MagnusHex

2x2: Metamorphosis Welp, this certainly didn't age well. Initially, I was gonna praise the episode for being one of the few episodes where Kirk actually acts like a diplomat instead of shooting somebody. Bones' quote regarding him as a diplomat was memorable and almost sold me on the episode. But then the alien cloud possesses the body of that bitchy shrew who couldn't find love until she becomes a subservient man-pleaser for Cochrane to fuck (reminds me of Wonder Woman 1984 and Buffy, both of which had a woman possessing another person without consent and fucking someone else in their body). That might be a little crude, but Cochrane pretty much went "Ew alien" until the cloud transformed into the one human he had the hots for. Also, fuck that war, right? Who gives a shit about peace when satisfying your pent up sexual energy is more important. 2.5/5

I was surprised to hear that the budget for this season was the lowest of all series because I had assumed the opposite. You had some terrific shots here (like when Castiel massacred all the angels or when Leviathan's veins popped up on Castiel) that I had thought the budget had been raised. It just goes to show that with great cinematography and maybe some cheap post-production editing, you could take advantage of a small budget to have some unforgettable shots. Buffy did this beautifully after all. Speaking of which, I was kinda hoping that Supernatural would follow the vampire slayer's route of milking as much as you could from a big bad that spouts philosophical musings. I wanted to see more of Godstiel wielding his god powers and stopping evil in the world, but in turn making us question whether Castiel was doing good (the KKK disbanded; 'nuff said). On the one hand, he did cause a lot of collateral damage in the corrupted politician's office, carrying his punishments too far by killing those who've merely ran her campaign, not to mention those hypocritical priests (or whatever the deal was with those "motivational speakers"). On the other hand, the Old Testaments were pretty bloody too, and the measurement of morality when it comes to religious texts is rather murky. And again, the KKK. C'mon. Also would've been cool to see Godstiel go against Lucifer, perhaps starting another war on heaven against the spawns of Hell (think Spawn or any of Neil Gaiman's Sandman-related literature). The show probably wouldn't have the budget for it, but I wouldn't mind settling for a one-on-one match between Godstiel and a series of Helldemons and their minions across season 7 (kinda like how they did the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse). That said, maybe it's a good thing Godstiel was gone so fast, because the free-will supporting Cas doesn't seem like much of a power-mad authoritarian who punishes people Old Testament style. It did seem out of character, and you could at least blame it on him being drunk on souls when his powers were gone so quickly. The appearance of Leviathan seems promising, but everything else in the episode did drag a little due to how routine it felt; Dean's despair of how everything has gone to shit again, Sam causing problems for Dean again (albeit inadvertently), Sam hiding shit from Dean again, hitting the books to beat the Big Bad again, them finding a MacGuffin to beat the Big Bad again. I get that that's the show I signed up for, but I did tune out a little bit because I was waiting for something more exciting to happen. But honestly, it's somewhat of a nitpick because (as I've said before) I don't watch Supernatural expecting these flaws to go away. I do like the show for what it is, campy fun. It's just that, I was ready for Sam and Dean to go back to being brothers just saving people, hunting things, doing the family business again without dumb tween drama that could've been resolved if they bothered to talk to each other, so I was a little disappointed that Sam felt compelled to lie (because of course he just happen to stumble onto Dean at the right moment without Dean realizing his presence, which is unlikely given how sharp Dean's instincts can be). Seeing Lucifer again was kinda fun though. He reminds me of The Joker from Patterson's Batman: being this renowned Big Bad that's just floating around in the periphery rather than being the main star. Mark Pellegrino really chewed the scenery here, but he made the scene work and kept me engaged. I hope they don't overuse him and just keep him at a distance for now. Let's call it 4/5 for the short but great use of Godstiel. Can't wait to see what Leviathan's all about.

Daria: Is It Fall Yet? Really solid topper to end season 4 of Daria. I like the wholesome closure to the love-triangle arc, but especially the nice developments of Daria and especially Quinn (returning them to status quo but with more layers in their established personality). 4.5/5

