Random TV Show Thoughts

[Totenkindly]

Heck of an afternoon for TV viewing

Loki S2E5 -- The main outrage of the season so far is just how poorly they have used Renslayer and Gugu Mbatha-Raw when they've used her at all. As far as for the rest of the season goes, typically at its worst it is average but it actually has some decent moments, and Loki has experienced quite a bit of character growth including at the high point of this episode. He's more than what he started as and that's a good thing. But it remains to see whether they will fumble the ball in next week's season finale or actually close in a decent way.

Gen V season finale -- Welp, yeah, there we go -- when all else fails, go bloodbath. Teen supes against teen supes against humans, and it ends in a jawdropping confrontation with a few of the teen leads + a very unexpected kind of semi-cliffhanger. A really decent season with teens who actually felt like teens, and all I have to say at the end is boy, does Homelander really suck. (I just usually forget how much he sucks until I see him again.)

Invincible S2e1 -- The opening episode for Season 2 is pretty strong and sets up a new hero/villain arc that I'm sure is a big one. It also manages to handle the multiverse better than MCU and DC did. Go figure. The Immortal is getting to be an old deal -- i mean, what is this asshat's super power anyway? Dying repeatedly and just never staying dead? He's not even entertaining to watch die repeatedly at this point, he just seems inept. Anyway, this was pretty enjoyable and it felt a bit more solid than the opener to Season 1.

 

[Totenkindly]

Echo Director Says Character Will Ditch ‘Lame’ Comic Book Powers

The upcoming Disney+ series Echo will showcase the character more in-depth following her debut in Hawkeye. According to director Sydney Freeland, this will include ditching some powers from the comic version of Echo. Speaking to Variety, Freeland briefly touched on what to expect from the...

www.yahoo.com

Lol. Her name is "Echo" and it's even the name of the show.
This is because she "echoes" other people's abilities.
I hope her new powerset and/or something about her still ties into the name.

Freeland briefly touched on what to expect from the upcoming five-episode series. While she didn’t go too in-depth on what type of powers Echo will have in the series, Freeland did note that they might be a little different than what fans of the comics might expect.

“Her power in the comic books is that she can copy anything, any movement, any whatever. It’s kind of lame,” Freeland said. “I will say, that is not her power. I’ll just kind of leave it at that.”

In the comics, Echo possesses photographic reflexes that allow her to essentially copy other people’s movements, similar to that of Marvel character Taskmaster. The “power” isn’t strictly tied to fighting styles, however, as in various points in the comics, Echo has shown the capability to copy something like Bullseye’s expert aim simply by watching him.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Echo Director Says Character Will Ditch ‘Lame’ Comic Book Powers

The upcoming Disney+ series Echo will showcase the character more in-depth following her debut in Hawkeye. According to director Sydney Freeland, this will include ditching some powers from the comic version of Echo. Speaking to Variety, Freeland briefly touched on what to expect from the...

www.yahoo.com

Lol. Her name is "Echo" and it's even the name of the show.
This is because she "echoes" other people's abilities.
I hope her new powerset and/or something about her still ties into the name.

Nah, she'll probably just turn into a Cheetah. *roar*

 

[Totenkindly]

Blue-Eyed Samurai on Netflix.
Totally worth the viewing.

There's a shameless musical cue to Kill Bill in the first episode, but I guess it could also be called a homage.

This show is really enjoyable so far, and the animation and directing is stellar.

It's also not playing out quite as I had expected, which I appreciate as well


EDIT: It looks like Netflix might have dropped the whole first episode on YouTube.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[The Cat]

Hey Eckheart. Think of the future.
​

 

[Totenkindly]

[Hey Eckheart. Think of the future.
​

Grrr, this is tying into the Boomer and earlier gens fighting for the rigidity of their mindsets, lol.

SLIPPERY SLOPE! SLIPPERY SLOPE!
Some things are, some things are not.

I think it's impressive a 23 year old has a house. what year was this again? 23 year olds nowadays are lucky if they can even afford a monthly car payment.

 

[The Cat]

Grrr, this is tying into the Boomer and earlier gens fighting for the rigidity of their mindsets, lol.

SLIPPERY SLOPE! SLIPPERY SLOPE!
Some things are, some things are not.

I think it's impressive a 23 year old has a house. what year was this again? 23 year olds nowadays are lucky if they can even afford a monthly car payment.

I just find it fascinating to see how the collected unconsious manifested within the humanities has evolved in the modern age. Both popular Cop show of their time. Both making statments about the times in which they were created. Is it not irresistable to think of what one day it could look like? Does it not inspire thought, or creativity? If not for its own sake, but to enter the lottery of being one of those science fiction writers that future generations will use to try to prove their points around whatever constitutes for a water cooler? I don't think I can. I'll either put it in a book or end up compulsivley writing it on the walls, but yeah, its a slippery slope and im pretty sure there's alligators in the water at the end of the slope. I'm really feeling like Chris Farley down the mountain. This is not the midlife crisis I planned for. But I should have expected you cant be a creepy goth/punk kid and then chase your youth by suddenly buying a car and dating 20 somethings...

