S01.E08: D&D

[madmax]

29 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Its because Sasappis is actually an account from the 90s who died at a Halloween party...

That was a good joke, I totally believed it when he said it.

[Blakeston]

What they've effectively done with the Sassapis character is erase his cultural identity altogether. 

There has to be a middle ground between using someone's style of speech as a cheap gag (like they do with Thorfin), and making them sound like they just stepped out of a mall in the San Fernando Valley.

[SoMuchTV]

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Its because Sasappis is actually an account from the 90s who died at a Halloween party...

 

1 hour ago, madmax said:

That was a good joke, I totally believed it when he said it.

So... he was just kidding when he said "just kidding"?  LOL.  I wonder how many times they can loop that one back around?

[tennisgurl]

1 hour ago, madmax said:

That was a good joke, I totally believed it when he said it.

He really is a storyteller. I cant wait to get his backstory episode. 

[Kiddvideo]

3 hours ago, possibilities said:

I'm actually annoyed by how they have Thorfin speak. It doesn't make him "authentic". It makes him absurd, and not in a fun way.

THORFINN LEARNED LESSON THAT HE MUST BE SORRY TO APOLOGIZE.

THORFINN APOLOGIZIES TO NO ONE AGAIN.

Edited November 23, 2021 by Kiddvideo
stupyd spelling

[chaifan]

5 hours ago, Blakeston said:

What they've effectively done with the Sassapis character is erase his cultural identity altogether. 

There has to be a middle ground between using someone's style of speech as a cheap gag (like they do with Thorfin), and making them sound like they just stepped out of a mall in the San Fernando Valley.

This is going to sound silly for a show about ghosts, but... Sassapis' cultural identity being "erased" is the most realistic thing about this show.  Think about it...  If you were "alive" for 500 years, and during most of that time had -0- exposure to your original culture, your cultural identity would naturally disappear.  He may have been able to hang around tribe members for a while, but they eventually left the area and he's spent at least 200 years with English speaking Brits and Americans.   It would be normal for a foreigner who moved to the US at 20 years old to have little to no accent 50 years later.  So Sasappis having no original accent, cultural dialect, etc. after 500 years makes sense.  He should be sounding 100% modern American at this point. 

Thorfinn, who's been around 1,000 years and still speaks broken English, is the true mystery here.  Maybe he avoided all the living and the other ghosts until recently so he's still learning. 

 

[bybrandy]

Eh, I can fanwank this as an aptitude for laanguage/dialect.  I know lots of people who have lived here for years and still have heavy accents and others who have lost their accents completely.   

[shapeshifter]

18 hours ago, bybrandy said:

Eh, I can fanwank this as an aptitude for laanguage/dialect.  I know lots of people who have lived here for years and still have heavy accents and others who have lost their accents completely.   

Yes, among the “Livings” in real life, I too have known relatives and landlords and friends’ parents who came to the US from non-English speaking countries and never lost their accents, even after 50+ years of living in English-only speaking homes.
OTOH, when I was a high school librarian in the 90s, I recall a high school immigrant from Rwanda whose first language was French, who spoke more impeccable, unaccented English than any of the US-born students.

I see Sasappis’ and Thorfinn’s speech patterns as more revealing of their characters than just their facility with languages. @chaifan has really nailed it with Sasappis' “cultural identity being ‘erased’ is the most realistic thing about this show,” 

23 hours ago, chaifan said:

Sassapis' cultural identity being "erased" is the most realistic thing about this show.  Think about it...  If you were "alive" for 500 years, and during most of that time had -0- exposure to your original culture, your cultural identity would naturally disappear.  He may have been able to hang around tribe members for a while, but they eventually left the area and he's spent at least 200 years with English speaking Brits and Americans. 

and, the erasure of his accent seems intentional, especially given the actors’ (Roman Zaragoza) background and other creative choices (imdb.com/name/nm3928092/bio).

Devan Long/Thorfinn keeps a lower personal profile——which is just a different choice, l guess.

Interestingly, this (wiki.projecttopics.org/47521-devan-long/index.html) uncorroborated article claims that when Long “was seven years of age, he survived a near-death attack by a bear.”

Edited November 24, 2021 by shapeshifter

[Blakeston]

10 hours ago, chaifan said:

This is going to sound silly for a show about ghosts, but... Sassapis' cultural identity being "erased" is the most realistic thing about this show.  Think about it...  If you were "alive" for 500 years, and during most of that time had -0- exposure to your original culture, your cultural identity would naturally disappear.  He may have been able to hang around tribe members for a while, but they eventually left the area and he's spent at least 200 years with English speaking Brits and Americans.   It would be normal for a foreigner who moved to the US at 20 years old to have little to no accent 50 years later.  So Sasappis having no original accent, cultural dialect, etc. after 500 years makes sense.  He should be sounding 100% modern American at this point. 

