aghst

It's really a wonder that the TS wasn't captured before. Here they were split up and lured to the Museum of Civilization and Kirsten has no choice but to follow Tyler and let him lead her to the MoC. Even though her first impulse is to finish the job she started, because why wouldn't he have his child soldiers attack again? But even at full strength, TS aren't fighters. How would they have survived an attack by those Red Bandanas? Kirsten may defeat the attackers but she couldn't prevent several of the older TS members from being killed or seriously wounded. OTOH, the Undersea are vulnerable too. The stories he told the children may have made them happy but did Tyler teach him survival skills? Before he left the airport, he downloaded a lot of useful and practical Wikis. Does he use that information or impart it to those children? Or do they spend their time making helmets out of wood to dress themselves like the characters in the Prophet's stories. Or is their strategy to flee when there are hostilities? Tyler said something about erasing something, which is what the suicide bombings were about. He didn't elaborate more nor did Kirsten challenge him on his rationalization. Ironic title, considering that there is a fight for survival in this episode.

Hmm, so it was random that he encountered the TS?

Now that I think about it, I'm not so sure. For whatever reason, I assumed that Tyler knew who Kirsten was, that his dad knew her, etc. It seems that he is targeting the TS and perhaps Kirsten herself. And that Gil wasn't just some random victim, that Tyler chose him for some reason. I don't think he's going around and randomly getting people killed or threatening random people, as when he told Kirsten that people in the TS are going to start dying if Kirsten didn't let him and the boy join. So if he deliberately made contact with the TS and Kirsten in that episode, tried to turn Alex against Kirsten, then it would seem he was deliberately quoting the comic book lines to her.

I can see why she would go for the familiar. The girls joked about birthday dick and random dick. But they're kind of getting old for casual sex and one night stands. It's believable that she'd be looking for something serious again at her stage in life. They didn't have time to establish another beau this season, someone whom viewers can see why Issa got serious about.

Tyler quoted lines from the book to Kirsten and then claimed he thought of it in the moment. He had to know Kirsten had a copy so by quoting lines, it was a signal. But then he pretends it wasn't from the book? He had to know that would cause Kirsten to distrust him. As for the lights at the airport, even if the lights weren't on, it would be hard to miss the airport, especially in daylight. People would be scavenging for any supplies and they're going to check out the airport regardless, unless it was so far out of the way from where they were. You'd check any kind of building in that situation, homes, warehouses, offices, obviously grocery stores, which would be the first place that people raid. Even little overpriced junk food snacks at gas stations and convenience stores.

Lawrence's role was unsettled. In season 2 or 3, he was barely on and the actor actually said he didn't know what was going on. Maybe they sensed that the character was popular so they brought him back.

OK, finished watching season 1 of this show. This is the first Marvel TV show I watched since Agents of SHIELD. I think Marvel strains to tie all their movies and shows together in a unified MCU sometimes. One could be cynical and say that the notion of a unified MCU is about cross-promotion and referencing things in the movies helps the show and vice versa, makes viewers loyal to the MCU franchises. My recollection decades of ago reading some of the comics was that you had these crossovers of some of these superheroes and they could hype it up to get people to buy those editions. I wasn't a big Marvel comics reader but that's just some general recollections. So I don't pay too much attention to these MCU references. I remember "Sokovia" but not enough to want to go back and read up on what happened. I never heard of "The Big Flip" before, but makes sense, before and after the event, there are problems of people adjusting. Karli and her gang make interesting villains but the issues around refugees and resettlement are too complex for the kind of treatment they put in here. Right now, hundreds of thousands of refugees are trying to get into the EU, sometimes getting onto flimsy rafts to try to reach EU shores and they're being manipulated by some politicians. So the treatment they gave to the issue in this limited season doesn't do justice to a serious issue. Are they going to take it up again or drop it since Karli and her gang of super soldiers are mostly dead? Also they dealt with race, with the black super soldier and eventually the Falcon taking on the mantle of Captain America. Sam was down with the cause that Karli was pushing because some of the refugees were inevitably ethnic minorities. So he didn't kill Karli nor would he fight her but since he embraced his new role, maybe they don't have to touch on race in future seasons? Whenever Disney deals with issues of race, it's hard to not think of Song of the South. These aren't happy African Americans but despite their struggles, they're happy and they help each other -- again is this solidarity real or just more Disney/Marvel looking through rose-colored glasses? In any event, it seems Disney's strategy with their Marvel and Star Wars shows is to feature some minor characters, since obviously the stars from the movies aren't going to need or want to do TV shows. While a Star Wars show like The Mandalorian is kind of incidental to the movies it seems Marvel wants to force connections between the shows and the movies. So the notion is that every show and TV are kind of doing a relay race, to move the whole thing forward. But often the better analogy is forcing square pegs into round holes. The Agents of SHIELD gradually raised the ante on villains and threats to the planet and the universe such that there were existential questions. Yet instead of calling in the Avengers, who deal with existential threats all the time, the B-team in The Agents of SHIELD dealt with these threats. Will that happen in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier? They faced a gang of super soldiers so what's next? Maybe androids or aliens worthy of the attention of the Avengers? Instead of politicians at risk, future seasons may have to raise the ante and have whole cities or nations or the planet at risk.

