dusang

Is it weird that I feel horrified by the idea of all of that stuff being sold? It's like a part of history, it should be in a museum. Or at the very least clogging up Stephen's own garage. (But seriously, I feel sad for him selling all his memorabilia (and awards!!). He earned that, he spent 9 years there. Selling his eagle?!)

I haven't seen the entire episode but I did see the clip where Graham first reveals the audience clapping on command for the "no one told you life was gonna be this way" -- first, I was seriously impressed with the audience (Graham always gets them to perform well!) and second, Jason Bateman's face was HILARIOUS.

Suuuuuper late to the party -- I just watched the episode and was pretty much totally spoiled for everything but still enjoyed it. Skye shooting Ward without hesitation - AWESOME Skye walking away without checking if he's dead or alive -- distinctly less awesome. I can't mourn Tripp too hard because, quite frankly, I've always found BJ Britt to be a really terrible actor and never cared very much for the character. However, my biggest takeaway from the ep was, whatever make-up/hair/lighting they did for Skye's transformation, Chloe Bennett has never looked so good.

I'm not sure how I felt about this episode -- it definitely felt like a response to the response to the podcast. Sarah talking about how difficult and rude her questions to Adnan had been, his feelings about her "investigation" and his approach to her, the rumours that have surfaced in direct response to the podcast. In a way, I appreciate that but in another way I almost wish the entire series had been put together before it aired and they couldn't respond, so we could see how this unfurled in a vacuum. Both as a story and as a phenomenon, the whole Serial experience is really interesting.

Seriously? That's surprising because he has a LOT of credits -- I think he averages five screen credits per year. In the early 2000s it seemed you couldn't see any movie without him in it!! Also, his stint on L&O with Jeremy Sisto and Linus Roache really breathed life back into the series. It was a real shame they cancelled it.

The podcast is pretty good -- Nerdist is pretty freeform and can be very interesting but the hosts can be incredibly annoying at times. But they do let him talk freely for the most part, which is worthwhile listening.

He did the Nerdist podcast. I guess that makes sense -- Star Trek, Hobbit, Dr. Strange. Still... it feels wrong. https://www.nerdist.com/pepisode/nerdist-podcast-benedict-cumberbatch/

The NAACP Awards are for "people of colour" so the episode choice is probably limited by the identity of the primary writer. (I'm assuming. The website says "Established in 1967, at the height of the civil rights movement, the NAACP Image Awards is the nation's premier event celebrating the outstanding achievements and performances of people of color in the arts, as well as those individuals or groups who promote social justice through their creative endeavors." so either they are taking the show as a whole to be "promoting social justice through creative endeavours" or they are singling out a non-white writer for her achievement. Shit, just reading the nominees, if you wanted a concise statement on the under-representation of people of colour in entertainment, LL Cool J is up for Best Actor in a Drama for NCIS: LA. That's just sad.)

I know he's a grown man but I cannot picture him as anything but a teenager. Of course, I have only seen him in Drumline where he played a teenager. However, I did enjoy Drumline and, objectively, he's a good-looking guy. And he can apparently put up with a whole lot of crazy to that's a plus at B99.

Well, Pineapple Express and the Oscars debacle.

Not really. Both those feelings seem perfectly reasonable to me, even if they are, in some respects, logically inconsistent with one another. In one instance he was referring to his friends and classmates who basically accepted the fact of his guilt based on the legal system, rather than standing by him and saying, "I know this man, he could not, would not, did not do this." In the second instance he was effectively referring to Sarah as a stand-in for either anyone he's met post-conviction and/or the justice system as a whole and his desire for them to see him as innocent not in a vague and shapeless, unsubstantiated way of "but you're such a good guy" but in a fact-based way of "your story is definitively true and you are innocent of the crime for which you have been convicted." I can see both sides of it. ETA: And as kalliste said, he wants (needs) new evidence to be exonerated.

I'm surprised the DA didn't push for a plea -- an astronomical number of cases never see the inside of a court because of poor defense, backlogs, and money pressure. I saw the filmmaker for Gideon's Army on The Daily Show when it came out and it was suuuuuper depressing. ETA: I'm now listening to the Slate Serial Spoiler Podcast (which is, for the record, not spoiler-y at all provided you have listened to the most recent episode of Serial). It's really infuriating me to listen to them speak because I so completely disagree with them and it's frustrating to not be able to argue the point. I just listened to the ep.7 issue, which is where we meet Deidre and the Innocence Project and the Slate people called it complete filler and entirely useless and I could not disagree more. If for no other purpose beyond providing a more experienced perspective on Adnan as a potentially innocent convict -- though the whole thing I've found Adnan's inability to come up with a credible story or reasonable answers so bizarre. He's been in prison for 15 years!! How has he not turned that day over and over in his mind to come up with answers? How can he be so frequently stumped by Sarah's questions? Why does he keep saying "I don't know"? But Deirdre was like, "Yeah, if you didn't do it you don't know. You don't know." And that really reframed some of my assessments of Adnan.

