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I don't know what it is, but I keep coming across weird stuff that I watch. The latest is a German mini-series, Ku'damm 56, a story about a mother who owns a dance studio in post-WW2 Berlin and her three grown up daughters. In the beginning, the black sheep is coming from home to the oldest sister's wedding, not telling the mother she'd aactually been kicked out of school. Sounds fairly typical and possibly good. Hoo, boy. The daughter coming back home, Monika, gets raped during the sister's wedding reception by Joachim, a son of a wealthy industrialist, who her mother kind of blackmailed into being Monika's date to the wedding. He quickly discredits her accusations and the mother accuses her of being a tart basically. Then he starts to creepily like Monika and her mom is pushing her on him because, yay, a wealthy psycho is taking an interest in your ass and I never thought that would happen! Glory be! In the best scene of the whole four and a half hours Monika stabs him during their movie date. I cheered. Luckily, she's not pregnant and she soon discovers the lure of rock'n'roll. And gets involved into a friends with benefits thing with an irresponsible musician. He's lame, but yay for Monika for taking control of her sexuality and enjoying sex. Also, at no point does she think she's in love with him. Good things. However, then she does get pregnant with the musician, and Joachim still keeps mooning over her when they run into each other, because I guess we're now forgetting about the rape and he's actually tortured by his father loving his dead brother more than him and being a war profiteer who manufactured the weapons that murdered his son during the war, and is still manufacturing weapons. So, Joachim has basically got a lot of pain that he aparently took out by raping a girl. Awesome. Or at least it is in Mom's eyes, because she's got the great idea that Monika should seduce him, pass off the kid as his own and get him to marry her.* It actually goes that Monika starts to like her rapist back, but confesses to the pregnancy, they do the deed, he wants to marry her, but she'd rather go to a dance tournament with the baby daddy and Joachim, who's also a tortured artist, decides to write a novel in which he and Monika one day end up together. *After all, it worked for Mom 20 years back. See, the girls think the school had been founded by their grandfather and in the family for 50 years. Turns out, mom and dad got it when they won the European dance championship in 1936 and the government took it from a Jewish family. What sealed the deal was Mom sleeping with a government official who made it happen. This is resulted in Monika. Added bonus, the official has been hanging around basically ever since and trying to convince Mom to marry him since her husband has never returned after being captured in the war. I almost admire the trope twisting here. The pursuant suitor in the form of an unrepentant SS member. Ah well, at least he's nicer to Monika than the Mom. And then there's the other two sisters. The eldest marries a clearly gay man who hadn't even kissed her before the wedding. I sympathize with the dude as he tries not to be who he is because this is 1956. Right until he rapes his wife (yes, hello, here we are again) and later on slaps her because of his frustrations. She is not always a picnick either because she convinces him not to warn his father's old friend that he's about to be arrested for being a memeber of the Communist party so that he doesn't risk his career. Finally, there's the youngest daughter who works as a nurse in a mental clinic and is trying to bring a much older doctor up to scratch to marry her. During the course of this, she falls for the husband of one patient, who then decides to tell his wife and ask for divorce because he wants to build a life with this new girl. The wife takes it fucking too graciously but warns the husband that the girl is calculating and self serving. Up until that point, there had been two mentions of women hanging themselves in the attic, first by the Mom, and then by eldest daughter when her husband suggested divorce. So I expected this woman with mental issues to pull on the Chekov's noose. In a swerve she throws herself out the window. Proving that she was right, the youngest daughter accepts the doctor's marriage offer before the wife's body is cold. There's also a subplot with the missing father, who's been back in Berlin for three years, only he didn't want to profit on the remains of that Jewish family anymore and felt guilty because of his actions during the war, so he didn't let his family know, but is an active communist in East Berlin. And he's got a new family.

Ha! I thought it would be Jennifer Crusie before I clicked on the link.

Well, he did plan to swiftly have Chase executed after his release, thereby eliminating him as a threat. I think it was a dumbass plan to fall in with the Bratva without having any clue about what they would ask him in exchange, but still, it was proactive.

I don't think it can be anyone but ST.

Part of the reason I posted it in the forst place is that I didn't get it either. ?

In bothe the promos there is something or someone flying through the trees, but I can't make out who or what. Edward Cullen?

Source

Frankly, I thought Sucre came off as a little cavalier during their reunion. He thought Papi was dead for seven years. I expected to see him more shaken when they first met up to be honest.

