S6E1 of Cobra Kai Netflix
Shocking that this series ever took off. Started out on Youtube Red, which isn't a thing anymore, was a bit of a deconstruction of the 1984 movie with the focus on the the villain of that movie while showing the hero to have grown up to be a bit of a conceited dork. Netflix bought it up and and now we have the final season, number 6. I liken it to High School Musical with karate. It likely cost next to nothing to make yet is one of the highest rated new streaming shows out there (I think old TV shows like MASH and the Office still dominate streaming!). I've seen it compared to Star Wars as how to do nostalgia right, keeping the old but bringing in new and now has a number of enjoyable young (the main character's kids generation) characters.
And now? Season 6 feels like nostalgia bait for those that liked the 1st 5 seasons! And that includes me. Grade it a B.
I think the main story is told. This may be one season too many. As it is, something happened in only one year: the 20ish year old actors convincingly playing high school teenagers only last year look to be in their 30s now! But IMDB gives Episode 5 a 9.1/10.
I just don't agree with any of this criticism about it wasting time or spinning its wheels or whatever. One of the most frustrating things about TV consumption, contributing to everything feeling like "content mush," is that people just focus on PLOT. Moving "things" forward, spoilers, twists, mystery boxes. And tbf we've been trained by the streaming structure of content dumps, shorter seasons that don't give character development room to breathe, and DISCOURSE.
The Boys' appeal to me has never been about OMG-look-what-happened, per se. The show is and always was a political satire. In fact it is the only relevant and impactful political satire in all of major media at this point, as all the other ones have fallen into irrelevancy.
Traditional TV shows and shows on streaming might seem like slight variations of the same thing, but they're actually very different mediums with very different audience expectations. For example, because streaming shows don't have to adhere to strict airing times and pace their length according to ad breaks, in principle this should mean that streaming show episodes can vary their lengths more and be only as long or short as they need to be. Also because of their lack of need to sell ad space (since the subscriptions already pay for the show), there's no built in need to make seasons any specific length but, again, only as long as they need to be. Which is why meandering or sluggish plotlines and lack of character development stand out more in a streaming show.
Traditional TV shows and shows on streaming might seem like slight variations of the same thing, but they're actually very different mediums with very different audience expectations. For example, because streaming shows don't have to adhere to strict airing times and pace their length according to ad breaks, in principle this should mean that streaming show episodes can vary their lengths more and be only as long or short as they need to be. Also because of their lack of need to sell ad space (since the subscriptions already pay for the show), there's no built in need to make seasons any specific length but, again, only as long as they need to be. Which is why meandering or sluggish plotlines and lack of character development stand out more in a streaming show.
I guess my issue is with what is considered "meandering." Characters digging into their emotional shit and the show iterating on its themes is not "meandering."
I've often said that when people are making big budget movies, with all the time and talent and technology and tmoney they could want, they really should try to do a good job, cause there's lots of people doing their best who won't see a tiny fraction of that.
This all should apply somewhat to people with a moderate amount of those. Lost Girl has always been spotty, lots of interesting ideas that don't get developed, and some supporting cast doing a great job holding up the show. But yeah, not much effort seemingly went into this season.
Fucking Xfinity went out again (it went out on Friday too but I was at work at least) not even twenty minutes into HotD (streaming, fuck cable but I guess fuck internet and its inherent unreliability too). It was looking like a good episode so far too. Service won’t be restored until 12:35AM apparently.
This has me considering switching to Metronet since they just put in fiber optics throughout the neighborhood but haven’t heard much about how good it is yet.
After all the outrage, culture wars, and insufferable complaining, what did we get? A pretty underwhelming ending, that teases a sequel that I am sure will never come at this point. I think there were a lot of great ideas. There were also an equal amount of horrible ideas. The above average production value and fight choreography is balanced out by awful writing and characters.
Sigh. I await the documentary series that will one day cover how Disney went from the MCU to just shoveling out drivel almost overnight.
Another low key episode after 5, but it looks like things will be stepping up for the last two. The Harrenhal stuff is getting old. Figure your guilt complex shit out already Daemon. It literally feels like what could have been good character development with better writing is just biding time until they need him to ride a dragon in the upcoming battles. The Seasmoke stuff was golden though. I knew exactly what was going to happen the second that dude hesitated. Good on the dragon to go off seeking a worthy companion.
