dwmarch

Great episode. As expected, the heist doesn't go off cleanly, mostly because of people not behaving as expected. I appreciate the realism of having one of the Rebels killed entirely by accident on the way out. We also see the Rebellion learning a harsh lesson here which is that wounded soldiers are a drag on the mission which makes them worse than dead soldiers. I always thought that young, idealistic Rebel was a little squishy. Too soon? I also liked that the pompous, racist Imperial bigwig had a heart attack after having to sweat for the first time in who knows how many years. Should have kept up on that cardio! The Eye was amazing. I hope the special effects crew gets a lot of recognition for their work on that. It really was something people would stand outside on a cold night to see. Even the Imperials were impressed. Speaking of which, I liked that they showed that not every Imperial is pure evil. Some are just working stiffs and the families don't really want any part of it. I'm compelled to nitpick the jamming device that had bright flashing lights on it (seriously, put a piece of duct tape over those!) but at the same time, everything in this universe has flashing lights on it so it kind of blends in. They should have slapped an Imperial sticker on it to be on the safe side though. That shot of the TIE Fighters in the hanger was amazing. The pilots drop into them like firefighters! Also nice that we see Mon Mothma trying to rebel in her own way with an impassioned speech at the Senate (which falls on deaf ears because everyone tunes her out for the breaking news alert). The Senate chamber being mostly empty was a nice touch, as if all the other Senators were like "oh, this grumbling-ass wench again".

I thought Alex's girlfriend was going to be much older. Like absurdly inappropriately older. Like he was dating the coroner or something. Now that would have been comedy gold right there. Not much else to say on this one as it was a cut and paste from the greatest hits of Hawaii 5-0. I'm pretty sure 5-0 even had a plot where someone was pumped full of adrenaline and had to try to stay calm and try not to die. 5-0 also did the Hawaiian sovereignty plot before although I believe they did a little more jurisdictional trampling than NCIS, who achieved results via asking nicely and being respectful. And of course we have the mandatory helpful person from another agency who turns out to be the bad guy in a shocking twist if you have never seen one episode of Hawaii 5-0. As an added bonus we get a hard takedown which I guess means it is okay for cops to blow bad guys away on TV again. NCIS Hawaii has mostly been team non-lethal so far but they must have been possessed by the spirit of Steve McGarrett here. I agree a little bit of Coast Guard homie goes a long way. What makes it painful for me is that I have already seen years and years of a badly-written character tripping over their own feet while trying to pretend they are an elite profiler. That show is called The Blacklist and I hate watch it so I can snark on it here. Don't be that show, NCIS Hawaii. Please don't be that show!

I liked the show. The stakes are nice and high. If Mark doesn't bring home "dinner" for Elle he risks her snacking on whomever is nearby including him. This has apparently led to situations where they have needed to leave town in a hurry in the past. Good to see Nick Stahl again, I haven't seen him since Terminator 3. From the look of things Elle might have been the one who turned the scientist's son. Either that or he turned her but it sounds like she was first. I'm interested to hear more about Elle's past. How old is she? Asked but not answered in this episode. She's not a kid but Mark treats her like one sometimes which I have a feeling he will come to regret. My one complaint is that this show, like The Equalizer, suffers from small NYC syndrome. There are millions of people in New York City but all the characters in this show live right on top of each other or have immediately overlapping storylines. I guess that is supposed to fall into the feature rather than bug category but it makes the timing of the characters particularly auspicious (for lack of a better word) for any of this to work. I'm looking forward to those bullies getting turned into lunch for Elle.