Talk to Me (2022) I really love this neat spin on possession flicks, but I don't think it quite work perfectly as a drug abuse allegory. I was initially thinking it was supposed to be such an allegory at first, but as the film went on, there is just one detail that didn't quite fit: I guess you could kinda say that a drug could induce paranoia enough in an addict that she would be compelled to kill someone thinking that she's helping him... but I don't know, seems kinda like a loosey-goosey line of logic. But alright, I'll bite, just because the rest of the film is so well-executed and intense: let's just say Mia is having a schizophrenic/paranoid episode due to the "drugs." Must be representative of cocaine or some hard stuff if it could induce that kind of hallucination. LSD maybe? I don't know drugs. That said, I'm more interested in the horror and supernatural side of stuff. As others have said, this was a pretty scary film compared to other "elevated horror," mostly because the stakes feel so real due to its drug abuse allegories. The characters are realistically flawed and fleshed out enough that you could picture them as dumb teenagers being dumb teens (as opposed to TV/Movie World dumb kids that are unrealistic levels of idiotic). And how about that spin on the possession sub-genre? When I first saw the trailer, I was immediately intrigued because it felt like such a fresh concept. Not only that, but I love how it showed just how callous teenagers can be. You hear stories of kids performing seances and other ethically dubious stuff like visiting a graveyard for kicks, so it's not that surprising, especially in our TikTok world, if someone were to upload a video of a possession and some dumb idiot would think, "Hey, I wanna give THAT a try." I heard that "Bodies Bodies Bodies" touched on similar elements regarding kids of the modern generation, so it's not the first time A24 explored how our youth has now an excuse to become even more reckless towards ethics and morals thanks to the existence of social media mass-spreading (mis)information. Great watch. Can't wait for the sequel. 4.5/5

7x25: Stench and Stenchibility Zoidberg does deserve to be happy, I agree, but this was still a poorly written episode. Marianne (Daenerys from GoT everyone) literally has no personality minus the very last scene, and even then, the whole "I never learned a bad smell from a good one" excuse felt contrived and illogical. That's not how the human brain works. It's instinctive, not learned. For a sci-fi cartoon, getting the science wrong is a major sin. Bender's B-plot is even worse as it's the two same generic plots we've seen a dozen time: 1) Bender being evil Bender, and 2) cute character turns out to be evil. Yawn. Ending of the B-plot kinda makes up for it, but not by much. 2.5/5

2z12: Out to Sea "Everyday it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day; that's the hard part. But it does get easier." I picked up this show because I wanted to keep fueling my own addiction for watching shows about broken people as I relate to them, but that line above, it just hits so close to home for me as well. Realest shit ever indeed. Also, this episode predicted AI actors! (although people have said this technology has existed for a long time) BoJack rescuing Todd hit right in the feels, especially his speech about the first time they met. It really showed that BoJack is trying to be better. Even if he fails about 90% of the time, it's the effort that makes it engaging TV. 4/5 Just saw the planetarian scene in the season 3 trailer, and I read the comments about the trailer spoiling and yet also subverting the planetarian scene and its tone, so I'm going to make a prediction based on what little I know about season 3: If I'm not wrong, I don't see anyone sitting with BoJack at all at the planetarian, and from what I heard about Sarah Lynn and the "That's Too Much, Man!" episode... yeah, seems possible the above scenario will play out, especially when others have compared that episode to "Escape from L.A." Really wish I am wrong because I really feel for Sarah Lynn, but I'm pretty sure I got spoiled about her ultimate fate.

I haven't been this excited to confirm anyone's death at all, but OJ is probably my first time. I've only heard snippets of what went down, but then I saw American Crime Story and was just infuriated at the injustice of it all. Hope the afterlife will serve as a better judge wherever Simpson's damned soul is at now (preferably somewhere eternally burning).

1x3: The Darkest Secret This got much, much darker than what I was expecting. I was under the impression that it was a one-time thing, perhaps Brian flashed his dick and whatnot to a young Drake. I didn't really follow the news on Drake Josh (besides the infamous "child endangerment" case I came across), so I was rather shocked to hear that Drake could have gone through something so vile and horrible and it would still seem like this actor on a kids comedy had a mundane life. I mean, if something so traumatic had happened to me, I wouldn't be able to function normally in my daily life, let alone perform on any kind of TV show. Perhaps it's because he had something to escape to, as he mentioned, having fun on the set of Drake and Josh letting him forget the horrible nightmare that was his childhood, at least temporarily. My abuse growing up was nowhere even close to any of the victims on the show, but I could definitely understand that escapism, even a brief escapism, from your abusive life, even years after the abuse has stopped. It gets stuck with you. I couldn't imagine what it's like for Drake's father to just find out about something like that. I mean, if it's that shocking for the rest of us, it must have been like going through a living Hell learning about what your son had gone through. I believe he tried his hardest to protect Drake, but I doubt he felt the same way, thinking he could have done more. You gotta love Drake's girlfriend's mother for being sharp as tacks. If it wasn't for her, god knows how much longer it would've gone on for. Anyway, I just feel emotionally exhausted watching this episode. My heart sank when Drake said, "And it got worse, and worse. And worse." And I was like... I don't know how much of this I could take. And when Drake left it to the audience's imagination what acts could have taken place, I was already thinking that it must've been pretty nasty stuff. But goddamn... when the episode showed that the freaking filming of child porn was involved, I was just speechless. It just goes to show how powerful these Hollywood elites really were to be able to be able to commit such a horrendous series of affairs and still get hired.

