SourK
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Posts posted by SourK
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I knew from the games that Ciri and Emhyr had to be related somehow, but I did not know it was because he was a secret hedgehog. LMAO.
On 12/19/2021 at 1:12 PM, Smad said:So the witchers who have been nothing but a-holes and bullies to Ciri the entire time (and one had just stabbed her) are suddenly preaching about 'big loving family' to get Ciri to come back to herself?
My favourite was when Vesemir stabbed her and it didn't work and then he was like, "Nevermind. Come back to the light, child. We love you and I'm sorry for my actions before."
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On 12/19/2021 at 12:28 PM, Smad said:
And why are all the witchers such a-holes (especially to Ciri) in this show? It's so freaking annoying.
Yeah, I don't really get it, either. They're all, like, hundreds of years old, but they sit around bullying a child. She's their niece of surprise or whatever, and when they're not saying, "Ha-ha you're acting like a boy!" they're saying, "Ha-ha you're acting like a girl!" Which is realistic of the messages girls get when they're growing up, but why a bunch of ancient monster hunters are doing it, I don't understand.
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Queen Calanthe is probably my favourite performance of this season. She's very interesting to watch.
I have conflicted feelings about Yennefer's escort quest. On the one hand, it was kind of funny and confusing that she just abandoned it part way through because she got mad but, on the other hand, it was maybe good characterization? Because I feel like we were warned that, if they sent her to court, someone would "hurt her precious feelings" and she'd flip out.
But, then, back on that first, confused hand, it seemed like her days at court were over, because the king she was serving sent an assassin after his own wife and also her, since they were traveling together. Like, if she had saved the queen, would they just have gone back to court?
Whether or not she succeeded in protecting the queen didn't seem to have any bearing on anything.
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The thing I dislike about the series so far is that it's shot in a way that makes every scene socially awkward, distant, and sterile. For example, someone thought it would look cool to have Yennefer and Geralt take a bath together, back to back... but it makes no sense that they would do that, and it was weird, and it didn't feel intimate, and all I could think was, "Wow, this has got to be an awkward day at work."
On the flipside, I did like that one moment where she's trying to hold the genie and she's just blazing with light and she says she wants everything. I understood why he's attracted to her in that moment, better than any other moment in the episode.
But then, back on the awkward side again, it felt super weird that they decided to bone after that.
Like, on paper, the story arc makes sense. In execution, it just looks like people doing stuff because it's in the script.
On 1/13/2020 at 9:06 AM, paramitch said:Meanwhile, oh, good lord, the nudity is driving me nuts. Just because so much of it is pointless and so misogynistic.
Take the bath scene. Geralt sits barechested in water for the entire scene. Anya Chalotra meanwhile, goes full-body full-frontal, and then spend the rest of the scene bare to the waist.
I'm not a fan of this double-standard, either. It's also a thing where you're casting a young actor who doesn't necessarily have the leverage to negotiate a better contract, or the experience to know what's normal, or the confidence to refuse to do something, and you're like, "Hey, take off your clothes in front of everyone for no real narrative reason."
It's a creepy thing to do to someone.
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On 12/23/2019 at 11:12 PM, thuganomics85 said:
Yen doing the whole "go back to the old high... err, mage school, and corrupting the youth with drugs, shit-talking the professors, and how none of it helps in real life." Relatable!
I really like the idea of Yennefer, and I think she's a more interesting character than Geralt, at least in the show, but I also find it kind of hilarious that the way she's been characterized so far is as the person who always fails escort quests and then teaches a bunch of teenagers how to make drugs.
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I generally liked this & the meta jokes. For a second, I thought they were going to do something really smart and smash the two universes together as a way to reset the story and retcon the universe, so I'm a little disappointed that we're back to normal Riverdale, but oh well.
Also, everyone kept saying Rivervale was a dark, twisted version of Riverdale... but I think Riverdale is actually the worse universe, overall.
14 hours ago, ruby24 said:Not gonna lie though, this episode made me laugh out loud multiple times at the sheer unintentional hilarity.
