Discuss and Rate the Last Thing You Watched (non-movies)
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I never did post my actual thoughts on House Of The Dragon episode 9.
Overall I think the show is really engrossing. Surprisingly so. I was pretty turned off by the central focus being on fucknut royalty, but I think they do an excellent job of providing a constant sense of tension and foreboding. This isn't a show about a bunch of courtly ninnies fomenting the social destruction of their enemies while having sex with the wait staff. This is very much life or death for a lot of these characters. In what should have been a boring reign led by The Big lebowski Targaryen a series of extremely unfortunate events leads very quickly to two families essentially on the throne at the same time and theres no real way both can be alive once Josh Targaryen dies. It doesn't help that he's very well liked and a generally a good dude so its basically daggers at everyones necks, just waiting for him to keel over. Critics have generally been calling him the Star of the show because he's so good on screen. Great acting.
I guess I can only really summarize it as the only thing on TV right now thats patently "not" boring. I also think it exists functionally without Game Of thrones. Theres a few call backs here and there, but they've done a good job at making a show that doesn't exist solely to fill in the blanks of GOTs timeline. I think it would probably still be good even if Thrones didn't exist.
This last episode is the columniation of all that tension. I think 95% of the episode works. It moves pretty fast once the preverbal shit hits the fan. I'm not personally a fan of the choice made by the Queen who never was at the end, but thinking on it, it was in character and she certainly looked cool doing it. Love that Armor. She has consistently shown herself to choose the noble thing to do even over what is the right thing to do, so it technically works, but I think even as a Buddhist myself I'd have chosen the path that would have been saved in the long run. Lot of people are gonna die because of her, whatever her intentions. I do not care of the villain of the series. He just seems cartoonish with lazy design and writing like whaaaat you're telling me the disabled guy who limps around is also evil and has weird sex fetishes? How unique! and I'm confident hes gonna die some gross death thats meant to be cathartic for the audience, but I could not give less of a shit. If anything I appreciated how the original Game of Thrones villains were all outwardly charming and handsome so it was always shocking when they turn out to be awful people. Its that handsome serial killer aesthetic that makes villains compelling.
Still, I think you're if standing on the sidelines because GOT was a hot mess I'd still recommend this show. It remains to be seen if this last episode does indeed close out this particular story in the lore. If it does then I think you can watch this season with no regrets ignorant of GOT.
This is not LOTR: The Rings of Dramamine.
Overall I think the show is really engrossing. Surprisingly so. I was pretty turned off by the central focus being on fucknut royalty, but I think they do an excellent job of providing a constant sense of tension and foreboding. This isn't a show about a bunch of courtly ninnies fomenting the social destruction of their enemies while having sex with the wait staff. This is very much life or death for a lot of these characters. In what should have been a boring reign led by The Big lebowski Targaryen a series of extremely unfortunate events leads very quickly to two families essentially on the throne at the same time and theres no real way both can be alive once Josh Targaryen dies. It doesn't help that he's very well liked and a generally a good dude so its basically daggers at everyones necks, just waiting for him to keel over. Critics have generally been calling him the Star of the show because he's so good on screen. Great acting.
I guess I can only really summarize it as the only thing on TV right now thats patently "not" boring. I also think it exists functionally without Game Of thrones. Theres a few call backs here and there, but they've done a good job at making a show that doesn't exist solely to fill in the blanks of GOTs timeline. I think it would probably still be good even if Thrones didn't exist.
This last episode is the columniation of all that tension. I think 95% of the episode works. It moves pretty fast once the preverbal shit hits the fan. I'm not personally a fan of the choice made by the Queen who never was at the end, but thinking on it, it was in character and she certainly looked cool doing it. Love that Armor. She has consistently shown herself to choose the noble thing to do even over what is the right thing to do, so it technically works, but I think even as a Buddhist myself I'd have chosen the path that would have been saved in the long run. Lot of people are gonna die because of her, whatever her intentions. I do not care of the villain of the series. He just seems cartoonish with lazy design and writing like whaaaat you're telling me the disabled guy who limps around is also evil and has weird sex fetishes? How unique! and I'm confident hes gonna die some gross death thats meant to be cathartic for the audience, but I could not give less of a shit. If anything I appreciated how the original Game of Thrones villains were all outwardly charming and handsome so it was always shocking when they turn out to be awful people. Its that handsome serial killer aesthetic that makes villains compelling.