I dont want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think that God has a sick sense of humor and when I die I expect to find him laughing. More than just words. A song even.​

 

[Totenkindly]

I dont want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think that God has a sick sense of humor and when I die I expect to find him laughing. More than just words. A song even.

There is no god, but I will wait for you on the shore of the sunless sea. The more the merrier.

 

[Totenkindly]

Finishing episode 5 of Blue Eye Samurai.

This show is stellar. Not sure what else to say about it. Great writing, pacing, and plot/character development. So many things that could have more tropey but ended up feeling more real/fleshed out. I am really happy with this show.

About the only thing I think is odd is that I read the lead (Mizu) as a female although the characters don't seem to recognize this, it just seems kind of obvious to me from her body shape. And she wouldn't have enough upper body strength to compete with some of these men -- but she is actually lanky and skilled so she does have that going for her. She still gets banged up a decent amount and has some issues because of it.

But the plotting definitely takes a bit of a turn at times in unexpected directions, and there's really passages with emotion.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Hey Eckheart. Think of the future.
​

This show was recommended to me a long time ago. Judging by this, it's not a perfect match for my depressed inner monologue but it does vibe with it. Very interesting.

 

[Totenkindly]

This show was recommended to me a long time ago. Judging by this, it's not a perfect match for my depressed inner monologue but it does vibe with it. Very interesting.

Have you watched it yet? It's definitely worth it.

Season One is just tremendous.
Season Two is kind of a spaghetti mess, it has some good stuff and bad stuff.
Season Three is a bit back more to form.
Season Four drops in January with a new showrunner, with Jodie Foster as one of the leads. I am so there.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Have you watched it yet? It's definitely worth it.

Season One is just tremendous.
Season Two is kind of a spaghetti mess, it has some good stuff and bad stuff.
Season Three is a bit back more to form.
Season Four drops in January with a new showrunner, with Jodie Foster as one of the leads. I am so there.

No, but I probably should!

 

[Totenkindly]

Okay, final comments on LOKI Season 2.

Aside from any preestablished contracts, I am not sure why Renslayer was in this season -- everything she did could have been shunted off to another character. (They focused on one obscure hunter for an episode or two, and the parts could have been combined somehow.) Miss Minutes was also kind of a nothing burger as well, after building up her participation for an episode or two. It felt honestly like certain plotlines just got dropped and/or discarded mid-production -- I'm kinda curious as to whether there was a redirect of some kind in terms of the final 2-3 episodes being rewritten on the fly.

Another thorn in Disney's side -- Jonathan Majors again shines in any scene he is in. His mannerisms as Timely rubbed some people the wrong way, others thought he was brilliant, but in that part + as He Who Remains, he was just excellent. If he sucked and the rest of the MCU was good right now, maybe they wouldn't have a problem writing him out if there aren't contractual obligations involved, but... yeesh.

All bad stuff aside -- this season was a stellar improvement over Season 1 which often fell flat and seemed disjointed. I would go as far to say that Wandavision and LOKI Season 2 are the highlights of any MCU Phase 4+ series at this point in time. This season had a clear vision that swung big for the fences, and resulted in a committed outcomes for certain characters that I didn't think the MCU had the balls for. They just went for it, and I am moved by the character of LOKI in ways I did not experience earlier in the MCU. The final two episodes really pull together the entire season + also really pull together Loki as a character and his development. Remember that this Loki is not the somewhat matured Loki murdered by Thanos at the beginning of Infinity War, it is a soft-reboot of the character back to his immediately losing the NY battle in the original Avengers movie, so all of his character development in the films was erased from that point forward.

So the question was, was Loki's maturation an accidental mistake and he's really a one-dimensional villain? What we're seeing here is that even on a new rebooted track, Loki still has depths to him and maybe was never unredeemable in his own way. Season 1 kind of garbled this a bit, I feel like the vision (aside from Kang) was really unclear, but the Season 2 showrunner (who did some writing on Season 1) pulled together a lot of these messy elements, focused them in, and really came out with the kernel of Loki by the end of Season 2.

I am a little unclear where this leaves us in terms of the broader MCU, in terms of Kang and what the major threats are, but -- hey, finally the MCU just grabs an idea and completes it rather than trying to be all the things + not committing to some hard-core outcomes.

 

[Totenkindly]

Moved to the right thread:

"Blue Eye Samurai" cuts through multiracial shame in Edo-era Japan

The director and showrunner discuss Maya Erskine, the masks we wear and a vengeful woman masquerading as a man

www.salon.com

Interesting discussion from the main director and the main showrunner.

for example:

...
How does the show represent race?

Wu: One thing in Hollywood that I feel like they’ve kind of gotten wrong with this inclusion stuff is that you have a show, and then you have one color of everyone, which I call all the Skittles colors, right? So now you have one Skittle that represents green. And now this green Skittle has all the responsibility of representing that color, which is wrong because that's what stereotyping is. When, in fact, you should have a show with the same colors of Skittles, but different personality types. That's actually inclusion and diversity. You have your difficult people, you have your smart people, you have your not so smart people, you have your bad people, your good. And then that way people can say, oh yeah, they're just like us. So that's why I wanted to work on the show because I wanted to show people that we're not all good guys. We're not all docile. We're not all model citizens. We can be complicated. We can be just as aggressive, or just as outspoken as any other group of people....