My favourite was when Jughead said that Betty and Archie having sex was also an act of creation... because he was writing in their garage.
My second favourite was when Archie showed up to stop the bomb, and he was like, "When you didn't show up for my wedding, I knew you'd be doing something stupid like trying to separate the universes."
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I liked this! Like, really truly liked it. I didn't know before now but this is what I want instead of Riverdale: a dark, gay, supernatural anthology show with dramatic costumes Agnes Obel on the soundtrack.
It also weirdly warmed my heart to see Lili Reinhart, who's out as bi, play a gay/bi character, even if that character kind of sucked.
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19 hours ago, Moxie Cat said:
Please correct me if I'm wrong (and I deleted the episode so I can't check), but IIRC, the Devil's notebook read B. Cooper, R. Mantle, J. Jones, T. Tate, K. Keller. Veronica quite conspicuously wasn't on it. (Nor Cheryl, though she was missing in this episode.) The Devil made progress with all of those but Ronnie was the outlier. So I thought we'd get more about why the Devil didn't aim for Veronica.
I found this episode a little disturbing but I hope the plot continues into the Sabrina stuff. Regular Riverdale is going to seem tame after this!
Oooooh, interesting. Because, remember last season when Cheryl was mad at everyone for killing her ancestor, and they made a point out of saying Veronica's family wasn't there?
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I'm still basically okay with this.
I love that Reggie's downfall was that he couldn't pay attention for one day and not sign his paperwork with the devil's pen.
I love that Veronica can't conceive of a business enterprise that doesn't involve forcing her customers to watch her to do a dance.
I love that Kevin just immediately signed a pact with Satan because his life sucks so much.
Also, I think maybe this was the show's way of telling us Roberto sold his soul to be successful but lost his ability to write.
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You know, this was still very silly, but I can kind of roll with it more when it's a supernatural show. I think I like these Rivervale episodes.
The thing where Jughead keeps saying he's going to write and then he just spends all day decorating his haunted writing nook is both realistic and funny. I like the low-key humor of discovering a cursed room behind your wall and having your deadbeat boyfriend who never does anything immediately perk up and go, "I can use that as my nook!"
Meanwhile, I know Toni eventually took responsibility for the murder by becoming a drowned ghost, but, prior to that she was an active gang leader who killed people and she was a) not in jail and b) successfully employed as a social worker. What.
On 11/24/2021 at 4:49 PM, nilyank said:I think all these Rivervale stories are actuall Jughead finally breaking his writer's block and this is the result. It's why he is narrating in each episdoe.
Or else he just fell on some rats again.
On 11/25/2021 at 2:32 AM, thuganomics85 said:Not sure if I was suppose to believe Reggie when he claimed nothing happened with that teacher years ago, but either way, Veronica approaching it by smashing his car is not the healthiest way to address this issue...
I laughed so hard during that scene. Veronica's progression is "OMG I think my boyfriend was assaulted by his teacher when he was in school" > "I'll destroy something he loves" > "Forget I did that. You know I'm always here 4 u."
And then she just creepily tries to fix it by buying him a new car.
Everyone on this show needs to break up.
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I respect that they're doing something different. And I'm sure this will turn out to be a dream or a pocket universe created by Sabrina or something. But I'd like to believe the Riverdale town council thought they could solve their PR problems being being Rivervale.
Also props to the show for immediately reminding us that what was happening this episode was no more stupid and ridiculous than the the cliffhangers we ended with last season.
Finally, my favourite part was when the random finance bro actually used a metaphor correctly and said Veronica was making lemonade out of lemons, and she got offended and said she didn't know what that meant. Of course not. He should have said she was making raspberry cordial out of molasses or something.
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4 hours ago, Rickster said:
After reading a lot lately about subtitles vs. dubbed and talking to some friends who will not read subtitles, I think I've come to realize that a lot of the preference may depend on how fast you read. I never feel like I'm missing anything on the screen by reading.
That said, I tend to do stuff like read other things while watching shows, so I find having to focus on the subtitles a little annoying sometimes. I preferred seeing subtitled movies in theaters where you are forced to watch the screen.