I am pretty sure most of episode 3 is not from the books at all. As I recall, Louis rescued Claudia from some dire living situation but not from an actual fire. Louis is shown as being pyrokinetic here. That may have come up in later books but Louis was always the vampire who didn't try very hard when it came to his powers. In later books, he receives blood from Lestat (who has received blood from various ancient vampires) so Louis does eventually develop his strengths but as I recall he kind of goes out of his way to not use them whereas Lestat is clearly established as a showoff. Louis also has a mean streak to him that he didn't have in the books, particularly the way he killed that one character who was trying to buy his brothel. As for Louis' friend from back in the day, I don't think he exists in the book. It's possible he might but I don't remember. Lestat is shown using his powers to get all the soldiers to depart and this causes him to bleed from one ear. I don't recall this being an issue in the books although I don't think any of the vampires ever used it on a crowd. I'm pretty sure the books have the order of feeding the other way around where vampires would only drink from animals if there were no evildoers around they could feed on. Or they would use a crowded room to disguise several "little drinks" which were established last episode.

I'm proud of Ray for telling Jason the truth and encouraging him to avoid the drama that he knows will catch up to him sooner or later. Like Ray said, Omar is a smart dude and shutting him out is only going to make him more curious. Ray knows this from experience and Jason should too but he's too alpha dog to admit it. In any case, I'm glad Ray is finally using his powers for good. It's character growth and I like that. Speaking of which, we actually do get confirmation from Sonny himself that he is indeed a Swiftie because it's the only thing that comforts his daughter. That is hilarious and I love that they came back to it. I wish Clay would slow down because it seems obvious now that he's not doing so great after all. And don't give yourself too hard of a time for your baby monitor going off for a few seconds. That kid is a baby Navy SEAL, he should be able to hold his breath for like five minutes. It would have been nice if they had offered a bit more of an explanation as to why they had to send the frightened teenager back in to the terrorist camp at the end rather than raiding it themselves. It's possible it was too big of camp for them to hit or they were low on ammo or something else but they didn't actually say any of those things. I wonder if Jason mispronouncing Chechens two or three times before finally getting it right was a sign that his lack of treatments for his TBI is starting to manifest. He called them "Chech-ians" a few times and no one called him on it because who wants to nitpick the grammar of the boss?

There was a weird schedule for this movie in my town too and I can only assume that is because Kevin Smith and traditional cinematic distribution models do not get along. In any case, I did get to see it in the theatre. As with Red State and Tusk, I am not sure how I feel about it. I think the important thing to know going in is that it is not a comedy. It is a movie with comedy in it but it absolutely is not a comedy. Having said that, I think Smith got some powerhouse performances out of his actors and gave them a real opportunity to shine. But there's also a fair amount of things about the movie that do not work at all and if you are not a Kevin Smith fan there would be so much of the movie that will just be weird nonsense. All in all, I think my favorite bit was when Randall was explaining the plot of The Mandalorian to the doctor, who is played by Amy Sedaris... who has appeared in The Mandalorian several times. Some of the random cameos were awesome too. Danny Trejo? You can't go wrong with random Danny Trejo.

I think perhaps the Hulk King's idea here is that because they are stuffy old lawyers anything with a whiff of sexuality will cause them to clutch their pearls and faint in dismay. I would love it if the show subverted our expectations here and instead had an entire room full of lawyers now righteously pissed that some group of douchenozzles would even try to do this to one of their own. She-Hulk can handle the True Believers, the army of lawyers can deal with the goons. That was fantastic. In no way does it describe Jen or She-Hulk but at the same time it stings that he thinks of her that way. Daredevil was awesome, as expected. I also liked Jen hanging a lampshade on those Daredevil hallway fights feeling like they are half an hour long. Daredevil clears out the first few goons and is getting ready to take on half a dozen more when She-Hulk drops the ceiling on them and reminds us which show we are watching. There is a lot of subversion of expectations in this show and I love it.

