Discuss and Rate the Last Thing You Watched (non-movies)

Bob_McMillan

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Rings of Power 1-5
House of the Dragon 1-6
Andor 1-2

This applies to all three, but, while I'm not opposed to a show indulging in character drama, can something with actual impact that moves the plot forward happen please?
Reminds me of something that Erik Kripke of The Boys said.

“The downside of streaming is that a lot of filmmakers who work in streaming didn’t necessarily come out of that network grind. They’re more comfortable with the idea that they could give you 10 hours where nothing happens until the eighth hour. That drives me f—ing nuts, personally.”

There's been a pushback against studio interference these past few years, but streaming shows really are reminding us of the importance of reining the imaginations of Hollywood creatives. Just because it was someone's original vision, that doesn't mean it's good.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Reminds me of something that Erik Kripke of The Boys said.

“The downside of streaming is that a lot of filmmakers who work in streaming didn’t necessarily come out of that network grind. They’re more comfortable with the idea that they could give you 10 hours where nothing happens until the eighth hour. That drives me f—ing nuts, personally.”

There's been a pushback against studio interference these past few years, but streaming shows really are reminding us of the importance of reining the imaginations of Hollywood creatives. Just because it was someone's original vision, that doesn't mean it's good.
I don't know if the network grind necessarily has creators getting the plot moving because so many network shows have episodes that are almost entirely standalone, case/villain of the week, with only a few episodes that have actual overarching plot. I think Lost was like the 1st big show that you were "lost" if you missed an episode and then that type serial show became popular for a bit. I basically quit watching network shows because the plot hardly moves forward and there's like 20+ episodes a season for 10+ seasons, it's just too much. The last network show that I recall attempting to watch was Designated Survivor and it started out strong but I quit within the 1st season because it already started spinning it's wheels with dumb artificial drama inserted to get to the episode count for the season.

Cable TV sorta became the cure for that along with streaming. I definitely see streaming indulging in itself now where the creators are now too comfortable with the lack of a set structure/limitations and they can kinda do whatever. They see that they can do a 2-hour episode and do it just cuz and don't ask themselves if they should. The recent season of Stranger Things had so much fucking filler it wasn't even funny whereas the 1st season was very tight. Creators need a certain amount of limitation to actually reign in their works.
 
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Bob_McMillan

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I don't know if the network grind necessarily has creators getting the plot moving because so many network shows have episodes that are almost entirely standalone, case/villain of the week, with only a few episodes that have actual overarching plot. I think Lost was like the 1st big show that you were "lost" if you missed an episode and then that type serial show became popular for a bit. I basically quit watching network shows because the plot hardly moves forward and there's like 20+ episodes a season for 10+ seasons, it's just too much. The last network show that I recall attempting to watch was Designated Survivor and it started out strong but I quit within the 1st season because it already started spinning it's wheels with dumb artificial drama inserted to get to the episode count for the season.

Cable TV sorta became the cure for that along with streaming. I definitely see streaming indulging in itself now where the creators are now too comfortable with the lack of a set structure/limitations and they can kinda do whatever. They see that they can do a 2-hour episode and do it just cuz and don't ask themselves if they should. The recent season of Stranger Things had so much fucking filler it wasn't even funny whereas the 1st season was very tight. Creators need a certain amount of limitation to actually reign in their works.
Oh yeah, I definitely don't think network was better. Your last comment though really had me thinking how bizarrely fast streaming has evolved. When Netflix first got big, everyone was praising the more adult tones, how you could binge whole seasons since they release all at once, the longer episodes but shorter seasons. Now it's almost the complete opposite.
 
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Johnny Novgorod

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Reminds me of something that Erik Kripke of The Boys said.

“The downside of streaming is that a lot of filmmakers who work in streaming didn’t necessarily come out of that network grind. They’re more comfortable with the idea that they could give you 10 hours where nothing happens until the eighth hour. That drives me f—ing nuts, personally.”