I'm a slow reader and this theory explains some things for me. I prefer to read subtitles in a theatre, because at least I'm not trying to multitask there, but I feel like I miss 85% of the non-verbal content because all I'm doing is trying to keep up with the text.
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On 10/14/2021 at 10:38 AM, Melina22 said:
Last note - yesterday I watched a YouTube video of an interview with the actor playing Gi-hun and his smart friend. For me, Gi-hun made the show because despite the stupid and selfish things he does at the beginning, he has an open, kind face, and exudes empathy for others. (When he isn't gambling away their money.) But the actor was strangely unrecognizable. I couldn't tell if his face is now actually different, or if he's such a good actor that he's unrecognizable as himself. Weird.
I think I watched the same interview, if it was a Neflix thing with both actors, the director, and the art director (costumes, sets, props). It was really interesting.
There was a little bit of a surreal element where Hae-soo Park is a lot warmer and friendlier than Sang-woo, and Jung-jae Lee is colder and more reserved than Gi-hun. Kind of like when the True Blood actors used to do group interviews, and suddenly Stephen Moyer was suave and Alexander Skarsgård was a dork. I guess that's just what happens when you're good at acting.
As for how he looks, I think Jung-jae Lee looks different when he's being himself partly because, when his hair is longer, it creates the illusion that he has a different face shape.
On 10/14/2021 at 2:46 PM, CrazyDog said:There could technically be more than one winner though, right? At least it was ambiguous. It was just mentioned that as players were eliminated that their money would be added to the pot. But Gi-hun thought that he could split the money with Sae-byeok, as long as they both agreed to end the games. Or would ending the games result in them being able to leave alive, but without anything? I don't recall, and I don't want to rewatch, ha.
The team-win thing was ambiguous, and I think that ambiguity made it harder to follow the characters' reasoning. It seemed like the more optimistic people believed they could get a team win and the more cynical people assumed it was winner-takes-all. The cynics were right, which is why the end of the game is disillusioning for someone who hoped he was going to go to the end with his friends -- so it works, thematically. But, in terms of audience experience, I don't think the idea got debated enough on screen, so it felt like it was randomly a team game or randomly not depending on who was talking.
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18 hours ago, The Mighty Peanut said:
Sang-woo. Listen, he did Ali dirty. He slit Sae-Byeok's throat. He let his childhood best friend choose the fucking umbrella. So, I get why people would hate him and consider him a villain. I actually don't; I think he just has the singular goal of making things right for his mother and if that means being ruthless, he'll be ruthless. He doesn't get pleasure out of killing, he doesn't seek out weaker people to kill like the gangster group, and his logic regarding Sae-Byeok was pretty on point--she was going to die anyway and as long as she was alive they ran the risk of leaving the game with no money. All he cared about was that money for his mom, his own life was secondary. He proved that with his last act.
Sang-woo's mom needed money because Sang-woo stole everything she owned. Once he'd already lost the game, he asked Gi-hun to help her, but I think his main motivation was to get the cash he needed to buy his way out of trouble and possibly keep his reputation.
What I think is really interesting about Sang-woo is that he's the person who should have won the game. He played it "correctly" based on the cold-blooded worldview Il-nam has, but, just like Gi-hun brought out the human side of Il-nam, he also brought out the human side of Sang-woo, and forced him to confront how horrible the things he was doing really were. That argument they have about the glass maker is really important, because Gi-hun isn't willing to say, "Okay cool -- that was our best move in the game, so I guess it doesn't matter." He's horrified and he's not willing to let it go.
I didn't see this when I actually watched the show, but now I think it's really clever to have these two playing together and have them be childhood friends, from a time before Sang-woo became this person. There's something really powerful about having a character who's portrayed as the Fool look at a philosophy we've been taught to think of as normal and say, "That's such a horrible thing to believe that I won't accept it."
Cabin in the Woods vibes.
18 hours ago, The Mighty Peanut said:I also can't help but think he is screwing his daughter over YET AGAIN by getting her hopes up and then leaving for something more important that's related to large sums of money and dangerous men.
