CletusMusashi

This one was just gleefully nutballs, yet, strangely, with absolutely amazing production values. Is one of Jane's personalities a broadway star? Holy crap, she was nailing it. And so were Cliff, Larry, 104, Isabortus, Rouge, Rita, Cyborg, the Sex Ghosts... And: yeah, yeah, "Buffy" did the "trapped in a muscial universe by an evil being" schtick first. But "Doom Patrol" did it better. Or, at least, more consistently well. Largely because Doom's contribution to the genre does not include any of those slow boring filler tunes that other musicals always want to kludj in there to pad out their list with.

OK, I'm back in. The first three eps were OK, but this one was back to the level that I expect from this show. Joker's prize mayoral possession is giant novelty scissors? Of course. Lexx is very much the manipulative genius he's meant to be, yet still a complete manbitch to his own toxic inner demons. The rockets and "The cape stays on!" were my favorite. Talia is a horrible mother, but she's good at everything else and probably kind of right about the Batfam getting spoiled. Nice bit of teamwork at the end. Nice bits of insight into Ivy's psyche. Her response to the rocket's appearance and to the underwear question was spot on. And I like her growing friendship with Nora. Who, now that she's calming down a little bit but still a crazy party-slut, I have to wonder about. She went a little bit extra crazy after being frozen all those years and losing her husband, but how much of that is actually the normal her anyway? Kind of like how Harlene Quinzel had some Harley-esque tendencies even before meeting the Joker, was Nora the crazy free spirit who forced Victor Fries to occasionally lighten up and have fun? Despite the episode having no Bane, no Gordo, no Clayface, and no King Shark, I am actually quite happy this week.

Sadly, ZL's incarnation of the character is only the second weakest thing about the 2 movies. He not only fails to play the Billy convincly, but he doesn't even seem to understand what age he's supposed to be. But since a good amount of that came from the actual script this time, I think the writers are just leaning in on that flaw as a running joke. They did sort of kind of address it in the third act, but not really. It still seems to be canon that when he transforms he gets dumber and less mature. Just roll with it. Maybe fancanon something in about him not being used to adult level hormones? Nah... Billy's almost 18 in this movie. Just accept that there are certain things that make no sense. When Billy transforms, he becomes a much lamer more hackneyed actor. Kind of like when Superman puts glasses on eveyone immediately starts asking Clark kent where Superman went. Could it be that it's just that impossible to play an older version of a younger character from the same movie? Hell no! Because Meagan Good absolutely kills it as an an adult version of Darla. Because in that particular case the perkiness and naivitie and hyperactivity fit the actual younger version perfectly. Thank gods for the backuip cast, because they carry this movie. And also, I think the weakest thing about the entire Shazam duology is that there are still just these same random 30year old men who hang around the high school all day bullying the same disbaled kid while the teachers just stand around and shrug. How the fuck does the administrative/legal system in these movies work? However, it does gain a few points back by being so over-the-top that it is (intentionally? unintentionally? I honestly have no idea! ) hilarious.

I went into knowing that AA plays a way better version of the same character than ZL does. It's a major flaw of the first movie. But, I liked the first movie. It was dark enough to sell the threats and conflicts, but balanced it out with a lot of warmth and humor. And most of the cast was great. Sometimes, if the rest is done well enough, a good script can survive a crappy lead actor. And all of that holds true for the second movie as well. I suppose you could argue that it's just "more of the same," but if you liked the first installment and want more of the same, then you're going to have fun watching this movie. Of course, one thing that helps is that I avoided spoilers and went out and saw it as soon as I could. The longer you wait, the fewer surprises you're gonna get. But that's true of every movie, not just this one.

So are the heroes still watching that secret underground lab? Or did they just sort of gawk around, say "oh well, no villains here right now," and leave? After blowing up a wall. 'Cause... there is a live animal in a tank there. Obviously, somebody is going in and out of the place feeding that lizard. Shit, at least plant a few cameras to see who. Or is Starman just gonna start blowing up half the mall whenever he sees anyone coming out of of Petsmart with a bag of crickets?

You know you can tell if you're having a cool gunfight? Even the animals don't want to hide out and miss it. If there's like a random snake coming out into the open just to apparently watch the scene, then you're probably doing good.

Motorhead is the group that Merle played during his final kamikaze attack against the governor.

Melania.

This week on "Deadliest Warrior... Cannibalistic Mowgli Cosplayer versus... Actual Fucking Zombie That Does Not Care if it is Bitten by a Human!" I can not wait to catch up on my Live Commentary Thread reading to see what everyone here's reactions were during this episode.

Maybe their cat died and he tried to mimic it to cover up, eventually spending more time in that form than was good for his brain.

I think the funniest moment was the one judge giving them a ten.

The Clayface arc started and ended well, but the middle of it was just too much Clayface. And I say that as someone who considers Clayface, King Shark, Gordo, and Bane to be the funniest characters on the show. The Harlivey stuff wasn't bad, but ultimately it was a retread of the same "quit being so extra-Harley" message that she keeps learning and forgetting over and over again. The real standout was Bane. His line delivery is absolutely always comedy gold, and I'm always a sucker for those Austin Powers-esque strategically located censor props.

I think they're going for something similar to the "Wednesday" show on Netflix. Unfortunately, since that show aired first and was pretty well received, "Velma" may suffer when the inevitable comparisons are made.

I think there have been some great modernizations that maintained the charm of the original characters. Sccob, Trick or Treat, the Mystery Incorporated series... this is just one alternative that goes a different direction. I thought it was fun. Daphne, Velma, Fred, and their families were enough to keep me entertained. Norville isn't too interesting yet. I get it, he doesn't do drugs. Move on to next joke, please. The wanted posters of clowns and pirates all over the police station were a nice touch, and so was the meta way the show keeps tapping the fourth wall. It's more of a comedy about dark loony reboots wearing a paper-thin veneer of their original source material (such as Riverdale) than it is a comedy about the origial Scooby Doo show itself.

