Featherhat

I'm aware legal ethics are separate from moral ethics but Jen was presented as someone who became a lawyer to do good, that she didn't want to be a superhero/Avenger because being a lawyer was where she was supposed to fight the good fight. That was literally her first speech in the pilot that the man who became her boss should be found guilty because he abused his power, not because what he did was illegal. She is definitely presented as the kind of (TV) lawyer who would turn down the job if she thought she might be freeing a dangerous person into society - it's why she went to the prison before she accepted Blonsky as her client in the first place. I'm not questioning that she took the job per se, I get why, she was desperate and she'd been thrown a lifeline. It's just that considering she was arguing morality (in court) against her new boss, that she shouldn't be as surprised as she seemed that there were some catches in what she was being asked to do. She didn't even ask what the "new division" was or what her responsibilities would be. He was a little taken aback that she didn't even think about it first time around. I don't think he's a terrible boss yet, in fact he was fine-ish. I think he's a terrible person who is being set up a either a villain/antagonist because it's pretty clear from the pilot and this episode that he knowingly let people die for business reasons. And he smirked when saying Jen was totally right and should have won the case but hahah, he called a mistrial which got her fired. And I that most people would have called a mistrial but he fully acknowledged she should have won. In which case he did deliberately let people die. I would actually find it refreshing if he was a grey character since these D+ shows haven't exactly been subtle about characters like this (Hayward for example might as well have twirled a moustache by the last ep) but we'll see.

Ah, Jen, you should have realised taking a job from a corporation who's lawyer said "that depends on what your definition of "knows" (that he was deliberately killing people) is." would have massive ethical compromises! Jen said she was fired from a lot of places but it seemed like she wasn't fired so much as just not hired (apart from the DAs obviously). She could have always tried to go the Matt Murdock route but I guess she didn't have a lot of time before they offered her the job. Nice to see Tim Roth getting to have fun. I like that about later Marvel, that they're bringing back disliked characters and giving the actors a chance to go in a different direction. Heartfelt hiakus to Bruce! Who is conveniently out of the story on a space ship. It will be interesting to see how she navigates the complexities of this case, even apart from illegal fighting as Abomination. I can't remember TIH, was Blonsky telling the truth about what happened? I know they were originally trying to create new Caps but didn't he end up injecting himself with more or something? I still like her supportive paralegal friend and her obviously enjoying the perks of potentially working for evil law firm. I wonder how far her terrible boss is actually going to be a villain as opposed to just an asshole antagonist? Personally I prefer that they dialled back for now on the "I'm a woman so I'm already repressing hulk level feelings of pain and rage everyday" as the tag to everything. Not that I didn't agree with what she was saying but I felt it was Supergirl levels of terribad writing. Jen hating the name She-Hulk was pretty funny. Over all I really enjoyed it. I still love TM's take on the character and I feel like she's really settling in to Jen. Jen herself is really likeable and interesting and it will be fun to see where this goes. *Also does she have to carry around a spare set of clothes everywhere in case someone needs her to Hulk Out or UnHulk? Because it didn't seem like she had any at the prison.

In terms of Visery's character or first marriage mattering in marrying Alicent or anyone else to him, I think it does. Most men even in a patriarchal society would prefer to marry their daughters to a King who would treat them well rather than a Mad King or Joffrey. Of course many would still do it but most would still prefer to be able to say "I've picked out a decent man for you" rather than know it's a toss up whether your daughter (and any power and alliance gained from the marriage) even lasts the year. There are surviving letters where ambassadors and those negotiating political matches tell their masters and the princesses who are about to be shipped off "he's handsome and of noble character, has clean habits and treats his mistresses well." Whether that was completely true or not was a different matter but there was some effort put in to reassuring everyone of a potential successful match. Olena and Margaery got the brutal facts from Sansa and were still plotting how to handle Joffrey in a way that ensured he wouldn't sadistically torture her immediately and came closest to succeeding but once it became clear that it wouldn't work long term, Olena handled him. Even in real world medieval Europe once someone got a certain reputation for how they treated their wives, a lot of top tier wealthy, powerful Kings decided that their sisters and daughters could marry a different King or powerful lord, leaving only ones from smaller, less wealth/powerful states or lesser nobles who were desperate enough for an alliance.