WOuldn't surprise me at all if B-M brought Camilla back to the AS Challenge at least.

Maybe it was mainly budget. Interesting that both wanted separate spaces, how much they prioritized it. Honeymoon is over? Or writers made his geekiness the main theme and quirky wife also needed time apart. That castle they explored looked nice. Richard has gone to Cornwall hasn't he? Or am I thinking of Brighton?

Or nothing ever comes of that Young Larry show. Contrast with the Seinfeld reunion in season 7 is interesting. The table read, looked like everyone was into it and it was funnier Seinfeld because LD wrote it and incorporated all the things which had happened on CYE like taking the hooker on the commuter lane to get to a baseball game.

This was based on a true story and the outcome is known. So they could have done a true crime or procedural where they pile on details. But there wouldn't be much suspense. So the story unfolded through the filter of these two perpetrators, who were film buffs. You had black and white segments and stylized coloring and they broke the fourth wall a few times to show the cameras and the sets. Then they re-played the couple getting rid of the bodies as a Western, with them carting the corpses on horse-drawn cart to the wilderness. (though I wonder if the name "Landscapers" came from the writers or maybe something the media called them because of how they covered up the burial site). Then they have a shootout with the cops who interrogated them and ultimately got them convicted. Chris kills all of them but later at the end of this Western film dream, they all rise at once, to show the artifice. Turns out they were Gary Cooper fans so they must have loved Westerns. Chris always says that Susan was fragile and that he had to protect her. Susan testified that she was broken, by her parents who not only refused to love her but expressed disdain for her repeatedly. But it wasn't just Chris coddling Susan, like letting her spend a lot of money on movie paraphernalia. Turns out Susan faked the letters from Gerard Depardieu, to boost his spirits. They exchanged letters for awhile, Chris and not Gerard Depardieu. This mini series certainly tells the story of this couple who committed this crime and their subsequent capture but through their disconnected phenomenological perspectives. They still stick to their story after conviction because they still believe that's what they actually did, not what the police and prosecution presented in court. It wasn't just that they were guileless or uninformed about criminal law so much as they believed they didn't do anything wrong, because in the movies, the good guys always win in the end.

Venice may no stand out from other cities but when you have that much money coming through tourism, there will be a lot of good restaurants. The specialty in Venice is the chicchetti, which harkens back to its Republic past when it was the center of trade with the Middle East. Even if it weren't a foodie city, Venice is going to be featured in any series about Italy. Stanley established the show as food-oriented from the start but it's not just about food is it, or the show name wouldn't be so broad. I guess it's a good thing he's a foodie, because people can relate to good food in faraway places, as opposed to if he was say a history buff.

It's not on until January? My Tivo is set to record a whole bunch of them, probably a marathon of last season.

Don't think that's unrealistic at all. Is one of the thing which is better about Lawrence for Issa the second time is that he now has a good career and is getting paid?

There has to be a lot of abandoned cars. Nobody Googled how to hot wire cars before the power or their Internet access went out? Or none of them watched The Walking Dead, where they never ran out of cars or fuel?

