queenanne
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Posts posted by queenanne
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For some reason, the color Hamlindigo made me wonder why they named the character Hamlin.
I wonder if it's supposed to be a call out to L.A. Law since Harry Hamlin played one of the main characters on that show.
Possibly a given, but I also wouldn't be surprised if a law firm IRL tried to trademark a color and they threw it into the absurdity. Anybody else curious how/who told Jimmy the composition of Hamlin's suits? If you have to write down "Sea Island cotton", I'm betting you don't know it by sight; and I give Villigan credit for not trying to make it look like Kim is the source..
I really felt for Jimmy when Mrs. Kettle said that about him seeming like the guy who only defended the guilty. I immediately thought of Jesse's "Ohhhhh, you want a guy who is a CRIMINAL lawyer..." at Walt.
I think I have hope for the brother character if he is so invested in knowledge that he will hirple himself out the door after a single paper, like it's the be-all and end-all.
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My take on the B&W cold open was that Gene (the Nebraskan Cinnabon manager) felt like Saul Goodman (the fast-talking lawyer) was speaking directly to him (from the VHS tape he'd hidden in a shoebox):
The Cinnabon scene shows that Gene is afraid. But did he think that guy was a hitman or a cop? The Rusty Nail and the tears suggest he's depressed. Managing a Cinnabon in Omaha is a huge step down from being lawyer. The mustache and glasses, coupled with the fear, suggest he's on the lam. Gene clearly feels "doomed" and "intimidated" and "in serious trouble" and "there's nothing [he] can do about it." But is he bad? I couldn't tell.
My feeling from the VCR scene is that Gene misses being Saul, or at least the persuasive chatty live-by-your-wits extrovert, instead of introverted assembly line pastry cranker-outer. His talents are being wasted, or I should probably say "wasted" in his current incarnation - at least to his mind. Those commercials are the glory days, when he had some semblance of control and knowing who he was. I don't know how to reconcile it with the fear, but he'd probably be afraid of discovery regardless.
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I always felt she pushed him away completely and had no one but herself to blame when Boyd ended up taking the deal that meant she stayed in prison. Boyd was doing literally EVERYTHING in his power to get her out and would have kept on doing so had she not specifically ended things with him in the fashion she did. If Ava turns on Boyd because she just needs to look out for herself that's one thing but if she resents him for what transpired surrounding her being in prison she really has no one to blame but herself.
Thanks for reminding me of that part in the dreadfulness, which must have just made me so mad I blanked. Then I'd say that both characters were sloppily forced by writer's fiat to act against their nature, but it's worse because a woman who glumly sacrifices herself in desperation should be doing so nobly and poignantly to save the man, not hold it against him when she says "buzz off" and he does. Hang of a time, in fact juxtaposed with this beautiful season of self-referential callbacks, to decide that the proper ending to that storyline was not the distaff flip side of prior "Boyd and Ava's joyous reunion after he is sprung from prison". I'm actually mad there isn't more internal conflict about and in Ava as she betrays Boyd.
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I'm also irritated they bussed Jaq, the vaudevillian grandparents were a good hook. Bleh.
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If they had bothered to make a huge rift between Boyd and Ava last season, so that there was no mistake she had officially turned against him and was willing to do this to him now, I could accept it better. But seriously, the last scene of them at the prison was her saying to him that she would always love him but trying to break it off because she thought she was never getting out. I didn't see any point where we were supposed to think she suddenly stopped loving him (unless she never did love him, but I never got that impression at all from the last four seasons- it seemed pretty real to me).
Yes, that doesn't make much sense, and it's also on the heels of them handing Boyd's ass to him every time he turns around last season (loses all his money and everyone who had his back too). Early Justified works for me because Boyd always manages to land butter side up, and I'm not sure that we should have had a ubiquitous moment to be reminded that he's a hillbilly who's always gonna be one step behind - within the show world he should be the king. Let it sneak up on us inexorably if we must have the revelation, but not Katherine hanging a lantern on it "Boyd, you're a crap drug dealer, but you sure can take safecracking orders with the best of 'em." That should be Ava's sentiment to voice, and then it stings him to action. A substitute resigned "cutting me loose will be better - for you, since clearly I am the only one recognizing you don't have the juice to spring me", is dippy, and neither addresses the real problem nor moves the story forward.