A writer from Fringe doesn't necessarily mean they're going to go full on parallel universe/alternate timelines/flashforwards/possible outcomes but it does lend credence to those theories. And if they are thinking about playing with some of those things it's good to have someone on board who knows how to stick those landings on a network show. He also wrote some good eps for OUAT as well as some clunkers but to be fair I thought most of the later seasons were clunkers in general. I watched In the Beginning today for the first time in years and that John and Mary are surprisingly awesome compared to the dreck later (also so is Mitch Pileggi as always). I know it's 15 years later but I wouldn't mind Matt Cohen and Amy Gumenick popping up for guest spots in this show, either as other characters or alternate older versions of the characters.

Right, I ignored the fact that she changed back. I was just concentrating on the juxtaposition between "all buzz no barf" and Jen clearly about to spend hours head in the porcelain throne. It didn't register that this was a perk that came with (real world deadly) down sides.

We already know that John and Mary were subjected to several angelic mind wipes, although I doubt they'll only rely on this. The idea that John knew nothing until Mary's murder and then took up Hunting in grief and rage is pretty potent but it's not a be all and end all of plot points for me. Worry about a prequel (or sequel) series is pretty common even when there's source material (just look at some corners of the Tolkien/GOT fandoms right now) so I get that and I get that a John/Mary series will not be everyone's cup of tea. And I get that being framed by Dean will not be everyone's cup of tea either but I think some of the anger/angst in some places (not here) is a little OTT. I am going to be really interested to see who watches it, both in terms of SPN fandom and to see if it picks up any newbies.

I guess they wanted not just the origin story at the beginning but Bruce/MR as soon as possible, especially him reminiscing about his friends, finishing his Endgame storyline and Hulk vs She Hulk fights to draw the most amount of people in? It may have been better if we'd had an episode with just Jen and friends and *then* the origin as ep 2 released all at the same time so we could still end on that cliffhanger if they wanted. Although I've no idea if it would have been feasible to do that. Forgot to add before: I didn't like the Steve stuff for a number of reasons (apart from anything else I'm always a little weirded out by how eager some productions are to make fan discussions and theories actual text these days) but I guess it's a tiny bit notable that it's unusual that movies or TV treat a male character's virginity or potential virginity as something to be coy about for so long. Although most female characters wouldn't get the "yeah she banged a USO guy in the 40s!!" punchline.

I liked it but I didn't love it. Tatiana always has huge presence and she and Ruffalo had great chemistry and were believable adult cousins but I didn't love the "great, I'm a hulk, I can do everything (physical) amazingly already, let me get back to my life" stuff. Which was the basis of the entire episode. I guess they touched on it a little but this isn't the way Bruce expected his life to go either Jen! and he really didn't want to be a superhero at first and nor did he think he was capable of being one. Just because you're different doesn't mean you should ignore 90% of what he has to say. Even though obviously it wouldn't be a show if it was them getting along in Mexico for 30 minutes. Also the "as a woman...." didn't land for me and I'm not quite sure why, I agree with what she said and it's not wrong to verbalise it, but maybe it just felt like a writer thinking they were awesome lines than something anyone would say when dealing with becoming a Hulk? Or in general. Or maybe Hollywood wanting points for pointing out the problem whilst perpetuating it 95% of the time. Or maybe because she basically said the same thing 5 times in 5 minutes. We'll see how that goes. Bruce and Tony carved their names together, aww. Ultron has two daddies..... On a more serious note it's good to get some more information on how and why Bruce managed to integrate himself into Smart Hulk which Endgame completely left out. Bruce says Hulks can't get drunk/barf from alcohol but 1 minute later Jen has a hangover? The friend knowing and being supportive was nice, the few seconds we got of it, as was her encouraging Jen to remove her shoes. Jen doesn't seem like that great an attorney from the albeit brief speech, although other guy was terrible as well "it depends on your definition of knowing" so maybe it's just usual TV court room issues. Marvel D+ shows always feel either too long or too short with their episodes, it's frustrating. All in all Jen is definitely an interesting character and Tatiana is as always extremely watchable so I'm.

