It tries to tackle things like porn addiction, queerness, dysfunctional marriages and polyamorous relationships, but ultimately it just wraps things up too quickly and neatly. It even lacked the signature Black Mirror tragic twist. I feared that Danny's son would log on at some point and get virtually raped by Karl.
Helena punching out Indy and not letting him die in peace is the perfect metaphor for what Disney is doing to the franchise...
This is elder abuse.
I broke down when his dad finally hugged him, shedding his own shame from the abuse in his past.
Basically, it's a 150-minute trailer for the sequel(s).
WTF?!? Is this a joke?! Are they trolling us?!
So, Mother gave birth to one of the giant serpents that once roamed the planet and went extinct? Why?? What purpose does that serve? Apart from a handful of people, there isn't anything for it to eat anyway, so it will just go extinct again. Is that what it is? The planet's defense system against invaders? Because if it wasn't the digital simulation of Campion (the Creator), who/what impregnated Mother after all?
And what about the prophecy? The very obvious reference to the Virgin Mary and Joseph? Or is it Eve and Adam now that we have a snake? And the revelation that the indigenous population was Neanderthals that devolved into the "creatures" made no sense.
I hope the creator of the series, Aaron Guzikowski, never gets to work writing scripts again.
Missed opportunity for Keeley to complain that "he's here, he's there, he's every-f*cking-where".
I've been saying it since Season 1, Rebecca needs a therapist, not a freaking psychic nor a baby.
This show has really gotten better with time. I love how it doesn't shy away from talking about social psychological concepts.
We finally got a glimpse of why Sheriff is emotionally abusive to his deputy. A perfect example of a transgenerational cycle of abuse.
Couldn't Flash just rebuild the whole city in, like, a day? Instead he was zooming Iris off to Maui and Paris, leaving volunteers to clean up the mess that he felt was his fault...
The introspective talks were great, but the fight scenes were really silly and ridiculous, especially Abra Kadabra's death.
"I created a device that converts light into energy."
First of all, light IS energy.
Secondly, if she meant to convert light into a form of energy that we can use, like electricity, I guess the writers never heard of solar panels...
Also, Caitlin, you can't view an EEG (electroencephalogram) in 3D without specifying what the z axis represents. It's simply a measurement, not an actual object. Brainwaves are not 2D squiggly lines inside our heads.
Do they have 5 year olds writing this show?
Holy sh!t with the man-hating, fake feminism... Vagina jokes and jokes about men killing themselves... So progressive and brave...
I hope this nobody writer gets blacklisted after this.
It's pretty obvious that Anna is an "unreliable narrator".
The inscription on Elizabeth's tombstone changed from "If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever" on Ep. 1 to "In heaven you can dance like no one's watching" on Ep. 2. Plus, the vast amount of moments of bathos, repeating circumstances and overall ridiculousness (like how Elizabeth died) tell me that we should probably be sceptical about everything we see.
Camina: "F*ck you, you self-righteous shit."
PROJECTION 100
LOL @ A-Train's energy drink commercial, parodying Kendall Jenner's Pepsi ad.
So many good parallels drawn from reality, like The Deep's support for Homelander's "hard stance on crime" which is, of course, used as doublespeak to excuse racial biases in law enforcement.
I love how much the writing has improved this season. The central theme seems to follow the great proverb:
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
- John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
It seems that starvation is only relevant when the plot demands it...
What do the soldiers of Sol eat/drink? How did Otho eat/drink? What do the children now eat/drink?
Fantastic episode!
The newly-revealed relationship with Teri, the "Tony" persona, the internalized transphobia, they all add nuance and complexity to Donny's character, showing how his low self-worth and unmet needs for acceptance and affection have allowed Martha to bulldoze his boundaries, with gradually escalating transgressions leading up to her sexual assault on him.
Like others have pointed out, it's basically Moana + Avatar: The Last Airbender + MLP: Friendship is Magic.
The symbolism was kinda sloppy and shallow. If the Drunn were personifications of human discord, greediness and other dark sides of humanity, then they should've only affected the bad people first and manipulated them to corrupt and turn others evil like them. That would've been a much more realistic and emotionally complex story, I think, especially if people couldn't immediately tell if someone had been turned or not, which is where trust and kindness would come in.
Martha shows signs of manic behavior, all consistent with bipolar disorder: the grandiose lies, the giddiness, the pressured speech, the persistent sexually inappropriate remarks, the disorganized home etc.
The last 30 minutes absolutely ruined the movie, turning the victimized sister into a superhuman boogieman. WTF were they thinking?!?
That's not empowerment. That's vilifying victims of abuse, and perpetuating the stigma of "broken" people.
Jen whines about men objectifying women, while objectifying men. GG
Jen once again lampshades the bad writing. Still not funny.
At this point, just cut your losses and go watch Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law .
Oh and can we sue Disney with a class action for spoiling The Sopranos?