Still, I think you're if standing on the sidelines because GOT was a hot mess I'd still recommend this show. It remains to be seen if this last episode does indeed close out this particular story in the lore. If it does then I think you can watch this season with no regrets ignorant of GOT.
This is not LOTR: The Rings of Dramamine.
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Allicent is the MVP of HotD. The progression of daddy's pawn to reluctant but capable then enthusiastic Machiavellian political slimeball to what-hath-we-wrought bitter tyrant is compelling and kudo to the actress.
One aspect of that performance that I find interesting is that she actually cared for Viserys. Sure not as a lover or whatever but as the father of her children, a not-a-bad-dude, and a long-suffering victim of a horrible disease. This resonated so well with her horror that everyone else responded to his death with politics while she was actually grieving.
Here's a couple of plot points that bothered me:
1- Aegon didn't want to be king, eye-patch does. Can't they just do that? Even if Allicent insists that Aegon has to be king because of her misunderstanding of Viserys' last words, Viserys didn't say how long he had to be king.
Let Aegon assume the throne and then abdicate for his brother. Allicent would be fulfilling what she though is Viserys' last wish by the letter, while securing the throne for her lineage. She would also gain the important benefit of making both of her sons happy, and what mother wouldn't want that.
I don't know how Allicent's father would feel about that, though. On the one hand, he would get what he says he wants- his family line in power. But on the other hand, I bet he feels he can manipulate Aegon (similar to Tywyn with Joffrey) while no one is telling eye-patch what to do if he doesn't wanna (which is why by the standards of the setting he'd make the better king).
Well obviously none of this matters because we see after all Aegon is going to like being king. I'm a little annoyed that it looks like we're just getting Joffrey II but oh well.
2- Ser Incel just straight up murdered a council member, who presumably is a powerful lord with family, wealth, and political support. No consequence, no punishment, no repercusions? Yes, I know there's still an episode left and I am really hoping that IF it turns out Rhaenyra and Daemon wrestle the throne back, part of their alliance is that guy's house. But the fact that Allicent and her father just don't give a shit is weird.
re: the foot stuff, I pretty much agree with u/Piscian. The point was to emphasize that regardless of Allicent's scheming and power, she is still reduced to WOMAN- tags with her speech to her father realizing the true nature of their relationship- but that's a point they made already so much and this was just gratuitous.
One aspect of that performance that I find interesting is that she actually cared for Viserys. Sure not as a lover or whatever but as the father of her children, a not-a-bad-dude, and a long-suffering victim of a horrible disease. This resonated so well with her horror that everyone else responded to his death with politics while she was actually grieving.
Here's a couple of plot points that bothered me:
1- Aegon didn't want to be king, eye-patch does. Can't they just do that? Even if Allicent insists that Aegon has to be king because of her misunderstanding of Viserys' last words, Viserys didn't say how long he had to be king.
Let Aegon assume the throne and then abdicate for his brother. Allicent would be fulfilling what she though is Viserys' last wish by the letter, while securing the throne for her lineage. She would also gain the important benefit of making both of her sons happy, and what mother wouldn't want that.
I don't know how Allicent's father would feel about that, though. On the one hand, he would get what he says he wants- his family line in power. But on the other hand, I bet he feels he can manipulate Aegon (similar to Tywyn with Joffrey) while no one is telling eye-patch what to do if he doesn't wanna (which is why by the standards of the setting he'd make the better king).
Well obviously none of this matters because we see after all Aegon is going to like being king. I'm a little annoyed that it looks like we're just getting Joffrey II but oh well.