I have to say Kat always promotes the hell out of whatever she's in. Obviously she wants to promote herself as much as possible so it's good business but like with JP's birthday she'll always try to add some fandom fun in by going "my great grandson/my parents/my big bro/my evil Dad" etc for all her projects. She (and some others) seem to work more creatively than a lot of the official accounts for these shows. That was especially noticeable when she was on Arrow.

I feel like this is something important to get across. I've seen a lot of people really upset that "John didn't know Mary was a Hunter OMG they're completely throwing away the whole of SPN!!" And far too many prequels do play way too fast and loose with what comes before without bothering to tie it back in. There are plenty of ways what happens in this series could end up being forgotten, John's memories tampered with or even technically never happen, the latter not being my favourite trope. I'm looking forward to this more than I thought I would and it seems like it could get quite creative. And I'm all for shows set in different eras on network TV, especially on the CW (still cannot believe Reign not only got picked up but lasted 4 seasons). Although one petty quibble is that I saw someone comparing the poster to The Vampire Diaries and now I can't unsee it. It's very basic CW.

I mean it could have been a mix of all three plus other issues we aren't aware of. He may well genuinely struggling with personal issues that mean working right now is unwise (since he is probably in a position to be able to afford to make that choice), he may have refused to obey covid quarantine protocols (that was the deadline he missed ie a national requirement) and that he has been difficult or "difficult" about that and other stuff so when he failed to show up the producers were "happy to accept his decision" and move on without trying to keep the part open. Normally these days if an actor needs to leave for mental health reasons and does so in a professional way, there's generally speaking much less of this kind of speculation doing on in trade pieces themselves and more of a firm "this is what happened" narrative.

I hope he gets the correct help and support. If he truly didn't feel capable of working it was probably a good idea to quit now rather than try and make it though the season and end up in worse shape both personally and professionally. The Deadline article at one point says: And that instead of letting them know beforehand he simply didn't show up in Vancouver which triggered the decision to recast. So I guess he notified them after not showing up and maybe not showing up triggered the producers to decide to recast rather than leave it open? Either way I hope everything works out for all parties, he will be a tough act to follow.

A new 15 second promo: https://www.spoilertv.com/2022/05/the-winchesters-first-look-promotional.html

I personally snark because I love these days, I don't both flat out hate watching. Smallville deserves a lot of credit for both what it achieved personally and for what came after it. The Arrowverse does owe it a lot. Arrow premiered only 15 months after this ended and I remember the outrage that JH wasn't getting a spin off but "Green Batman" was. I kind of put it in the same category as SG1 which was the longest running North American Sci fi series before SV overtook it. They both ran for 10 seasons, were episodic with long running arcs and were considered somewhat cheesy/goofy even for Sci fi, especially in their later years when grimdark, gritty, serialised was at it's zenith. This show survived Dawn Ostroff's attempt to defacto cancel it by moving it to Fridays because they didn't realise it (and Supernatural's) audience would follow it because the CW only focused on women 18-34 at that point. It was pretty impressive. Although I will say so many shows including SV would have ended on a higher note if they'd ended 2 seasons + earlier.

I remember reading on this topic last year and apparently there is/was an ongoing issue with enough hairdressers that specifically train in black hair being able to get the right union qualifications so SAG productions can hire them, which was a bit shocking in itself leading to people like Retta have to privately hiring their own even on big shows. But you would think on a popular show with several black women as regulars over the years not to mention other POC that providing hair and make up people for them would be more of a priority.

Not really surprised given the state of this show and the Arrowverse but OTOH unlike Arrow there is no clear Crisis endgame set up right now and EW seemed to think there might be a S10 a while ago. I'm sure it will be a happy ending but it will be interesting to see how many eps CP is in after that podcast where she didn't hold back about her time on the show. Stephen Amell has previously said he wants to guest star in the final season so we might get Oliver and some of the Legends but it will be interesting to see if we get Kara.

