Peace 47

Since the statement came from his family, and was not purported to be from him (via his own representation), I might suspect/ fear/ worry that cognitively, he is already no longer able to articulate an opinion on the matter. Like, some stars who have faced challenging, dire or terminal diagnoses still are able to issue statements through their own representation, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

It’s just a joke meme commonly used on social media. People put that gif of Pam from The Office under two similar pictures to underscore how similar two pictures are, i.e., the pics are so similar they could be the same.

I definitely don’t disagree with you on the whole endeavor striking the wrong mood for this awards show. But I think that “Spirit in the Sky” was a particularly poor choice to even try to engender that “celebration of life” vibe they were attempting at the end of the montage, and I that they could have done much better. It’s a song that many in the audience probably either heard on their pop-rock station or heard on the oldies station (depending on their ages) throughout their whole lives. It’s like a vibe check song appropriate when you’re driving down a rural highway on a sunny day, contemplating life, not a song that makes you want to lift hands in praise to remember Betty White (speaking for myself).

Agreed! I also thought he looked better than he has in quite awhile, too. He looked “refreshed.” Don’t know if that is some good minor professional work in the facial area, or if he just maybe put on a little tiny bit of weight in the face, but whatever it was, it sure agreed with him. Liza being in a wheelchair: I’m sorry that a song-and-dance artist such as herself has seen her mobility become that compromised, but I do think stars being seen out and about in wheelchairs is a good message for disability representation. (Like, I was reading last week that the Queen doesn’t want to be photographed in a wheelchair these days, and it’s like, there really should be no shame in that). What did make me slightly uncomfortable was that she did not seem mentally astute enough to take on the task of presenting. She seemed totally flummoxed by the cue cards in her hands. I do get the point that some posters made upthread that we should just let her enjoy those accolades for the 50th anniversary of Cabaret while she is still alive, but I do think there is a fine line to tread when someone isn’t well enough to competently take on such a high-profile task. I don’t know if she is suffering side effects from medication, the effects of her long-term drug abuse, the effects of her recent serious illness or some kind of onset of early stage dementia, but I did find it sad. She’s only 76. Lady Gaga handled the whole thing beautifully, though. She is a gem.

Probably, but for PR purposes, they’ll surely do something together sooner to show that this can all be “laughed off.” Like someone said upthread, Chris will almost certainly be on SNL next week, barring an immovable work commitment. And I’d bet $100 that Lorne Michaels is working the phones to try to get Will and Diddy on for a cold open. That would get SNL a hit of the buzz that they are always chasing.

As far as public sentiment goes, I saw this morning that the top posts about Will’s assault on Chris were all overwhelmingly pro-Will on Tumblr, which seems to track with that one post upthread that I’ve lost track of (noting that there was the same pro-Will sentiment on their neighborhood app) and what you are saying about some media coverage, @Milburn Stone. I think Will may come out of this just fine as a result because all these patriarchal/ toxic masculinity undercurrents to what happened are deeply, deeply ingrained in American culture. I see people painting it as Will “protecting” Jada from an ableist verbal attack. It’s astounding the number of people that think physical assault is justified for that. I had no idea that Jada had alopecia, even though this knowledge seems to have been out there for quite awhile. I know there was a comment upthread about how some posters have suffered with non-life threatening hair loss conditions and it didn’t crush them. I think that’s great, but I know that for some people, it does devastate them completely, just because it is such a prominent physical characteristic tied to identity. So I don’t blame Jada for being humorless about it, looking angry, etc. She’s entitled to her feelings. I just can’t imagine what went through Will’s head to leave his seat, get onstage, attack Chris Rock and then continue shouting verbal insults. Like, this is the biggest night of Will’s entire life. He’s been desperate for an Oscar to burnish his image for decades. His image is everything to him: he works so hard (even on his YouTube channel) to present the image of the talented, positive, friendly movie star. He and his wife have been the subject of repeated comments and side-eyes for years on things from their marriage to the struggles of their kids, to attacks from other celebs, etc., so he had to have heard it all by now. And to just lose it like that 15 minutes before his every dream comes true: how does that happen? It’s confounding.

I don’t understand how the Academy consistently gets this montage wrong. You play some poignant and/ or inspirational lyrics-free music as a base, you have no live performers on stage pulling focus from the video, and you splice clips of the deceased with some pull quotes about farewells, life and love from some of their most famous roles. Boom, you’re done. There is no need to reinvent the wheel on this particular piece.