Thorfinn, who's been around 1,000 years and still speaks broken English, is the true mystery here.  Maybe he avoided all the living and the other ghosts until recently so he's still learning. 

 

It isn't just Thorfinn, though. Isaac still sounds old-timey, Hetty still sounds like someone from the 1800s, and Alberta still sounds like she's from the '20s. Even the headless guy sounds like a '50s greaser.

I think it comes down to the makers of the show wanting everyone to sound like they're from the era they came from, but making an exception for Sassapis, because they think that depicting a Native American speaking less-than-perfect English with an accent would offend people.

Edited November 23, 2021 by Blakeston

[Sakura12]

Since Sassapis is a story teller, they can just go with he learned to speak the language better so he can tell his stories.

[joanne3482]

1 hour ago, Blakeston said:

Even the headless guy sounds like a '50s greaser.

Wait, the headless guy who I've somehow never seen talks too? I've somehow not only missed him, but I've missed him talking?  I'm feeling more and more like Jay every episode. 😆 

[Blakeston]

30 minutes ago, joanne3482 said:

Wait, the headless guy who I've somehow never seen talks too? I've somehow not only missed him, but I've missed him talking?  I'm feeling more and more like Jay every episode. 😆 

Yes, in the pilot, when they introduced themselves to the homeowner who'd just died, his head was in his place, and he spoke in that opening scene. Then his head fell off when someone bumped into him.

[iMonrey]

Quote

I'm actually annoyed by how they have Thorfin speak. It doesn't make him "authentic". It makes him absurd, and not in a fun way.

Disagree. I see no point in having a Viking character if he just sounds like everyone else. On the UK version they have a caveman, and despite having been a ghosts for a hundred thousand years or more, he still sounds like a caveman, all grunts and monosyllabic. I think that's kind of the point of having ghosts from different time periods, that they would all sound different. 

I just think the show, correctly, anticipates negative feedback in any potential way they portray an indigenous person, and as a result Sassapis is sort of an anomaly. 

[Daff]

Ok, all valid points above. The linguist in me is thinking that writers/actors might have presented a quick exchange between Sassapis and his “true love” in their native language? Just a line or two each. That would have been pretty impressive. 

[possibilities]

I don't know why it's believed that Vikings would talk they way Thorfinn does. 

 

[madmax]

7 hours ago, possibilities said:

I don't know why it's believed that Vikings would talk they way Thorfinn does. 

 

My guess is that they're showing Thorfinn speaking English as a second language, which accounts for some of his phrasing.

We all know that Vikings talked like Ragnar on, well, Vikings.  😉

Edited November 24, 2021 by madmax

[iMonrey]

Quote

I don't know why it's believed that Vikings would talk they way Thorfinn does. 

They are all caricatures. There is no point in having a Victorian era matriarch, a 10th century Viking, a Revolutionary War officer, a roaring 20s chanteuse and a 1960s Hippie if they all sound like they just walked out of 21st century San Fernando. This isn't The History Channel, it's a silly farcical sitcom on network TV. 

[Whimsy]

This thread, which is intended to be about this specific episode only, has totally derailed into discussion about the characters accents, etc. If you’re interested in that type of discussion, we can set up a thread. No more discussion that’s not specific to this episode is allowed after this note. They will be removed. 

[Katy M]

On 11/19/2021 at 11:18 AM, iMonrey said:

But a lot of the humor of the U.K. show is that the characters still speak in the dialect of their time period, and Thorfinn still speaks (more or less) like a Viking from the 10th century.

Does he?  Because he's speaking English, not Norse.

Sassapis and Thor have been hanging out at that estate for centuries.  It makes sense to me that everyone is speaking modern language. They evolve with the people on the estate.

I was actually surprised that Sam lied right in front of Pete. Yeah, there was no way (she figured) that Jay would catch her out, but I would have thought she would have hedged and then when there weren't any ghosts around tell them that the ghosts didn't like it and then tell the ghosts that Jay didn't want to play because it was weird for him not being able to see/hear them directly, or something.  

I loved "The British are coming! The British are coming!"

Edited December 13, 2021 by Katy M

[madmax]

5 hours ago, Katy M said:

I was actually surprised that Sam lied right in front of Pete. Yeah, there was no way (she figured) that Jay would catch her out, but I would have thought she would have hedged and then when there weren't any ghosts around tell them that the ghosts didn't like it and then tell the ghosts that Jay didn't want to play because it was weird for him not being able to see/hear them directly, or something.  

She never expected them to be able to rat her out.  Did she know about Trevor's ability?

[Katy M]

10 hours ago, madmax said:

She never expected them to be able to rat her out.  Did she know about Trevor's ability?

I think she must have since she immediately knew who the culprit was.