It was also announced in March that S5 would be the end and decided before that. I'm not sure when the finale was filmed but surely there was enough time to give them a "happy ending" where they got married but arranged for Helen to be off screen in ep 5. They knew that they didn't have to completely blow them up because the lead needed to be romantically available for potentially several more seasons, other shows have done that. Or they could have actually made use of the time they had left and actually dealt with Helen's actual baggage and problems and not gone for artificial drama that was copy pasted from any of 1000 shows. Because a certain type female character must always have exactly the same commitment and relationship issues even if it makes no sense. It's like no matter how interesting the set up the industry has just 3 ways of handling female characters in relationships. This show had so much good will, even after S3 and I can't believe they messed that up so badly, for literally every character. For instance I assumed they must be writing Iggy as a hypocritical asshole who blames Martin for what he himself has done and makes disasters all about being all about him proving himself on purpose but it doesn't seem to be what they were actually going for.

Yep, it's obviously not an ideal scenario but they could have even filmed a brief reunion scene for the series finale if FA couldn't guarantee that she would come back for it, plenty of shows have done it. With 13 guaranteed eps and then an end you don't *need* your lead character to have an on screen love interest and you definitely don't have time do write a compelling new love story without it seeming like having one for the sake of having one. Might as well have them married off screen and use phonecalls and texts. Now they might do the "I'm flying to London to be with her" ending but it will be much more of a mess beforehand.

Wow, I knew she had another role but I assumed she was able to do both, especially with so few episodes left. I wonder if it's possible that they'll be able to get her back for the last episode, sort of like ER and others to show them reuniting to work on their relationship? Although there's not much there after last season. There's very little reason to stick around and watch the end of this but I'm actually curious about how low it sinks.

Checking the ep now, he kind of fumbles with the remote when she first asks what he's watching (she's thinking the same thing as the audience) and when I first saw it I remember assuming that he actually changed to that from porn but it doesn't seem to be the case, and the sounds really are people screaming/moaning from being swarmed. Bathtub!Scully is something that popped up throughout the show, which connects to Donny Pfaster's evil version all the more because it's one of the few indulgences we've seen her enjoy more than once. Watching the phone calls, it's another one where Mulder (and Scully in her own way) flirt like mad from a distance where nothing physical can possibly happen and everything can be brushed off as a joke in a way that they fumble every time Serious Emotional Territory comes up.

I imagine if I had watched the episode when it was originally hyped up as a hugely anticipated "Stephen King does X-Files!" I might be disappointed, as case wise it's a standard decent MOTW and you don't know it's King unless you know. Even with the Maine setting. The girl just seems a sullen brat rather than frightening and the doll and setting are barely creepy and not very atmospheric. And IIRC it's the one where you can take a metal claw to the face and come away with barely a scratch. And the people scratching their faces aren't convincing. However it's actually one I really enjoy. I love Vacation!Scully who's allowed to wear jeans and T-shirts and drive a convertible and she spends the ep looking fantastic. Poor Scully, they agree to take the weekend off probably to prove that they can occasionally have a life and are NOT co-dependent on each other but nope! Mulder doesn't even bother trying and she jumps in despite herself even whilst muttering "I'm on vacation" a lot, because duh. It's got great M/S interaction despite Mulder not being in it that much and kind of continues the idea that both of them start thinking of the other's POV to solve a case when separated. I like the Sheriff, it's nice to see Scully have a Not!date with a normal guy, although maybe she should ask him if he's secretly clones because he should look very familiar to her having also been the Sheriff in DHDV and Detective "Blankety-Bleep-Blank!" Manners. It's one of those S5 MOTW eps that aren't anything particularly wow case wise but just make everything work as personal favourites in general nonetheless for other reasons, mostly character moments, like Detour and Folie a Deux. Apparently King's original script was different (more M/S interaction at the end) among other tweaks. https://xfiles-behind-the-scenes.tumblr.com/post/131889269002/cute-things-from-stephen-kings-original-script

Is it possible to have a YA vampire series that doesn't involve Julie Plec? I actually enjoyed reading the first couple of books years ago but I'm leery of her involvement. I have seen the movie but I can't remember a thing about it.