 

[Totenkindly]

Finished Blue Eye Samurai today. So worth the watch -- and a kind of unexpected ending. I didn't really think of it going there. Season 2 is likely on the drawing board.

I think we've had the Kenneth Branagh discussion recently. He might be a dick, but he plays a dick here and he was really good at it -- intimidating, obnoxious, annoying, bullying, formidable, and kind of frightening. So it all worked out fine.

I thought Akemi's arc was interesting, in terms of where she wanted to go and where she ended up. Related to the shogun's second son (and it's kind of a twist, hence spoiler):

For me, for whatever reason, how someone treats someone with a stammer really sums up who they are morally to me as a person. Akemi's heart melted when she realized her husband's silence was not condescension but embarrassment over his speech difficulty, and it totally changed her view. Fowler meanwhile just heaps scorn on the guy immediately. Even his own mother treats him poorly. Like, fuck these people. it was the same when Trump publicly mocked that reporter during the 2016 campaign -- that told me everything I needed to know about Trump, and it's only been borne out for 7 years.

Some really nice parallels between the process of sword forging and Mizu's background and what makes brittle vs strong blades.

I also really like what they did with her and Taigen's relationship over the course of the series. I thought episode 1 was kind of a generic throwaway backstory point, but no. One thing this series did well was presenting a lot of its characters in one way, but the longer the narrative continues, more is revealed and it changes what you think about each of them. Many of them are not quite what they seem to be. It's that kind of narrative craftsmanship that makes this show more than a tired old revenge plot.

 

[Totenkindly]

My ranking of the current MCU Phase 4+ shows that have been released.
1. Wandavision
(tie) 1. Loki Season 2
3. Moon Knight
(tie) 3. Ms. Marvel
5. Falcon and the Winter Soldier
6. Loki Season 1
7. She-Hulk
8. Hawkeye
9. Secret Invasion

"What If...?" is probably better done overall and I'd rank it around Loki Season 1 -- however the content is entirely meaningless and has no bearing on anything.

There is also two seasons of "I am Groot" which is basically like Warner Bros cartoons of Baby groot (each 5-8 minutes long). Most of these are actually funny, but it hinges on whether you think Baby Groot is amusing or annoying.

Moon Knight had a great 1-3 episode start, then it's like they lost track of what they wanted to do, execs restricted their use of other MCS characters, and their budget also seemed to run dry or something. So it meanders through 2-3 more clumsy episodes.

Ms. Marvel was often boring to me, but I also felt like it was original and had a vision for the look and feel -- it actually was creative -- and Iman Vellani was so well-cast.

TFatWS was a cool high-concept idea and wanted to talk about race relations -- but it's laborious, clunky, the action sequences are often badly shot, the plotting and character arcs are messy, and it's just not executed in a way that made it very enjoyable. It also seemed like a retcon from the ending of Endgame -- Sam Wilson decides he's not worthy to be Captain America (although none of that was shown at the end of Endgame) and hands the shield in. It seems like a manufactured crisis.

She-Hulk had a great lead but often wasn't funny -- it was like a bunch of comedians shouting, "LOOK AT HOW WITTY AND INSIGHTFUL WE ARE!" but I rarely laughed, and most of the sequences I'd seen before in better films. It's telling the best episode was late in the series when Daredevil shows up.

Hawkeye meant well, but typically was overlong and so much of the plotting and dialogue meant nothing. There was a bit of Clint working out the fallout from Endgame, and his relationship with Kate was the best part. I love silly humor (so the SCA group was amusing) but you can't make a series out of that. Echo and Kingpin were just bad, and they literally did nothing with Tony Dalton.

SI started kind of okay but just quickly became a hodgepodge of sound and fury, as well as retconning some of the better character arcs in the MCU and resulting in meaningless deaths + the introduction of a new Mary Sue in a boring CGI fight.

The upcoming Echo series, based on my viewing of the trailer, seems tonally far more adult/darker than her appearance in Hawkeye, might be a reboot/re-envisioning of some kind, and potentially could be good... but I no longer hold my breath.

Again, I have to note that experienced writers and directors matter. Benson & Moorhead (with decent unique films under their belt) directed Loki Season 2 and it shows -- and it could be a good sign that they've taken over Daredevil: Born Again.

 

[The Cat]

Watching boardwalk Empire, growing up I'd hear a lot of stories from prohibition from great grandparents. so its always been a period that i enjoy in entertainment. Steve Buschemi is always a delight. Kelly MacDonald's portrayal of Margaret Shroder, really ticks all my boxes. Jane Eyre did something to me in my formative years I guess.

 

[The Cat]

old quack medical treatments is a phobia of mine and this show triggers the fuck out of that. Lysol is NOT FOR THAT

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

old quack medical treatments is a phobia of mine and this show triggers the fuck out of that. Lysol is NOT FOR THAT

Have you met Richard Harrow yet? That was my favorite character.