The restless, frustrated masses (Small Folk, as the episode is titled) are feeling the effects of the Green Council’s incompetence/indifference, but I’m not sure as to what it’ll really matter in the end when everything is pointing to dragonfire. What made GoT so good is, at least for someone who never read the books, seemed like anything could happen, whereas here so far it feels the show runners have been playing it safe. I understand plot and character development takes time but given it’s already a shorter season, leaving the last two episodes for any sort of a payoff (which will undoubtedly end on another cliffhanger anyways) is going to be either wind up spectacular or a shitshow.
I probably don't need to drop the synopsis as we're up to 4 seasons, and likely most of you have already seen it, but curiosity finally got the better of me and decided to give it a go...
... NOT what I was expecting. Amazon Prime bills it as "Sci-Fi/Action/Comedy," and ONE of those descriptors is not applicable. It's horrifying. Makes me very uncomfortable. Also... I can't look away. The idea of commercializing super heroes, ok, funny premise, but that those heroes would go on to be massively terrible people, and Homelander? OMG, he's terrifying.
I am intrigued, but I'd be lying if I said 80% of my watch time has been spent squirming in my chair.
I probably don't need to drop the synopsis as we're up to 4 seasons, and likely most of you have already seen it, but curiosity finally got the better of me and decided to give it a go...
... NOT what I was expecting. Amazon Prime bills it as "Sci-Fi/Action/Comedy," and ONE of those descriptors is not applicable. It's horrifying. Makes me very uncomfortable. Also... I can't look away. The idea of commercializing super heroes, ok, funny premise, but that those heroes would go on to be massively terrible people, and Homelander? OMG, he's terrifying.
I am intrigued, but I'd be lying if I said 80% of my watch time has been spent squirming in my chair.
I finished season 1 last night, and I actually dreamt about the show, and not nice dreams. I don't recall specifics, but the vibe was exactly how the show makes me feel when I'm watching it, i.e.: stressed, anxious, horrified, disgusted, etc., y'know, all the emotions a "Sci-Fi/Action/COMEDY" puts you through?
Yeah, I figured it'd get worse before it got better, but I'm prepared (I think.) Just started season 2, and already Homelander is up to absolutely horrendous stuff, and the empath that I am coupled with Homelander's complete void of emotion save for anger, is putting him easily in the top 3 villains I've had to suffer for entertainment. I won't be surprised if he takes #1 eventually. But I'm in it to win it if not emotionally prepared for the damage it's doing to me mentally.
I'm getting numb to the over-the-top violence and gore, so the series decided to twist my nipples with the whole Stormfront being a Nazi, and Homelander being super into it. "He's not terrible enough; let's make him racist too!". The whole season was clearly a nod to Trump, i.e.: bigoted liar with an ultra-ego and infinite power misleading and firing up the American people while doing horribly selfish shit behind the scenes. Homelander is an absolute monster.
I will say this, they're stretching my disbelief with some of the schemes Butcher and The Boys come up with to battle the superheroes. I'd say about 90% were extremely far-fetched, and would have failed miserably. The whole lot would have been dead several episodes ago (like in season 1) had it not been for the kinds of coincidences that would send the most militant atheist to the nearest church for immediate baptism into faith.
I binged it this far, so of course I'm sticking with it, but sheesh, what can they possibly do next?!?
EDIT: Okay, UPDATE! Just started S3:E1, and not 10 minutes in, a man shrinks down really small, and jumps into another man's dick. What in every living FUCK?????
After all the outrage, culture wars, and insufferable complaining, what did we get? A pretty underwhelming ending, that teases a sequel that I am sure will never come at this point. I think there were a lot of great ideas. There were also an equal amount of horrible ideas. The above average production value and fight choreography is balanced out by awful writing and characters.
Sigh. I await the documentary series that will one day cover how Disney went from the MCU to just shoveling out drivel almost overnight.
Rating: 6 / 10 but in the way late 90s early 2000s shows were enjoyable enough but more fast food TV that epic things.
Summary:
Psychic Medium Manfred fleeing from an angry powerful businessman him and his now dead grandmother conned runs, on the advice of his now dead grandmother, to the small town and Midnight Texas. A town said to be a haven for those who are different and a place where Midnighters look after their own. However trouble comes to the sleepy town not long after Manfred arrives as Aubery the wife of pawn shop owner Bobo turns up dead causing a police investigation that quickly finds she wasn't who Bobo though and was actually the wife of the head of local biker gang the sons of lucifer. So a who dunnit in a town of people all with something to hide and maybe something bigger also going on.