I did actually watch the season pilot, but it was a good while ago, when Amazon Prime was first airing it for free. It was not good enough to watch a second time. Which leads to a problem, because I just caught this second one, and... I forget... Why again were they doing that underground dungeon crawl through the zombie tunnel?

Nooooooo! Why, show? Why? Everything has been going so well without Dorothy and her annoying fake accent!

The look also gace me a Barbarella vibe... Completely loved this ep. Rita got to have a full range of emotions, instead of just being pompous. Larry was never allowed to have more than half a minute without another character stepping into the scene reminding him to be interesting. Cliff is of course always great, and Jane was even better than her typical greatness. Rouge got all kinds of character stuff to do, from the leadership stuff to the turning inton a bird and fucking off when danger hit, to the great drinking scene... and Vic actually got a side-story that I gave a shit about. I assume he's about to build a (removable) robot suit for himself. I hope he is. Honestly, I wouldn't mind him just not having the superpowers and being a smart, tough, tech-savvy normal character, but the writers obviously don't want that, so just give him some new robotech already.

I see Larry is back to being boring and useless.

I think it's more plausible that, due to the origins of Kamala's abilities, there would be a power imbalance between her and her enemies. Yes, she could start by stopping bank robberies, and then practice more on some local upstart supers who are too minor for big name heroes to care about yet, and then face ancient evils once she's leveled up a little, but we've seen that story a lot of times. This isn't that story. Life isn't always fair.

I've been expecting all along that she would go back in time to that train. Otherwise they would have just made a ridiculous number of pointless references to it. Hopefully that one plot point doesn't eat up an entire episode. But I don't think it will. This is a much better show than I expected. I love the authenticity of how it depicts the ups, downs, and normals of a cultural experience outside of my own. I was kind of expecting one of those Greg Berlanti shows where a roomful of white writers roll their Hamilton dice on which character's going to be which minority. Sure, some are actually great, but on most of those shows, most of those shoes don't end up feeling very walked in. This, however, is clearly written by somebody who's describing an experience from the inside, and they are doing it with a lot of color and humor, and even if this season has a weak ending I'll still be back for a second one. I'll just write off any loose ends as cliffhangers. Oh, and let me make one thing clear to absolutely any kids on this forum. I may be a totally cool wise badass older guy, but I will never be your mentor. I don't care what kind of trouble you're in. I've seen what happens to mentors. Shit, this poor bastard didn't even last one episode. He should have been wearing a red shirt instead of a scarf, but I thought maybe we'd get a little more out of him. Nope. As soon as he gave her the uniform, I was "Nice knowing you." Then they went into the chase scene, and I thought they'd done a fake-out. I suppose technically they did... I also didn't like the chase scene, but I think that a big point. Normally, I only really like chase scenes that are either so over-the-top I can't help laughing, like "Blues Brothers," or that are simple and clever without relying on collateral damage, like "A Million Ways to Die in the West." Smashing a bunch of shops and vehicles and no doubt injuring/killing people along the way is not particularly funny, nor is it "shocking" to see in a fictional chase scene. And they didn't play it like it was. Kamala hated what was going on, and I don't think the Red Daggers enjoyed their neighbors get smashed around either. This was a chase scene about why the chase scene is the part of the movie that a hero wants to just not have. That may have been part of the reason Waleed decided to distract the baddies. Although.... why any proper villain would fall for it is a whole 'nother thing. You are specifically chasing after the person who has the magic bracelet that you have been pursuing for centuries, and then some other dude starts calling you into the sidelines to fight him. And so you abandon your actual strategically significant target, and you do exactly what he wants? Now, I haven't read The Evil Overlord List in a long time, but I'm pretty sure that's a big no-no.

God I love this crazy show. The cast are spot on and the writers give no fucks at all about how silly an idea is. Jellyfish hats because... why the hell not? I wonder if we'll see Codpiece again.

Initially, I didn't quite like Fester as much as I wanted to. His classic TV-character voice didn't seem to match anything else about him at all. But as I've had time to think about it, I sort of get him. He's a slightly different version of Wedenesday. Older instead of younger, because that's just how birth dates work. Male instead of female, because that's how the genetic coin flip went. And, for whatever reason, cheerful in his demeanor instead of snarky. Maybe because he grew up watching Three Stooges instead of Beetlejuice. But, he knows what he wants to do, and he does it. And if he needs to learn something new, he leans in and does so. And he has a history of terrifying his wimpy younger brother at least partially as a strength building exercise, kind of like Wednesday waterboarding Pugsley.

It's not either/or. A big point of the original comics was how weird and, yes, inbred, certain rich families had gotten. And the 60s show stayed true to that, with almost every single relative from either side of the family being an Addams. Morticia being a Frump simply means that her mother or grandmother married one of the cousins who was not surnamed Addams.

Matt's super-power is being able to hear shitloads of bad people, loud and clear. Whereas, for Jenn, suddenly being able to do so is her kryptonite.

I sort of expected that Josh was obtaining a DNA sample from the outside of a used condom, but I suppose the writers don't want to get quite that risque. I wasn't really here for the meet-cute story anyway, so good riddance to that part of the storyline. Loved the D-list vilain retreat. Even the wall signs in the background were funny. "Abomaste," "Today is Today," I love the cheesiness. The camera man was off his game this week. He forgot to give us his traditional gratuitous shot of Nikki's legs.