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Well, that's what I've always wanted her to be- a badass, unforgiving female criminal, because most shows let the men be the antiheroes, and the women are always the long suffering or ignorant wives who never get to participate in the bad deeds. I never liked Ava in the first season, but once she got together with Boyd they moved her into the criminal side as an equal and willing partner, and I liked that. But then Graham Yost made a remark in an interview that the writers never want Ava to be preceived as "too bad" and that dashed all my hopes.
Now they're fulfilling that by turning her into someone who's scared and desperate, and needs to be saved and is just flailing around instead of plotting either her own escape, or going straight to Boyd and teaming up against Raylan because she long ago made the conscious choice to partner up with him in their life of crime (that's how I had preceived it for the last 4 years- I guess I was snowed by the depiction of genuine feelings between her and Boyd).
Perfect description. I liked cold as ice Ava, thought it seemed fitting as a story development based upon active decisions she made, and hated what they did at the end of last season. I felt Boyd's giving up on getting Ava out of prison was a dreadful mistake. It gave me the screaming story meemies, actually. "Boyd who worships the ground Ava walks on" (and there used to be no question he does), would move heaven and earth, not reach some "oh well! This seems too difficult, let me run around with another man's wife" point of view instead. I thought his retreat from the field of damsel battle was awfully contrived, specifically to get us to this point where Ava could be turned against Boyd. (I might not be irritated anymore by the time the season ends, depending on how well they tell the story regardless of whether or not they go out in a blaze of glory together, but the summarily dumping us here at this point last season? Not. Pleased.)
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It's early for me to have an opinion on Kim, but I'm intrigued enough by her to trust the creators, I think it was a good introduction. Let us infer interesting and mysterious things, less is more.
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Frankly I don’t see either Boyd or Ava making it out. Between Ava’s portentous conversations with Helen Givens way back when (as good as shrieking to us that Helen = Ava : Boyd = Arlo, plus that season of Boyd hammering it home by playing surrogate son to Arlo), and Boyd’s 100% turnaround this season (as good as shrieking “You’ll never leave Harlan alive”, once he gives up on his fleeting dream of leaving Harlan), I’d be shocked if either survived. If Yost splits the difference I'd guess Ava will live, but the happier Boyd is in Harlan the sterner he seals his fate.
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Sure, all TV shows and stories in a sense are stories of change and transformation over time, how people evolve and develop.
The difference here is, we know where this one ends. We know the end game for Jimmy. There is no mystery where this one ends. And I think many fans of Breaking Bad, or at least myself, were tuning in to this show to see Saul. If we aren't being given much of Saul from Breaking Bad, it detracts from why I was watching this show in the first place.
I disagree - I think we know the middle of Jimmy/Saul. We don't know "the end". (Or maybe we do if there've been BTS assurances that we're never getting farther than black-and-white Cinnabon Saul, in which case I will withdraw the objection.) Something like Bates Motel, now there we know the end, and I'm still not sold on watching that all the way through, because I know how the characters of Norma and Norman end their lives. In light of that situation I can see someone deciding that the prequel show is just pointless wheel-spinning and why would I care what happens.
Also in the too-many-to-count sweepstakes, an aside to say that I loathed BrBa because I loathed Jesse. In fact, I slogged through the entire first 4 episodes on disc, complaining bitterly at the friend who insisted that this was the best show on television that I was going to love. Finally, after complete abandonment the first time around I listened to him telling me I had to continue watching, and picked it back up at the fifth episode. I still only tolerated Jesse until about midpoint second season, but kept getting inexorably more invested in the action weekly anyways. So there's definitely room for love to grow for the lukewarm in the Vince Gilligan universe.
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Though it's certainly early days, I'm just charmed by it, in fact it's my favorite show of the entire season, which includes going back through the fall. Bob O. is doing a great job of keeping Jimmy's essential human goodness front and center, despite and through all of the shenanigans, I'm believing Jimmy as someone who wants to do good and make a difference for others.