Thoughts:
The show feels like fast food TV, sit back, switch off your brain a bit and enjoy the ride with both the general monster of the week / event of the week style episodes generally either where you learn more about a character and their secrets or a supernatural of the week drawn to Midnight due to events going on round the town who starts causing trouble.
The series was released in 2017 and feels like a relic of the late 90s / early 2000s production value wise, the effects aren't bad but they're not great either they're Buffy the Vampire level often rubber costumes etc with the show very clearly (especially on the outdoor town shots) obviously looking like a studio made set.
In terms of the overall plot and elements that are revealed. Man does it feel like it's mishandled. In other shows you might be used to the plot threads weaving together here but in this show it feels like a lot of things aren't really foreshadowed or important plot points not given much gravitas in their conclusions or just brought up for the first time moments before being relevant. It feels like the show either didn't adapt the books very well or could have done more to sand over some of the rougher edges of the books it's based on, though I'm not familiar admittedly with the books it's based on. (more about this in spoilers)
Spoiler thoughts:
So yeh gotta put this in a spoiler section and if you're reading this prepare to have it all spoiled.
Aubery - So the main-ish mystery plot of who killed Aubery. Well turns out of was the young brother of Manfred's love interest Creek and that's why her father was weird round Manfred because unknown to her, her brother is a psychopath who while younger killed animals for fun and now he's getting older he's moved on to killing humans when he gets opportunity and isn't under watch of either his father or sister. This really does come out of left field and I feel like the series doesn't do enough or have Bobo agonise enough over the revelation the sons of lucifer leaders basically final words about how he didn't kill Aubery and things Bobo did it. Oh and the revelation of Creek's brother bring a now serial killer and her dad helping cover it up? Yeh brushed aside like 1 episode later with no real redemption arc for the father who just disappears.
The Sons of Lucifer and Bobo - so this is one of the better plotline oddly as it's played out being paced mostly well and the repercussions ripple through the show later on and impact some of the other plotlines. Aubery was sent by the leader of the Sons of Lucifer to seduce Bobo, she does this but realises he's actually a good guy and fell for him for real. Why would the Sons of Lucifer care about a pawn shop owner in a small town? Because Bobo isn't all he seems and he came to Midnight Texas to escape his family and never become like them, wealthy and powerful white supremacists who had amassed a fortune and stockpiled an arsenal of military grade hardware all to start a race war in America. Bobo fled and with him he stole their whole arsenal and a large chuck of the stockpiled assets not in banks and secret accounts. The Son's of lucifer are a white supremacist biker gang and think they have figured out who Bobo is and so Aubery was sent to get close to him to try and find where he has hidden the stash of gold and weapons he stole so they can get it and join his family in starting a race war. This is something that ripples throughout the series as after Aubery's death Bobo was getting close to the mixed race wiccan Fiji who isn't too pleased to learn what Bobo had been keeping from her even after he saves her and wipes out the Sons of Lucifer with the help of Lem.
Manfred vs the Higher roller or whatever his name is - damn was this something that felt like it could have been a good climax. A villain who hates Manfred for conning him out of money but hates him more so because he ran leaving his daughter at the alter and said daughter later killed herself. Why? Because he wanted Manfred to marry and have kids with his daughter to bring Manfred's psychic powers into his families bloodline having apparently many generations back being a powerful magical family only having lost that power over generations. The confrontation promises to be good with the revelation of
The Veil at midnight - so the major season long arc is the veil between our world and basically hell or the spirit world or something else is fraying in Midnight and that's why it's drawing supernatural beings to the place and impacting ones there or causing them to go out of control when they arrive. This plotline is good but I found it a bit weird that the major plot point with the demon coming through to Midnight and why hinged on a plot point not revealed until the last but one episode of the show. Fiji the powerful Witch / Wiccan is actually a virgin and the demon wants to shag her because somehow doing so will allow him to take her power but only because she's a virgin.......... yes that's reall a plot point and yes the world is saved because Fiji and Bobo finally bang.
In terms of other spoiler stuff I couldn't help but laugh at the fact the reverend's supernatural thing turns out to be he's a weretiger, no I didn't type that wrong not a werewolf a weretiger, every full moon he turns into a giant tiger.
Wokeness:
"Oh no Dwarven is on about wokeness again what a [some veiled or not veiled insult]"
Yeh well I'll have to talk more in spoilers but honestly I'd give more of a shit about the show being woke if I thought the show actually cared about the stuff it brings up instead of bringing it up and quickly dropping it. But then again isn't that the true essence of wokeness bringing stuff up, not really caring about it and then dropping it once you've farmed the praise and browny points for doing so?