I read in a Reddit post that Mark's argument to Alissa was pathetic, and I initially agreed. I groaned when he went the cliched "Well at least I don't kill people" route. Facepalm-worthy. Lots of people don't kill people, like Joe Biden and Trump - doesn't mean they're saving the planet from destruction. Here's the list of counter-arguments Mark could have provided, according to the Reddit post: "If you really care about saving humans or the betterment of the galaxy you could offer them the climate saving technology without the threat of conquest." "Just as many humans would die in a planetary war against a race of mass murdering super beings." "The Earth would likely end up just as screwed up in the aftermath of the planet killing Viltrumite's stomping around it then it would be in a climate crisis." Or if you prefer Mark give an emotion argument. "Says the lunatic who threatened to murder dozens of humans just to have a conversation with me. You very obviously would end up killing humans at the drop of a hat if you ruled Earth." All that being said, looking back, I came to realize why Mark's reasoning skills suddenly dropped to 0 that point: Amber was almost killed. I'm sure all Mark could think about at that point, in his own words, was how to kill this bitch. Hardly a rational mind capable of logical thinking or even producing the so-called "emotional argument" IMHO. Furthermore, Mark did call on Alissa's bluff; he knew they needed him to conquer Earth as Nolan is AWOL, so he was probably stalling for time until he came up with a solution and therefore wasn't thinking straight about his conversation with Alissa. But with that being said, I do agree that the writing team could have handled that dialogue better. "At least I don't kill" is one of the dumbest counter-arguments you could have come up with, especially in 2024 when fiction-writing should have evolved, not rehashing old tired tropes. The scene with Amber and Mark breaking up was nicely handled though, better than Amber and Mark's relationship scenes from season 1. It made sense and it was inevitable. So here comes the MarkEve ship! Allen was powerful af. In a lot of "who would win" debates I've seen on Reddit, no Viltrumites could even come close to facing a Kryptonian, but Allen might, or at least DCEU Superman maybe. 4/5

1x12: Days of Future Past (Part 2) *Rogue calling Mystique "Mama"* Me: "WHAT?!" I guess they couldn't use Kurt in this cartoon maybe. Glad X-Men: Evolution rectified Mystique's spawn later though. Also, one of the most powerful mutants, if not superheroes of all time, Jean Grey: *lifting the broken section of a building* "IT'S TOO HEAVY." WTF?! lmao No wonder the memes made fun of Jean. Those goofs aside, I quite enjoyed the intrigue of the episode (even if I accidentally spoiled myself whom the assassin for this series is since I thought that this DoFP would be different from the Fox movie version; I never read the comic version). That episode ending punchline is also quite nice: "Because it's been magnetized." 3.5/5