I like that this show is confident enough about itself to give us an episode mostly set outside of the ship and featuring a one-off character who was not particularly important in her first appearance. The Cerritos actually got to throw down in this episode! That was nice to see. I'm not sure why all of the megalomaniacal computers are stored together and able to talk to each other. That seems like a recipe for disaster. There was another interesting take on an old Star Trek trope here, the "why don't they use the obvious solution to fix this problem?" In this case, Peanut Hamper could have called for help at any time but chose not to. That might be a callback to a DS9 episode where the crew was stranded on a "farmer's paradise" planet where the person in charge had deliberately cut off communications. The pre-warp society but it's okay because they know about warp was in Insurrection along with old technology coming back to haunt the current inhabitants. Probably quite a few more Insurrection parallels now that I think about it. I'll wait to see how many TrekCulture picks up on when they do their review.

She splattered the head of a bad guy all over his living room in front of his kids. I'm not sure if he knows that or not and I'm not sure if he'd appreciate knowing but I think he'll eventually put two and two together. I liked the power walk. So for Harry's use of computers I guess we are going to say the police are just looking the other way? They hung a slight lampshade on it here which is fine with me because I don't need to see a plot where Harry is jonesing for a computer. Like with Hawaii 5-0, that big computer does most of the work anyhow. I agree with those who would like to see the more personal, smaller scale stories. If ever there is a big city that is facing a radiological threat I certainly hope the only thing stopping the bad guys isn't a small vigilante team who are doing it as a hobby.

I was thinking the same thing about characters silhouetting themselves on ridge lines but I will cut them some slack in that it's the early days of the rebellion and they're still finding the landmines by stepping on them. "I'm sorry to report your tradecraft is a bag of ass" is less a bug and more of a feature at this point. Great episode, I loved how we are letting the story breathe for a moment and getting one last look at these characters in the places they have become accustomed to before it all blows up. Another aspect of this show that I love is how I am seeing things that I have seen at work. A hardass boss who is obsessing over painting a piece of equipment that the visitors from Corporate probably won't even look at. The various underlings who get in trouble for trying too hard. The superiors who get a detailed report about an actual problem and blow it off. And we also see that the people who are involved in this struggle don't particularly enjoy it. No one is having fun with the spy games and once things are quiet they start having doubts. It's a sort of realism that I haven't seen in any other Star Wars material I've seen. I'm generally easy to please (I liked The Book of Boba Fett despite its obvious flaws and I don't hate the Prequels or the Sequels) but I think this show in particular is fantastic.