Also considering how some of the shows plot points go I'd imagine the crowd who loves and pushes woke stuff to actually end up pretty pissed off with the show if they took even slightly below surface level look at the show.
So here we go spoilers again
So we have the obvious the initial villains being a white supremacist biker group.
We have the mixed race couple of Lem and Olivia and later Bobo and Fiji too but I'm not going to get mad over that because they feel like well done fairly fleshed out relationships that seems to work and make sense and the characters are fleshed out. The two who don't feel as fleshed out is the gay mixed race couple of Joe and Chuy (more on them later)
We have the fact Olivia is a hitwoman because she was abused as a teenager and prostituted out by her step mother for drugs money (not really this is a minor plot point they bring up) which is why she hates and is running from her wealth powerful and well connected father because she blames him for it as after something happened and I can't remember if it's mentioned Olivia almost died or the father just found her being neglected by the stepmother who was out of it on drugs at the time cut off the mothers extra allowance making it so the mother couldn't just buy drugs right away and so chose to use her stepdaughter to get the money via offering her to clients she found......
Lem is became a vampire to escape slavery, ok one could argue this borders into wokeness but it's weirdly not a major thing or driving force for Lem other than actually him lamenting how he ran away from slavery to white people only to become a slave (and later somewhat saved) from his hunger and need to drink blood.
Midnight was first saved by a native American Shaman......... ok this could go either anti woke or woke or both at once, I'm not sure where present socio-political leanings are in terms of if native American spirit magic is considered cool and cultural or disrespectful to said culture making it seems like a joke as this seems to flop back of fourth. Either way some-one will probably be mad but hey I'm fine with cheesy cliches and this is a series with Texas in the name so why not invoke a bit of the old cowboy stuff of old with the native American angle.
Joe and Chuy - Ok this bit I'm putting down as the biggest woke element of the show because beyond a short bit of dialogue about why they ended up together Joe is only somewhat fleshed out of Chuy barely feels like a character in show own right he's just mixed race (in initial appearance) and almost hilariously overtly gay right down to the fact his part of the business him and Joe run is the nail Salon part while Joe runs the tattoo parlour. Oh and bonus woke points because we're going full attempting to piss of the bible bashers because Joe is fallen angel who is in a gay relationship with Chuy who is a gay half demon, no really and that's kind of the only other thing we learn about Chuy other than him being kind. At least with Joe we get the whole "he isn't a fan of killing even from the start" and the fact he seems to have a passion for painting along with being a fallen angel but Chuy really does feel like he's just there for woke points.
Anti-Wokeness points
So I figured I'd go through some point that will potentially piss off people who like woke stuff or support said stuff because damn this show really does have some stuff that I'd imagine might piss some people off.
1) 0 lesbian relationships. Yeh 4 main relationships in the show, 3 straight, 1 gay and they write out the gay couple or come up with reason for them to not be together for all but like 2 episodes.
2) Equality in nudity, mostly. Ok so people who yell about objectification of women while lusting over Hot Ryu etc will not be happy here as while there is plenty of shirtless male nudity we get an equal amount of bra and pantie or handbra / just hiding the naughty bits nudity of most of the female cast at various point who are all attractive.
3) The entire end plotline and town being saved in part in Manfred the white dude fighting the final demon and Fiji pissing off the demon by her and Bobo having sex. Yes a major plot point is making sure the virgin girl gets fucked.
4) Redemption, damn the woke lot normally hate this idea and would probably hate the fact Bobo whose from a white supremacist family is shown as having rejected that and fights against it
5) Olivia still needs Lem - so for the lovers of the girlboss and women don't need no man crowd the thing to piss them off and make them throw a fit is how despite being a skilled assassin Oliva often needs Lem to save the day with his vampire powers and she gets her ass kicked a fair few times in the show too.
Tagline of thoughts: A holding pattern that sees Hughie plagiarise Tyrion Lannister
Thoughts (Non spoiler): Ok so this series was very much a holding pattern, I've not read the comics but I'm familiar with some of the stuff from them enough to see where it was going and I will say the somewhat unique spin of that direction was interesting as it went for a less direct approach than the comics which feels more realistic.
