kieyra

Which they've been doing since season one, even when it means statutory rape!

He used to be an engineering genius who built laser-wielding robots from stolen parts and could keep up (technically) with Amanda’s father, who was some kind of wealthy inventor. He had way, way beyond the theoretical knowledge *and* the hands-on skills to get an IT job. I know the counterpoint is “but he didn’t have his degree”, but in real life he would have made enough connections in college, including his sketchy internship, to get into some startup or even a regular mid sized company at entry level and shoot right to the top. At which point they don’t care about degrees. The show started out at the tail of the Great Recession, but the economy and tech job market boomed since then. (Speaking from a lot of personal experience here, both myself and other peers from similar, dysfunctional backgrounds with zero, or unrelated, college degrees.) There are lots of reasons the show went to shit, but making Lip into a dolt so he could stay living in poverty was the last straw for me.

... are 'dwarves' even a thing in this show? (Asking because, like many others, I refuse to watch it. Thanks for taking the hit!)

I kept seeing people say LoT was the best Arrowverse show now. I remember a very painful season one. I kinda jumped in midway season 4, and of course I had no idea who anyone was or what was going on. I’m up to early season five and I’m really enjoying it, although the huge cast, including the way cast members appear and disappear, gives me whiplash. (What happened to Werewolf girl?) I like all the characters, except super generic guy (Nate?). I like the random Constantine plots. I love Ava and Sara. I really like the way the tone has shifted to this utterly bananas meta-superhero-satire. (I love Doom Patrol.) The show reminds me a bit of some of the good aspects of The Magicians, especially now that magic is seemingly in the mix.

Oh, this is a US-only abomination, for now?

The plot of Night Watch after it has gone through 100 rounds of 'telephone'?

Count me in as someone to whom Amazon just started pushing this as a new show. (Amazon is the worst at getting content in front of me that I would like ... do they even have an algorithm? I feel like I've seen ten thousand ads for that John Krasinski thing and for Hunters, two shows that I will never, ever have any interest in watching.) I tentatively like it. I was expecting it to be a little trashier based on the premise (anyone remember Dirt? kinda like that), but I'm fine with the fact that it's not. I like all the leads and secondary characters. It took me a couple of episodes to warm up to Anna Paquin, but I think it's mostly because her accent is all over the map, or I'm perceiving it as being all over the map due to all the hours of True Blood that reside in my brain. I know in RL she's New Zealander by way of Canada by way of America with an English husband. And they give the character a decent explanation for the accent (a similarly multi-country family). But I feel like I'm hearing "Sookie" and "London" in the same sentences sometimes. Even warmed-over plotlines like "she says she wants a baby but clearly does not and keeps taking her BC pills" seem like fresh-ish takes. I genuinely don't know what's going to happen with her and her husband, or if she's going to bang her NA 'sponsor'. I like her bitchy co-worker. (I'm not sure how long the first season is, but I've made it to the Bradley Whitford episode, but not through it.)

I only listen to the podcast version of these Dateline cases, but in a lot of cases (not all!) you can tell that the interviewees already know what's expected of them/are familiar with the show or at least the format. Sometimes it gets pretty blatant: "I always knew she would end up on Dateline" kinda stuff. One I listened to recently, couldn't tell you for a million dollars which one it was, but the interviewee (I think it may have been the accused in this case) kept calling the host by name. "(Josh/Keith/Whomever), I would never do anything like that." And for the rest, they get 'produced' ... "And how did that make you feel? [when you came home and found the bloody murdered corpse of your loved one]?" (I realize I have no room to be snarky since I am, after all, an audience for true crime media. And I know in many or most cases these family members are legitimately seeking closure, awareness, etc.)

It's the 'internet' part. Violent crime has been declining for decades.

Completely forgot about this. I didn't know/remember that the GGs and Emmys run on different cycles.

Also nominated for "Best Limited Series, Anthology Series or a Motion Picture made for Television". Which puts it up against The Queen's Gambit, and puts Daisy up against Anya Taylor-Joy. I think that's going to kill Normal People in both categories. I don't care too much about awards shows these days, but this might make for an interesting Emmy season this year. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/movies/golden-globes-nominees-list.html

Maybe not old enough to qualify here, but have been rewatching The Closer, which originally premiered in 2005. There's a lot of stuff in it that feels pretty questionable now, but one recent episode was basically celebrating 'getting a confession via police brutality'. First, one of the show's main detectives beats the shit out of the suspect while his colleagues turn off the interview room cameras; then, to make sure they really get a solid confession they turn him loose in gen pop to get beaten up some more, then threaten to return him to gen pop if he doesn't cooperate. It's a child predator/murderer so we're supposed to be on the 'ends justify the means' train, but it's still hard to watch a 'turn off the camera while the cops beat the shit out of the suspect' plotline in 2021.