My understanding is that they would need new evidence that was not (made) available at the original trial or a witness recanting. I think that's why the Innocence Project focuses on testing other evidence from the crime scene or getting DNA matches. So yes, you are correct. The "reasonable doubt" has been overcome by the jury and their decision is binding.

Wow. I forget that Jon's hair was black. I actually always think of him as a brunette.

Oh my God, I'm even more confused now. Although that article provides clarity on some of the post-trial timelines I had been confused on (I thought Gutierrez was disbarred and died much later, closer to 2008, so her lack of response during the appeals process was weird), I"m now confused because in episode 1 or 2 they said the alibi witness had been ruled on and was no longer material to the case. So why is it coming up again in the legal process?

Oh, I quite like the format. I like that it brings forward so many questions. Also, in a world where people are so quick to jump to conclusions, it's interesting to have the decision-making process prolonged and possibly entirely undermined.

I'm up to date on the Serial podcast. I was looking to get into the Slate Serial Spoilers podcast but was confused by the fact that I could only find episodes back to #5. Apparently that is, in fact, where they started. The Slate website is, in my respectful submission, phenomenally difficult to navigate. Getting to that #5 first episode was way more challenging than it should have been. On the one hand, I see no reason for Jay to frame Adnan for first degree murder, which suggests that Jay is telling some version of the truth and Adnan is very, very guilty. On the other hand, I just find that story so unlikely. Also, there seems to be so many contradictory pieces of information and so many people who were not appropriately interviewed or pieces of information that were not sufficiently fact checked (the girl who claims Hae was in the gym with her at the alleged time of death, the Best Buy phone booth, etc.) it seems just so..... questionable. I'm very curious to see (or hear) how they "close" the series -- it seems unlikely that we'll have an absolute truth to walk away with, which will feel both dissatisfying and painfully accurate. I find the whole phenomenon around the podcast equally fascinating -- what about this is so interesting to people? What are people getting from it? What do they expect from it? What can we learn from it? I'm also about the same age at Hae, Adnan, et al, and I think about what I remember from high school and what I could talk about with any conviction right now. There's not much, although I feel that if one of my friends and/or classmates had been abducted and murdered during my final year, that would solidify some of my memory. This, in combination with my obsessive viewing of police procedurals on TV, make me feel like I should be keeping a terribly detailed diary at all times.

That could be that Holt was "investigating" his own squad to get to know them and what they do. He seems like a thorough person.

Thanks!

Disclaimer: I am not fully caught up on the podcast, I'm at ep 6. Although I have thought that ethnicity hasn't been brought forward as much as it could or should, I found that article a little determined to find fault. Kang lost me around the time he used Koenig's comment about Hae's diary as Koenig commenting about Hae's ethnicity or culture. I heard that comment not as being about Korean vs European but about some weird expectation that the inner thoughts of this girl who was murdered might be more poetic or profound than someone who was not murdered. As a commenter on the article says: If that's an example of Koenig's cringe-inducing "little judgments" I found it very hard to really get behind this particular interpretation. At this point, I'm not convinced of Adnan's innocence but I agree that there are "oceans of reasonable doubt" and I wouldn't convict. I wonder if, in the jury room, having seen the pictures of this brutally murdered girl, and having seen her family and friends, there isn't a stronger impulse to provide justice through conviction despite doubt -- the doubt is overcome by the certainty of the police and prosecution and the desire for closure and "justice" for the family. Which would be tragic and ironic, since the standard is supposed to be "beyond reasonable doubt."

Can anyone tell me where exactly the line "Why now? Why not ten years ago?" came from? I feel like it was "The Critic" speaking to McBain about his retirement. Am I hallucinating?

I thoroughly enjoyed the episode but what rang particularly true to me was Jake's motto for the UPS: "Surprisingly, we still exist." BWAH HA HA!! (Although I'm in Canada, my experience with the post office suggests they desperately want to be obsolete and are doing everything in their power to demonstrate how inefficient, ineffectual, and generally incompetent they are.)

I thought the joy of being a woman was having to go through virtually every aspect of your appearance - every vacation or event I go through a week of esthetics futzing. I don't even look that good by the end of it all! I am white and I literally, honestly and seriously had a black guy (in his twenties) touch the hair on my arm and ask why I was so hairy. His older brother said, "all white people are hairy." While somewhat mortifying, I've always found that moment hilarious.

This movie looks both ridiculous and ridiculously funny. I wonder how it will all shake out in the end.

Totally randomly, I really like his styling on this show. Apart from whoever hogwrestled him into the barber's chair (and God bless that anonymous person), the colourful shirts are really working for him. I particularly liked the red check-y one that was spoofed in the grossly inappropriate Halloween costume. I also noticed he had a really nice belt on in one of the episodes where he stood up. I just binged on the full episodes at my parents, so I can't really separate one episode from the other, but it happened. This may be the post that proves I am, in fact, insane but I stand by it.