I think they were trying to imply that Nathan wasn't going to persevere or work to make the relationship work because of his condition. Like he flipped immediately, they were good until that party. He said it was toxic for him implying that he just couldn't deal, not that he didn't want to deal with it. Issa didn't respond to Lawrence declaring his love at all, so Nathan didn't have a reason, at least from that confrontation, to doubt Issa. So they could say Issa tried, really tried but Nathan bailed on her, she didn't bail on him. Because Nathan is so fragile and it would be heartless if Issa was just biding her time with him until Lawrence came around. It's really quite offensive if you think about it, because they're making sure Issa isn't at fault in the slightest.

Great just what we need, a Gen Z serial killer. Is he going to whine and then post selfies to IG and TikTok from the kill rooms? Or while cruising some body of water before he dumps body parts? They have to know they'd lost a lot of Dexter viewers for a spinoff, just from the big generational shift.

All serial killers take their prey to the batting cages before killing them.

Definitely a lot of Lost vibes. That would not be a good thing, if they had this convoluted plot, raising questions, not answering all of them.

Irma moved out of Larry's house but there's no reason she can't come back as a repeat or recurring character.

It was a perfect call! The man hug. Big Fence. The Mormon Advantage. (thought for sure this was going to lose him the vote). I can see Vindman suiting Larry politically but personality-wise, a whistleblower? How about Larry and Leon both teasing/flirting with Susie about the new vajayjay? CYE is past its prime but can still hit it out of the park occasionally. Other thing is, this is more than just a show where LD writes simple outlines and an ensemble cast just improvises perfect lines. This show uses special effects and stunts for some games, including Larry tripping and falling into the pool. (Is Larry going to sue the councilman for not having a fence?). That requires planing and more than saying random lines by the actors.

After the series finale, they showed some clips from what appears to be a little featurette about the wrap party for the show. (In the HBO Max app, for this finale, there are two extras, one about 27 minutes long and another about an hour long) They have snippets of cast members talking about what it was like to be part of the show. One person talked about how it was important for the black community to have the show stay on the air for so long. Of course, those kinds of claims about cultural significance are often made about many other shows. This thread would be to discuss what kind of substance Insecure has, beyond being one of the many shows made for and airing on a venue for more affluent viewers in this era of prestige TV. Early on in the series, someone posted a link here to a black forum where there was way way more activity than there was here. The posts there were funny and passionate. You could see the show had struck a chord -- because among other things, HBO finally had a show about black people (not sure that was true but I guess this sentiment was in the context of the big blockbuster shows that HBO were known for, such as The Sopranos, SATC, The Wire, Game of Thrones, etc.) I think they cited references in the show that mostly black people would recognize so these were kind of inside jokes from the people who made the shows to the black viewers, specifically for them because they knew the show also had a lot of non-black viewers as well. A lot of these were things in the shows within the show in those early seasons. I wouldn't know those references and I'm not familiar with the music they've used on the show over the years either. I don't fault Issa for putting a lot of black fan service elements in the show over the years. But did she do so because she was "keeping it real" or she feared being accused of not "keeping it real?" The most obvious fan service for black viewers seem to be the music, not exactly top 40 hits. But the choices are often young women singing raunchy lyrics. Is it subversive to introduce to some of the well-heeled HBO viewers to black women being frank about sex? Or is it more about giving the fans what they want, as artists like Cardi B seem to be very popular at the moment. (black male artists created a lot of raunchy hip hop works now are female black artists copying a successful formula or is there some feminist reclaiming of their own sexuality in their music?) In the series finale, the girls were overt about their desires, talking about "birthday dick" and "he looks pipe-y" and references to being "bowlegged" afterwards. Also thought at Molly's very upscale wedding, Molly and Taurean showed off some club moves simulating sex which seemed out of place -- would professional people like Molly and Taurean, who work in a conservative field, do that in front of friends, family and presumably some colleagues, maybe their bosses? Another example of fan service could be the characters speaking black, especially in season 5 but also in earlier seasons. It seemed out of place at the Stanford reunion. There was an episode in one of the first seasons about how Molly code-switched between her law firm job and when she's out of the office hanging out with her friends. Wouldn't they code-switch at the reunion, since a lot of the people gathered there weren't black? Molly especially is accomplished but she's "keeping it real" by talking like she used to before college, before building a career? I know that authenticity is a thing for black people. Black comics mock white people for the way they talk and mock even more black people who try to talk like white people. So "keeping it real" verbally seems to be another part of fan service. Finally, Issa's trajectory, in fact the paths of all the regular characters are another instance of fan service. Of course a happy ending for "likable" characters is fan service for people of all ethnicities. Issa started with Lawrence and ends up back with him. What's really changed though? Well they're both older and wiser and they're both successful now, fulfilled emotionally as well as financially. They've both done things to each other to drive each other away yet they find each other in the end. Are we to conclude that having more money helped smooth over the friction they used to have? Or that they're both emotionally in better places both individually and as a couple, in part because they no longer have money issues? Are richer people just more happy? Would the fans of the show be just as satisfied with the ending if they end up back together but they're broke or one or both of them has a very unsatisfactory job/career? Would they likely be as happy if one or both of them are unsettled in their careers? Or is happiness in a relationship tied to aspirations of upward mobility -- moving on up? And do people who want these characters to end up happy and successful tend to be of certain ethnic backgrounds than others?

