Schweedie

Man, I hate this so much. I feel like they got Vegas so wrong (and Lloyd), on top of everything else! Making everyone and everything in Vegas so over the top - gladiator fights? It's just lazy. The whole thing about Vegas was the whole "I bet their trains are running on time" thing. People worked hard there, drugs weren't allowed, etc. Dayna was surprised at how much she actually *liked* some of them. I can't really find the words for what I mean, but the contrast between good and bad wasn't about what they're showing here. It was more about... people following an authority out of worship and fear? And then they have Flagg at the end with Dayna talking about how they need to re-establish order, after him addressing a crowd earlier and encouraging them to enjoy violence. Ugh. And Lloyd... Man. They handled him so well before. What a mess that turned into.

I read this and thought "Huh, I don't remember posting this" at first, heh. This is exactly how I'm feeling about all of it. I'm disappointed and so frustrated, because there's *so* much potential there. Nine episodes, all of about (I'm guessing) an hour each, which equals three more hours total than the original series - so how come after four episodes I still don't feel like I actually have a feel for anyone other than Stu and Harold, and maybe Larry? Like, sending Tom Cullen out on his spy mission was a big deal both in the book and the original series and here it's just like, "Well, here's your story to tell them over there, bye-bye and good luck", and they've done very little to make me care about this Tom. Or anyone, really. So frustrated with this show.

Very similar feelings here. Greg Kinnear as Bateman so far is the one thing I actually like better than the old mini series - he's exactly what I've always pictured Bateman to be when I read it, although agreed about the paintings. That part was a bit overkill. In general not really enjoying it, mainly because the non-linear structure isn't working at all for me. I wonder if it's confusing viewers with no prior knowledge at all of the story (if those viewers exist), because it confuses me! And frustrates me, because I feel like they keep just barely scratching the surfaces of every character they focus on for a little bit, before they skip to something else. ...It's also possible I'm just annoyed that they short-changed Nick's whole Shoyo experience, if that was really all we're gonna get about his story before he met Tom. Nick was always my favourite. (But yeah, what the hell is this thing about Mother Abagail only communicating through him? Such a weird detail to add/change.)

This is exactly what I thought. American-except-British Horror Story: Bly Manor - it felt much more like an AH season than anything else to me. And it didn't create the emotional investment I had in the Hill House characters, because these people didn't feel fully realised. I full on bawled during the last ten minutes of episode 5 of Hill House because they were so successful in making me care, while here it was just... Eh. And too many things that didn't go anywhere, like Henry's evil alter ego. I liked Hannah, and Owen. That was pretty much it. Then, I really don't like The Turn of the Screw, which probably had the series at a disadvantage from the beginning for me.

Yeah, that really was a -- well, a dead giveaway. (Sorry, not sorry.) Not surprising at all. Still my favourite episode so far, because Hannah and Owen are the only characters I actually seem to care about.

I'm pretty sure they're related to the glowy-eyed ghost she's seeing in mirrors - the glowy eyes look to me like glasses hit by headlights or something, so my bet is the glasses belong to someone she knew/loved who died wearing them (hence the cracked glass) and is haunting her. (I've only watched the first two episodes, so pure speculation.) This episode was an improvement on the first one for me! Knew the bird was dead as soon as the teacher pointed it out, but I liked the reveal with the drawing, of why Miles was trying so hard to get kicked out.

Yeah, he was the groom-to-be in the beginning, in the frame story. I had the exact same thought, heh. Good for him! Didn't love it, but I'll keep watching. I think the fact that I've read the Turn of the Screw (and didn't like it) is messing it up for me a bit - I keep thinking ahead and wondering how close an adaption this will be, since The Haunting of Hill House was VERY loose. I really need to turn that off, but it's hard.

I mean, Richard was married into the family and was a cheating bastard, so it makes sense he wouldn't have any qualms against shittalking his brother-in-law, heh. I liked Linda the best of the adults, until she turned so hard on Marta at the will reading. I thought she seemed sincere when she refused to be baited by Blanc; she seemed genuinely sad at their dad's death; and if I remember correctly she was the only one Harlan never had specific words with about anything that night - instead, he fought with Richard about him cheating on her. But of course, she turned out to be as vicious as the rest of them when she felt slighted. I liked that even Ransom's parents had no illusions about him - they found out he was being cut off and were like, yeah, sounds about right. He must've been an ass his whole life for his parents to not be the least surprised or offended at that.

Heh, true. And she was /made/ to be eternal, she never knew anything else, while humans start out with a different perspective. While many of us believe or hope there's a continuation, I don't think any human has the ability to fully grasp the idea of literal eternity.

I think the one thing they did know was what Janet (I think it was Janet) said last week - that it would be peaceful. When you've "lived" a literal eternity, I guess perhaps the one final thing you would like is peace. Would anyone actually like to live forever? Because that would technically be it if there was no cessation to their existence in the afterlife, living forever. I just cannot imagine wanting that, no matter how wonderful your existence is.

I think the thing that really throws me off the suicide comparison is that -- they're already dead. Literally. They've been dead for most of the show, aside from the brief period we spent with them on Earth in that experiment. They've existed in the afterlife for an infinite amount of time - I can't remember how many Bearimys we ended at, but I'm pretty sure it had basically been an eternity. And when Eleanor finally went through the door it felt like Michael had already spent quite some time on Earth, so it didn't seem like she went straight for it after he went down there, either. I guess I just don't really see the parallels between a suicide and finally being ready for the next phase of your existence after lifetimes and lifetimes of enjoying paradise. For those of you who hated it, would you have felt differently if our humans hadn't gone through in the episode? Or is it the whole idea of the "final" door in general?