There's been a pushback against studio interference these past few years, but streaming shows really are reminding us of the importance of reining the imaginations of Hollywood creatives. Just because it was someone's original vision, that doesn't mean it's good.
That's bold talk from Mr. Season 3 of The Boys.
He's not wrong though.
Anybody wants to watch a show where every episode moves the plot forward and there's no doubling back from anything, watch Barry.
 

twistedmic

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How so? I haven't watched the show, but I have heard that Season 3 premiered with multiple episodes and that's always a pretty big red flag to me.
Very little of real consequence happens during season three. Things do happen, there is character growth an such, but not a whole lot. Homelander is still an unchecked crazy monster just a little more unchecked and a little more crazy. Butcher is still a manipulative, violent bastard, just a hair more sympathetic and a bit more of a bastard.


A-Train is still a self-centered asshole only a marginally less self-centered.

The Deep is still a pathetic and creepy loser, just a bit more of a pathetic loser.

Kimiko is still a brutal killer but she chooses to be one to protect her loved ones and she liked music now.

And just about every other character is “just a bit more” than what they were at the end of season two.
 

Old_Hunter_77

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Well I would say Butcher crossed a line from "morally grey asshole who gets things done" to "actual villain maybe." And Huey, too.

Re: plot serialization on network TV, before Lost you had the simultaneous space station shows of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5. The latter specifically had a whole pre-planned 5-year arc developed before filming the first episode, most likely the first ever TV show to do so. DS9's serialization was well-done but I don't think they were committed to it in the beginning.

But really the first major major network TV show that added serialization in a major way that I remember is X-Files. It was absolutely not supposed to be that- it was explicitly designed to be a mystery of the week, with only the mystery behind Mulder's missing sister serving as a character and thematic motivation. But when Gillian Anderson become pregnant, they concocted some in-world reason for her absence which led to this whole alien/human hybrid plot that at first was awesome and blew our minds and then turned lame and stupid by the end.
 

Old_Hunter_77

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Cyberpunk Edgerunners

yeah, it's good. Finished it this morning, and it ends. I mean, it tells a complete story with a definite ending that makes sense and fits. I just am happy to see it in something that is part of a "franchise." And the reason it happened is because the show makers didn't just assume or think they were getting a second season or having to keep making CONTENT, they just did a show. A good show.
Visuals were cool (I am no anime expert), action was good, dialogue was still stupid cringe anime but a LOT less than others so acceptable, music was on point. No notes, good stuff.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Well I would say Butcher crossed a line from "morally grey asshole who gets things done" to "actual villain maybe." And Huey, too.
And then they folded back. At the end of the day they didn't do anything they haven't been doing since the first season, and the stalemate remains the same.
 

Old_Hunter_77

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And then they folded back. At the end of the day they didn't do anything they haven't been doing since the first season, and the stalemate remains the same.
Yeah I guess so.
Honestly that show is just about the cast, vibes, general delight of being in the world and those characters, I kind of don't care what happens. Though I agree they should wrap it up at this point.
Contrast to Rings of Star Thrones type shows where they are so self-serious as characters and it's all about the franchise worlds, they really suffer if nothing happens.
I mean I want to "hang out" with Butcher and Mother's Milk and Starlight but not with Galadriel or Rhynarea.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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How so? I haven't watched the show, but I have heard that Season 3 premiered with multiple episodes and that's always a pretty big red flag to me.
For a series that brands itself as the irreverent punk-anarchic answer to the safe, bland, corporate-sanctioned superhero slop that oversaturates the market these days, The Boys has definitely struck an equally stale holding pattern. There's a lot of aggressive posturing and shock-out moments revolving around what you can and cannot show on screen but at the end of the day it's not that different from any other series with a veneer of edge that's too scared to truly commit for realsies to its own all-or-nothing attitude.

So you end up with three seasons of characters whose sole purpose is to ostensibly destroy each other yet somehow always find (convoluted, melodrama) reasons not to. Any character who gets it is almost always someone introduced for that very purpose, and because the show's too afraid to upset the balance it chooses to introduce single-use villains instead, to be safely shelved at the end of every season.