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This is one of those rare instances though where I think the judges would be idiots not to keep Shi, even if you see it as just them "taking a flyer" on her, and it's not because I think she's stellar or because I necessarily want to continue to see more of her weekly. (I may, just saying it's too soon to call for me.) But if you're going to take a flyer on anyone, tall, skinny, commanding - even her hair screams for attention - Shi is Simon Cowell's dream "That girl LOOKS like a star". There's practically dollar signs flying about her head, if they can harness her voice.
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Yes, I seem to have this recollection that for a long time Kelly Clarkson's first audition wasn't shown - she sang "Express Yourself", which Madonna wouldn't clear.
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Yeah, he's a partner, and founded the firm. Taking that $26K would be idiotic, I'm sure it had strings attached ending all further claims, or offering that amount monthly, hoping the dude would die soon. Which was it? Either way, it's not 17 million.
IIRC, Jimmy said the $26K was quarterly. I'd also say the negotiations are heading downward, because if there's any chance Jimmy's bro's former partner doesn't know Jimmy's bro is a little off, that's ruined, now that he's been to the house and got told through a crack in the door to stick his cell phone in a mailbox.
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Forgive me if this has been posted elsewhere and I missed it:
Clever, very clever. So I think this answers someone's question about how Cinnabon felt about being portrayed. :)
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Thanks for the explanations, that sounds like a very irritating and unsatisfactory (transposition based) process for the writers - make a quarter of a single change, and a whole plot point/logic is shot to hell and loses all its impact/makes no sense, etc.
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If this show had a bigger audience, Chibnall would clearly become infamous as one of those people who whored out their original creation and integrity once Hollywood backed up the Brinks truck (I'm sometimes surprised people have let Vince Vaughn live down the "Psycho" remake already).
Trying to figure out a tactful way to ask this without spoilers, but did the "nearly identical" (depending upon whom you ask) Broadchurch, also have stuff like detectives waving a hand at anything less than a Class A felony, and proclaiming a body can't be released for a funeral until acres of sand sheaves are sorted through? If so, how did those things play credibly in England but poorly in America, and not throw viewers right out of the story? This ties in with my thoughts on Chibnall because of the appalling amounts of time I watched the meandering pointless time-wasting "action" of Gracepoint, and thought "gosh, this is kind of putting me off of trying 'nearly identical' Broadchurch."
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So, with not one prior hint to suggest it, Joe turns out to be a pedophile and Danny his target. Talk about God in the machine! Tom accidentally brains Danny, and Joe decides to cover it up. So, for the rest of the season Joe lolls about the house while Tom sneaks about in the woods trying to plant evidence. Tom destroys his computer out in the open, instead of asking Joe to help, and when ShamanPaul catches him, he doesn't say "I'm doing what my dad told me, and if you don't believe, go ask him, so fuck off!"
Word, all Joe had to do was run the damn computer over with the car, which you could practically do with no one noticing if your wheelpath was short and slow.
Oh well, at least Gracepoint was consistent to the end - "that show", where all you need in order to keep the mystery from being solved and still a secret, is to have the party of the first part speaking cryptically and tying themselves into a pretzel avoiding: logical and coherent speech patterns; normal expected joy in the presence of a person they would normally seek out, preferring to instead evade, lurk, and skulk; and (re)acting weird just for the sake of being able to say "yo, look at me! here I am, acting weird!"
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S05.E08: Coda
in S05
What interests me about that scene is that all of the walkers were clearly adults. Wouldn't you expect to see a bunch of little kid walkers come swarming out of a school? *shudder* Maybe the students were still working quietly at their desks, which is really sad -- if you can't get out of doing schoolwork in a zombie apocalypse, can you ever? (Yes, I know...the civil authorities might have been using the school as a temporary shelter in the immediate aftermath of all hell breaking loose, but still...where were the little kids?)
I'm not surprised not to see kids because I was expecting (even if we don't know, we may know, I can't think back that far), that the ZA onset came along with newscasters screaming for people to get to shelter/stay indoors/evacuate and/or huddle up with their families. My firsthand expectation is that you will precisely not see adults deciding to hang out with their kids in daycares etc. in the event of an emergency, unless they're designated emergency centers. (Of course, that could just be me.)