So a lot of time passes over the course of this season and in this finale, like over a year. The characters are all at least 2-3 years older than the first episode of season 5. Everything resolves, all the girls are "boo'ed up" in the end, as Tiffany says. Nathan just steps out of the way, says the situation is toxic because he had one messy confrontation with Issa's ex? OK, plot contrivance. It takes a couple of attempts, over the course of a year or more, for Issa and Lawrence to re-connect. They happened to be with other people at different times. Finally, it appears she called him and invited him into her office -- he didn't just walk into the offices of The Blocc just randomly. Again they kind of gloss over her getting over Nathan and then when Molly asks her what would she have said in response to what Lawrence said to her at that party, I guess we're suppose to get that it's always been Lawrence all along, that she felt the same as what he said to her. You'd think Molly would know this anyways, being so close to Issa. The girls get on with their lives, since they all have significant others. That means while Molly and Issa will still talk on the phone, they're going to spend less time with each other, since they have SOs who command their time. In the Wine Down, Issa Rae and Prentice Penny talk about the different endings they considered and the different men Issa might end up with, including a "random" character she meets not too long before the series finale. They may not call it such but this is the typical Hollywood ending, everyone is happy, all the characters that the fans grew to love are in a good place. They say that the ending was "earned" and that Issa never has a "final" sense of being secure, so she's not that different from the person we see from the beginning. Sure, Issa and Lawrence have a lot of ups and downs, including infidelity and a child from another partner. So it should be smooth sailing between the two? Seems like it, a year after they reconnect in the office, they're living in some nice place with Issa now close to Lawrence's son and there isn't a hint of trouble in paradise or discord. That last scene of her in the bathroom talking on the phone with Molly, who's in Greece, Issa is looking at the mirror. I thought maybe there would be another funny convo with her alter ego one last time. But no, there wasn't. Does that mean she's happy and no longer insecure, even if that sense of being secure is never "final" as Issa Rae says? Well we do see Issa taking a retrospective drive through the old neighborhood, including the apartment complex and she drives by the We Got Y'all office, where she seems young versions of herself and former coworkers. So Issa has moved on up, in her career and her life. Molly seems happily married too, at least as of her honeymoon. She doesn't have a broken pussy like back in season 1. She's had her pussy broken by her husband though.

I thought in the original series, Dexter had these physical urges to kill. Like he had problems suppressing them so The Code was absolutely necessary to keep him under control rather than give in to the urges and go wild. Maybe Harrison doesn't have the Dark Passenger. But we have to admit Dexter does have a track record in recognizing those who have the Dark Passenger. It would certainly be an interesting twist if the kid didn't and Dexter spilled EVERYTHING to him. Would he have to kill Harrison then? I don't think Harrison's facility with hurting people is just an angry and confused kid. Don't forget the kid he framed.

As in currently filming or they filmed months ago? If they're filming now, what bad timing. I guess TV productions now know to avoid filming in winters.