means nothing and turn the former pirates against his governorship. 4) Flint and Co. rescue Jack and maybe take whatever that they can find of the Urca treasure. 5) The Spanish attack Nassau as the former pirates rise up against Woodes. 6) ???? 7) Profit.

Maybe he still holds out hope that Thomas is alive, whereas there is no ambiguity with Amanda. It is not so much love as it is guilt. I guess that that makes sense. So, they do not plan to attack so much as destroy, even worse than in last year's finale. If they don't get the gold they will make sure that none of the people currently on Nassau will get it either, because they will be all dead. But, say Rodgers fails to take control in time. Does he have a plan B? I mean, he has his eight ships and his 700 men. If he gets branded no better than a pirate, then what is stopping him from switching sides and leading the counterattack himself? On the subject of transferring the gold, is that a known thing on the island? The triumvirate had only recently agreed to start doing it in secret, but now with Rodgers right there, would it be stopped? And what about if someone on the island finds out about the Spaniards?

That was a nice little twist: I was wondering whether the Spanish would get involved at some point. At the same time, I am not sure how that would work. If Rogers fails to pacify Nassau in time, then the Spanish will come with 1500 men to attack both the pirates AND Rogers? Did I hear that correctly? Wouldn't the pirates plus Rogers be 1700 men? Men with no illusions about the possibility of negotiation? And the Spanish would have only two more ships than Rogers? Sure, the pirates and Rogers may not be able to put up a united front, but I would not imagine that the Spanish would be able to actually get the gold back with that plan. At most, they would just destroy the town and the gold will get buried under rubble.

I had little problem with the flat circle that was the flying saucer. If I had to choose between this and Molly being sidelined at the end of Season 1, I would go with this. Also, even with all of the buildup to this event, I figured that there was no way that the event would compare corpse-wise to the stuff in Game of Thrones or Spartacus, so it would make sense that the whole thing would go in a different direction. That said, I am surprised that the story did not have the Kansas City people not send a gang up to the motel, if only to try to take Dodd for themselves and get the drop on Mike.

The Nightly Show also did a bit about the Republicans pandering to Jews, but wasn't this the same place where Trump said that both the Jews and Palestinians had to do their part to bring peace to the Middle East? And that the Jews in the audience have bought candidates, but won't be able to buy him?

My father is 70 and grew up in Hong Kong. He has a Western name and has never used his Chinese name since coming here. Not even his childhood friends call him by his Chinese name. I don't even remember what it is. His mother, who came from the mainland, had regularly used her Western name at least since she immigrated here in the mid-80s..

I am not about to call "plagiarism" on this since it is neither exact nor likely, but it does seem a little suspicious to me. In the late 1980s, a South Korean singer named Lee Ji Yeon released a song that translates roughly as Please Stop The Wind. In around 2006, a South Korean band named Loveholic released a cover song that is actually quite different from the original. Then, in 2010, a certain band may have switched the verse with the chorus in order to make this. Or maybe I am just imagining that.

Thanks. The whole thing seems overly complicated to me, but I guess that that sort of made sense. I guess that we shall see what happens if anything does.

Would Prime also mean that it is available on Instant Video? Like, you could order an individual episode or a season? Or would it be just for Prime members?

I would say that the characters get fleshed out a lot more in the back half of the season, though the dialogue can still be goofy. The show is a mixed bag in terms of race, ethnicity, and nationality; the gangbanger stuff at the beginning was an eyebrow raiser. Overall, however, I am much more positive about it than I am negative. And Van Damme is great indeed.

Didn't Inside Out also get the highest opening numbers for Pixar aside from Toy Story 3?

This was a funny episode, but boy did it remind me of a late episode of The Thick of It. I was waiting for one of the people to suddenly disappear and then it happened.

Are we sure that this movie was supposed to actually make a profit and was not some sort of Uwe Boll-esque tax shield or some type of scam along the lines of The Producers?

I am four episodes in and, while it does have racial diversity, it seems to be mostly because it takes place across different countries. The racial minorities seem to be confined to supporting roles. The two American leads are White. The two European leads have ancestral roots in other countries, but are still White. The Mexican lead is said to have Spanish blood which is a whole other can of worms. I don't know about the Indian, the Kenyan, or the Korean, but I have heard nothing so far that suggest that they are minorities in their respective countries.