I've probably watched this show a few too many times now, and while it doesn't really ping any 'shipper' vibes for me, I find the 'relationships' between Beth/Harry (episode 5) and Beth/Benny (episodes 5 & 6) to be utterly fascinating, and unlike anything I've seen on television before. (I'll leave Townes for someone else. I don't get that one at all. I suppose 'stoned hippie dude' (to whom Beth lost her virginity), and whether or not Beth slept with Cleo are also fair game here.) Harry first: It took me a few times to catch this, but when Harry shows up in Kentucky, he keeps mentioning that he saw Beth's picture. He mentions this more than once. Later, he says he got his teeth fixed for her. But he hasn't actually been in contact with her in the intervening years--which means he got his teeth fixed for her picture. He fell in love with her picture, and the way she had grown up into a knockout. And by the end of the episode, he realizes this. It's a pretty clean arc. I think he really does want to help her with chess, by the way, but that doesn't really go anywhere either, because she's too far ahead of him. So what is Beth's end of this? First and foremost, Harry keeps her from being alone in the house with the memory of Alma. I know that's obvious. What's taken me a while to figure out is why she sleeps with him. I'm still not sure I know--based on her later comments post-Benny, the sex couldn't have been fantastic, and I'm not sure the show sells me on any real chemistry between them. If anything, it emphasizes how one-sided the situation is. YMMV. What's super interesting to me is the exact moment Beth goes ahead and drops the hammer on Harry anyway--that little dance to Fever. I'm not sure any of that is about her being particularly attracted to Harry; I think she's just getting bored (especially with their chess interactions), and taking the opportunity to switch things up, and to prove to herself that she has the upper hand. The latter being something that is second nature to her. To me, it's an inverse moment to her "I like your hair" flirtation to Benny at the end of the episode. Which Benny immediately spots for the maneuver that it is: Beth is trying to distract him from the valid points he's making: that she needs to focus on the potential Russia showdown, and that she's drinking too much/going to burn out. I love that he shoots it down with almost no hesitation: "Uh huh, sure you do." And then shuts her down further: "About sex? Forget it." ... which of course, we know, is a battle he ends up losing. But he holds out for an impressively long time. (And Beth makes him make the first move, which is its own type of manipulation.) And after the actual sex, we again have the inverse of Harry: After she sleeps with Harry, he's kinda: "what does this mean/should I stay and sleep in your bed?" and she's all "meh, whatever". After sleeping with Benny, Beth is the one who wants to talk about *them*, or at least the sex, and Benny wants to talk about chess. Immediately. Which aggravates her, so I think Benny was always more 'real' to her, and more equal, than Harry. Or at least the sex was. The great thing about this show is that it's so hard to be sure. I do think that Benny and Beth have the most chemistry of any of the pairings--keeping in mind I find something creepy about Townes--and I'm not sure I 100% believe Cleo's take on Benny (that he's too in love with himself for anything else). I'm also sure this pairing spawned a ton of shippers and fic. But I appreciate that the show tosses him onto the pile of people who ultimately just couldn't keep up with her, or her self-destructive bent. We don't have to hang our hopes on him 'saving' her from herself with his love and/or penis. As an aside: I also appreciate that both Harry and Benny (despite the theme of Beth's mom: "men are going to come along and want to teach you things") generally treat Beth with respect, and as an equal--or outright concede that she is the superior player. They don't 'mansplain' things to her, and when each of them get more aggressive about trying to help her (both with chess and with her self-destruction), it always seems to come from a genuine, non-patronizing place. All JMO.

Also: Ted Bundy and Jack Nicholson. Ah, the lovely bits of trivia my brain retains.

Late reply, but it’s a sort of rage-smile. She does the same thing after the first time Borgov beats her in Mexico, while she’s talking to Alma (before she realizes what’s happened to Alma). She’s pissed, and she enjoys the anger. Kind of an ongoing theme for her. And maybe a bit of angry admiration for her opponent mixed in there. I don’t think she ever crushed on Benny. I don’t think she crushed on Beltik, either, although that one is probably more obvious. (I’ve spent a bit too much time watching this show and thinking about her relationships with those two. Maybe I’ll start a relationship topic or something.) Edit: Thread created.

I see my decision to stop watching the show was the right call. 🙂

Rewatching this for the first time since it aired. (I never made it through S2 but I remember being impressed by S1, or parts of it.) It doesn’t really age well. It hasn’t been that many years, but they were some significant years. I find stuff like the porny male-gaze sex scenes hard to watch now. Also far less impressed by the writing than I once was. Of course, peak TV happened since then. And I had just finished rewatching Breaking Bad.