I don't disagree that some controlled substances have shown promise in treating mental illness (psilocybin, LSD, mescaline etc.), and that their Schedule I status inhibits further research and drug trials, but they are simply a tool in psychotherapy, not a miracle cure. If they're not followed very closely with CBT and other forms of psychotherapy, they could do more harm than good.
What Masha does is insanely unethical and illegal. She's exposing herself to all kinds of lawsuits, civil and criminal.
First of all, even if Masha, Delilah, Yao and Glory were licensed therapists (for which I have my doubts), Masha doesn't have a medical license nor a drug trial permit to prescribe and administer illegal drugs for therapeutic purposes (nor her employees who handle the drugs).
Constructive consent doesn't work like Masha thinks it does. Just because the guests imply constructive consent for future doses by staying, that doesn't change the fact that she dosed them without their informed consent in the first place. Also, she can't just change their drug regimen (in dosage or choice of drug) whenever she wants without their knowledge and consent. Every modification is a separate event and decision-making process, requiring informed consent anew.
Also also, Carmel's kendo scene was all kinds of wrong. Delilah and Masha reading aloud Carmel's journal in front of all the others without her consent was very unethical and a major breach in privacy and confidentiality, which could (and probably did) re-traumatize Carmel in some degree. The point of journaling and exposure therapy is to expose yourself to your traumas in a safe and controlled manner with the help of your therapist, in order to desensitize yourself and not be re-traumatized every time you revisit those memories.
P.S. I'm not writing all this because I hate the show. I very much like it, but I don't want people watching it to walk away from it with misconceptions about what is good therapy and what isn't. Whoever is watching, feeling like they relate to the characters and think they may also need help, please get help from trained and licensed clinicians. Everyone deserves therapy.
I'm glad the show is raising awareness for alcoholism among young women.
It's deeply saddening how normalized/trivialized/minimized women's alcoholism is in pop culture.
The only scene that was worth a damn was Paul's speech at the Circle; the rest of the movie felt like watching a trailer for a graphic novel adaptation of the book. The dialogue for the most part was atrocious, especially for the Harkonnens. Zendaya's line delivery and mannerisms were too "American", compared to the other Fremen, breaking the Middle Eastern-inspired atmosphere.
In 2024, conflating the terms "psychotic" and "psychopathic" is inexcusable. How the fuck did none of the story editors/producers pick that one up?
Discount Bucky: The TV Show.
As expected from the Russo brothers, we got Marvel-levels of bullshit, exposition, unfunny banter, flavor-less dynamic fights and veiled U.S. propaganda as the regurgitated trope of America as World Police pt. 2 (We're the good guys now, we swear!)
For a philosophical and political cyberpunk film, it has some of the most inspired ideas and themes since eXistenZ and The Matrix, but it is structured and directed like a low-budget indie film and that really hurt its accessibility (and it's a pity because the message is really important). It felt like each character was a composite of 2-3 different characters' worth of ideas that didn't quite gel together. Maybe the script needed some trimming and polish, or maybe it would've worked better as a book than a film.
As food for thought, it was spectacular. As entertainment, not so much.
Feels like US Army recruitment material... like, "Join up NOW to help us bring home thousands of our allies!"
The characters were flat, macho grunts. The drama was as straightforward as it could get. The cinematography was basic and uninspired.
With his streak of bad movies from King Arthur to Aladdin to Wrath of Man to Operation Fortune, if Guy Ritchie feels that he has to put his name on the title now to draw audiences, you know he's finished.
Skip this and go watch The Outpost (2020) instead.
Great episode.
Like before, this show is at its best whenever they move away from Harley & Ivy. This deconstructed version of Gotham is so deep and interesting that it's always fun exploring these alternate versions of established characters.
Props to Conner Shin for writing this amazing episode and he's not even credited on IMDb yet.
The season 1 finale was a little underwhelming, so not perfect, but definitely the best medical drama since House.
Authoritarianism + anti-intellectualism. Name a more iconic duo.
This is a political satire at heart, disguised as a crime thriller. It's Bong Joon-ho's way of shining a light on the rampant police brutality and socioeconomic inequality under the several dictatorships that the people of South Korea had to endure from 1961-1988.
I'm deducting a couple of points because the third act was a bit messy, even though detective Seo's character development was pivotal in showing how toxic corruption is.
I'm so sick of this boomer-style training trope. Shitting on a complete novice not being able to overcome a very difficult challenge from the very beginning until they magically can is not efficient nor safe training. It's not even interesting to watch. A proper training montage needs to be progressive and profound to the character, as we watch the gears inside their heads turning and they gain a new understanding of what they were doing wrong or what they need to do to succeed.
Also, why are the other Witchers acting so emotional and toxic, like a bunch of highschool jocks? Haven't they gone through the same training as Geralt? Weren't they supposed to have "all their emotions trained out of them"?