It definitely sounds similar, but I think that Reyne is wise to not act on this, as I don't feel that it is worthy of being called outright plagiarism...at least not any more than Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood" sounds like "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together".

Avengers has past the billion mark by day seventeen. What is the deal with Box Office Mojo's overseas weekend box office data? They site seems to have stopped posting the weekly totals, but the place where it had been posted is still there, making for a huge and awkward blank space on the page.

I think that this was my favorite season finale of this show. The first one seemed like simply all setup to something; it being the ninth episode did not help. The second one kind of undercut the drama that had come before with Ragnar's big gambit scheme. Here, I was expecting a scheme and the show made only minimal effort to hide that. I found it pretty obvious that he would pop out of the coffin, though I had no idea what he would do after that. The legitimacy of his conversion may have been undercut by his killing of a clergyman, though that could have partly so that the other Vikings there could tell the ones outside and assuage any fears about him being a real Christian. My French is rusty, but that sounded like pretty modern French. The actor playing Odo is, I believe, French Canadian. And Morgane Polanski is French. Again, like her mushmouth, maybe she got into a tiff with the director and said to herself that she would not be speaking this Frankish babble and just spoke French. Also, the main soldier looked kind of handsome with his helmet off. That nose-guard on his helmet that he had been wearing since he first appeared made his face look goofy.

Well...the gun pointing is probably a dealbreaker. Plus, don't remember Pam tapping his balls or getting overly physically aggressive with him much...if anything, it was the other way around. Where I work, when it is time to close, it is time to close. The only keys that are going to be used are the ones that lock the doors. That said, even if the age difference between him and the store owner is significantly greater than that between her and his daughters, but if he does bring them up right, won't they end up smarter than she will be? I was wondering why neither of them brought that up. She could have brought that up to assure him...or he could have said that to get back at her.

I sort of get it, it was more a feeling that I could not shake. The part with the flag distracted me the most. Yes, maybe the school provided the flags and Eddie's parents did not see it, but that was definitely the Communist flag, not the flag of Taiwan. That is purely political, not cultural, and whether it says something about America's relationship with China or the show itself trying to sidestep the issue, it just came across as weird. I sort of understand the reasoning...besides, what American knows what Taiwan's flag looks like? Still, there was a part of me that had trouble accepting it. Okay...so we have covered the joke about the shoe...the part about the flag...a little bit about Jessica's outfit that could have gone down to her feet, but didn't...a bit about the spoken Chinese (did Evan and Emory suddenly not understand Grandma or was it because they were asking something complex from her for once?)...and the Chicken feet...but what about the cheese? Jessica seemed to be more shocked about the bacon than the cheese, which kind of amused me, since Chinese traditionally have eaten pig products (if not entire pigs), but dairy was considered something that barbarians dealt with. Jessica seemed to have a mild obsession with cheese, given her line about that cheese later in the episode.

I pretty much said all of my feelings in the TWOP thread back when this first aired, so...yeah. And...now something else. How many troops did Crassus have on the show compared to the others? Yes, I could find the real-historical numbers, but that is not going to help here. In the initial pre-fight overhead shot, it looked like there were probably around 32000, or six legions. Of course, that was after Spartacus and Crixus already hacked at his forces for however many months. Now...contrast with Glaber, Seppius, and those two generals in the season three premiere. Seppius seemed to have only a few dozen men and Glaber did not have a lot until Varinius came along with about a thousand men. Then in the season three premiere, the two generals had...I don't know. I heard the number 10,000 thrown out when Crassus was involved, but I don't know if that had any bearing on the actual numbers or how many of the men under him included the ones under the previous two leaders. And, how many were under Spartacus at each time? It seemed like he had a few thousand at the premiere and a few thousand more during the time in the city, but then a whole bunch died up in the snow and then Crixus took a couple thousand with him on that journey to Rome...of which only five hundred survived. At the end battle, there seemed to be only a couple thousand. Not accurate to history, but that is neither here nor there at the moment.

Oh, I can wear socks or be barefoot sometimes, but sometimes, I do not trust the floor to not have something to poke at my foot. However, I usually do not wear shoes around when at home. I remember as a kid, going to another kid's home and was surprised to learn that they kept their shoes on in their own house.

Well, he does not need to keep her for long, just long enough for the Vikings to gain safe passage to the throne room.