Hanahope

Just finished Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. recommended on another forum site in honor of the coronavirus. its a story about another flu bug that killed 99.9% of the population. definitely makes you want to stock up on water and nonperishable food and hope you don't need electricity and medicine to survive. but even then hard life. but the theme, survival is insufficient, comes through.

I don't recall seeing the paper that Alice was referring to that Q wrote before. Did I miss something? I can totally see Eliot trying to save Q like how Margo saved Josh and Fen. Will it work? I suppose not if the writers have definitely killed him off. or E pulls back at the last second and doesn't mail the letter. It really did feel like there was no way to save Josh and Fen, but then telling them to time travel ahead was the 'perfect' solution, i'm almost surprised it worked.

One thing that occurs to me if there was such a huge change in the culture of women having virtually no rights at all, is just how it must have hugely affected the economy. Certainly the economy as we know it now, would absolutely collapse. People wouldn't be able to afford their mortgages and other expenses of daily living on just the man's salary in many instances. Student loans would never get repaid (at least for the women). Most other credit card, medical and other bills would never get repaid. So did everyone get to start with a clean slate, no debt, the home in the name of the husband (and would all those deeds need to be changed, or just destroyed and new one's created)? How would that affect banks? do they even exist if food is bought with tokens? Does Gillead not use money at all? How does it trade with other countries? Wouldn't China have totally lost their shit with the billions owed to it? Gillead did more than just change who runs the government. It should have had huge consequences.

I did enjoy the movie and never felt bored over the 3 1/2 hours (though admittedly, I watched it in two parts). And I liked getting more info about Jimmy Hoffa than I knew before (which was very little). That said, I have to agree that, yeah, its another mob movie, with some of the same actors you've seen in several other mob movies with a director of other mob movies. sure, the CGI to make the actors appear younger was cool, though they still looked 40+ when they were "younger."

Finally got around to seeing this. I loved the casting, the acting, the mood, the choreography/cinamatography, and I sortof get the symbolism. But the story plot holes are just so big I can't really say I liked it. just how the whole underworld worked, until it changed. I guess to some extent we're just supposed to accept that Adelaide/Red are "different" and that's how things changed. Ok, fine, I can live with that. but how it all worked in the first place just doesn't have enough support/background to form the basis from which to make that change. That said, I like Jordan's work to make different and more thought provoking ideas.

Finished The Guardians by John Grisham. Turns out, there were a couple if little twists in the drug cartel frames black man for murder of white lawyer, but those twists weren't explored too much, or really explained as to why one of the primary players chose to try and stop the exonneration when i'm sure absolutely nothing would have happened to that player if he had just ignored it all. and really, none of the other primary players should have cared either. as the protagonist kept saying, it was over 20 years ago, those involved are long gone in some sense one way or another, why care? but sure, it sounds nice when those that did it get caught.

So does this mean that Jason Ralph is coming back to the show? I suppose it'll be interesting to see if the Q-golem thing works. I suppose the idea is that the golem will have Q's memories from the life book, with his "soul" or personality based on the notes Q wrote in the Fillory book. So what happened to Elliot after the slide back up? Or did he stay down with the time troll?

I think Tyson won on his second try as well. Or was it his third?

Listing to Rob's deep dive with Tommy. Yet again Survivor doesn't show us a key relationship. Tommy talks about how he and Dean had a tight relationship from early in the game and that's why Dean told him that Noura, Elaine, Janet and Karishma were trying to vote him out after the loved one's visit. In fact, Tommy specifically didn't take Dean on the reward in order to leave him at camp to be his ears and eyes (and it would have been vice versa).

Looking forward to seeing Trent perform, and maybe the Doobie Brothers. Not really up for the rest. hopefully the tribute to Whitney will have decent singers, they've been hit and miss with that.

One thing that occurred to me. Sure, the kids of commanders and other top professionals (like the dentist) got to go to "elite schools" that didn't teach them reading and so forth, and the girls were growing up not able to read. But we never heard about what exactly is the life of an econofamily. Presumably not everyone was on board with Gilead's philosophy, but played along due to a desire to keep living. and even if the guardians/eyes went through everyone's house and removed all the books (but aren't the men still allowed to read?), that doesn't stop the parents from knowing how to read and at least teaching their kids the basics. Sure the commanders and their ilk kept their wives and family subjugated as much as they could, but that doesn't mean all the economen did so.

Just started The Guardians by John Grisham. Its about a non-profit group, akin to the Innocence Project, trying to get releases for innocent prisoners. The main plot seems to be about a black man (of course) framed for murder by a drug cartel. there's probably more to it. Finished The Testaments. Nice ending to the story. Its a bit hard to sync Aunt Lydia of the book with the show. And I was a tad surprised that Gillead lasted a relatively short time, but i really might have been harder to overthrow the longer it went on and all women lost the ability to read. But I suppose that makes sense when its not really a philosophy guiding the leaders, but just a hunger for power. plus an inability to completely subjugate a good 50% of the population.

Totally agree with your entire post. I have not yet decided whether I will watch or not. I have limited time these days, so this show is clearly at the bottom of my watch list. If I do watch, it'll be sometime after anyone gets 'credit' for it.

So incredibly sad , RIP Neil.

Not to mention an incredible lyricist