The last couple of seasons have ended on different "this changes everything" notes but so far everything has played more or less as before.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Oh yeah, I definitely don't think network was better. Your last comment though really had me thinking how bizarrely fast streaming has evolved. When Netflix first got big, everyone was praising the more adult tones, how you could binge whole seasons since they release all at once, the longer episodes but shorter seasons. Now it's almost the complete opposite.
I think the sweet spot for most shows is 8-12 episodes a season for 5 seasons at most.

---

The Sandman - 1st 4 episodes - I don't get what people see in this / 10

I totally don't get what anyone sees in this show. The main character is so bad, I don't even know how to explain it. He's supposed to be some very old being but he's so very unwise. He can't even come up with good questions to ask those chicks about where his stuff is and keeps adding on questions like a dumbass expecting them to answer. And then that game him and the devil played also showed how unwise they are, why don't you just start at the thing you can't get one upped on? It's like how the Power Rangers would never start in their Zords, just start in them to begin with and get that dang thing over with. It's not so bad in a goofy kids show but Sandman is hardly going for that tone. And the whole time I was watching the episodes I was thinking he was your basic cliche sorta grunge music liking emo 90s teenager and I went to look up when the character was created (I figured he had been around for awhile cuz that's most comics) and Sandman's original run was from like 89 to 95 and I'm like "yup, that makes perfect fucking sense." It's shown like 1 million people come down with some illness (or die, I forget) because he was captured but he stays captured for 100 years or so and humanity seems to be getting on just fine yet the show and Sandman state how important he is to humanity but it doesn't seem like he's needed at all. Then, Cain and Abel are in the show as characters and their bit is that Cain kills Abel over and over again, I guess that's supposed to be funny, but it just feels so cheap and surface level and something teenage me would've thought was cool to do as that's like all I know about them (since I'm not religious at all). The visuals are good and I wanted to see what Jenna Coleman's character was as I like her.
 

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Resident Evil (Netflix) (4/5)

...okay, this was actually pretty neat.

I'm going to get one thing out of the way before anything else - if we're judging this as an adaptation, it's terrible. It might be one of the worst adaptations out there technically, in that it's not really adapting Resident Evil, but rather taking a few familiar elements (zombies, Lickers), with a few pieces of familiar terminology (Umbrella, Raccoon City), with some familiar tropes (viral experimentation), and then doing its own thing. Even the Anderson films were more loyal to the games, and yes, beyond the first two films, when you get down to it. If anything, the series seems to use the Anderson films as an inspiration as much as the games, given the post-apocalyptic setting, Umbrella being the best equipped force in a post-collapse world, and the iconography of their soldiers and vehicles (though if anything, USS troopers seem to wear actual armour rather than Kevlar to protect them from the zombies, sorry, "zeroes," so nice job there).

So, yeah. As an adaptation, the series blows, and I'm saying that who's been a fan of Resident Evil since the PS1 era. However, if we're judging it as its own thing, it's actually quite enjoyable. The series alternates between the "present" of 2036 (long after society has collapsed), and the "past" of 2022, depicting events prior to the world going to shit. The 2036 plotline primarily deals with Jade Wesker (one of the two twin daughters of Albert Wesker...yes, you read that right), mostly fighting for her life in zero-overrun Britain and France), while the 2022 plotline depicts the Wesker family of Albert, Jade, and Billie living in New Raccoon City - an Umbrella planned community in South Africa (I don't think raccoons are actually IN South Africa, so having raccoon mascots, references to OG Raccoon City or not, is a little weird). I'm going to give my thoughts on the two plotlines separately - in each episode, we reguarly cut back and forth between the two (mostly), but it's easier to discuss if I do things in chronological order. So on that note:

2022

The Weskers arrive at New Raccoon City. We have Albert (a geneticist, quiet, taciturn), Jade (outgoing, beligerant), and Billie (shy, introverted). Umbrella is working on a miracle drug named Joy, which I may as well tell you now, involves the T-virus. Recently, there was an outbreak at Umbrella's Tijuana facility where multiple people died, so they've moved production to their city in South Africa. Umbrella's currently run by Evelyn Marcus, who inherited the company from her father (I assume this is meant to be James Marcus, but like a lot in the series, this is nothing more than name recognition), and Joy is pretty much make or break. Billie and Jade are surrogate twins, with Albert being the father, and each born to a different mother, hence them being twins, despite looking nothing alike (and acting nothing alike either).