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S05.E08: Coda
in S05
Lot of stuff to catch up on! Forgive me if I appropriated your general thoughts below without your direct quote.
I think we were supposed to assume/remember that Maggie and Beth were running on the steam of their prison farewell, the (paraphrasing) “we don’t need to think of each other all the time or always be together to love each other”. I don’t think it worked well, and I don’t think TPTB couldn’t have afforded 3 sentences of worrying dialogue to hand Maggie, but I think they thought they had it covered, and Maggie was just exhibiting some kind of becoming stoicism. Would've helped to have had another pair of characters having this discussion (Darryl/Rick, Rick/Glenn, whomever about Maggie, maybe), but what can you do.
As for the luxury of introspective plotlines, it’s a problem. Because you largely need to be someplace safe and to stop running, not thinking about simply staying alive, in order to think about and debate yourself and your place in society/better personhood/angels of your nature. Hershel’s farm qualified, Woodbury sorta qualified, you don’t have that option in some flimsy place that a walker could knock down with their breath (or, worse yet, the great outdoors sans walls).
As for the poor departed, I don’t know what Dawn was talking about with Beth’s prior-Carol-knowing, tells outside of deus ex machina. In fact I thought Beth did a great job and one of EK’s best acting moments, came in her turning away from Carol with absolutely no expression in her eyes the prior week.
Personally I’m waiting with bated breath for Morgan, because I am extrapolating that repeated drive-bys of a named actor like Lennie James, indicates they have some really good arc in mind for him. (Of course, I could be delusional, but in a show constructed according to conventional logic, that'd be what it meant.)
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I really don't see what's the point in Gabriel, at this point I almost feel like he's comic relief. That "Oh heavens!" old biddy careening around being horrified by everything CDB (and we!) take fully for granted about the ZA, like an installation of "Scary Movie". We also already had a man of faith in Hershel, and I thought he explicated post-ZA religion well enough on his own, where we didn't need another retread. That said, maybe this means there's going to be some more civilization-building and he will be the man of faith at the center of whatever faith-based initiative exists.
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It's hard to say yet why Michonne is not in the thick of things, but isn't it probable that Carl told Rick Michonne used to have a child and that's why she's now Judith wrangler? Unless she never actually told Carl on their solo walk and I made it up, but I seem to think she did. And I'm looking at the hole in the floorboards as Chekhov's gun at this point, so I tend to think she will be useful back at the ranch, er, church.
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Who decided that when someone is going to have a fake paroxysm falling to the ground, the appropriate bribe is a soft crushable fruit like strawberries? For some reason that bothered me more than anything else implausible in this otherwise rather waste of an hour. ..
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Well, yes, that is of course true, but in comparison to the Governor, the Claimers, and the Termites, I think Noah falls into the 'generally decent' category. Granted, that's really not saying a whole hell of a lot, but standards have been lowered. ;)
You mean because Noah didn't Evil-Overlord exposition-out his intentions, complete with plenty of gloating about how he's hurt and inconvenienced people and would do so again in a heartbeat? ;)
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I think Elsa told everyone she called an ambulance. but they just didn't show up. No one challenged her.
I'm not really surprised that no one kipped at the ambulance failing to show up, because the ambulance would've known it was being expected to service "Freaktown". Kind of diabolically clever writing and plotting; even if there's also room to think that since Jimmy saved the kids he might get some extra consideration, such has no doubt traditionally been the opposite experience for the performers.
S01.E04: Hero
in Better Call Saul
In a way, it just occurred to me though, to be profiled that way will really hurt Jimmy, because clearly he could just as easily be Chuck. Except for this little indefinable niggle no one can put their finger on, except that just to look at Jimmy, is to see a sleazy ambulance chaser. Why? Jimmy clearly shares genetic brains and talent with Chuck. Why does (or did) Chuck scream white collar kindly jurisprudence, whereas Jimmy screams "if you get in bed with this oily customer, better bring a squeegee?"