I agree, and from a filming/ star availability and merchandising standpoint, Din is never going to chuck the helmet regularly like Boba, Bo-Katan and others do. It’s just that from a storytelling perspective, I also don’t want Din to be beholden to the idea that he has to follow arcane rituals to make amends for two “transgressions” that were (I think he knows) quite justified. I mean, the Armorer had a point in S1 that the Mandalorians’ secrecy was their strength (given the harsh conditions they endured), but him having to beg forgiveness for his actions doesn’t sit entirely well, either. This story is a knight’s tale in some respects (in addition to being a western), so I would definitely expect him to follow his quest to the living waters, to find some “modern” equivalent of the Mythosaur and also to use the Darksaber to help reclaim Mandalore: I just don’t think that reassimilation into his covert or being the actual ruler of a planet are what he really wants or needs at the “end” of the story. I saw somewhere online that someone suggested he really should go find that “nice shrimp lady” (Omera from S1) with Grogu and nope out of all this crap he keeps getting pulled into. That’s funny, but probably not quite right for the story, either. Actually, he might be happiest on Tatooine. He’s got a little community of genuine friends there now. But he makes friends wherever he goes, so maybe he will stay on Mandalore at the end of the story.

Just as an aside, I love this speech that you paraphrased to make your other point. I think it might be my favorite few lines of the entire show. I think it touches on the concept of the difference between lawfulness and ethics and the shortcomings of Din’s covert on the latter. I think I saw one of the mods post somewhere that this is the right thread to continue discussion of what is to come in Season 3, in light of what happened in The Book of Boba Fett, but I also see that you mention you haven’t watched that show yet, so maybe don’t read the next paragraph if you’re averse to spoilers. (Also, watch at least episodes 5-7 of that show!) When I say the difference between lawfulness and ethics, I mean that Din is ostracized by the Armorer and cast out for removing his helmet, with no inquiry whatsoever into why it happened. If “The Way” also includes the care and protection of foundlings as one of its core precepts, Din removing his helmet (the first time) was the ethical choice to save Grogu’s life, if not the lawful one, but for the Armorer, there is no excuse possibly worth hearing. I am also so interested in the idea that Din put his helmet back on after the S2 finale. He told Cara that if he ever took it off, he could never put it back on. But he did. Perhaps out of sheer necessity (what else could he do at the time?) But the Armorer’s position is why I personally don’t want Din to “redeem” himself in the living waters or become the ruler of Mandalore because (and this is a personal want that seems to be at odds with the wishes of true Star Wars universe fans) I don’t think he needs all that dogma (about the helmet or the saber) to be an ethical Mandalorian. Plus, strange women distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! (Did people ever make that joke after either S2 or TBOBF? I never saw it, but surely someone did.) What is the rule for the Mandalorians of Din’s “Children of the Watch” sect taking their helmets off in front of their families? Din told Omera that he hadn’t taken his off in front of others since he was around a pre-teen, so I guess it is forbidden once you are of age, no matter who you are around? I don’t like that for Grogu and Din. On the separate topic of that spoiler, it honestly sounds

I’m so sad about this. Cancer, man. 😔 I always enjoyed Wings, and it is impossible to overstate how much I loved Lois & Clark during her run on the show (during Season 2), so she was huge part of my 90s TV experience. Her poor sons.

I only just watched this. I tried to temper my expectations upon seeing some mixed reviews, but as soon as that “In the criminal justice system …” intro started, I got pretty nostalgic. I actually liked what they did with the new opening credits, except for the walk at the end by the cast: they’re supposed to be chatting with each other, not staring us down! (Lol.) I didn’t like the second half of the case very much because I missed the fun of the junior ADA doing some additional questioning and/ or conference with defense counsel in the ADA’s offices where they reach the plea agreement. I also missed police and or prosecutors eating takeout while discussing strategy. Sure, you’ve got new stuff, but play the classics soon, guys! I love Sam Waterston, and he’ll always be “my” ADA, but his voice sounds so taxed here, that I was worried about him. As long he’s up for it at 81(!), though, good for him. It seems like every time Jamie comes back, she does something on the scale of dislikable (trying to keep the school shooter out of prison) to “disbar-able” (disclosing privileged information to try to keep an innocent man out of prison). But this was definitely way beyond any of the more nuanced lines she ran up against before. I didn’t like how they did her character dirty here, but I guess as an actress, that is what makes it interesting to come back for.

I read that the song was “Prayer for Ukraine,” a patriotic hymn written in 1885 (but it’s not the national anthem). It was a beautiful song.

I didn’t think I would be able to enjoy the show all that much this weekend, but it was nice to smile for a few minutes after everything that has been going on these past few days. Paul Rudd and Conan O’Brien being in that 5-timers sketch was everything that I didn’t know that I wanted. That was terrific. The Subway Churro intro was so funny: “They still make O Henry candy bars? // No.” And “They smell delicious, and that’s saying something because I have active COVID.” I love musical theater, full cast sketches and NYC, so these sketches always hit right for me.