Episode 2 gives us a Marius name-drop so I imagine we'll be seeing him sooner or later. I don't know why Louis would have a painting from Marius, they were not particularly close in the books. Louis' assistant was named in the episode and he's not Benji. I am not sure if his line about "I serve a God" was meant to indicate that he is a devout Muslim and this is just a weird job to him or if he considers Louis to be a god. There is some vampire worship in the books, particularly in Queen of the Damned. So they do go back to the idea of consuming blood from the dead with Lestat saying it could cause the vampire to die. As I recall from the books they had a similar concern but this never amounted to anything. And I don't see how the blood Louis consumed from the IV bag could be considered fresh so I think Lestat is just talking trash here. In QotD, Pandora rips a dude's heart out and squeezes it to get every last drop out. That dude was definitely dead but Pandora didn't seem to mind. Is there a vampire version of the five-second rule? They keep the idea from the books where a fledgling cannot hear the thoughts of their maker although in this episode I could have sworn Lestat said something to Louis telepathically after turning him. Maybe he was just sub-vocalizing in a way only a vampire could hear. The vampires of this show eat and drink although Louis says it is not at all enjoyable. The vampires of the books don't eat or drink human food at all although I don't remember if any of them actually try to. Speaking of playing with one's food, that dude being able to talk while Louis is feeding on him is not consistent with the books. Victims in the books go into a swoon and only come out of it if the vampire lets them go. In the books, Armand does this to Daniel a bunch of times. But in this show, Daniel seems to have been attacked by Louis at the end of the old interview and he's not really talking so much as screaming. We get an estimate from Lestat as to how many vampires there are in the world and he guesses about a hundred. Louis also mentions a worldwide vampire population and how they have some big plot in the works. So is this going to lead into an updated version of Queen of the Damned? I forgot to mention from last episode, there was also a Mayfair witches shout out. There was a crossover in the books so they may end up popping up. I believe there is a Mayfair witches show in production right now. Lestat gives his age as 200ish which is consistent with the books however the books are set much earlier to the point where Lestat is actually caring for his mortal father in New Orleans. That is obviously not going to possible in this story. Lestat is also doing a lot more exposition than he did in the books. That was a point of contention in the novel Interview With The Vampire. Lestat wasn't telling Louis anything about vampires to the point where Louis basically said to Claudia "if we want to figure anything out about ourselves we're going to have to find these answers on our own." The glassy fingernails are called out in this episode. If one has not read the books I would say the show has done a poor job of explaining it so far but the long and short of it is that vampires for some reason have glassy, almost translucent fingernails. Anne Rice had a thing for gloves I guess. We also saw the mortal body death that accompanies being vamped and a bit of the heightened vampire senses. That is from the books. I'm glad they went for gore discretion here. It is similarly vague in the books but my impression is that it is not a pleasant process. They also don't bother with the ritual of preparing the human body as in cutting the hair to the desired length (because it will grow back to that length every night if cut) or shaving away that five o'clock shadow that 20th century Louis has but 21st century Louis does not have. Well, I guess we could say that Louis shaves every day but I would be surprised if they mention it at all. These vampires don't seem to be quite as adverse to the sun although this hasn't been entirely consistent in the books either. In some cases it's instant death and in other cases, really old vampires will sleep fully exposed to the sun so they can get a nice tan that will make them look more human. After QotD, Lestat is basically immune to the sun. That reminds me of another slight difference I noticed. In the books, Lestat is a late sleeper and an early riser. Other vampires, especially young ones, get into their coffins and conk straight out, a slumber from which they will not emerge even to save their own lives. Vittorio the Vampire (the only one-off book in the Vampire Chronicles that has almost no connection to other books except for a passing mention in the framing story) kills a whole coven like this, opening coffins and chopping heads off. I thought we were going to get a humorous moment where Lestat would be talking to Louis about how he felt bad about earlier and then would lift up Louis' coffin lid to find him deadass asleep. But no, these vampires are happy to party past dawn provided the curtains are drawn.

Good god, this team and its penchant for drama sometimes. Jason, you need to change your call sign to Drama Llama One. This show has had a pattern over the past few seasons. Everything is going well at the beginning. Everyone is getting along and they've patched up the previous season's conflicts. And then a few episodes in the wheels start coming off. And so it goes this season, with Jason and Sonny immediately deciding that the best way to keep the team's dirty laundry a secret from the very smart, very observant new guy is by being actively hostile to him at all times. This is because they have some deep, irrational fear that Omar will find out about these things, tattle to command and be rewarded with leadership of the team. Is that how it works in the Navy SEALs? For an episode that had actual teenage girls in it, Jason and Sonny put them to shame with Mean Girls shit. You think it's going to take him more than a second to figure out that Jason, who has been a Navy SEAL since the dinosaurs were young, has had his bell rung a bunch of times and it's starting to wear on him? That might have been the exact same conflict that Omar was having with Foxtrot One. Speaking of the YPJ, I would think Navy SEALs would be less dismissive of them. All I know about them is what is on the Wikipedia article but they sound thoroughly badass. I like Omar. He's a breath of fresh air and he's funny. I especially enjoyed his teasing of Sonny, who is apparently a Swiftie (which I could totally see being Sonny's secret shame). And I think Ray had the right advice. Don't look at him as a problem until and unless he becomes one. Jason on the other hand seems to think the best way to deal with him is to turn him into a problem which is an... unconventional style of leadership. Jason is mad at Omar at the end of the episode because he just painted a big target on their backs. Umm, well no. First and foremost, it was Sonny teaching the YPJ gals how to properly talk shit that got the shells flying in. Second, before you even left you were told in explicit detail how there is no support out here and a dozen terrorist groups who would love nothing more than to kill an American, especially a Navy SEAL. Again, how does Jason picture this playing out? Omar got the team out into the field where they made some new friends, killed some bad guys and built themselves an intel pipeline. What was Jason's plan again? Did he even have one? It might have been to plant electronic snooping devices to try to pick up the trail of the bad guys but does he suppose the various Syrian factions aren't going to notice a bunch of Americans pretending they work for the local cable company?