NRS is kind of neat, even if everything's highly sterile (I'll give props to the set design - the 2022 designs are clean, utilitarian, but cold, while the 2036 designs are more 'real,' albeit grungy), but cutting things short, the two girls break into Umbrella's lab to expose their animal testing on rabbits (something that's really striking is how terrible at security Umbrella is, despite having some pretty nasty shit on site), and Billie ends up being bitten by a Cerberus. Wesker covers for them, and Billie starts to deteriortate, but Wesker doesn't seem that worried. Looking stuff on the 'net, Jade finds herself in contact with a journalist investigating the Tijuana outbreak, and learns that in 72 hours, Billie will be dead.

Credit where it's due, this entire sequence (which plays out over a number of episodes) makes you think that Billie is going to turn, since Billie is conspicuously absent from the 2038 sequences, and future!Jade says that "my sister died 14 years ago," so you go expecting that Billie is going to turn and infect someone (since it's hinted that NRS was the hub of the global T-virus outbreak), except...that doesn't happen. The journalist tracks the sisters down, tells them that Albert Wesker died years ago, that they don't have birth certificates, etc., but they blow him off, and since Billie conspicuously isn't dead after the 72 hour mark, he must be full of shit, right?

Well, not quite. Not leaving well enough alone, the sisters discover the truth about their dad - he's a clone of the original Albert Wesker. One of three that OG Wesker created to help him in his dirty dealings. I might as well specify that we do see OG Wesker a bit, and given that he's portrayed by Lance Reddick and has game!Wesker's supernatural abilities, I was remidned more of Blade than anything else. Make of that what you will. Of the clones, two survived - "Al Wesker" (the Wesker we see through most of the season), and "Bert Wesker," who's been locked up in Umbrella's NRS facility. I've seen a lot of people give Reddick specific credit for his portrayal of Wesker, and while he does a good job (if not the only one), I think special credit has to go to him portraying both "Al" and "Bert," who have completely different personalities, and sometimes have to bounce off one another. Or, in the case of Bert, he temporarily impersonates Al with a combination of quirkiness and menace, leaving Jade and Billie to ask what the hell is going on.

Anyway, various events progress - it's revealed that because he's a clone, Wesker has advanced ageing, but by injecting himself with his daughters' blood, he's been able to keep it in check. Long story short, Jade works with Simon (a hacker who's been crushing on her throughout the season, and Evelyn Marcus's son) to enter Umbrella's HQ (which still has terrible security) to rescue Billie (who's suffering from the infection - she's a carrier, but because of her blood, she's immune to the virus itself) and Wesker. It succeeds, to a point, but in a moment of delirium, Billie bites Simon, forcing Evelyn to shoot him. Al stays behind to detonate a bomb that destroys a large portion of the facility, while Jade, Billie, and Bert escape NRS to find an "Ada Wong" in Japan.

Overall, I do like the 2022 plot, even if it slows down a few times - there's an episode that takes place almost entirely inside the Wesker household as the girls are forced to look for various clues their father has left for them that's a weird attempt to ape the games (e.g. Billie plays Moonlight Sonata on the piano, which is a reference any RE fan should get), but it really doesn't work. But it does work overall, even if, conspicuously, there's no clear start to the T-virus outbreak. While the idea of Albert Wesker having children feels like something out of fanfiction, both Jade and Billie are compelling characters in their teenage years. Wesker's got a good mix of menace, yet also familial love that somehow manages to work, and then there's Evelyn Marcus. Honestly, I think the actress playing her really deserves more props, because Evelyn is a gem. She's got the right mix of zanniness and menace, sometimes even done at the same time. It's like she's a personification of Umbrella itself - highly dangerous, highly sociopathic, highly idiotic (why yes, we ARE going to make money off BOWs rather than pharmacuticals, why do you ask?)