My understanding was that NBC brought Mike Tirico over several years ago to be their marquee broadcaster: a replacement for Bob Costas (whose own relationship with NBC had been souring for several years prior) to host things like Olympics coverage and other premier sporting events, and yes, also someone to replace Al Michaels for the call on NBC football broadcasts. But the NFL balked when NBC first tried to sub in Tirico for Michaels a couple of years ago and said that they were holding NBC to having Michaels on the call. It was only the NFL that saved Michaels from being sidelined at the time. So NBC decided just to wait out Michaels’ contract to put Tirico in, and that is why it is all coming to a head this year. Michaels apparently does not feel ready to retire and has made comments to that effect in recent interviews. I don’t care for Tirico. He had some serious sexual harassment allegations against him at ESPN in the 1990s, but I guess no allegations since then. Still, I just don’t particularly enjoy his style or his voice.

I agree with all that. It’s just that before Din saw Grogu in this episode, he couldn’t use the Darksaber on the droid at all, and after he is reunited with Grogu, he is able to pierce the force field around the droid and actually use the Darksaber against the droid. I guess you could attribute that to the fact that the force field and the droid itself were weakened by the rancor’s simultaneous attacks, but I just thought it might have had something to do with Din have a renewed purpose, too. Din has a long ways to go, though, in working through everything that has happened to him, before he is going to be actually good with the Darksaber.

I actually think episodes 5 and 6 of this show were an excruciatingly in-depth enough look at just how lost Din and Grogu are without each other, so I didn’t feel that the impact of their separation was given short shrift in this show. The loss of the kid, his home, his covert and his purpose practically made Din suicidal, if you take a darker view of his extreme willingness to die alongside Boba in this episode (not his willingness to stay with Boba, which is understandable given his morals, but his embracing of the idea that they will die there). That would have been pretty depressing to continue well into a hypothetical Mandalorian Season 3. I do wish that this show had given a bit more context around Grogu going with Luke in the first place, given that he backtracked at first opportunity. Grogu certainly had some ambivalence about going in the S2 finale (Luke saying that Grogu did want to go, but Grogu also still hanging onto Din’s leg until Artoo distracted him). In this show, Grogu doesn’t seem very happy to be with Luke at all. He demonstrates a few moments of engagement, but overall seems distracted and lonely (just like Din is). I guess that one could argue that Din and Grogu were locked into perceived obligation and what they thought was best for the other in S2, and their decisions here are about free will and a choice on whom you make your family/ friends, which I guess is a theme of the show overall, given the choices that Boba, Fennec, the Freetown citizens, etc. make. “Found family” and all that. One thing that I liked about this episode was Din’s renewed motivation and clarity once Grogu was back: Din couldn’t properly wield the Darksaber in episode 5, but here in episode 7 (when he used it on the droid to (ultimately) protect Grogu), Din could deploy it much better.

I know that perhaps the following observation might have been a limitation of the CGI on Luke, or it could have been intentional to the episode. I’m going to interpret it as intentional for purposes of this post. I saw Luke as professionally detached from Grogu (both here and in the S2 finale) in a way that Din has never been. That is, in the way that there is a difference between how teachers view students and how parents view their kids. Like when Luke gently admonishes Grogu for trying to eat the frog, he uses the Force to raise all the frogs in an attempt to engage Grogu’s interest so that they can continue lessons, but he’s never really “charmed” by Grogu like Din often is. The frog thing was an attempt at teacherly inspiration, not an attempt to entertain a bored toddler. Here, Luke often seems mildly frustrated by Grogu for not being as enthused about Luke’s passion project as Luke himself is. When I rewatched the episode this weekend, I also picked up on more of an ambivalence on Ahsoka’s part towards Luke training Grogu than I got from the first time around. On first watch, I felt like she was trying to discourage Din and get him to leave to make things easier on Luke and Grogu both. But on rewatch, I felt more like she could have also been testing Din (harshly). She seemed impressed and a bit surprised that he would be so unselfish as to walk away without seeing Grogu. She also challenged him on the motive for the present, and when he conveyed an entirely unselfish motive (not so that Grogu would have something to remember Din by, but so that he would be protected by something that is his absolute right to have), she was very gentle with him. (I think she even laid a hand on his shoulder when she comforted him with the thought that Grogu misses him terribly.) Also, when Din is questioning her about why she was okay with Luke training Grogu when she didn’t think it was the right thing to do, she says she doesn’t control the wants of others, but she also doesn’t really condone Luke’s choice. And then she goes back to Luke and implicitly suggests that maybe Grogu needed to reevaluate why he was there. Just like she challenges Din with the idea that Grogu is a Padawan and not a Foundling (Din passes that test), she challenges Luke with the idea that he may not have more to offer Grogu than someone who truly loves him does.

