Zuleikha

I felt bad for Raven when Bartise called her out on exercising because I think she's probably a kinetic person who genuinely can't sit still. To me, it seems similar to how knitting or putting away laundry can actually make it easier to focus on podcasts or lectures. It's not like Raven had Bartise's face to focus on while listening. Did anyone understand the whole thing with bottle service/bartending? I still don't understand why Raven thought that would be an issue. I liked seeing Andrew/Nancy's disco date. I felt like I finally got insight into why she's so torn between him and Bartise. In the prior clips, they didn't seem to have any connection at all. It seemed like Andrew talked and Nancy tried to figure out what to do with the information.

She-Hulk's superhero outfit seemed weird to me. It looked like sports wear, which doesn't make sense for her character or seem like something that the fashion designer would design. But strangely, I thought it looked good when she shifted back to Jen. I never watched Daredevil, but I may go back and watch it now. I see why that actor was so popular. He's very charming. Murdock and Walters have very believable chemistry. I don't want to dwell too much on the revenge porn stuff, which was super gross. But we saw when Josh was first let into the house as well as when he cloned the phone and snapped a picture. I'm confused by the logistics of how he could have filmed a recording. I kind of don't want the show to do much exposition on why he did what he did, and I kind of do. His character doesn't make much sense at this point.

No, they didn't perfectly represented his issues. Mr. Immortal asked Nikki to work on getting a shorter amount of eye contact for the apology and she raised it instead. That was malicious and bad lawyering. It's also a deliberate writing choice to show Nikki being annoyed with Mr. Immortal and working against him rather than for him as the main interaction in the scene. I didn't actually get that there was no "win" here because the show didn't take any of the law aspects seriously. Yes, Mallory and Nikki commented that they thought the spouses had a case, but foolishly, I had expected that the point was to show us Mallory being a brilliant lawyer and finding loopholes in the law because it doesn't account for someone having the ability to resurrect after death. It isn't hard to predict that if you insult people, they will react negatively. I spent most of my 20s in academia reading, writing, and analyzing how representation in media affects people, primarily from a feminist perspective. I don't think there's some great divide between men and women where women being portrayed as shrews or damsels-in-distress or unambitious helpmeets etc. matters but negative portrayals of men are just ha ha funny. I also don't think we're in a zero sum game on this where improving portrayals of women has to result in negative portrayals of men. I also think the show has been funniest when it just lets the characters be characters and humor come from that.

I liked this episode, but I didn't think it was well written. Lulu didn't make any sense. I kept waiting for something to happen as a result of all the wedding cruelty, but there was no real payoff. Titania's barely been on the show and was easily defeated before, so seeing Titania easily taken down at the wedding felt anti-climactic. The Nikki/Mallory plot was funny, but they also came across as bad lawyers. Mr. Immortal was their client. They didn't need to like him, but they did need to advocate for him. Renee Elise Goldberry has amazing chemistry with her scene partners, and I really thought they were setting up a relationship between Mallory and Nikki. I am too old for shipping so fine, if they're not, they're not. I move on. But I wish they would have paced or staged the scene differently, especially since Nikki's a canon non-straight character. Tatiana Maslany is so good at playing drunk.

This made me sad. I know it's silly to care about these relationships that we don't really know anything about, but both Nick/Danielle and Iyanna/Jarrette did seem to truly love each other. It also seems like there was more emotion between Sal/Mallory than I realized when the season aired. It's sad to see all of these real feelings end in bad places. I don't know what to think about Natalie. I don't buy that there was some secret Shayne/Shaina relationship. Shayne and Shaina have a flirty vibe in their interactions and always have. But that vibe has been consistent in times when there was just unambiguously nothing there... like the beach conversation when Shayne was 100% all-in with Natalie. Even the final encounter in the pods, Shayne rejected Shaina definitively and without hesitation. I don't think the flirty vibe means anything. Some male/female friend pairings are just like that. I can also believe they became friends (or at least friendly) because they both were dealing with negative audience responses and were both somewhat frozen out by the greater LiB group. I don't think Natalie is lying, though. I think she probably did see messages between Shayne and Shaina and honestly believes that they were inappropriate. Natalie has always seemed a little insecure to me, and I don't think it's unreasonable or unusual for someone to be uncomfortable with a partner who has a flirty vibe friendship. Shayne and Natalie have always had a fundamental issue of mismatched communication styles. However, I do think Natalie is incapable of owning her own emotional space or role in the failure of the relationship, and I do think she is intentionally manipulative in how she frames things in interviews and on-camera conversation. I don't buy Kyle and Deepti at all. It's not like me to be so suspicious. But this isn't junior high. Adults don't move a relationship to the level beyond a friendship by having a "will you be my girlfriend?" conversation. Everything Sal, his girlfriend, and his siblings was just weird. They were so rude to Mallory on camera. Why? I liked Sal just fine on the actual show, but he came across sleazy and fake here. I think Sal's real personality is very different from how he presented himself.