2036

The "present" timeline takes place long after society has collapsed. There's about 600 million humans left on Earth, up against 3 billion zeroes (I don't know why they're called zeroes rather than zombies - I suppose this is a "walkers" thing, but it just doesn't work). Right off the bat, I'm going to give the show credit in that its zombie apocalypse has some unique aspects to it, in that while society as we know it has collapsed, society as a whole hasn't, in that the collapse isn't total, and there's still centres of civilization that can be found. For instance, Umbrella runs the western half of the US as a country simply called "Umbrella," the UK has devolved into a system of freeholds, at least some of France is run by a group of zealots called the Brotherhood, and India is implied to be run by a similar religious group (Simai, or something). Since Jade's journey starts off in the UK, we only see some of these new societies, but basically, the freeholds range from Mad Max-esque fortresses, to village where life approaches normaility. It's actually an interesting concept, where the collapse of human civilization hasn't been universal, and some areas/factions have emerged better than others. If The Walking Dead showed a "collapse point" of 100%, RE is somewhere in the realm of 80-90%.

I don't really have as much to say about the present plot, in part because this review has gone on forever, in part because in terms of actual plot, it's thinner than the 2022 one. It can basically be described as Jade trying to make her way back to her home base after things go wrong in the field, with Umbrella pursuing her. I should point out that at times, it can be really funny, such as Jade encountering a crazy cat lady who has her zombie husband locked up in the bathtub, and Baxter - an Umbrella operative who's obese, yet is really good with guns, and really misses Spongebob Squarepants. Because the fall of civilization meant the loss of Spongebob. 🙁

What's revealed halway through is that Billie is still alive (whereas we're previously led to believe that she's dead), but then is revealed to be working for Umbrella, only to be revealed that she, in fact, runs Umbrella. Suffice to say, the Billie of 2036 is a much different character of 2022, and tricks Jade into revealing the location of her base (a ship that collects artifacts from the past, with scientists trying to work out how to deal with the Zeroes). There's a lot from the Anderson films here, with Umbrella being a paramilitary force that's better equipped than everyone else (this includes stuff like drones which can easily take out Zeroes, and USS soldiers wearing custom armour that's better suited for zombies than standard Kevlar. In this time period, Jade has a daughter, Bea, who's a prodigy, and it's left ambiguous who her father is. By the end, Jade has been left stranded from her team, Billie has Bea (since she needed Jade's blood to deal with her lingering T-virus infection, but Bea's an even better catch, cue cliffhanger(s) that will never be resolved.

So, yeah. I really enjoyed this series, and I'd love for it to have a sequel. Not in TV form (since that's not going to happen), but in comics, maybe? Possibly? FFS, Infinite Darkness got its own Netflix mini series and this is much, MUCH better. But alas, not many people seem to think so. Again, I get hating this as an adaptation, but as its own thing? Pretty neat, actually.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Resident Evil (Netflix) (4/5)

...okay, this was actually pretty neat.

I'm going to get one thing out of the way before anything else - if we're judging this as an adaptation, it's terrible. It might be one of the worst adaptations out there technically, in that it's not really adapting Resident Evil, but rather taking a few familiar elements (zombies, Lickers), with a few pieces of familiar terminology (Umbrella, Raccoon City), with some familiar tropes (viral experimentation), and then doing its own thing. Even the Anderson films were more loyal to the games, and yes, beyond the first two films, when you get down to it. If anything, the series seems to use the Anderson films as an inspiration as much as the games, given the post-apocalyptic setting, Umbrella being the best equipped force in a post-collapse world, and the iconography of their soldiers and vehicles (though if anything, USS troopers seem to wear actual armour rather than Kevlar to protect them from the zombies, sorry, "zeroes," so nice job there).