2- Ser Incel just straight up murdered a council member, who presumably is a powerful lord with family, wealth, and political support. No consequence, no punishment, no repercusions? Yes, I know there's still an episode left and I am really hoping that IF it turns out Rhaenyra and Daemon wrestle the throne back, part of their alliance is that guy's house. But the fact that Allicent and her father just don't give a shit is weird.
re: the foot stuff, I pretty much agree with u/Piscian. The point was to emphasize that regardless of Allicent's scheming and power, she is still reduced to WOMAN- tags with her speech to her father realizing the true nature of their relationship- but that's a point they made already so much and this was just gratuitous.
I think jumping generations like that is a big no-no, especially if you're already dealing with preexisting controversy (Rhaeyra vs Aegon). Aegon as male first-born is an easier sell than his younger brother. It doesn't really matter who is perceived as the more competent of the two. And yeah, Aegon would be easier to manipulate too.
That annoyed me but I guess that was the point, how far gone these people are into how they deal with dissent. Graham McTavish walking away in disgust at the inaction/indifference was on point.
Then again maybe it's like how Corlys' brother shouted the b-word and that was an immediate death sentence. Maybe the old man openly accusing the whole table of treason is faux pas enough for the seat of the government that he gets offed like that. Shocking but like skipping ahead to the obvious ending.
Power Rings
Maybe the dullest non-event I ever witnessed on television, homaging Tolkien the same way Lisa Trevor homages her mom and moving ahead with more or less the same grace. Maybe it looks like Tolkien from a distance but the second it opens its mouth or moves even a little bit you realize it's just wearing the skin.
So essentially this is a 10 hour mystery box film that's split into 8 parts and is carefully designed around 4 or 5 different narrative devices that exist largely isolated from each other, spiraling inward into pointless mystery that only exists as exercise. So the real identity of who certain characters are or who will they become is teased and then given for free because it turns out it doesn't matter, or teased and withheld because it's easier to write a plot device than a character.
The show is so bereft of inertia that halfway into season one we're already wasting time on the love life of non-canonical tertiary characters.
The biggest fluke in the show is their version of Galadriel, reimagined here as an insufferable holier-than-thou douchebag who gets put on a boat and sent away after everyone's gotten sick of her. She jumps off the boat in the middle of the ocean with no better plan than drown before reaching Valinor and is nearly killed in a bunch of different ways, only ever surviving through either dumb luck or the assist of people she despises. Eventually she makes it to Numenor where she openly antagonizes the people she's trying to enlist for support and so it takes her a whopping three episodes of insulting everybody on the island before they decide to go help Middle-earth - and not even becase she persuaded them (even though she condescends as if she did), but because of a separate omen.
Galadriel is the single most driven character in the show just because she's the one with the actual quest - to kill Sauron - but essentially sits out most of the season waiting to get back in, which she does in episode 6/8. Her big reintroduction to the show also has her fucking everything up, failing at the one thing she was specifically trying to do and most shameful of all, keeping it a secret from all the other people she used and jeopardized along the way. Her big whoopsie is not realizing a Very Important lineage has been broken for a thousand years, even though as the oldest elf in Middle-earth she should've been the first to notice. Yay Galadriel, go Galadriel. If ever a show didn't realize what a terribly lead they had.
People like Durin and Elrond. I guess they're actually likable, even if their dialogue is especially atrocious. The thing about them is that the show makes a big deal out of Elrond's oath not to tell the Elves about Mithril, and then it makes it not matter at all when all the Elves seem to know regardless. Mithril in this show is also given a bullshit origin story and bullshit magical properties that suddenly make Elves depend on it for their immortality. To top it off, the whole subplot of mining for Mithril ends up not mattering either when Elrond's freebie sample is all Celebrimbor needs to forge to Power Rings.