Not many, especially in isolated and small communities. More in urban areas, but still a small percentage. Even now, the UK is 87% white per the last census (in 2011, so probably a little bit smaller now... but still). Medieval myths/legends do include both non-European characters and women in armor, but the story typically comments on this. The stories acknowledge that the characters are not common for the setting. If you think of how the actual LotR talked about Eowyn, it is very similar to how myth/legends present warrior women. LotR acknowledged that Eowyn was unusual for her society. By contrast Rings of Power seems to just expect the audience to not be curious about how/why Galadriel is in the position she's in or think about how her being female in the role may affect her social relations with others. But we also can see that the elven army is predominantly (maybe even exclusively?) made up of male elves.

That's similar to what I thought. I thought the talk and ritual of the migration meant they were like monarchs or Canadian Geese and migrate in a semi-regular way among locations. I didn't think they were on a generational migration from a starting point to another far away destination. I don't even understand how that works! How do they know where they're going? And if that is what they're doing, why can't the show explain it?

Hold up... it may be a one-time big migration? I thought it was some regular migration that Harfoots have been doing for centuries.

Everything about this show is so amazing except the writing. I'm sticking it out for the scenery and costumes, but I don't know how much longer I'll be able to last. My theory is that eventually I'll have to become invested in the plot because it will have to eventually build off what already happened, but it's not happening yet. It's all too much, and I don't believe that they couldn't write a simpler, more stripped down plot that let the characters and character conflicts breathe. I, too, was disappointed with the Harfoots, which had been the reliable story up until now. But what is the actual Harfoot culture? No one goes off trail and no one walks alone? No one is left behind? Except for anyone who actually needs any help apparently! (Also, where are they migrating from and where are they going?)

Whoa! I just looked up his IMDB to see who he was. Very different character! I'm glad we get to see his actual face in this role.

I expected to hate the Harfoots from the trailer, and instead they're the only part of the show that I feel are really working. The show is beautiful, but so very confusing. Too much plot and too little exposition! Some of us are just casual fans of LotR and the Hobbit and have never opened the Silmarillion. We can't fill in the blanks. We need the show to actually tell us what's going on. Even with the Harfoots, while I mostly feel I know what's going on, I was still confused about the old dude with the book. Is he like a village wise man who uses the book to guide the migration? Where did the book come from? Is it magic? The actress playing Galadriel is fine for what she's given, but Galadriel's motivation is too murky for me. I gather there is a bunch of First Age stuff that the show has no rights to use, but given that they can't establish her whole relationship with her brother and Sauron, I think they should have simplified her role in this. Soldier elf and healer woman are fine. They're pretty; they have believable chemistry. But their plot feels like a retread, and the interesting bit of tension with healer woman being from historically evil-to-elves village immediately ended. I completely did not follow why her son found the evil sword.

I wish the show had kept Dream's eyes. That is one of the main aspects that make him so clearly not human, and it's also distinctive. Delerium even commented on it at one point. Even if they couldn't get a good special effect going with CGI, they couldn't at least do all black contacts? I also feel Gaiman lacked confidence in the story he originally told. Dream was so powerful and so unquestioningly in charge of the Dreaming in those early days that there was no confusion about what he was and wasn't in relationship to humanity. The show has weakened him in ways that I don't think make sense or were earned--like the way the show handled the fight between Dream and the Corinthian at the end of the Doll House, Dream seemed ridiculous.