I liked some parts of it but I sighed at a lot of other stuff. I knew the circumstances surrounding the movie and I know that my AP complaint is common but it still bugged. Some parts have the makings of a good MOTW, there's some decent character study of Mulder and Scully but a lot is meh. I adore Scully so much but I also really didn't like that she talked Mulder into taking this case to formally get the FBI of their backs (for the death penalty!) and 5 minutes later she was claiming the darkness was destroying him and he needed to quit right now or be swallowed by the darkness forever. Even invoking Samantha, which was just weird since it doesn't fit my top 20 cases where Sam is close to the surface even when they don't mention it specifically. She seemed much more consumed by Christian's case as a substitute for William than he did with Monica Bannen's. And if that was supposed to be an actual thread, a lot more could have been made of it or it could have been done differently. .....Yeah I know....early draft etc. Anyway I've been on a semi X Files kick since it came to Disney + in the UK and this thread has me trying to find clips and eps so I just outright watched the pilot and FBI BABIES! They both look twelve and fall into a proto dynamic so easily. Scully refuses to be a spy! Mulder knows she's been sent as one but respects her process, opens up and they both realise that she will never be able to write "it was aliens" in an official report. I'm also grateful to D+ for confirming beyond a shadow of a doubt that DHDV was the first ep I saw. Rain of frogs is a pretty great first memory of this show, even though I only saw because my parents were watching.

With TFWID it would be a hard sell even if there wasn't a large shipping contingent and you know, the show being all about Mulder and Scully's bond. "Oh some random woman is Mulder's soulmate but well never see or hear from her ever again!" Doesn't work. And if you keep missing your timing, are you really soulmates? I'd believe Lucy Householder is Mulder's soulmate before Melissa. I do think it's interesting that allegedly Scully was his father and Sergeant in previous lives. With Syzygy it shouldn't work but it does. I love the psychic demanding Mulder's card go through before, their petty relationship squabbling and baby Ryan Reynolds. I love that the girls state a moral of this episode "Best friends are supposed to stick together" and M&S both promptly ignore it. Killer tree ep is meh except it has a couple of good lines and potentially something interesting to say about cycles of abuse and trauma that never actually comes out. Sanguinarium is meh on it's own but interesting to see that it's part of a pattern of eps where characters quest after eternal life in an extremely gory eat people/suck their life force fashion - right up through IWTB to "Nothing lasts forever". Also interesting that some eps go with "Wicca good" and others go with "Wicca potentially evil occult worship." On another note I recently watched IWTB for the first time in a really long time and what was the point of Amanda Peet's character? I know she was supposed to be the believer to Drummy's sceptic but it didn't really work. We get a tepid crush that neither Mulder or Scully care about, she says "I thought I believed but now I'm not so sure" and promptly dies half way though the film and he death has little impact on Mulder or how the rest of the story plays out. So what was the point of her being all over the first part of the film?

At this point I really have to hope that CP wanted time off because if this whole lacklustre "arc" has been planned then I don't know what the hell Wallace and co are smoking. It really says something about the state of the series when Iris is "killed" by Barry and in so many places the Iris/WA fan reaction was "sigh, I'm sure it will work itself out" and more talk about Thawne becoming TC yet *again* and not in a good way. We know there's going to be a happy ending - and there will be even if CP does leave the series early- but there's no need to make it so nonsensical and non urgent seeming. I guess maybe they didn't want a repeat of Savatar (although they've repeated absolutely everything else so why not?) and whilst Iris barely had a POV and a sense of urgency in that plot at least it was a big deal! MirrorVerse plot still has my vote as biggest Iris wasted potential that they actually put on screen (as opposed to potential storylines they didn't even bother writing that cried out for attention) but this is just a bizarre way to handle everything. We really don't need to see Caitlin trying to resurrect Frost more urgently right after she died than we need to see Barry being worried and investigating *anything* that's clearly been going on with his wife for over a season.