This, I agree with. From her POV, her deadbeat dad just made her another big promise about how they'd spend time together, and then he immediately bailed.
17 hours ago, CrazyDog said:I thought it was interesting that they spared him having to kill Sang-woo.
I found that whole sequence kind of messy and convenient. I get that it would kind of ruin the arc if Gi-hun was willing to kill Sang-woo for the money, but it felt like they went, "Okay, we need Gi-hun to win, and we really want him to walk away with the cash, but he can't be murderous, and he can't be selfish, and the only way to get the money is to be murderous and selfish, so..."
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I'm uncomfortable with the plot line about Cheryl's ancestor. I'm not sure it's awesome to create a narrative where a character looks insane for being upset about / asking for an apology related to historical injustice -- and I feel like they know that on some level, because they made absolutely sure only white characters were involved.
I actually really hope they just blow past that next season and go with the creepy girls' school idea. I don't trust them to dramatize this issue well at all.
On 10/9/2021 at 11:45 PM, Dobian said:Let's make daddy leave Riverdale or we will give the footage of him murdering someone to the FBI. We sure have him over a barrel! Of course, if we had simply given the footage to the FBI instead of the blackmail theatrics, he would be going to prison for life instead of blowing up Archie and Betty!
Yeah, I don't know what it is with these kids, but they never want to turn someone in for their crimes. It's as though they think that whatever this person has done only matters in so far as it affects them personally, and there's no thought to whether there are other victims involved. Even if he left Archie alone, he'd 100% find someone else to try to kill.
Also, I'd low-key like to watch a season where Hiram is on trial and a judge who's not from Riverdale tries to understand WTF goes on in that town.
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On 10/8/2021 at 10:13 PM, Racj82 said:
Some of my favorite reactors The Normies just dropped their latest reaction. The moment when they realize the tug of war is literal cliffhanger was amazing.
Neat. I hadn't seen them before, but I just caught up on their Squid Game reactions. It's fun to watch people get stressed and surprised by this show.
10 hours ago, Sheikh Yerbouti said:The games had an interesting progression. Two games where the players were basically competing against themselves, and there was no limit to the number who could progress to the next round (red light green light, honeycomb). Then on to the zero-sum games, where one's winning meant someone else had to die (tug-of-war, marbles). That's when the emphasis on teamwork came into play. Then a game of luck, where being first or last to take a turn made a difference in your chance of survival (glass bridge), then the final head-to-head competition of the squid game. Not to mention the free-for-all “special game” in the dormitory to encourage the players to turn on each other and cull the competition. Also not to mention how for all the talk of fairness in the games (hence the execution of the doctor and organ smugglers), the rules of the glass bridge changed mid-game when the players figured out the solution.
The changes to the bridge game seem dodgy to me, too. I actually don't think this game show is a meritocracy, but Front Man seems to think it is, so I found it suspect that he would just randomly change the game because the contestants were doing too well. It felt like the writers needed a way for the final three to realistically survive the game, but then they also needed to kill off the extra person who helped them, because having four people in the finals would mess up the dramatic arc that builds to the final showdown. A simpler solution would have been to make it so there was something hanging overhead that cast weird shadows at either end of the bridge, so he couldn't see the last tiles properly -- or make it so somebody other than Front Man interfered.
In general, I think the game is a really good metaphor for how people get rich -- through the combination of luck, effort, and ruthlessness described in the final episode. Plus indirectly benefiting from evil -- like how everyone who survived indirectly benefited when Deok-su murdered a bunch of the contestants -- and finding favour with people who are already powerful (Gganbu). If you're a good person, you can't get rich without being traumatized by how wealth is produced.
So, in that sense, the thing where the game feels kind of random and unfair sometimes rings true -- I just don't buy that that matches Front Man's world view.