Letting Slade and Boomerang loose seems like a terrific idea!

Plus I'm bitter because I felt like Whip's insecurities were given more space than Sara seeing her presumed to be dead husband after seven years and Michael seeing the wife who was a major motivation for his work with Poseidon. And coming back to her and Mike should be the thing propelling him now if we're going with the Odysseus myth. Have some class, they're inflatables. :D

The more I think about @Chaser's idea, the more I love it. It would be the ultimate mind fuck, symultaneously exploiting Oliver's past trauma and fears of the future and himself. If it turns out to be true, I won't be mad about bringing William and Samantha back at all.

Black Lightning looks really good and not typical. I'm not looking for another superhero show at all, but I'll probably give it a go. I'm only catching comments on Twitter but I'm yet to see a bad one. Tell me something, is Wonder Woman immortal? Because Wonder Woman obviously takes place almost a century before she appeared on Batman vs Superman.

That's a great guess.

Actually, it was in episode 4, when Oliver is first arrested on the suspicion of being the Hood. I had to go and check, because I remembered only the revelation of Moira being the one to hire the thugs as implication of her shadiness in the pilot. Probably will forever be one of the top three reveals of this show.

Moira had The Gambit brought to SC. Walter discovered it in a warehouse before his disappearance in season 1. I'm guessing see you on the boat will be repeated in 523. Much like people closest to Oliver suffering for his sins was mentioned in 521 and 522.

The Five Year Engagement is one of those films that fell through the cracks with me, but I do recall good reviews at the time of its release. I've got to say, overall, I'm not really impressed. It's not all bad, far from it, but it falls apart with Tom and Violet's relationship IMO, which is kinda a problem, seeing as it's the main focus. It basically works as a comedy, but not a romantic comedy. Spoilers for a five year old movie ahead. By the time they broke up, I felt nothing. And quite frankly, it felt like a chance for them to live out their fantasies without cheating on the other, only they discovered that the objects of their fantasies weren't what they imagined. And this, I suppose, meant they were the loves of each other's lives. ? Also in the negative column, Tom's facial hair during his depressed period. That was so weird and creepy. How did no hair grow on his chin?! I guess Violet was so checked out by that point that she didn't even register how disgusting it was. Then again, she did fall for Rhys Ifans' lame theatrics at the tender age of like 28, which is when I really lost faith in her. That said, the cast was great, all the parents were terrific, I enjoyed Violet's colleagues, the procession of Mindy Kaling's boy toys, the knitted tux and the guys planning the wedding were awesome (it actually looked like a very nice, classy affair they were planning), and Alison Brie is a treasure. The movie is worth watching for the masterpiece that is the Elmo/Cookie Monster scene. C is for condom! ?

This is just gorgeous. Source

Remember the days when fic writers would get inspired by episodes? Here's Felicity asking Oliver to birthday dinner. http://machawicket.tumblr.com/post/160820956387/because-those-two-idiots-were-stupid-cute-last

I feel like Oliver looks younger in that top photo than he has in a good while. So, Felicity, Thea, Curtis and Samantha get locked up in cells. And Dig, Rene and Dinah are either transported to the temple, break free or Oliver breaks them free. Where's Lance in all this, keeping an eye on the kid?

Isn't the ARGUS prison a repurposed Chinese prison?

I have a problem with Michael and Sara's scenes, but it's not the acting. It's the pacing. They didn't let anything breathe, including Sara finding out that she's married to a psycho who's to blame for her losing her first husband and the love of her life, and putting her in prison while pregnant! Her move at the end of the episode was not smart, but it makes sense in this context and it finally gets the ball rolling. I would not have expected S1 Sucre to use words like analogy. Hee. At least he's with the brothers as the episode closes, meaning he's there next week. Also, I don't know whether Sucre and Linc have been keeping in touch, but pimping Linc with Sheba felt odd. Because four years ago, before Michael landed in Ogygia and was still keeping an eye on his family, Lincoln was with Sofia for several years. They're coloring Mark Feuerstein's hair wrong. It looked like someone put shoe polish on it. I didn't notice it before.

Are we done with "enemies from the past" after season 6? I'm really ready to let that go. I assume this is the Bratva, although I don't see how they can be unecpected considering how Oliver left things with them.

Is Black Lightning a mid-season show then?

Ditto. With his mom who is to stay alive and well and taking care of him somewhere far away from SC. Thea seemed to like Corto Maltese, no? And Oliver can go visit during hiatus.