But, my point was that the ghosts would know she lied. I would have thought she would have just lied to both separately than nobody would know she lied.  Unless, of course, Jay brought it up again in front of the ghosts.

[Catfi9ht]

I was very "meh" about this show until Pete's Wife and then it showed me what this show's potential actually is.

From the first episode, I found Sam's pushy optimism annoying, but I wasn't sure if I was being too hard on the character until this episode. Her pushiness has caused her husband to be alienated from all his friends, has pushed him into living somewhere he doesn't want to, and into a job choice he didn't choose himself which is what abusers do. They separate their targets from everyone and everything until the abuser is the only person the victim has.

The poor character choice  for Sam combined with using lies as lazy writing are the weakest parts of the show.

There are definitely smart parts peaking through though. All the actors are excellent and I find all the characters enjoyable except Sam. I hope this show develops into a more serialized story line. Right now, it's very episodic and the episodes are hit and miss for me right now.

Using D and D two different ways was cute, once as a classical device and two, as a way for the "battle" to take place. I loved how some of the ghosts were super into it, and others were instantly bored.

I also found Nigel and Isaac delightful. I like all the ghosts, but I'm most surprised that I like Issac because I found him annoying in the commercials. The commercials don't really do justice to this show. I'm glad I gave it a chance.

[Bruinsfan]

Wasn't it that all the ghosts who had been soldiers or warriors in life found the game boring, while those who had led civilian lives really got into it? (Which doesn't track with my experience of modern day military enjoying D&D, but then they're generally not running toward anyone swinging an axe in real life.)

[Scarlett45]

On 11/18/2021 at 8:39 PM, Snow Apple said:

I'm glad each ghost is getting their own episode with their back story. This is how I'm slowly learning all their names.

Isaac and Nigel were cute. 

Jay bonding with the ghosts through D&D, and the ghosts loving the game. Glad the ghosts managed to communicate that Sam lied and that they want to play with him.

Yes! I understand Sam was bored playing D&D but that was so dishonest! Especially considering how much it meant to her husband. Like that it was resolved in the end. 
 

I really love the pacing and tone of this show. It’s super fun, short, and concise- but the episodes do build on each other (like they brought up Pete’s wife cheated on him). 

[lilabennet]

I love picking up new things on re-watch.  In this episode Jenkins tries to rush Nigel out the door during the first parley before Isaac comes downstairs.  Now I know

Spoiler

from the season finale that that is because he is jealous of Nigel's connection with Isaac.

Yay continuity!

[appositival]

On 11/18/2021 at 11:06 PM, Twilight Man said:

Where is Thorfin???   We need him to help fight these British soldiers!!!

If Thorfin was there, they would have needed a lot more than 3 Redcoats.

Issac's last name is 'Higgintoot'.

I'm amazed the garden shed is still standing if it's from the revolutionary war. I was thinking that they should notify some archeologists, but "The ghosts told me", is probably not considered a good reason to carbon date the wood.

[Ailianna]

It doesn't have to be from the Revolutionary War. It doesn't look that old, and doesn't feature in the flashbacks. I think the British just found something they liked and took it, at some point in the last 200+ years.

[Bastet]

I watched several episodes last night in bed, so in some cases don't remember in which episode certain things took place, but in this one I absolutely adored the touch of having the piper - with a blade sticking out of his gut - play Nigel off every time he left.

In Sam's place, I also would absolutely lie to get out of having to play D&D, but I also love how the ghosts outed her to Jay.

This many episodes in, I've finally figured out why the actor playing Sam looks familiar even though I've never seen her in anything else -- she looks like the picture that would emerge if you put Amy Adams and Joanna Garcia into one of those "what would our kid look like?" programs

[Annber03]

1 minute ago, Bastet said:

In Sam's place, I also would absolutely lie to get out of having to play D&D, but I also love how the ghosts outed her to Jay.

It's funny, I've never played a single game of D&D in my entire life, but this show now marks two sitcoms I watch where an entire episode was focused around that game. "Community" had an entire episode about it as well.

And yet, despite me having very limited knowledge of D&D as a game, this episode and the "Community" one are/were both some of my favorites of their respective series. They did a good job of being geeky enough for D&D players while also making it easy for those of us who've not played it to, at the very least, understand the basics. 

I also love how they tied the D&D storyline together with Isaac and Nigel's argument :D. 

[LexieLily]

"Hard to imagine being so betrayed by a friend."
"Didn't your best friend sleep with your wife?"
"Yes, Sasappis, thank you, for that helpful example."

God, the rapid-fire back-and-forth dialogue between the ghosts is hilarious. XD. You can tell how much the ghosts care about each other but that they get on each other's nerves like siblings do, and it makes sense when you think about how they've been together for hundreds of years if not centuries. Trevor is the "youngest" ghost by death-date and he's been there for twenty-three years. 