The not-Hobbits are hideous and where the show especially sucks at imitating Tolkien's easy-going, happy-go-lucky speech patterns for the 'simpler' folk of Middle-earth. They're especially hateful as their whole nomadic lifestyle is based around the mantra "Nobody gets left behind", yet they constantly do that (and keep reading from a book of obits, alternating between lamenting the deaths they caused and laughing at them). The not-Hobbit subplot is the most isolated from the rest (fair enough) but is also the one that exists purely as a Mystery Box.
Then the whole bullshit Southlands arc, which features another one of those anemic elf/not-elf romances. Those two make for the worst acting in the show and I don't believe for a second how either of them comes to lead the resistance in not-Mordor. Suffice to say the MAGA overtones in the creation of Mordor (and Numenor's immigration panic) are some of the funniest scenes in the show.
Maybe the dullest non-event I ever witnessed on television, homaging Tolkien the same way Lisa Trevor homages her mom and moving ahead with more or less the same grace. Maybe it looks like Tolkien from a distance but the second it opens its mouth or moves even a little bit you realize it's just wearing the skin.
So essentially this is a 10 hour mystery box film that's split into 8 parts and is carefully designed around 4 or 5 different narrative devices that exist largely isolated from each other, spiraling inward into pointless mystery that only exists as exercise. So the real identity of who certain characters are or who will they become is teased and then given for free because it turns out it doesn't matter, or teased and withheld because it's easier to write a plot device than a character.
The show is so bereft of inertia that halfway into season one we're already wasting time on the love life of non-canonical tertiary characters.
The biggest fluke in the show is their version of Galadriel, reimagined here as an insufferable holier-than-thou douchebag who gets put on a boat and sent away after everyone's gotten sick of her. She jumps off the boat in the middle of the ocean with no better plan than drown before reaching Valinor and is nearly killed in a bunch of different ways, only ever surviving through either dumb luck or the assist of people she despises. Eventually she makes it to Numenor where she openly antagonizes the people she's trying to enlist for support and so it takes her a whopping three episodes of insulting everybody on the island before they decide to go help Middle-earth - and not even becase she persuaded them (even though she condescends as if she did), but because of a separate omen.
Galadriel is the single most driven character in the show just because she's the one with the actual quest - to kill Sauron - but essentially sits out most of the season waiting to get back in, which she does in episode 6/8. Her big reintroduction to the show also has her fucking everything up, failing at the one thing she was specifically trying to do and most shameful of all, keeping it a secret from all the other people she used and jeopardized along the way. Her big whoopsie is not realizing a Very Important lineage has been broken for a thousand years, even though as the oldest elf in Middle-earth she should've been the first to notice. Yay Galadriel, go Galadriel. If ever a show didn't realize what a terribly lead they had.
People like Durin and Elrond. I guess they're actually likable, even if their dialogue is especially atrocious. The thing about them is that the show makes a big deal out of Elrond's oath not to tell the Elves about Mithril, and then it makes it not matter at all when all the Elves seem to know regardless. Mithril in this show is also given a bullshit origin story and bullshit magical properties that suddenly make Elves depend on it for their immortality. To top it off, the whole subplot of mining for Mithril ends up not mattering either when Elrond's freebie sample is all Celebrimbor needs to forge to Power Rings.
The not-Hobbits are hideous and where the show especially sucks at imitating Tolkien's easy-going, happy-go-lucky speech patterns for the 'simpler' folk of Middle-earth. They're especially hateful as their whole nomadic lifestyle is based around the mantra "Nobody gets left behind", yet they constantly do that (and keep reading from a book of obits, alternating between lamenting the deaths they caused and laughing at them). The not-Hobbit subplot is the most isolated from the rest (fair enough) but is also the one that exists purely as a Mystery Box.
Then the whole bullshit Southlands arc, which features another one of those anemic elf/not-elf romances. Those two make for the worst acting in the show and I don't believe for a second how either of them comes to lead the resistance in not-Mordor. Suffice to say the MAGA overtones in the creation of Mordor (and Numenor's immigration panic) are some of the funniest scenes in the show.