There are some deep cuts in the first episode straight from the books that impressed me: Lestat telling the story of how his mom gave him his first mastiff, flintlock and money to go to Paris. All of this is covered in detail in The Vampire Lestat along with Lestat's father being a dick. Nicki gets a mention although I am not sure if he was named. He's the violinist that Lestat mentions. Lestat turned him and I am pretty sure Nicki ended up walking into the sunlight although he may have been pushed. Lestat has glassy fingernails! We also see Lestat use his blood to seal up a wound on Louis' neck. I'm pretty sure this first appeared in Queen of the Damned. All the Vampire Chronicles jargon is in there - dark gift, savage garden, little drink, etc. As for powers, we see levitation, telepathy, freezing time, super speed, super strength, resilience (Lestat doesn't even blink when Louis stabs him a bunch of times) and possibly pyrokinesis. I don't remember freezing time being a thing Anne Rice vampires can do although their telepathy as described in the books can certainly cause mortals to lose track of time or forget what they were worrying about. For nitpicking, as mentioned upthread these vampires are supremely messy eaters and no self-respecting Anne Rice vampire would outright waste that much blood. We see Louis eating food when he is human and he doesn't slop all over himself so why can't he eat like a civilized vampire? Although I guess that was his first time so maybe he'll figure it out eventually but Lestat ate with his whole face too. Y'all need bibs or something. Also, I don't recall Lestat ever murdering a human by punching through their head because that would be another waste of good blood. In the books, blood from dead creatures is stale and vampires are disgusted by it. I wonder who Louis' assistant in the 21st century is? He could be Benji although that character doesn't appear until way later in the series. I'm also assuming we might eventually see Gabrielle (Lestat's mom) since we got a Nicki mention already.

I will post a more detailed reaction in the appropriate thread but I have to say I was impressed at some of the Anne Rice lore that made it into the episode. The show certainly takes some liberties with the story but sticks much closer than say the Jack Ryan series versus Tom Clancy's novels. Nice strong start to the series and I definitely want to see more. Louis and Lestat are both great and the supporting cast thus far is doing well too. I especially like Daniel and I'm curious to see where this show will take him. I am not sure why Lestat set that one pew ablaze. Bearing in mind that vampires have a weakness to fire I guess he wanted to put on a show without putting himself at too much risk. Either that or pyrokinesis takes a lot of out him. In any case, it seemed like a cinematic fire rather than a pissed off vampire lighting your ass up fire but that seems in character for Lestat. Also, why did Lestat bust that one priest's head open like a melon? That was... unnecessary. And it seems like a waste of good blood as well, especially since Lestat knew he was about to offer his to Louis. Sam Reid looks distractingly like Lucas Till so that messed with my head the whole episode. Lucas Till was last seen on the MacGyver reboot in the title role. Now that would have been some interesting casting!

I thought it was kind of hilarious how with the proto-Rebels the problem is not enough bureaucracy while the Empire suffers from too much bureaucracy. The rebels can't adapt to changing plans which would be a lot easier if someone had bothered to write them down. In the meantime, the Empire's intelligence agency could be proactively solving the thing they are most worried about but those TPS reports are due so let's focus on those instead.

My copy fell off the back of a truck too. I looked around for a schedule for the show but I couldn't find anything. I don't know if's being held for mid-season or what.

That's Kayla. She's Asta's cousin and she lives on the reservation. We met her early in the first season and she pops up every once in a while.