I rewatched this episode (as well as episodes 6 and 7) this weekend. One aspect of this episode that stood out for me is how poignantly sad Din’s situation is through the first 2/3-ish of this episode. You think he’s already lost everything in the season 2 Mandalorian finale, but this episode kicks off by bringing him even lower. The Armorer forces him to sacrifice his beskar spear in favor of a weapon that up to this point, he never wanted, that severely injures him in battle, and that he cannot wield properly because he is so distracted by missing Grogu. And in his desperate search for some allies, he is cast out by the last remaining people who raised him/ grew up with him. But I think the gift for Grogu gives him a remaining bit of motivation to keep going: get a ship so that he can visit Grogu. And his time with Peli appears very restorative for him. (The time in the shop also demonstrates this character’s impressive mechanical prowess, given that he can nearly match Peli’s skills.) His mood improves, he gets very interested in the project and it’s kind of touching as he gives the ship once-over when they’re done, and Peli looks on slyly pleased because she can tell that Din is intrigued. I wonder if there will be something in S3 to Peli saying that she had never been off-world. That is the only conversation of a personal nature that we see them have the whole time that they are working on the ship. ETA: Oh! And I forgot to write the one thing that made me want to post in this thread again: the very first words of the episode are Kaba Baiz saying to Din, “You look lost.” Such a clever statement of Din’s predicament at the start of the episode: he is lost. No home, no family, no purpose.

Plus, how can we forget Namath’s important advocacy for awareness about the pitfalls of vapor lock?

Her dad died in February 2020 from a head injury after a bad fall. Since this competition was right around what is probably a painful anniversary, it’s not hard to imagine that the grief could have gotten into her head in ways she might not have expected or been equipped to cope with, especially because she had to relive it multiple times for the human interest stories that NBC and other outlets have produced for the games. It sounds like she, her parents and her brother have always been very close. I feel bad for her.

LeVar Burton. I have an unlimited well of goodwill for him from growing up with Reading Rainbow. In third grade, we did a class project where we created a town, and we each had to create a business or public service to contribute to the needs of the town. I opted to found the town library and name it the “Reading Rainbow Library” in an act of unrepentant copyright infringement. :-) And then I later on, I got into watching “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and really found myself adoring the character LeVar portrayed there, Geordi LaForge. TNG is still one of my go-to comfort shows to this day. Plus, how can you not love his guest turn on “Community” where Troy Barnes, LeVar’s #1 fan, gets to meet his idol and is too starstruck to say anything:

I’m sorry for giving a “laughing reaction” to your post, but it was just so funny to me that it started so positively and then said screw an entire city, lol. The Rams were gone from L.A. for 21 years before being back for the last 5-ish, and SoFi is still so new. It probably takes some time, celebrity and winning to build up a solid fanbase. If you Google the Rams now, fireworks come up on the search results (on iOS). That’s nice. I am happy for the Rams and sorry for the Bengals. I wouldn’t say it was the best gameplay of the season, but it was a close game, so that was fun. And the commercials were better this year than last (when we were all the height of the pandemic, so understandable), I thought.

That makes sense: that’s a helpful explanation. When I read the story on Yahoo News before coming here, they were heavily citing a Daily Mail (I know, trash) report and it read as more “sinister” than that, claiming in the story that a doctor said the injuries in the autopsy appeared consistent with a blow to the skull with “a baseball bat or falling 20 to 30 feet.” But those ritzy hotels have those super-hard granite, tile or marble floors and tubs, so if your feet get out from under you, you could really smack your head hard on one of the surfaces.

I’m so glad that we got the reunion of Din and Grogu in this show, rather than having to wait another year to see it happen on Season 3 of The Mandalorian. And Din’s and Grogu’s genuine joy at seeing each other was tremendously endearing. The way that little nugget leapt up into Din’s arms and how happily Din reacted was everything. Grogu is super adorable, without question, and his powers are intriguing, but even he, as great a character as he is, is elevated by being around and interacting with a character as great as Din Djarin. As in, Grogu’s training time with Luke was not as enjoyable as seeing him insistently tapping his little ball on the dome to get Din to go faster. It’s weird to write that a puppet and its puppeteers, a guy in a metal bucket and a voiceover actor who is not even on set have amazing acting chemistry together, but it’s true. It is a little odd that this Mandalorian content was wedged into a different show with a different tone and focus. Like, I wouldn’t have expected to see all of these things in a Mandalorian Season 3 itself: the actual moment of Grogu’s choice at Luke’s; Din’s downtime with Grogu before they got on the ship to head out at the end (i.e., a little more of their reunion when they are not being shot at), Din explaining to Grogu where they are going next (presumably Mandalore), etc. But I might have expected to see some more character stuff around these things in a Mandalorian show, and we just kind of glossed over things in this episode that they could have milked an entire episode out of. Sorry my comments are not really Boba Fett focused, but I found that aspect of this episode uninteresting, sad to say.