I don't think it's so clear that Unity was impregnated in the physical world. We know the pregnancy manifested in the physical world, but so did Lyta's. Desire fathered the baby, and Desire is an Endless. Desire is not bound to anything resembling human rules. I'm already starting to forget the details, but I thought Unity spoke fondly and lovingly of her golden-eyed man. I think there's a philosophical question of can a human ever not desire Desire and thus can a human ever truly consent to Desire, but I don't think Unity was raped in the sense of not consenting. My personal philosophical interpretation is that humans will always consent to Desire because Desire will always be exactly who/what we want, but our consent is still honestly given.

Mason Alexander Park's physical performance and line deliveries were pretty much exactly how I pictured live-action Desire. I think trying for a more androgynous bothness to Desire's look is a reasonable interpretation given that a human actor can't actually shapeshift between sexes. I think the styling just missed the boat a bit--really, it's just the freaking earrings. I thought the promo photos nailed the look, and Park's styling was basically the same... except for the earrings. I think the main issue was that we lost the exposition panels that introduced Desire in the panels. Desire is a lot. Desire is supposed to be a lot. But in the comics, we have context to Desire before we meet them.

I didn't say anything about wanting to see a graphic rape scene or anything graphic at all. I lose track of which shows have which rules about source material vs. tv talk, so I'll use spoilers to clarify what I'm talking about: To me, it is not relevant whether there are other shows that have portrayed female suffering. It is about what best tells the story that the show I am watching is trying to tell. If it worked for you, I'm genuinely happy for you. But to me, it came across as timid and afraid of its own story.

A Dream of a Thousand Cats was practically word-for-word from the graphic novel, but of all things, they censored the cat sex. Would it have been that difficult to animate a bush or tree giving the cats their dignity? It seems like such a strange thing for a show like the Sandman to censor! I think they lightened up Calliope too much. The show seems very timid about letting female characters suffer. Strong female characters with agency are great, but that isn't the whole of the human experience. There are plenty of great, powerful female characters in these stories. The show doesn't need to be so afraid of letting some of the female characters suffer. Likewise, I think they don't need to be so afraid letting Dream be a cold asshole. His character has a journey to go on. I think the story was more powerful in the more downbeat, much darker graphic novel version. (But I did still like the adaptation despite the lighter tone. I thought both leads did great jobs with layering their performances. These episodes make me excited for the other potential standalones that the show may do.)

Death was the original target. I think the real answer for why Morpheus's motivations don't make obvious sense is that Alex's characterization is changed quite a bit from the graphic novel, but the plot points need to stay the same.

I put some longer thoughts in there already on the changes to Rose's characterization but the tl;dr is that I'm talking about the emotional tone as much as anything else. The graphic novel was creepy and scary and sad, and Morpheus was scary and powerful and very inhuman. The show seems saccharine with the main characters never at risk, everyone such great and helpful friends, and Morpehus learning an important lesson about listening to his friends and admitting he can be wrong.

I did not like this at all! It felt like the Sandman by way of Disney. I know Neil Gaiman was involved, but I would never have guessed by the choices that were made of how to change stories. I would love to be able to sit down with Gaiman and ask him why he did this because it is incomprehensible to me.

I just re-read the Doll House after finishing The Collectors episode of the show. Weird as it is, I think the show made Rose too empowered a character for her story. For me, the story worked much better with as a fairly normal young adult, who is a little bit lost and overwhelmed by everything that's happening. It drew me in emotionally because I was actually worried for her, but it also let me get overwhelmed by all the weirdness. I think having Rose confident and strong and pro-active and stubborn turns her into a completely different kind of character, who doesn't work in this story. She has nowhere to develop. Also, she doesn't really fit with the collection of misfits vibe because she doesn't seem like a misfit. She seems almost like a superhero, especially since the show keeps the graphic novel's delayed reveal that Morpheus has to kill the vortex to protect the Dreaming. I also don't understand why Gaiman rewrote Morpheus's relationship to Lucien, the other characters in the Dreaming, or the events of this arc to weaken Morpheus so much. He seems almost like a woobie. When I read the book, he is awe inspiring at this point. When he arrived at the cereal convention, it's this breath of first relief followed by the terrible awareness of what that means for Rose. I get why the show made the other changes they did, but I don't think most of them ended up working. The only ones that I think worked was expanding the Corinthian and Jed's role throughout the story, especially the Corinthian playing nice with Jed.