So, yeah. As an adaptation, the series blows, and I'm saying that who's been a fan of Resident Evil since the PS1 era. However, if we're judging it as its own thing, it's actually quite enjoyable. The series alternates between the "present" of 2036 (long after society has collapsed), and the "past" of 2022, depicting events prior to the world going to shit. The 2036 plotline primarily deals with Jade Wesker (one of the two twin daughters of Albert Wesker...yes, you read that right), mostly fighting for her life in zero-overrun Britain and France), while the 2022 plotline depicts the Wesker family of Albert, Jade, and Billie living in New Raccoon City - an Umbrella planned community in South Africa (I don't think raccoons are actually IN South Africa, so having raccoon mascots, references to OG Raccoon City or not, is a little weird). I'm going to give my thoughts on the two plotlines separately - in each episode, we reguarly cut back and forth between the two (mostly), but it's easier to discuss if I do things in chronological order. So on that note:

2022

The Weskers arrive at New Raccoon City. We have Albert (a geneticist, quiet, taciturn), Jade (outgoing, beligerant), and Billie (shy, introverted). Umbrella is working on a miracle drug named Joy, which I may as well tell you now, involves the T-virus. Recently, there was an outbreak at Umbrella's Tijuana facility where multiple people died, so they've moved production to their city in South Africa. Umbrella's currently run by Evelyn Marcus, who inherited the company from her father (I assume this is meant to be James Marcus, but like a lot in the series, this is nothing more than name recognition), and Joy is pretty much make or break. Billie and Jade are surrogate twins, with Albert being the father, and each born to a different mother, hence them being twins, despite looking nothing alike (and acting nothing alike either).

NRS is kind of neat, even if everything's highly sterile (I'll give props to the set design - the 2022 designs are clean, utilitarian, but cold, while the 2036 designs are more 'real,' albeit grungy), but cutting things short, the two girls break into Umbrella's lab to expose their animal testing on rabbits (something that's really striking is how terrible at security Umbrella is, despite having some pretty nasty shit on site), and Billie ends up being bitten by a Cerberus. Wesker covers for them, and Billie starts to deteriortate, but Wesker doesn't seem that worried. Looking stuff on the 'net, Jade finds herself in contact with a journalist investigating the Tijuana outbreak, and learns that in 72 hours, Billie will be dead.

Credit where it's due, this entire sequence (which plays out over a number of episodes) makes you think that Billie is going to turn, since Billie is conspicuously absent from the 2038 sequences, and future!Jade says that "my sister died 14 years ago," so you go expecting that Billie is going to turn and infect someone (since it's hinted that NRS was the hub of the global T-virus outbreak), except...that doesn't happen. The journalist tracks the sisters down, tells them that Albert Wesker died years ago, that they don't have birth certificates, etc., but they blow him off, and since Billie conspicuously isn't dead after the 72 hour mark, he must be full of shit, right?

Well, not quite. Not leaving well enough alone, the sisters discover the truth about their dad - he's a clone of the original Albert Wesker. One of three that OG Wesker created to help him in his dirty dealings. I might as well specify that we do see OG Wesker a bit, and given that he's portrayed by Lance Reddick and has game!Wesker's supernatural abilities, I was remidned more of Blade than anything else. Make of that what you will. Of the clones, two survived - "Al Wesker" (the Wesker we see through most of the season), and "Bert Wesker," who's been locked up in Umbrella's NRS facility. I've seen a lot of people give Reddick specific credit for his portrayal of Wesker, and while he does a good job (if not the only one), I think special credit has to go to him portraying both "Al" and "Bert," who have completely different personalities, and sometimes have to bounce off one another. Or, in the case of Bert, he temporarily impersonates Al with a combination of quirkiness and menace, leaving Jade and Billie to ask what the hell is going on.

Anyway, various events progress - it's revealed that because he's a clone, Wesker has advanced ageing, but by injecting himself with his daughters' blood, he's been able to keep it in check. Long story short, Jade works with Simon (a hacker who's been crushing on her throughout the season, and Evelyn Marcus's son) to enter Umbrella's HQ (which still has terrible security) to rescue Billie (who's suffering from the infection - she's a carrier, but because of her blood, she's immune to the virus itself) and Wesker. It succeeds, to a point, but in a moment of delirium, Billie bites Simon, forcing Evelyn to shoot him. Al stays behind to detonate a bomb that destroys a large portion of the facility, while Jade, Billie, and Bert escape NRS to find an "Ada Wong" in Japan.

