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!)
Oh FFS... I feared they would go this route.
The cave reveal was supposed to be her wake-up call, yet the plot decided to further validate her delusions so they can milk this for another season while kicking the proverbial can of psychiatric help down the road...
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.
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.
So, technology in this world is stuck in the 1950s but Strange managed to invent and manufacture a MICROCHIP and a Brain-Computer Interface??
What are the chances that all 4 main characters bumped into each other in just a couple of days...
The quality of writing, so far, is more like Westworld S3-4 than S1.
Everytime a TV show/film does the "Nostradamus" trope, it just shows such poor understanding of quantum physics and how a multiverse would work. The fact that Bernard now knows the correct path IS a new quantum parameter (or unknown variable) that could/should cause his reality to branch out into a different outcome. If there are infinite possibilities/outcomes, then there are (by definition) infinite "good" ones and infinite "bad" ones. There can't be just one "correct" path.
The only interesting thing so far is the possibility that Ethan is a school shooter in the making (and Harrison potentially having to kill him in the future to prevent an attack on his school).
Everything else regarding Dexter is just a rehash of what we've already seen in previous seasons.
In the previous episode, I suspected Cate being an accomplice, but the plot hole in this episode was that when everyone woke up wiped, she didn't have bloodshot eyes... Omitting that, feels like dishonest storytelling.
Also, why does Andre's voice change so much when he's using his power? Is that how he activates it? Or is that just his "angry" voice?
What a waste of time...
The THREE plot twists at the end devalue every single character and basically mock the issues of power harassment, racism, sexism, emotional abuse, suicide etc. etc.
I was initially puzzled by Mel Gibson's decision to play an unsympathetic version of himself in the guise of a boomer radio host, but in the end it was made clear that this was a conservative puff piece all along.
Superb episode, with only a couple of small stupid points:
- Kimiko shouldn't have been drinking with her abdomen stitched up. Alcohol inhibits clotting and encourages bleeding. She could've died of internal bleeding long before taking the Compound V. (Plus, I feared the alcohol would interact adversely with V, causing her to die or "hulk-out")
- I didn't like how they presented Annie's and Kimiko's decision of "I'll save you, even if you don't want me to" as triumphant, when it's no different from the toxic macho "damsel in distress" crap. Frenchie and M.M. should've objected and easily win that argument, considering their past experiences and discussions.
"V isn't good or bad" yes, but no person is all good or all bad either, nor do they stay good or bad forever no matter what. Of course, there are certain patterns of reinforcing behaviors, but everyone is constantly shaped and ever-changing by their life experiences and decisions. I think this is the most important takeaway from the show.
Absolutely nothing new or fresh to write home about. All the tired Boomer cliches from every sports movie ever are in this. If this was made in the 80s-90s, Bo would've been African American and it would've been the exact same White Savior story.
How do you make a sports film in 2022 and not incorporate sports science, sports nutrition, mental health education etc. etc.?
Great finale, but I was hoping Milad would turn out to be an undercover agent for the Sepah (thinking he botched the car assassination purposefully) and would have had to blow his cover to stop Tamar.
What a disappointing ending to a great episode...
Having Howard get killed off by Lalo out of the blue is the laziest thing they could've done with his character (and the impact of Jimmy's & Kim's actions on his life). I've read a dozen more interesting scenarios on Reddit ffs...
Well done, Di$ney, you managed to glorify mental illness in an even worse way than Legion ever did.
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.
Appointing a war hero in charge of a newly-formed, financially and politically powerful "independent" office without a democratic process... Isn't that oligarchic and a form of feudalism?... Don't the people of the Belt or the Ring colonies have a say on who gets to control their lifelines? Why not form a new democratically-elected council with about a dozen equal seats each for Inners, Belters and colonists?
I don't dislike Drummer but this felt very undemocratic and short-sighted.
It was like a bad episode of South Park.
It tries to be a clever political comedy, like Irresistible (2020), and it fails.
It tries to be an emotional disaster movie, like Deep Impact (1998), and it fails.
And it was 1 hour too long.
The "science" was so unrealistic and badly misrepresented that the manufactured sense of urgency was unbelievable. There is no way a comet the size of Mount Everest would've slipped by until only months before impact. A realistic bare minimum time window would be 5 years. NASA and other agencies are keeping track of all sizable asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth and there are no collision courses with any of them for the next 100 years.
Go watch Silent Night (2021) instead, or better yet go watch NASA's DART mission on YouTube that was launched a month ago.
Damn, this episode was as subtle as a hammer...
I mean, anti-heroism is a noble message, especially in this age of superhero idolization, but do people really need to be spoonfed like that? Judging by other comments, I guess they do...