2x11: Escape from LA Jesus fucking Christ. WTF BoJack. Curses aside, I was nearly as shocked as everyone else going into this (love seeing all the jaw-dropped shocked reactions of The Normies watching this) because this kind of dark depressing shit was what I signed up for when I first picked this show up. It's kinda a fucked up thing to say, but I relate to characters like this, people who are broken inside but not knowing how (or unwilling) to fix it. I was watching Dexter and House M.D. back then and needed a replacement show, so BoJack fitted. But damn, this is probably the darkest episode - so far (can't wait to see upcoming episodes others have raved about, like "That's Too Much, Man!"... oof, poor Sarah Lynn). BoJack's horrible actions aside, you gotta love how this is the anti-sitcom episode of the show. BoJack the show has always subverted comedy tropes, but this episode went out of its way to subvert (or rather, deconstruct) all the usual shenanigans sitcom characters get into: Quirky sitcom opening? Literally warned you things are gonna get uncomfortable. "Nothing's gonna be alright, be alright! Oh no!" Older adult going to a highschool prom? Oops, it's creepy because BoJack brought Charlotte's daughter there and also no one thought the old guy was cool. Heartwarming scene of BoJack sending balloons to the sky with Penny? Bad for the environment and also BoJack only did it for his own selfish purpose of reliving his time with Charlotte. Getting drunk? Oops, almost died of alcohol poisoning. Quirky hospital setting (the kind that randomly pops up in a sitcom)? Not gonna happen because BoJack is an irresponsible adult. Responsible adult rejecting a kiss from a minor? Oops, they almost have sex because he left his door open. Kissing your old flame who's already married? She rejects you like a good married spouse would in real life, asking you to GTFO. And a lot of scenes here pretty much boil down to "reality ensues" for sitcom situations, which I love as a fan of deconstruction in fiction. As a fan of the show, I just love how it doesn't disappoint when it comes to not holding punches in tearing down your usual comedy show routines and procedures, being this uniquely depressing show that can be as dark and somber when needed without disrupting the mood or tone with a wisecrack (like a certain cinematic universe that everyone's been imitating). And what about BoJack the protagonist? How far deeper could he sink down to from here? Because I think we've pretty much hit bedrock in the bottom of the barrel of morals and ethics. Any deeper and he would've pulled a Weinstein or Epstein. Yikes. Looking forward to seeing just how far the show could push us before we would truly hate the character. 5/5

I wasn't as much of a Nick-kid growing up (was more of a Disney Channel kid, and I'm also waiting for Disney Channel's own day of reckoning to come if what I'm hearing about the staff is true), but I remember watching some of their live action stuff like The Amanda Show and All That (specifically the 2002 season 7 revival starring Giovonnie Samuels). Watching episode 2 of Quiet on Set where I got to see Giovonnie, Bryan Hearne and Kyle Sullivan talk about their horrible experiences had a similar "hard to watch" effect on me, and it really made me look back on my childhood thinking, "How did I not catch this? How did I find this ever funny?" Hindsight is 20/20 I guess as they say, plus the fact that I was probably too young to catch all those innuendos, particularly by "Pickle Boy". I was always kinda slow when it comes to catching subtle details like that, so I took those jokes literally than saw the hidden and appalling metaphors they stood for. It was really surreal seeing Brian Peck in this new light during the viewing of the episode because out of all the things I vaguely remembered from All That, Pickle Boy was weirdly one of the things I remembered quite distinctly.

7x19: Saturday Morning Fun Pit Wow, people really hated this episode (especially the more vocal folks over at AV Club, giving it a rating of "D"), even though I haven't enjoyed Futurama as much as this episode in a long time (since season 4 maybe). This is satire gold, probably because I wasn't even really a fan of those shows this episode made fun of, even Scooby-Doo. I always thought Scooby-Doo was too goofy of a show for me even as a kid (the only one that caught my attention was Mystery Incorporated because it's hailed as the darkest installment of the franchise), so when the episode took jabs at all the stupid tropes in the cartoon, I couldn't care less. I think that mockery of the older Scooby-Doo episodes with a laugh track was my favorite one, especially with them calling out how the laugh track wasn't in sync with anything remotely funny happening. The more cutting satire though was obviously the Purpleberry Pond segment making fun of cartoons meant to sell products. I love that one of the scenes where the Berry Burglar fired a sugarball bomb on the residents turned out to be another commercial rather than the actual show. Good clever fake-out that got a laugh. And you gotta love how the girl got fatter over the course of the same commercial. All these hypocritical commercials playing on children's hearts are appalling, so I'm glad the episode called them out on it. The G.I. Joe one was cool with its calling out of the Broadcast Standards and Practices censorships. I haven't seen the show, but after doing a little digging, I'm surprised it got affected by the censors as well, considering its whole content is based on soldiers fighting a war. I love how it ended up getting too violent that Nixon just went "fuck it" and pulled the plug. 5/5 Comedy gold.

7x16: T.: The Terrestrial I've never really liked E.T. In fact, I considered it one of the weakest Spielberg films that showed just how schmaltzy Spielberg could be at his worst (then again, I had similar issues with his insensitive and myopic take on the holocaust). So I have little problems with this episode mocking the movie as a whole. If only the jokes were brilliant though. As it is, they are surface-level and rather shallow, but I did get quite a few chuckles out of them, especially Bender's hilarious manipulation of Fry's outgoing message on the answering machine. The whole "powered by love" bike was funny stuff too, along with the mockery of the stupid "bike to the moon" sequence. 6/10

Oh yeah, you're right. I got it flipped around.