Overall, I do like the 2022 plot, even if it slows down a few times - there's an episode that takes place almost entirely inside the Wesker household as the girls are forced to look for various clues their father has left for them that's a weird attempt to ape the games (e.g. Billie plays Moonlight Sonata on the piano, which is a reference any RE fan should get), but it really doesn't work. But it does work overall, even if, conspicuously, there's no clear start to the T-virus outbreak. While the idea of Albert Wesker having children feels like something out of fanfiction, both Jade and Billie are compelling characters in their teenage years. Wesker's got a good mix of menace, yet also familial love that somehow manages to work, and then there's Evelyn Marcus. Honestly, I think the actress playing her really deserves more props, because Evelyn is a gem. She's got the right mix of zanniness and menace, sometimes even done at the same time. It's like she's a personification of Umbrella itself - highly dangerous, highly sociopathic, highly idiotic (why yes, we ARE going to make money off BOWs rather than pharmacuticals, why do you ask?)

2036

The "present" timeline takes place long after society has collapsed. There's about 600 million humans left on Earth, up against 3 billion zeroes (I don't know why they're called zeroes rather than zombies - I suppose this is a "walkers" thing, but it just doesn't work). Right off the bat, I'm going to give the show credit in that its zombie apocalypse has some unique aspects to it, in that while society as we know it has collapsed, society as a whole hasn't, in that the collapse isn't total, and there's still centres of civilization that can be found. For instance, Umbrella runs the western half of the US as a country simply called "Umbrella," the UK has devolved into a system of freeholds, at least some of France is run by a group of zealots called the Brotherhood, and India is implied to be run by a similar religious group (Simai, or something). Since Jade's journey starts off in the UK, we only see some of these new societies, but basically, the freeholds range from Mad Max-esque fortresses, to village where life approaches normaility. It's actually an interesting concept, where the collapse of human civilization hasn't been universal, and some areas/factions have emerged better than others. If The Walking Dead showed a "collapse point" of 100%, RE is somewhere in the realm of 80-90%.

I don't really have as much to say about the present plot, in part because this review has gone on forever, in part because in terms of actual plot, it's thinner than the 2022 one. It can basically be described as Jade trying to make her way back to her home base after things go wrong in the field, with Umbrella pursuing her. I should point out that at times, it can be really funny, such as Jade encountering a crazy cat lady who has her zombie husband locked up in the bathtub, and Baxter - an Umbrella operative who's obese, yet is really good with guns, and really misses Spongebob Squarepants. Because the fall of civilization meant the loss of Spongebob. 🙁

What's revealed halway through is that Billie is still alive (whereas we're previously led to believe that she's dead), but then is revealed to be working for Umbrella, only to be revealed that she, in fact, runs Umbrella. Suffice to say, the Billie of 2036 is a much different character of 2022, and tricks Jade into revealing the location of her base (a ship that collects artifacts from the past, with scientists trying to work out how to deal with the Zeroes). There's a lot from the Anderson films here, with Umbrella being a paramilitary force that's better equipped than everyone else (this includes stuff like drones which can easily take out Zeroes, and USS soldiers wearing custom armour that's better suited for zombies than standard Kevlar. In this time period, Jade has a daughter, Bea, who's a prodigy, and it's left ambiguous who her father is. By the end, Jade has been left stranded from her team, Billie has Bea (since she needed Jade's blood to deal with her lingering T-virus infection, but Bea's an even better catch, cue cliffhanger(s) that will never be resolved.

So, yeah. I really enjoyed this series, and I'd love for it to have a sequel. Not in TV form (since that's not going to happen), but in comics, maybe? Possibly? FFS, Infinite Darkness got its own Netflix mini series and this is much, MUCH better. But alas, not many people seem to think so. Again, I get hating this as an adaptation, but as its own thing? Pretty neat, actually.
 