Bad Sisters Apple TV. B-
I enjoyed it. Watched with the missus and my adult daughter and now know I best not be a "prick"
4 sisters have a 5th sister married to one of TV's biggest jerks. They think he needs killing. And he does in fact die. The show goes back and forth between scenes leading up to his death, and crooked insurance agents trying to uncover how he died believing that if they can prove his death was no accident, they do not have to pay out. Typically, I don't think that would do it. Suicide might. Murder by someone not a beneficiary might not.
I enjoyed it. Watched with the missus and my adult daughter and now know I best not be a "prick"
4 sisters have a 5th sister married to one of TV's biggest jerks. They think he needs killing. And he does in fact die. The show goes back and forth between scenes leading up to his death, and crooked insurance agents trying to uncover how he died believing that if they can prove his death was no accident, they do not have to pay out. Typically, I don't think that would do it. Suicide might. Murder by someone not a beneficiary might not.
1) Even if murdered, if a non murderer beneficiary is listed, they'd have to pay out. 2) You can be sympathetic to the sisters but they are ultimately guilty of 1st degree murder and it is treated as sort of a need for them to do more Yoga. 3) This is very much formula. Like a bad Road Runner cartoon, people try to kill target, fail repeatedly, then target is killed by a predictable other.
Why are they not-Hobbits? I've heard about halflings or something but I assumed they were still referring to the Hobbits.
Halflings are Hobbits, yes.
In the show they're called 'Harfoots', a made-up word by the showrunners to refer to a race of nomadic proto-Hobbits. They're basically the same race of simple, isolated, deeply suspicious/superstitious peasants but have an itinerant lifestyle and don't have a knack for comfort. I think the idea is that the Hobbits are the gentrified, settled-down version of this.
And like I said these not-Hobbits make a big deal out of "Nobody gets left behind" (they're always marching) but they do it and threaten to do it all the time. They also keep a register of every death in a big old book that they regularly read from as an in memoriam but sometimes it's presented as a darkly comic thing and sometimes it's presented as terribly sad.
Either Amazon wasn't allowed to name Hobbits, like how Shadow of Mordor wasn't given the rights to certain name creatures, or they decided they would do their own spin on the brand.
Ah yes, it wasn't halflings that I heard on a review but what sounded like "half-foots". I too assumed that they weren't allowed to call them Hobbits (or have Hobbits in the show), probably because of some bizarre rights thing with the movies and all.
Honestly this actually sounds like a fun idea, from what I remember the Hobbits were great at walking long distances so it was odd that they were such a settled down people. But I have a feeling this was probably taken from Tolkien's notes or something rather than what the showrunners came up with on their own.
It's not a bad idea, but the show doesn't really give an explanation as to why they're itinerant in the first place, or why are they keeping with such a bizarre schedule if it means leaving people to their death regularly. If they're iffy of meeting other people why not just bunker down somewhere instead of traveling the whole world?
Harfoots are a particular breed/ethnic group of hobbits, and hobbits used to be nomadic before going to the shire.
This is according to Tolkien, and not made up by the creators of this show, unless zombie-Tolkien is one of them.
Interestingly, I was just watching a brief doc on ideas tolkien for a sequel and he apparently started writing a darker future where hobbits pretty much got wiped out and few that were left had reverted back to harfoots because man drove them out of their homes.
Re: hobbits IIRC from my Tolkien nerd days, they weren't quite "hobbits" yet at this point, they evolved to it. And Smeagal (Gollum) is one such person- a "proto-hobbit" that found the ring.
Ramy season 2
Not sure if I talked about this one yet but I love shows that are like sorta-comedy-drama and have a strong authorial voice. Like I know internet bros hate Girls but I liked it, and I like Fleabag and that sort of thing. Well Ramy is one such show, a muslim-American comedian making a fictional single-camera style show about a character that may be incredibly loosely based on an exaggerated version of himself.
It's worth checking out because... well, it's good, but you don't see Muslim Americans represented like this, with humanity and warts and a seemingly genuine reckoning with tradition, culture, assimilation, family, etc.