One of my favourite moments was when he smiled at Michael after he said "I know you can't, buddy", and then caught himself smiling and looked appalled at himself. Oh, I love this way of looking at it. Very true. And I agree - I found it a really soothing, comforting take.

There was a moment with him on a TV screen seemingly going through one of his reviews, where he was asking if he really couldn't tell *any* woman to smile, not even if she really would look prettier that way and he was doing her a favour, heh. I'm assuming it took them a few Bearimys to get through to him. I'm really surprised that people feel like it compares (not saying anyone's wrong to feel that way, just surprised). I think there's a huge difference between blowing their brains out beacuse "life was too boring and they'd had enough" and suddenly experiencing a sensation of feeling at peace and being at one with the universe and deciding they were complete. I mean, they'd had basically infinity there. I think The Companion nailed it above - those people last week, if they'd run through right away, that would've been a suicide door. This wasn't that. It was more like -- like, think about Nirvana in buddhism. That nothingness of being complete, that's what you strive for there. Maybe it would've helped if we got to spend at least one episode before this with them actually being happy in The Good Place, seeing them on their journeys there, but I still felt the happiness they'd had.

For me, this was perfect. As an atheist I struggle with the idea of an afterlife and have always felt the idea of an eternity is uncomfortable. When I'm done, I want to be done, and I love that our cockroaches got to be done when they felt ready. It wasn't out of boredom, they were /ready/. Chidi's explanation of when he'd first felt it, with his mom kissing Eleanor goodbye and Eleanor's mom rubbing the lipstick off her cheek, man, the tears were flowing over here. (I'm getting teary-eyed again just typing it, dammit.) A thing I would've liked to see were the tests the other people related to our bunch went through. Like, I wish we could've seen how Tahani's parents learned how badly they'd treated their daughters. I still feel we wasted too much time on the test subjects in the first half of the season and we could've had a few more episodes that felt less rushed before the finale, but to me, they landed the ending.

She didn't have a dad. That's why she's attracted to all the father figures on the TV shows she watches, mm-khmm? (I loved that bit.)

I absolutely loved this. Did I completely understand what was going on? Nope, but I also didn't feel like I needed to, because Ephraim/Tommy sure didn't. Can't believe it didn't get any acting nominations at the Oscars.

I think my one favourite things about this may have been how their stories differed slightly during interrogations just out of ignorance - like, Linda: "Her family's from Ecuador" and then Richard: "Her family's from Paraguay". And also the visuals they cut in, like when Linda was talking about her dad they showed her and her family behind Harlan and the cake and when Walt was talking, it was his family.

Yeah, given that Laura Linney played the mother in The Squid and the Whale I bet she would've been a top choice if this movie had been made around that time instead. I actually didn't read that as fake-nice, although it could've been - I thought they might be genuinely friendly and cordial outside of the court room, moving in the same circles etc, but paralelling the people they'd represent in that once in the court room, they got ruthless. (It was the same way while Alda was still Charlie's lawyer - as soon as they mentioned lunch during their meeting they just sort of stepped out of their lawyer shoes and raved about the the food.) But she certainly came across as someone who WOULD do fake-nice when she needed to. I really liked this, not sure if I loved it. I thought the balance between drama and comedy felt a little off sometimes, and some of the dialogue/monologuing felt too heavy-handed. Like something that would read really well as a play, on stage, but not quite on the screen. But Johansson and especially Driver were really, really good. Adam Driver is one of those actors who truly get under my skin - when he emotes, I really feel it.

Even more than the baseball boy scene, what really effed me up was the sequence with the dead mom and her baby, and "They haven't found us yet." I wasn't sure if we were supposed to think it was real or Dan's guilty conscience handing him a nightmare, but it was exactly where my mind went as soon as he left her with the baby on the bed, so I assumed it WAS real.

"People improve when they get external love and support. How can we hold it against them when they don't?" I would just like to say this is one of my favourite lines from the whole show so far. LOVED this episode. That felt like the show I love, moreso than earlier this season. Especially loved the little bit between Janet and less-bad-now Janet, with the "I'm so proud of you" - "I don't care" exchange. Less-bad-now Janet totally did care! That little pause and head wiggle said so.

If we stick with the theory that this is all still a test for *our* four humans I feel like there were more arrows in that direction tonight, with Jason controlling his impulses and saving the demon exploder for the right moment, and Tahani realising she wants to be useful for real, learn and do something that matters. Still not feeling this season as much as the previous ones, but the last couple of episodes have been more like it!

Oh man, the moment where "Daisy" came alive gave me the biggest laugh of the season so far. Chidi's reaction was up there with the moment Michael entered his existential crisis.

Also, I got the impression that the scenes we were seeing play out the night of the accident were the events as described by Legasov, not necessarily exactly what actually happened. We know they'd already decided to pin it on Dyatlov, and our trio knew this as well and were expected to build the case against him. I thought he seemed even more aggressive and pigheaded in those flashbacks than what we saw in the first episode, and his lines in court about Legasov lying didn't sound fake to me. No doubt he WAS the driving force, but I thought we were meant to read it as Legasov as painting a grimmer picture just to really hammer on Dyatlov's culpability.

This is honestly bugging me so much now that I've watched it. How did Original Adelaide become Tethered just because she ended up down below? That to me implies it's really the dimension downstairs that causes it and not the people themselves, but that doesn't quite gel with what we were told about the Tethered's origins. That formerly tethered Addy could grow into a 'normal' person once she made the switch makes sense in an environment-over-DNA discussion, but not that Original Addy would suddenly turn into the controlled one who would have demonic children (while New Addy had normal children, despite them technically being the same mix of tethered and non-tethered - Jason may have been a little different, but not THAT much.) ...I'm probably thinking too hard about this.

...Bloody hell, I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, now that scene is worse.