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Hawki

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Seen that posted before, does it make any sense in context?
Yes, it does.

The clip occurs towards the end of the season in the 2036 timeline. By this time, Evelyn's been built up as a sociopath in the 2022 timeline, and in the 2036 timeline (which is when this clip takes place) has been established to be still be running Umbrella, and just as sociopathic. In this context, Jade has to give herself up to Umbrella or else they'll destroy the ship her faction is on.

So when Jade enters Umbrella's command tent (as seen above), it catches both her and the audience offguard when Evelyn does, well, what you see above. It's later revealed that Evelyn by this time is being controlled, literally, by Billie, using a combination of electrodes and drugs. Evelyn is the 'face' of Umbrella in 2036 (when she allows herself to be seen), allowing Billie to run things behind the scenes. So from a narrative standpoint, it's a complete mindscrew for both Jade and the audience. In a character standpoint, it's catartic to see Evelyn brought so low.

Is it bonkers? Yeah. But there's far more going on than just "lolz, randomz!" I mean, the lyrics themselves reinforce the point ("thinking about the way I was before.")
 

gorfias

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Cobra Kai: Season 5 (4/5)
snip so the doesn't error out when I reply
I think they meant to have Chozen be the face of "new" dojos to challenge Silver. It is Daniel and Johnny that are honor bound to be barred. I wouldn't think every student of their would be, so, they're not teachers anymore. But Chozen can be. But you are right. The writers needed to really point this out. And they didn't.

I actually hate "doofus" Johnny. He wasn't in Season 1. Very rough around the edges, a hold over, unreformed from the 1980s so he doesn't even know what Facebook is and that yes, girls can do Karate. There is a show my wife made me watch against my will, "This is Us". A lead guy, an actor, quits his comedy tv, "The Manny" show for reasons. Among them, he is supposed to be a funny and warm guy who is a nanny for a baby. One scene has him, desperate for some reason, try to breast feed the baby. The actor asks if his character is supposed to be mentally challenged. This is not funny. This is stupid. After season 1, they've had Johnny be stupid. IE eagles do not have fangs, you don't have children leaping between buildings for training, etc. We could see ourselves wanting to hang with Johnny in Season 1. When he and Miguel celebrate a victory together, he goes for a drive and have a drink with Daniel, we enjoy this. I would not want to hang with a guy that tortures an apparently paralyzed young man thinking that will make him walk. (Course, in the real world, adults shouldn't have whiskey with minors but I appreciate the spirit of the thing).

A 2nd issue is that they have an Empire Strikes Back problem. But that is a fantasy. Don't think too much about Luke almost becoming a Jedi in the time it takes Han to have lunch with Darth Vader. Same goes for Cobra Kai. Suspend disbelief that after a few weeks of Karate training you turn into Bruce Lee.
 

twistedmic

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A 2nd issue is that they have an Empire Strikes Back problem. But that is a fantasy. Don't think too much about Luke almost becoming a Jedi in the time it takes Han to have lunch with Darth Vader. Same goes for Cobra Kai. Suspend disbelief that after a few weeks of Karate training you turn into Bruce Lee.
Luke had a pretty good amount of time to train with Yoda.
The Falcon’s hyperdrive, later retconed to primary hyperdrive, was busted so they couldn’t get from Hoth to Bespin quickly.

If the two planets were in the same planetary system and the Falcon had to make it on sublight speed, even assuming they could reach .5 c, it would be weeks if not months of travel.

And using the retcon of a slower, less effective backup hyperdrive it would take longer to jump from Hoth to Bespin than with the main drive.


Either way, Luke spent far linger training with Yoda than “a couple hours”.
 
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Thaluikhain

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If the two planets were in the same planetary system and the Falcon had to make it on sublight speed, even assuming they could reach .5 c, it would be weeks if not months of travel.
Um, no, light takes about 5.5 to get from the sun to Pluto. Going at half light speed they can get from one side of a planetary system to another in a matter of days, not months. Though, I thought in the film the probably was more of limited range than speed.
 
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