I'm surprised they didn't go with an obvious joke and have Boims comment about how much more space there is in the brig compared to his bunk. One of the groups at the fair that got both barrels from Boimler was that species from the much-hated first season episode Move Along Home. Allamaraine that, jerkweeds! Props to Tendi for figuring out Rutherford was possessed immediately. The shot near the end with Mariner looking out the back window as the ship went to warp was a nice effect.

Also having a space dog take a piss on a hero droid and the hero droid electrocuting the dog in return. I'm pretty sure that's a first.

One of the corporate cops said "shit" near the end, IIRC that's the first time anyone in Star Wars has dropped that particular cuss. Unless Lucas edited it into the original trilogy in one of the many Special Editions. Vader: Luke, I am your father! Luke: Aw, shit... Or maybe it was in The Phantom Menace. Mace Windu: this kid can't train to be a Jedi apprentice, he's too old. Anakin: that's some bullshit! Mace Windu: listen up little muthaf- I loved the music at the end of this episode. I don't normally notice the background music in a TV show but that closing music was awesome.

I realize the kids are in a Lord of the Flies type of situation but they really need to rethink their tactical approach if it takes about 27 darts to knock one person down.

@cardigirl, we don't see what happens. The show cuts to an outside shot of the cabin and we just hear the Alien Tracker's cattle prod zapping away with no indication as to who is on the receiving end.

I watched the mothership episode to see the Hawaii characters and I did not love it. I guess if I had to sum that show up, it feels like a show that has been on for twenty seasons. I'm glad to see our NCIS Hawaii crew back though. I think they have much better banter with each other and they're just more fun to watch. And speaking of which I will try to keep my praise gentlemanly and simply say that when it comes to Lucy and Whistler being a happy couple who make out at the end of an episode, I am not mad about it. Not one bit. I also thought Bam Bam was kind of fun. Boom Boom was a little abrasive when he first appeared but he warmed up to the team eventually. Bam Bam is stone cold and she's a nice contrast to the perpetually polite NCIS team. I am sure we'll be seeing her again although I still want the Fish and Wildlife crew to come back first. They had a shave ice cart and they didn't have Kamekona from Hawaii 5-0 pushing it around? Since 5-0 has apparently retired (or more likely been disbanded with prejudice for flagrant disregard of every law known to man) it would not surprise me if Kamekona went back to his criminal ways. The doctor in this episode was Phlox from Enterprise! Nice to see John Billingsley is still working.

Like this?

I guess Clay isn't going to have a hard time picking out a Halloween costume this year. Nice to see the bond between Sonny and Clay, I'm glad they made up. This show has mostly gone easy on the gore so Clay's leg was probably the grossest thing this show has ever given us. Cuss words aplenty in this episode too, even Mandy got in on it. Speaking of which, did Davis call a superior officer a son of a bitch? I know she was probably cussing the situation rather than the officer but Blackburn just let it slide and I feel like he should have at least reminded her to be more specific so as to avoid ambiguity. Instead he later gave her a warning about trying to find blame which is kind of weird. As I recall, Davis' criticism of the Navy isn't about support in the field or planning of missions, it's about a lack of support for warfighters after they come home broken. But as for this specific mission, if there were screwups along the way they're definitely going to talk about them. Ray mentioned an after-action report which as I understand is a breakdown of what went right and what could have gone better. Just because some things did not go right does not mean the mission itself was a failure. Having said that, I liked how callous it sounded when the mission was described to Stella as "low value". One detail that I thought was realistic was that they tried to give Clay an antibiotic, he puked it up and in the chaos of evacuating they forgot to feed him another one. If Jason wants to blame himself for anything, that should be the thing since it ended up costing Clay his leg. Although Clay dragging his own ass all over the place probably didn't help either. I also liked that Naima is good at comforting the wives of injured/KIA SEALs but simultaneously realizes she's better at it than she'd like to be.