Season 2's strength and weakness is that Ramy pushes hard on the character's flaws to the point where he's arguably a villain now. I lote of that comedian self-hatred energy. Mahershala Ali plays a character of honor and good intention that serves as a sharp foil to highlight this behavior, and boy do they use that gravitas an actor like that can bring where he can crush you just by looking at you.
A couple of episodes get heavy-handed (like the penultimate one focusing on his uncle) but that's ok, it's tough to deal with things like marriage, sexuality and "what have I done with my life" kind of feeling.
This all sounds very serious but I laugh a couple times each episode. Like any show like this the main character has a colorful set of bros and they are always a delight- a rather brilliant dynamic with one guy that is traditional and hyper-preachy, a dude that is way more fluid and brutal and funny, and a while non-Muslim severely disabled and immobile guy who's "sick of everybody's bullshit" voice is often an audience stand-in.
I dunno I just really love these little half-hour character shows and I highly recommend this one if you're at all interested in a break from the anime and franchise and cinematic universes.
Not sure if I talked about this one yet but I love shows that are like sorta-comedy-drama and have a strong authorial voice. Like I know internet bros hate Girls but I liked it, and I like Fleabag and that sort of thing. Well Ramy is one such show, a muslim-American comedian making a fictional single-camera style show about a character that may be incredibly loosely based on an exaggerated version of himself.
It's worth checking out because... well, it's good, but you don't see Muslim Americans represented like this, with humanity and warts and a seemingly genuine reckoning with tradition, culture, assimilation, family, etc.
Season 2's strength and weakness is that Ramy pushes hard on the character's flaws to the point where he's arguably a villain now. I lote of that comedian self-hatred energy. Mahershala Ali plays a character of honor and good intention that serves as a sharp foil to highlight this behavior, and boy do they use that gravitas an actor like that can bring where he can crush you just by looking at you.
A couple of episodes get heavy-handed (like the penultimate one focusing on his uncle) but that's ok, it's tough to deal with things like marriage, sexuality and "what have I done with my life" kind of feeling.
This all sounds very serious but I laugh a couple times each episode. Like any show like this the main character has a colorful set of bros and they are always a delight- a rather brilliant dynamic with one guy that is traditional and hyper-preachy, a dude that is way more fluid and brutal and funny, and a while non-Muslim severely disabled and immobile guy who's "sick of everybody's bullshit" voice is often an audience stand-in.
I dunno I just really love these little half-hour character shows and I highly recommend this one if you're at all interested in a break from the anime and franchise and cinematic universes.
Looks to be on Hulu. I'll have to check it out.
Creed Trailer on Youtube:
A+
Hey, Kang is going to be in Creed 3! Looks much more formidable than he did in Loki.
You're correct. So few things in this are "according to Tolkien" and they're so horribly written as characters I was bamboozled.
soooo. I like Andor. I like the acting, I love the effects, I like the overarching story, but I just finished episode 7 a couple hours ago and Ive already forgotten what happened. This shows does an astoundingly bad job of having a coherent meaningful narrative across each episode. I would challenge anyone to, without looking at the wiki, tell me what the individual focus of each episode was up until the climax. It was a great climax, but now we are right back to 8 non linear plots being told one after the other in no particular order. Its so bad that in the last scene of the episode Im still not 100% certain it wasn't a flashback. I have to assume it wasn't, because a flashback wouldn't make sense, but its just a scene that happens with very little context.
I hate this pacing style and its not even the content it's just that each episode of Andor is filmed like a disconnected analogy of stories with no connective tissue and then the episode just ends and youre left feeling like "oh...I guess we're done now, some of that was good!". Someone needs to take over the editing room on this show ffs.
I hate this pacing style and its not even the content it's just that each episode of Andor is filmed like a disconnected analogy of stories with no connective tissue and then the episode just ends and youre left feeling like "oh...I guess we're done now, some of that was good!". Someone needs to take over the editing room on this show ffs.
cool trailer but I sorta feel like Ive seen the whole movie now.