SeanC

This was the era of the Satanic panic, which included a substantial focus on D&D, so that's actually not implausible at all (stupid as it is). Lucas' statement to Max was sweet, but also a bit weird because he very clearly did recognize that she wasn't doing well and tried to reach out back in the premiere.

You know, Eddie would have been better off going to the police after the first death, since that would have made clear he wasn't the one doing it when people kept dying.

Brenner makes his long-anticipated return, though I'm disappointed that my longstanding speculation that he'd be gruesomely maimed by the Demogorgon turns out not to have been true.

In general I think the writers of this show have done an amazing job of juggling the original cast and keeping everybody relevant year-to-year, in addition to integrating new people each season. But Jonathan is maybe the only one of the original core cast whose overall relevance feels like it has been consistently waning -- originally in direct correlation to the ascent of Steve, but now that Robin has been added to the "teen" cast as well (the original kid characters are teens as well now, of course, blurring the distinction between those groups), it's hard not to see that all of the other teen characters seem to inspire the writers more than Jonathan does.

Not a creep, he just likes recreational narcotics.

I like the detail that since only Steve knows that Robin is gay, everybody else seems to assume they're dating and/or should date.

27 now, obviously a bit younger when filming. He was in the supporting cast of Booksmart, so I enjoyed seeing him in the show.

So nice to see everyone again. COVID certainly threw a wrench in things for a while there. This is the first of our supersized episodes — which they seem to be using to explore as much of the characters’ lives as possible (in an older era of TV this is something you’d do over a range of standalone episodes week-to-week). Some very period-specific hairstyles introduced this season (Lucas and Nancy, especially, among the leads).

This is mixing two of the best ever Thor stories, both from the Jason Aaron run, but Waititi's tonal approach to Thor is way different from Aaron's, so I'm rather ambivalent about this.

Because they do, actually. MacQuarrie has said in the past that they design the setpieces first because Cruise needs a lot more time to prepare for them than normal pre-production would allow for.

With the first two Christopher MacQuarrie-directed installments being two of the best action films of the 2010s, here's two more for you, as we maybe possibly look to wind down the Tom Cruise stunt show because even he can't keep this going indefinitely (but he can still ride a motorcycle off a cliff). In a classic sign of potential franchise wrap-up, they brought back the bureaucrat antagonist from the first movie.

I mean, the reason Lily James isn't here is because her career is so big that she doesn't have time and/or the desire for it.

Rapturous reviews so far: https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/top-gun-maverick-first-reviews-the-most-thrilling-blockbuster-weve-gotten-in-years/

I object to the wording of Final Jeopardy. Woodstock was not an ongoing music festival like Coachella or Glastonbury, it was a one-off that got an anniversary celebration thirty years later.

How did Margaret and Martha end up in care of Peterson if they have an aunt?

I had to think a bit on Final Jeopardy, but guessed correctly. They missed a whole lot of what I thought were pretty obvious answers. The autobiographical movie category was particularly infuriating.

The process is complicated since I believe technically RUSADA can investigate it first and then WADA, the IOC and the ISU can appeal if they disagree with RUSADA's conclusions.

On Ice Perspectives recently released a video of one of my favourite ice dance programs of this past season.

Since she’s competed internationally for Canada she would have to miss a season if she switched back.

When Strange was killed by Thanos in the Blip, Wong took over, and remained in charge after Strange came back to life.

That was pretty nonsensical. Wanda is trying to kill innocent people to make herself feel better. That's nothing like any of the supposed comparables she brings up.

There's a whole universe where Loki is an alligator. Sylvie's universe was already radically different before the TVA decided to prune her based on her decision to become heroic. And so on.

They pruned deviations from the script. Hence why there were a bunch of different Lokis and they got pruned when they did things that took them off the path of 616-Loki, whether that be Sylvie being too heroic or Kid Loki being too successful as a villain by killing Thor. The issue was not that their universes existed, else they would have been destroyed long before. It was about their choices, which is a key theme of the whole show.

No, there wasn’t. The “Sacred Timeline” was a multiverse carefully managed to avoid the creation of rival Kangs. The show’s presentation of this was somewhat confusing linguistically, but there were always multiple universes; that’s why the various pruned Lokis had all done something that strayed too far from their prescribed path.

Marvel directors are all basically hired guns, and Raimi wasn’t even the first director on this film. All the larger character trajectories, etc. would have come from Feige and co.