Xantar

Aww man, the guy who died in the escalator actually got me. It's manipulative as hell, but knowing that something like that actually happened makes it effective. Whatever company did that in real life is going to have quite the lawsuit on their hands. I liked this episode. And I knew that Athena wasn't going to take the promotion because her character is much more interesting out in the field than behind a desk. But Angela Bassett made it work. I'm really dreading when Maddie's abusive ex-husband shows up. We really don't need that when there's already plenty of inherent drama in the rescues.

I loved The Brave and thought it was much better than SEAL Team (so naturally, SEAL Team was renewed while The Brave was cancelled). I especially loved the dynamics between the characters and how they would bust each other's balls over their dating life or how one of them was an unexpectedly good cook. Are we going to have a multiple-casualty terrorist attack every week? Because that's going to get really tiresome and depressing really fast. The real-life United States doesn't experience nearly that much tragedy (unless you count mass shootings). And to have all of that happening in New York City is just laughable. Also, what was the wardrobe department thinking putting Missy Peregrym in a t-shirt while everybody else was wearing a business suit? I was expecting to be told that she was in the middle of having drinks when she got called in to the incident, but we never heard anything like that. She just looks extremely unprofessional. I actually like all of the cast, and I even think Sela Ward is great. However, I don't think I'm going to stick with this one.

Two of the casualties of the building fire were due to people's own stupidity. The mother and child that Otis found in the elevator were there because the mother tried to take the elevator during a fire. Even little kids know you're not supposed to do that. Stella got injured because she ignored that the air in her tank was low. And I'm a horrible person because I had trouble feeling sorry for them (except for that poor baby).

Look, I'm just here for the action scenes and I got them. I'm good. (We probably won't get another episode like this since I have a feeling they blew the entire special effects budget. Oh well.)

I really like the story. I really like the characters. I am intrigued by the magic system. I really want to know what happens next. But I haaaaaaaate the animation. What is that framerate, 6 fps? What were they thinking? I know this show is drawn on computers, but plenty of computer drawn shows have very smooth animation. The Japanese have figured this out, why can’t the people making this show? I’m on board for the next season, and to tell the truth I will probably watch all the way to the end. But if the animation continues to be this jaggedy, I’m going to be gritting my teeth sometimes. (Apparently the animation is good enough for people who know ASL to understand Amaya, so I do give them credit for that)

The thing about the Chicago shows is they are all pretty good on the case of the week stuff and pretty terrible with the ongoing character arcs. Chicago Fire especially used to do some great rescue scenes (but lately they seem to have cut their budget). I watch Chicago Med because it has the least stupidity among the characters. And despite the dramatics, I find that it's still better than most other medical dramas in terms of focusing on the actual medicine. I mean have you people seen Grey's Anatomy, Code Black, or The Night Shift? (I will say that I like The Good Doctor as well, but I have room in my viewing schedule to watch two medical dramas)

I always thought this show was over the top but never that it was a comedy. Remember the episode where they were rescuing people from a plane crash and it ended with a woman listening to her husband's dying declaration of love? Hell, I think the series premiere was the one where they pulled an abandoned baby out of a pipe in the wall. That was bonkers, but there was nothing funny about it. I don't care about pretty much any character except for Bobby and Athena, and that's just because I like both actors so much that I like to see them getting work. For the rest, I'm literally fast scanning until the next rescue scene.

You know what? I’m on board for a second season. Is it formulaic and kind of dumb? Yeah. Does it have the same light step as early Castle? No. Do the leads have tremendous chemistry? No. But it’s all good enough for a summer show when I don’t have anything else to watch. Nobody actively annoys me. And it’s nice to have a procedural for once where not every caes is a murder. My personal guess is that the movie role is also a setup somehow. Deacon has nabbed Eddie, but he also bears a grudge against Sam. That will resolve everything pretty neatly.

Upon thinking about it, I actually kind of get it. Once Adora poisoned Camille, she started acting caring and nurturing. Camille has been shown to crave her mother’s love so much that even after Adora says she never loved Camille, Camille doesn’t do the sensible thing and just leave. Seeing her mother acting concerned for her health must have been extremely powerful for Camille, and you can see her regressing to a childlike state under Adora’s “care.” I’m not sure if you think the show was successful or not. For me it really wasn’t. I’m totally on board with a series that explores themes and atmosphere while leaving the whodunnit on the back burner. Big Little Lies did this very well. The question of who was bullying Amabella and who raped one of the mothers was almost beside the point while we explored the characters living on the California coast. Plus there was the side story of Nicole Kidman’s character dealing with domestic abuse. The difference is Big Little Lies took the time to show us the aftermath of the ending and also actually had something to say in the leadup to the last episode. Sharp Objects just had lots of atmosphere and....people are really drunk? And they have a really messed up local holiday tradition? And the Queen Bee wields way too much power over law enforcement? That’s about two episodes of material at most.

Gillian herself is the one who adapted both Gone Girl and Sharp Objects for the screen, so she only has herself to blame. I have to say based on what I’ve seen that I’m not inclined to go read the books. She’s coming across as a hack.

There was a shot where it looked like Amma’s new friend had some words written on her hand, so that’s what Camille was reacting to. Whether or not those words were actually there is anybody’s guess. I actually thought they were pretty heavy-handed with foreshadowing Amma killing her new friend. There was a shot of the two of them rollerskating and at one point Amma rolls into a loop of string and pantomimes getting strangled.

We can agree to disagree, but it was always clear to me that Adora didn’t kill the two girls because she’s not the type to rip out teeth. Meanwhile, Alan is way too passive to strangle anyone to death. Amma was really the only suspect to me.