I promise this will be my last post on the topic, because I don’t want to be That Person, but man. I’m at the end of S3 where it turns out Fritz has been hiding his alcoholism. For me it’s only been like a week since I watched him lay into her for keeping it secret that she thought she might be pregnant. From a 2020/2021 standpoint, I feel like I’m watching an emotionally abusive relationship where Brenda (with, yes, issues of her own) feels like she’s always in the wrong because she’s trapped somewhere between these “old fashioned” ideals about womanhood that make her act like a little girl who needs approval from Daddy/Fritz/Pope, and her actual competence as a professional adult grown-ass woman. And Fritz leverages the former with everything he’s got. Side note, if I was a younger person with more energy and time, I’d make a supercut of all their scenes through S3 so far, because the majority feature Fritz outright, legit yelling at her and/or belittling her. And then she ends up apologizing most of the time. (My screen is paused around the time that he is mad at her for being mad that he lied about his alcoholism / DUIS. I’m sure she’s about to back down.) Oh, and he threw away her food at home without asking her. Because she’s not “allowed” to have sugar.

A longtime friend of mine, with whom I almost never agree on the relative quality of a given TV show, is trying to convince me to watch this. The thread so far kinda gives me the impression we're going to disagree on this one too. 🙂

I've always been a "Happy Valley yes, LTIH no" viewer, I think because I wanted the latter to be Caroline-centric and I hated that John continued to be in the show, much less Judith. (Celia has sort of slotted into an 'antagonist' role for me so I don't mind her so much.) I know I've posted before how exhausting I find the Gillian/Eddie/barn stuff, too. But ... I rewatched the whole thing on Netflix recently, in order, including the holiday specials, and somehow it's all hanging together a bit better for me now. Maybe it's all the xanax I had to take to get through 2020. I still hate that John is in the show, but I somehow found Judith's ridiculous rise to YA-novel fame to be a sort of of course that's what happens moment. I also found her sudden obsession with Caroline to be completely in (flaky) character for Judith and didn't take it as a serious "now I'm gay" reveal. Since the show is supposed to be semi-autobiographical for Sally Wainwright, I really wonder how many of these characters are pulled from her own life. We've seen 'woman running a sheep farm by herself' before in HV, so that's got to be a write-what-you-know thing. And I wonder if her own mother is that insufferable. Heh.

It’s getting worse. I’m on the season 2 episode where Pope’s exwife bursts into the station and screams at Brenda about losing custody of her kids (in front of everyone), and accuses Brenda of wanting to bang Pope. So this is Pope’s wife’s fault, not Brenda’s. It’s not Brenda’s fault that Estelle lost custody of the kids, and Brenda is not sleeping with Pope. ... and yet, when she gets home, Fritz lays into her about the fact that Estelle pulled this stunt (!? again how is it Brenda’s fault that she acted like a crazy person) and blames Brenda for the whole thing. And is borderline verbally abusive about it. I swear there isn’t a scene where he isn’t nagging, belittling, or patronizing her. Refusing to let her borrow his “new” car after she’s had a bad day. (He yells “No!” at her like she’s a misbehaving dog.) I never liked the character and I’m sure I posed similar rants back in the day, but he’s just making my skin crawl now. It’s like he just exists to remind us of all of Brenda’s flaws. And to remind Brenda of them. Edit: a few episodes later, Brenda’s at home discussing a serious terrorism/murder case with various team members. Fritz shouts from another room: “Brenda, come to bed!”, with the tone of commanding an errant dog or child. Rather than, you know, a high-level professional trying to do her job. (In an earlier episode, he used the same tone to demand that Brenda hand him her phone while she was talking to her own mother.) Dude, I have no idea how this all got so sinister to me. I’ve probably been watching too many Sally Wainwright cop shows where a female detective would never let a love interest treat her like a child.

I’m rewatching The Closer for the first time in years, on HBO Max. A lot of it hasn’t aged terribly well, but good lord I forgot how aggravating Fritz is, right from the the jump. Nagging, passive aggressive, no boundaries. Continually acts surprised that Brenda is dedicated to her job even though that’s who she was when they started dating. (Especially in the beginning, it’s just infuriating that he’s in LE but acts shocked that members of LE have to work long and unpredictable hours.) Gives her shit for not having immediately told him that she thought she might be pregnant. Inserts himself into her family dynamic against her wishes. Obviously Brenda has flaws. Obviously she shouldn’t have moved in with him so fast. (Keeping in mind I’m only in season 2.) But I can’t help feeling like he should have read the damned room and not asked in the first place.

Thanks to those of you taking the hit so far. As a Pratchett fan of decades, I can't quite make myself click play yet. Looking forward to more observations, though.

I guess I'd counter that the "Venus" look occurred in the midst of a much more protracted downward spiral, versus one night of partying. I do agree that she looked a little too perfect the morning after Clio (although we don't know how much time she spent getting ready). In my mind I handwave it to a certain extent, because that scene--which is also the very first scene of the show, in episode one--is part of what hooks the audience, and they needed to include Beth in one of her iconic looks.

I hate to say it but I'm becoming somewhat more engaged.