This is the second episode in a row that Thor and Hetty were nowhere to be found. I'm starting to miss these ghosts when they aren't there :( Hetty could have bonded with Sam over their shared boredom and distaste for D&D.

On 11/21/2021 at 10:14 PM, chaifan said:

Communicating with Jay...  we've already seen Trevor using the computer, so that would be the most obvious solution.  Have a laptop open to a Word document at all times.  Or, they could use an old typewriter.  Or a zen sand garden.  Or a hotel desk bell that Trevor hits to announce their presence or answer yes/no questions.  Lots of options. 

I love the idea of all the common rooms (no bedrooms or bathrooms; Sam/Jay need some boundaries from the ghosts) having a bell as a built-in communication device between Jay and the ghosts, and it's something that can be halfway-decently explained away as part of the B&B besides!

On the other hand, I know it apparently takes a lot out of Trevor and all, but I love the idea of the invisible ghosts communicating with Jay via bathroom mirror. All Sam/Jay would have to do is instigate some ground rules that it NOT be done when Jay is showering, and they can arrange some bathroom-message time for Jay and the ghosts. He can just go in and turn on the water for ten minutes to create steam. Or something less monetarily wasteful :p.

Loved seeing Jay being able to interact with the ghosts on his terms for the majority of the episode AND that the ghosts liked playing D&D as much as he did! Didn't love Sam lying but loved how Pete was appropriately upset and how he, Sass and Alberta immediately set out to tell the truth and make things right with Jay, even if they ended up communicating with him in a creepy way, and ultimately it says a lot that Jay immediately believed what the ghosts were telling him. 

I could not stop laughing at how Nigel has one of his Revolutionary War ghosts (Baxter?) doing nothing but following him around playing the fife for leaving-the-room music :D. I also loved how the other Revolutionary War ghost brought his musket to the D&D battle and casually had it sitting there beside him in the chair. 

Trevor and Pete ready to assist Isaac in the battle for the mansion against the British ghosts was oddly charming?

And I did NOT have Isaac murdering Nigel on my bingo card, but Jay's complete nonchalant casual reaction to that was worth the price of admission. XD. Love Jay and his ability to learn to roll with everything nowadays, like Sam not being able to find a shirt for him because she's busy with British ghosts from the Revolutionary War, or how the ghost with no pants watches him in the shower :p.

Edited May 22, 2023 by LexieLily

[Annber03]

2 minutes ago, LexieLily said:

"Hard to imagine being so betrayed by a friend."
"Didn't your best friend sleep with your wife?"
"Yes, Sasappis, thank you, for that helpful example."

God, the rapid-fire back-and-forth dialogue between the ghosts is hilarious. XD. You can tell how much the ghosts care about each other but that they get on each other's nerves like siblings do, and it makes sense when you think about how they've been together for hundreds of years if not centuries. Trevor is the "youngest" ghost by death-date and he's been there for twenty-three years. 

They really are like a family - they will stand up for and support each other no matter what, and they will also razz the hell out of each other and snark and tease each other mercilessly. It's one of the most fun things about the interaction between them. 

Quote

I could not stop laughing at how Nigel has one of his Revolutionary War ghosts (Baxter?) doing nothing but following him around playing the fife for leaving-the-room music :D. I also loved how the other Revolutionary War ghost brought his musket to the D&D battle and casually had it sitting there beside him in the chair. 

The curse of being a ghost and being unable to rid yourself of whatever items you died with. I wonder if we'll ever learn how Jenkins died. 

Quote

Trevor and Pete ready to assist Isaac in the battle for the mansion against the British ghosts was oddly charming?

They're willing to fight to defend that mansion, too! I love them all being inspired by Isaac's speech - there's a cute little blink-and-you-miss-t moment where Flower looks all admiringly at Isaac after his speech to Nigel about defending the house to the bitter end :).

I also love the running gag of Trevor being all, "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" and Sasappis getting increasingly annoyed with him about it. 

Quote

And I did NOT have Isaac murdering Nigel on my bingo card, but Jay's complete nonchalant casual reaction to that was worth the price of admission. XD. Love Jay and his ability to learn to roll with everything nowadays, like Sam not being able to find a shirt for him because she's busy with British ghosts from the Revolutionary War, or how the ghost with no pants watches him in the shower :p.

So they've got one ghost visiting the house who just happened to murder another, so what, it happens :p. 

I've said this in other discussions, but I will always get a kick out of how...flat...Isaac's reaction is after he kills Nigel. Most people would have this big, dramatic freakout moment, especially if they'd just accidentally murdered someone they were attracted to, no less, but he's just like, "...oh, boy..." :p. I really hope we get a flashback someday from shortly after Isaac's death, when he and Nigel meet up again as ghosts. I would LOVE to see what that first conversation between them would've been like, how Isaac would've reacted upon seeing the guy he was attracted to AND murdered standing before him. Talk about awkward...