You’re right that they didn’t give us a lot of clues or indications that Amma was the killer nor even any hint of her motive. However since the show presented zero other suspects, she was the obvious choice.

Yep. And I’m watching the after-episode special where the cast and crew are congratulating themselves on how they earned the ending and had a great cut to black. Ugh. This was a series where everybody was a terrific actor, the cinematography was fantastic, and most of the individual moments worked really well, but man the overall plot just suuuuuuucked. The actual murder mystery was a non-entity because it was so clear that Adora was up to no good and that Amma was a killer psychopath. I called it in my post in the previous thread, I believe. And at the same time, we got no explanation for either of those revelations. You could argue that the point of the series was about atmosphere and how past trauma haunts Camille, but they screwed that up too. For one thing, they stretched everything out way too long. I can only have so many shots of Camilla driving while looking pensively before I want to yell, “I get it! She’s messed up! Can we look at something else now?” And meanwhile, her actual background is just way too much. Camille’s sister died, she was gang-raped, she was put into a psychiatric hospital for self-harming behavior, her roommate in the facility committed suicide, and her mother never loved her. As I said before, you could have made a perfectly compelling story by just picking two of those things and jettisoning the rest. I really have to wonder if it was a good idea to have Gillian Flynn adapting her own novel because she doesn’t seem to have done any editing. In all honesty, this would have been just fine as a 2-hour movie. It worked for Gone Girl, didn’t it? So much wasted potential. I was on board for the first two episodes, but I started to get really concerned around episode 4 and outright disliking the show by episode 6. This ending didn’t address any of my concerns. It actually solidified my feeling that everybody involved was too much in love with their product to do any editing.

Yeah, I get that Amma is supposed to be 13. I'm just saying that buying Eliza Scanlen as a 13-year old strains credulity for me way more than Amy Adams as a woman in her 30s.

Re: character ages I have no problem buying Amy Adams as mid-30s. I don't think Eliza Scanlen looks anywhere near 13. I've always interpreted her in this TV series as something like 16. Even 13-year olds who start puberty early don't look as developed as Eliza Scanlen. And I think for the purposes of this story, that's all fine. A mother infantilizing a 16-year old is different from a 13-year old but it's still creepy.

Frank: "It was a bad idea to send you there." Me: "GEE! YA THINK?!??" What did that idiot think was going to happen? I agree with others who say Adora probably didn't kill the two girls. Unfortunately, that only leaves Amma who is such an obvious suspect that it's going to be disappointing when she's inevitably revealed as the killer. Honestly, the whole mystery has turned out to be pretty lame. The plot of the series has turned out to be so overwrought that it's difficult to take seriously. Camille lost her sister, she went into a psychiatric hospital for self-harm where her roommate committed suicide, her mother is a murdering narcissist, and she was gang-raped in high school. (And if I'm right, she's about to discover her little half-sister is also a murdering psychopath) You could have picked any two of those and created a great story centered around a character dealing with those issues. When you put all of them together, it just looks like you're playing Trauma Conga Line. It's unnecessary and it stretches credulity that this woman is capable of doing anything as complex as investigating a crime and writing an article about it.

I think this was a great episode. All of the acts were really good when if they didn't fool Penn and Teller. Fujiyama's act reminded me of a Jeff McBride routine that I've seen once, so I figured Penn and Teller wouldn't be fooled. All the same, I was riveted for every second. It was just aesthetically beautiful. Pit's act was impressive, and I really liked his routine. I usually cringe at self-described comedy magicians, but Pit was just funny without forcing the humor. It's good to see a female magician who is also older than 35. Helen Coghlan's trick was too short, but there's no way to stretch it out. Unless there's some way to do that trick again with a variation. I still loved it and I'm going to be spending a lot of time trying to work it out. Menny was good although I wasn't really into the bending saws. I would have liked to see the bending coins done last because the audience participation from Alyson made it seem the most amazing.

I think the main reason I didn't like this episode is because I just don't like scenes of characters getting high. In this show or any other TV series, they always make the experience of drugs look so boring. People walk around looking vacant, there's music with lots of reverb, and stuff looks kind of colorful. That doesn't look like anything I would ever want to experience. I don't think the film medium has ever figured out how to convey how getting high is enjoyable on any level because it's all visual. We as the audience are just watching it and thinking, "Well you're certainly detached from objective reality. It makes you look kind of stupid right now." All I'm left with is impatiently waiting for them to get back to sober reality so we can move the story again. And instead the episode ends with the two sisters lying in bed together and pretty much no progress has otherwise been made. Big Little Lies was much better at pacing this stuff.

I don't hate the idea of Joan adopting a child. I don't love it either, but so far it hasn't turned me off. And I do like the idea of Uncle Sherlock. Plus, the discussions between Joan and Sherlock are really sweet. There's something about the way Johnny Lee Miller said, "I'd lay down my life for you" that was really touching.

It was a little weird that the Incel guy ran a place called Black Pill 4 U when the actual term used among Incels is Red Pill. Were they afraid of a defamation lawsuit?

You know you're checked out when you spend the final few minutes wondering, "Hey, why is that female voice singing about being a man in a silly red sheet?" At least the writers didn't make the mistake of many other shows and end on a cliffhanger. As endings go, that was about as good as could be expected.

It really does seem like Onira Tech didn’t think this through very well, did they? Who would have ever thought that some people would get stuck and decide never to come out!

So was anybody surprised that the one soldier was a hallucination? Anybody? Anybody?

That was ER, and I was deliberately making a reference to that.