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3 hours ago, TrininisaScorp said:Spoiler
I also really disliked Sang-woo after that, while acknowledging that it's a tough position to be in. I thought the way the show presented him was really good, though. The moment things really turned for me was when he was about to lose the marble game and suddenly he got really mad and started yelling that Ali shouldn't know how to play the game, and should be losing, etc, etc -- and the apparent kindness of teaching him how to play and finishing the task in an equal, honorable way fell away. I knew he would betray Ali at that moment, but I also flashed back to all of the shady things he'd done earlier in the season, like hiding info from his alliance, and I was like, "Whoa. I actually knew who he was and I didn't want to see it."
In the next episode as well, when he pushes the glass maker and his friends are shocked -- the whole construction of that scene, to get them in position where that happens, and the way the writers control access to information, so that the audience already knows what Sang-woo is about, but his alliance is just finding out, right before they go into the finals together -- it's really, really good.
Also just the fact that a white collar criminal takes advantage of a migrant worker by pretending to help him -- chef's kiss perfect set-up.
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Cheryl: Let me guess, the town council's going to be you, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead.
Archie: No. It's Jughead's girlfriend, Betty's mom, my uncle, and our friend Toni. And no one who signed the petition knew that or got to vote.
The secondary characters who showed up at the gym: Okay, I guess that sounds fair.
Other thoughts:
- My favourite scene was when Archie and Veronica were plotting to kill Hiram and Reggie knocked on the window and they were like, "Not now."
- Pop's looks pretty good for a place that was tragically destroyed in a fire.
- I guess Chad's really dead, but I'm tickled that the boys on Wall Street have apparently gone from calling Veronica "The She-Wolf of Wall Street" to "The Black Widow of Wall Street," as though they tag "of Wall Street" onto every name.
- Hiram can still destroy the town without physically being there.
- I'm actually really enjoying the thing where Cheryl adopted this kid and the kid just has to deal with whatever happens at Thornhill.
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7 hours ago, Anela said:
I’ve just finished episode one, but don’t know how much more I’ll watch right now. I don’t want to be devastated. I saw a tweet from a girl who was watching, and asked “how do you get past episode five?” Like that one did her in. This episode became intense enough.
That's interesting. The way I remember it, Episode Five is kind of dumb because it concerns a bunch of the weaker subplots and stalls the main story -- but, looking back on it, I think it has a lot of gross-out stuff in it. Not scary, so much as something you just don't want to look at. I was playing games on my iPad, so I didn't really watch that part.
That said, you're still right. If you already felt like episode one was too intense, or like you wouldn't want to keep watching if it gets more intense than that, it only gets more stressful from that point on.
3 hours ago, nomodrama said:I think the games were interesting and high stakes enough that they didn't need to go as far as encouraging them to kill eachother. At the rate at which people were failing the games, the numbers were dwindling fast enough. I know its a very realistic progression of how something like this would go, and it's perfectly in line with human nature but still it made it even more depressing to watch.
SpoilerI think that, in so far as this is supposed to be mimicking a reality show, it makes sense -- there's an element of every show that's about backstabbing people outside the challenges. But I also think it hurts the internal logic of the series, since it seems like the guards allow the contestants to kill each other and stop them from killing each other at totally arbitrary moments, just based on what seems most dramatic.
Same thing with voting to stop the game, honestly. After the first time it happens no one thinks to try to do that again, even though you can apparently do it when you're in the midst of a challenge -- the time when it would be easiest to get a majority to agree. If they had all stood on the glass bridge and said, "You know what? Sux to this," apparently they could have called it off.
54 minutes ago, ExMathMajor said:SpoilerI think Gi-hun's relationship with this money, and what he does and doesn't do with it is also one of the weaker points in the show. Almost like the series was determined to have him walk out with the prize even if it didn't make sense for his character.
If he's giving people suitcases full of money, I would have expected him to at least give something to Ali's family, since they were allies and Ali never did anything wrong. I would almost expect him to send something to everyone's family, since that's what would have happened if he had gotten his wish and voted to stop playing.
But, in the end, even the person who was too moral to want to take the money kept it once he had it. I'm not sure if that's a problem with the characterization or just a really sad commentary on humanity.