Sony finally developed some balls as we got some female nudity even if it took a while and we had the earlier male nudity (more played for laughs admittedly except for Frenchie)
The Gen V integration was......... spotty at best and I'm guessing some who haven't seen that series would be a bit confused at some bits (they really needed to show Kate's powers so people who didn't watch it would understand that ending bit)
Also I was really enjoying part of the more subtle theme of the show and feeling good having picked up on it so when they had Hughie basically outline that theme at the end I have to say I lost a bit of respect for the writers as clearly they didn't respect the audience enough to pick up on that theme.
Thoughts (the spoiler version):
Ok so I like the progression with season 1 being an obvious enemy, season 2 being basically the enemy everyone knows hiding in plain sight, season 3 being the you either die a hero or live long enough to end up as the villain and season 4 being well season 4 is about the idea of how we make our own enemies,
Which Hughie nicely outline with his speech about forgiveness etc which I believe was done to make sure people didn't miss the point when the Vought Scientists made Homelander who he is by torturing him so he became their villain and the villain to others too thanks to them. Firecracker is revealed to have become basically the enemy of Annie because of Annie's past actions as a young teen, oh and Kimiko gets an enemy to fight too this season in the form of her Sister whom Kimiko it turns out brought to the terrorist group and scarred in a fighting pit.
It's a bit weird to me also that they've gone with now trying to make Homelander maybe 10% more sympathetic with the whole abusive childhood and psychological programming angle after all the shit he's been doing rather than go more the comic book route and then mix in the additional stuff. Weird choice to go with the full Homelander is truly the evil one rather than just an incompetent asshole.
Also not a big fan of the Teknight changes either because while not going with the Bruce Wayne / Batman rip off I thing turning him full villain was a weird move when the comic book versions mental issue regarding holes is portrayed as much more tragic with him being a person who was considered a good hero while the Boys just went full villain.
As for the social commentary and the whole "It's a Trump allegory" etc. Sure you can point to that which is much more on the surface level but then you go back to the theme of making your own villains and it is somewhat a pointed criticism of modern progressive politics as being asshole to other people because you feel fine to do so created the at least one villain in the form of Firecracker. Also Neuman was an AOC allegory in previous series and seen as the progressive side but siding with the very much more fascist Homelander and Vought to get power, oh and to be clear it's very much hinted the Republican party still exist in the Boys universe and while Vought shows the trappings of said party / stuff it's show they just support those in power and happily switch sides while keeping the trappings of the old if they can try and get power.
Oh and lets not forget Homlanders justification to Ryan to get the director punished that he was making the PA woman uncomfortable with his awkward attempts at flirting so it was fine for him to somewhat beat the crap out of him in return.
After I finally finished Married with Children, I had to watch the pilot again to remember how much it changed. It really became a cartoon.
Marcy and Steve talk about their first child. She doesn't want the boy to watch sports. Al: "I'm telling you, your son is gonna be a sissy." Of course she remains childless for another eleven years.
Episode ends with Al asking Peggy if she wants to go upstairs. The idea of having sex doesn't disgust him like it would later.
Asked where the juice is, Peggy says, "I didn't buy any. I didn't have time." Implying that she does SOMETHING. Even makes bad coffee for the men later, telling Marcy that you don't want your husband to become too comfortable or he will never want to take you out to eat. Later Peggy wouldn't even know how to use a coffee pot.
"That's not my ad, ma'am. That's the former owner's." I get the impression that Al owns the shoe store.
Marcy looks a lot more girly and housewifey with her pink clothes and long hair.
Remember how Luanne was actually smart in the first episodes of King of the Hill and got much dumber later? She could fix cars and threatened grandpa about getting fresh with her again. What happened to Luanne in King of the Hill happened to Kelly. Almost every sentence coming out of her mouth became moronic later. In the first episode she's just normal.
Bud's change I remembered because creator Michael G. Moye talked about it in an interview I watched.
To be fair, if it's a mining ship, once you take into account the mining facilities and ore storage etc, the remainder of the ship might be quite small.
Sort of like if you look at the external view of the Nostromo from Alien, it seems huge, except that the ship is just a tiny tugboat at the front, with the mass being some space platform it's towing.
To be fair, if it's a mining ship, once you take into account the mining facilities and ore storage etc, the remainder of the ship might be quite small.
Sort of like if you look at the external view of the Nostromo from Alien, it seems huge, except that the ship is just a tiny tugboat at the front, with the mass being some space platform it's towing.
I swear most of what they showed in the preview for the finale was actually saved for season 3. Which would suggest it’s already been filmed but that bears little weight for an earlier premiere.
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