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Charlemagne

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  1. But, I mean... its genre seems pretty clear to me. It's a satire. In the vein of The Death of Stalin. I found its tone to be 100% focused in that regard. I am loving it. Others are not. That's how it goes. I am very comfortable being in the minority on this one. 😊
  2. I thought it was simply fantastic.
  3. Totally. A classic "put your cart before the horse" situation. And it may even be that the con artists had hoped it would be longer before Oscar found out that he had been scammed but Oscar couldn't contain himself and spoke to George. As a result, he found out earlier than he might have - but still too late, as it turned out.
  4. The question that he wanted answered was a question never posed in the show. Oscar didn't invest because of that one deal. He invested in the company overall so that he can be a railroad tycoon in his own right. You may recall that he was given a dividend on his initial smaller investment in the form of a big check from the fake banker. Though we know now that the check was likely fake, Oscar was impressed enough by the sum to want more. Which is a classic grifter strategy. Oscar was presented with a "choice." Take the money and get out, or put in more money to get even more money. He ripped up that dividend check and opted to put more money in. Which is what the con artists wanted him to do. So, to sum up: How could Oscar have gotten a dividend check if that fictional deal had not gone through yet or had already been acquired by Russell? The only answer possible is that the contract that Russell eventually won (which was real) was but one facet of what Oscar was trying to invest in. The issue in this debate is that many people are misunderstanding this critical narrative point. Oscar thought that he was investing in a company that was making *many* deals - for which he had already seen a dividend check in his hands. The competing contract with Russell was just a real situation that the con artists used in order to lend legitimacy to their overall fake narrative.
  5. The writers did just fine in this instance. They way they did it worked. And this is knowable because it can be compared to real life. How much money did some people put into NFTs when common sense should have prevailed? If someone wrote NFTs into a story (and they did not previously exist), that would have seemed completely unbelievable. Yet here we are. On this subject matter, it's not an opinion like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We have verifiable "comps" in this particular narrative neighborhood. How in the hell did Nigerian Prince scams work? Beats me. But they did. As unbelievable as it would seem... they did.
  6. Fair enough. But the issue still remains: as a storyline... there's nothing unbelievable about it. We can point at the sucker and marvel at how someone could have been so stupid but it's one of the truest storylines on the show.
  7. You are 100% correct in your assessment. People are holding the character of Oscar responsible for not being as smart as they think he ought to have been when we still see people falling for stuff like it today. Elizabeth Holmes & Theranos Health Technology. Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX Cryptocurrency. How many people *within* those very industries were duped? How many celebrities - who had their own teams of managers, etc. - were duped? There is nothing about this particular storyline that is in any way unbelievable. Folks love to gamble on a new opportunity and to make a quick major payday and don't always think everything through. Hell.... there's a city in the Nevada desert with bright lights whose whole basis for existing is to entice people who ought to know better to part with their money.
  8. It feels like you might be applying options & sensibilities from today to the time period and characters of the story. It's not like Oscar could have Googled things. Part of the nature of these scams - which is 1000% believable because it's how they work and still goes on today - is that someone is duped into thinking that they are getting in on the ground floor of something that most people do not know about yet. History is littered with victims of con jobs that people think are unbelievable when examining them from a distance. It's also important to remember that the "beauty" of the scam is that its whole hook is that it was a new company - hence the lure of being a founding investor. Oscar had no reason - within the parameters of his gullibility - to think that there would be an existing track record because he thought he was getting in on the ground floor of something brand new.
  9. It is a natural assumption that after Oscar handed the Big Check over, he signed some papers (which would have undoubtedly been fake.) But, in Oscar's mind, that's it. His particular deal is done as far as he is concerned. Payment is given, the thing of value is received. From our perspective, he is a dumbass, yes. Absolutely. But we are witnessing right now the collapse of NFTs and Crypto. How many otherwise intelligent and competent people were scammed by those? Oscar's situation seems 100% realistic to me.
  10. The difference is that the deal is done (or so he thinks.) It's the difference between knowing a hot stock tip before you secure your position and keeping that tip secret so no one else invests and then telling people that you invested after the fact. The thing that changed was this: at one point he wasn't an investor... and then at another point he thought that he was an investor. A big enough investor that he saw himself as approaching the same level as George Russell (or on the way to it.) This was about Oscar's pride as much as his greed. And, yes, all those things that you mentioned are, indeed, red flags. Con artists deliberately look for people who ignore red flags - for whatever reason. Cons don't work on everyone. They just need to work on someone.
  11. I mean... yeah. That's it. It wasn't any more complicated than completing a financial transaction (or thinking he had). One second, he didn't have leverage/sway. The next, he thought he did.
  12. The difference being that your place is now secure as a founding investor. There is nothing for Russell to derail. (Pun intended.) For example, had Russell known about it beforehand, Russell could have swooped in and offered a bigger investment in order to shut Oscar out. That's just one scenario. And if George wanted to buy out the fictional railroad in order to acquire a competitor to shut it down, that would mean a big payday for Oscar since he was an initial huge investor. So, Oscar thought that he was putting one over on Russell. It was another example of Oscar's hubris. The very thing that the Con Artists targeted.
  13. It was implied - much like it's implied that people go to the bathroom on this show but we never actually see it. When Oscar delivered the Big Check, that was our narrative indication that the investment had "gone through." That was Oscar's "move" - writing and handing over the check. In his mind, he was now a Tycoon (or, well on the way to being one.) A con man who goes through the trouble of decorating a pretend office is also going to have prepared "official papers" for Oscar to sign. It's a common narrative shortcut. Like when we see someone arrive in a carriage, it is implied that they got on to that carriage at some other location. (Or vice versa) We didn't need to see it. Seeing Russell across the street as he was passing by was just the first opportunity to organically have an excuse to crow about it. He couldn't even wait until the first social occasion. He wanted to let Russell know that he (Oscar) was now a real Player in the game of Monopoly. His whole, "I hope that it won't be awkward..." opening line was just his cover story for sticking it to Russell with his big news.
  14. Yes, it did,- because that's not why he crossed the street. He crossed the street after he thought the investment was done and wanted to rub Russell's face in the fact that he (Oscar) was now also a "Railroad Man." The excuse about saying, "Hello," was just that - an excuse to parade his new investment in front of George.
  15. That was part of the con. The fictional railroad was in competition with Russell's. Going to him to ask about the investment would be like warning him, in a way, of a competing move that meant money for Oscar and less money for Russell (theoretically.) You don't walk across the street to ask a neighbor about something when you have a grudge against them (the whole Gladys humiliating rejection thing) and when you have been making moves that would adversely affect said neighbor financially. That was part of Oscar's motivation for reckless behavior, by the way. Not just greed but to also become a tycoon on equal footing with the man who humiliated him. Think back to the moment when Oscar went to say, "Hello," to George Russell. That was him doing a victory lap (in his mind.) The investment was done (so he thought) and now all that was left was to rub it in George's face - albeit in the manner of polite society. But it blew up in Oscar's face.
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