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11 minutes ago, Panda Bear said:
It was completely absurd the way Veronica reacted to killing a man she loved enough to marry not so long ago. And I wondered, wouldn't she be arrested or at least have to face some kind of press scrutiny for this, if she and Chad were such a big deal in New York? But then I remembered the show I watching and told myself, "Forget it, Panda Bear. It's Riverdale."
I'm not 100% sure he's dead. He looked like he was, but then it sounded like she was walking it back when she talked to Hiram about it. IIRC, she says she shot him, not that she killed him. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if he comes back at some point.
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3 hours ago, tennisgurl said:
So are we supposed to think that Veronica is actually singing her heart out over the kitchen sink or is it just a metaphor for how she's feeling?
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Jughead just running for the garage so he wouldn't have to talk to Veronica was funny and sad, I was actually curious as to what they would talk about, I cant even remember the last time the two of them had a scene one on one. The core four are supposed to be super close friends, even after being apart for years, but they are all often in such different plots they hardly seem like they know each other a lot of times.
Okay, but now imagine he ran to the garage and she just started screaming show tunes about how she always comes second to Archie. That would make me like her so much more.
I agree with you, though -- it's confusing what singing "represents" on this show. Is it happening in people's imaginations? Are we meant to understand that they're having a normal conversation but it's being translated into song for us, as viewers? Is it like the musical episode of Buffy and everyone's cursed to sing their feelings even if they don't know the source material? Is this a spell that Cheryl cast because she's a witch? I'm pretty sure it's the last one, but it's unclear.
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I binged it last week. It's definitely one of the best if not the best versions of the Deadly Game genre I've ever seen. I thought some of the side stories were boring and didn't go anywhere (the doctor, the detective, etc), but the main story really worked for me.
The situation was kind of ridiculous and surreal, but it was filmed and acted in such a way that you had to take it seriously. I felt like I was right there with them in all of their horrible challenges, staring across the field at people who were going to die. I thought the social commentary was also really sharp.
Spoilers for the ending, for those who haven't seen it.
SpoilerThat final scene with Il-nam where he explains that he killed 400 people because he was bored and tells Gi-hun not to feel bad about taking blood money because that's how people get rich -- there is a lot in that scene, and I love it.
That said, it did bother me that the show tried so hard to find a way for Gi-hun to get the money without having to betray his friends -- even Song-woo, who kind of deserved it. I don't think it would have been the right choice, narratively, for him to kill Song-woo and take the cash, but it may have been a better choice for him to stop the game, and then Song-woo goes to jail and nobody gets the money because the money wasn't worth it, in the end. But I'm conflicted about that.
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I didn't watch the previews or anything, but, as soon as Betty said her mom was listening to a musical, I went, "Oh, no."
FWIW, I don't like the musical episodes, but I feel like this was the best one? Because it at least somewhat related to the story? I'm not into the rock opera thing where the only way to express emotion is to be really loud, so I still wasn't really into this, but it seemed to work better.
Without having seen Next to Normal it seemed like maybe Betty was being cast as both the child and the husband, which is such an apt reading of her relationship with Alice, and so amazingly unhealthy for both of them, if it's true. She should be able to move away and live her own life -- she should be able to do that no matter what, but even more so because Alice drops her like a hot coal whenever she finds someone else to cling to.
I'm fine with Archie and Veronica breaking up. I also thought the conflict was pretty normal and relatable -- one of them wants a serious relationship and to start thinking long-term about moving in together, planning for the future, building their careers, etc -- one of them wants to keep living with a bunch of random roommates and stay casual. Neither is wrong, but they don't work together.
Also, it seemed like Archie was sleeping at the fire station to avoid her. So, there's that.
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LMAO. "At my quinceanera, you said you wished I were a boy, and, ever since then, the prophecy has been that one of us must die."
Relatedly, I have a fan theory that maybe stupidity is an STD in the Riverdale universe. I think it would explain a lot of things.
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S02.E07: Voleth Meir
in The Witcher
People love to spare Cahir, man. The character doesn't really serve a purpose, IMO, but everyone does their best to keep him around.
I would have liked that scene more if it didn't seem like an exact re-enactment of American Horror Story.