Also, "there are no black superheroes"?? I'm getting sick of this revisionist bullsh!t. There were a bunch of black superheroes in the 70s and even earlier. Did they forget Mal Duncan (aka Vox, the second Guardian, Hornblower) that first appeared in 1970 on Teen Titans? He even joined the Doom Patrol recently.
She could've had broken his thumb with her foot and slipped the cuff off his wrist, instead of dragging his body around for hours...
The longer the movie went on, the more ridiculous it got.
An almost perfectly realistic depiction of a woman spiraling into schizophrenia.
Alison Brie plays the character beautifully. The supporting characters are portrayed very realistically. The direction is quite symbolic and abstract, and the ending may not satisfy many audiences.
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.
It didn't make sense for Jack to be a love-bomber.
Love-bombing is a narcissistic behavior derived mainly from low self-esteem, life-long fears of abandonment, and a desperate, constant need for reassurances. Nate would've been a textbook love-bomber, yet he brushed off the crushing of his elaborate gift way too easily to frame that as a moment of character growth.
A completely pointless, post-apocalyptic psychological thriller that fails as a cautionary tale because it has zero teachable moments.
17-year-old Travis had the hots for the other mom. Was that explored, resolved or utilized later? No.
Paul seemed to be growing envious of Will bonding with Travis. Was that explored, resolved or utilized later? No.
Paul was suspicious of Will's backstory because of the slip-up about his brother-in-law. Was that explored, resolved or utilized later? No.
The film spent more time showing Will and Kim fucking than any kind of meaningful interaction between the two families or their family members.
All plot, no story.
It was a decent episode (much better than the first one) up until Maddie transferred David's RAW DATA via a USB cable and uploaded him on the internet in under 10 seconds...
1. That must've been a stupendous amount of data, upwards of billions of terabytes. Plus, if it was all one monolithic file, her computer wouldn't even have enough memory to process it for the transfer.
2. Logorythms should've had a backdoor into Maddie's computer and should've had stopped the file transfer.
On a more serious note, the main reason why a brain scan alone would not come even close to a full copy of a person's personality is because a number of neurotransmitters and hormones responsible for emotion regulation is not produced by the brain but by other organs, including bacteria in our gut.
Dr. Strauss is either written as a really overrated therapist, or the writers are just bad.
It's very obvious that Sam has issues with controlling those around him, presumably because of the fears instilled in him from the years of abuse from his father. He's terrified of not being able to have control over his own life, that's why he desperately tries to assert control onto other people's lives. “Hurt people hurt people” as it's commonly known. He has locked him up, probably because his father had done the same to him in the past. Dr. Strauss should've had picked up on that and should've tried to take control of the situation by being sympathetic and reassuring to Sam, like “You didn't have to drag and lock me up over here. You could've asked me to come with you for a few days and we could've thought something up. I'm not going anywhere. You can unlock me and I'll stay with you as long as I can”. That's how you de-escalate and build trust. Also, reminiscing is the exact opposite of what meditation is, but I'm willing to give that a pass because his wife said that he tends to overthink things (which as a therapist he should've learned how not to do).
Unless the writers are purposefully writing Dr. Strauss badly, it doesn't look like they did very much research.
Psychological traumas are unprocessed experiences. When something bad happens to you and you can't process it (i.e. make sense of it), you develop a psychological trauma, and it stays that way (or worsens) until you manage to process it.
While processing traumatic experiences is, of course, the healthy way to go, instead of suppressing those feelings, Asta was way off when she began to romanticize the "bad feelings". Would she say the same thing to someone who was raped or tortured? Would she lecture them to keep their trauma so they can "become stronger"? The same problematic message was echoed by that idiot Elliott ("We are who we are because of our history, not in spite of it"). This romanticization is literally the opposite of what psychotherapy teaches you so you can overcome your traumas. If we could magically erase our traumatic experiences without a trace, that would've been the healthiest choice. Suppressing is unhealthy because it is not like forgetting.
Also, the way Kate handled Ben's vulnerability was absolutely horrible! Imagine if the genders were swapped and the wife tells her husband that she's afraid of him and he replies "I don't believe it. Do you know how that makes ME feel?"... That's how a narcissist victim-blames to avoid responsibility because they don't have empathy for that person. The compassionate thing for Kate to say would've been a simple "I'm sorry I make you feel this way" and go from there.
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.
Accurate portrayal of "communal narcissism" in Danny's and that new girl's behaviors.
Sometimes people feel the need to help other people but their drive happens to be their own narcissism, instead of empathy.