Morpheus was cold because protecting the Dreaming literally is his business. He was right that Hector needed to move on and Lyta needed to literally wake up. Lyta was functionally an addict at that point. Rose is too young and short sighted to think about how bad it is for Lyta to enable her to retreat into a fake reality. Morpheus doesn't know Lyta, so there's no reason for him to be kind. Morpheus possibly could have been nicer about the baby, but a baby gestated in the Dreaming is obviously not going to be able to just go about a normal life. I don't know if the show is doing this intentionally, but I think there's been a recurring theme of the show seeming to position Morpheus as cruel and those around him as kind. But in reality, Morpheus is the one I think is in the right. People are treating the Dreaming as an escape, which is not good or healthy for them. Even with Gault, her storyline is calculated to be one that a modern-day audience will support. But Dreams and Nightmares can't simply up and leave or it really will harm the world.

Despair looks uglier in the graphic novels, but I don't think Despair looks like an overweight woman. Despair is the least humanlike of the Endless. In the graphic novels, I always associated Despair's frame with the sensation a human feels in the grips of Despair... that Despair is like an unshakable boulder holding onto us. I don't exactly blame Donna Preston for not wanting to go around nearly naked in a diaper, but I think they needed to keep more of the inhumanity from the graphic novels with a prosthetic on her lower face to give her Despair's jutting jaw/fanged teeth and used heavier makeup to give her the deeply sunken eyes. They also could have bundled her up in torn, dirty clothes instead of the very normie looking jeans and a sweater and made her hair greasy/stringy. She didn't have a lot of opportunity in the scene to establish Despair's character, so it would have been nice for styling to give her more of a look. I'm generally okay with Desire's look, but I wish they changed it up more so that Desire sometimes had more of a masc look and sometimes had more of a femme look. I also think the promo pics without the earrings look better than this episode's look with the earrings. I think the earrings pushed the overall look too close to drag queen whereas the promo pics don't look that way at all. Mason Alexander Park does bear an extraordinary resemblance to the typical graphic novel renditions of Desire, though.

Death's visual look was consistently goth, and her personality has always been sunny. Per an interview I read back in the day, her look was inspired by a waitress that Gaiman met. There is no reason wardrobe for the show couldn't have styled Kirby Baptiste-Howell to look obviously goth. It was a choice, and one that I think was a bad one.

I was nervous about this episode because the reviews have been so great, but it lived up to them. Kirby Howell-Baptiste's Death was different than I envisioned graphic novel Death. I pictured Death as sunny or even bubbly. Here she was warm and grounded. But I thought it worked very well. She definitely came across as the perfect steadying presence to guide people post death. I am still salty about the lack of goth makeup, though. Death's iconic look isn't just about aesthetics... part of Death's character is the contrast with that punky 80s goth and the personality. I've previously seen the actress in the Good Place, and there's something so fun about seeing an actor be such a different character. I'm looking forward to seeing Mason Alexander Park tackle Desire after seeing Park play Gren in Cowboy Bebop. We had such a brief glimpse in this episode but so far, so perfect. The actor who played Hob Gadling was so good that I had to find out who he is... only to find out that he's basically acting royalty!

I was also underwhelmed by Christie's Lucifer. I don't know how she should have been because it's too long since I read the early graphic novel. But my sense is that she either should have been more seductive/charming or more sinister. I did like the battle and the way they delivered the "I am..." lines, which must have been cheesy as heck on paper. I saw a theory that Lucifer didn't go with Despair as the killer of Hope because Lucifer needed hope. But I don't think that worked with the way Lucifer seemed rattled by Dream pointing out that Hell can have no suffering without dreams. It seems weird since it's so obvious that despair can kill hope (even though yes, hope can also kill despair). Hope also doesn't seem like a good opposite for anti-life the way Lucifer portrayed it. It was really more like death, and hope does not counter death. I'm wondering if we were supposed to see anti-life as more like despair than death, but if so, I don't think it was successfully communicated. As a graphic novel reader, the John/Rosemary sequence confused me. It was very different. I didn't like it initially, but I retroactively liked it once I saw the whole thing. I think it held together and made sense for the show's version of John.