tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79432486660654817202024-03-19T04:05:34.118-07:00Are You Not EntertainedMichael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.comBlogger177125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-42437263874637453362021-07-26T10:32:00.002-07:002021-07-26T10:32:56.886-07:00Lips Like Strawberries Book Blog Tour 2021<p><b><span style="font-size: large;">Lips Like Strawberries Book Blog Tour </span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit7yPsmMMNjSHlu5hAMy7Ld1ouNflLZLeLDCJHqKAx1yyXwfXSGtVW6ddRtNxrkg2_8AMz2h6_oCLZ94gH5ji405h1m654ydd82DJuTX7HtIxaDBVW5MuOlH9nDT6WMG2c-f3qI0imIdI/s2048/LipsLikeStrawCover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit7yPsmMMNjSHlu5hAMy7Ld1ouNflLZLeLDCJHqKAx1yyXwfXSGtVW6ddRtNxrkg2_8AMz2h6_oCLZ94gH5ji405h1m654ydd82DJuTX7HtIxaDBVW5MuOlH9nDT6WMG2c-f3qI0imIdI/w400-h640/LipsLikeStrawCover.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><span> </span>Congratulations, you made it! First off, I’d like to thank you for
coming to my blog. Welcome. If you’re here today, then you’re
probably here for the launch of the Lips Like Strawberries book blog
tour, starting with me, the author of the new
rom-com/chick-lit/women’s fiction novel Michael Stephenson. For you
today, I am giving you a peek at the cover of the book and a quick
Q&A… with myself. Trust me, I’m not going crazy after the
pandemic. I just thought I’d answer a few questions that some fans
might have about the book before reading it. Also, check out the tour
dates for the rest of the tour this week as well. As a little
correction, July 29<sup>th</sup> will not feature my book on the
actual Chicklit Central website, but on all other social media
concerning it. Hope you do join me on this tour. And of course, go
get a copy of Lips Like Strawberries over on Amazon right now. It is
currently in Kindle format only, but will be coming out in hard copy
later this year, so stay tuned right here on my blog or follow me on
my other social media for updates on that!</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><u><b>What is Lips Like
Strawberries about?
</b></u></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">That seems like such
a simple question, and yet can be so complex to answer. On the
surface, it’s a simple book about a girl trying to get over her
anxiety, reclaim her life, re-enter the modern dating scene and find
love. Ara is a newly-30 agoraphobe who hasn’t left her house since
2020 (it’s 2023 in the book). She has a best friend she loves, and
who always comes over to keep her company. Outside of him, she has
little to no connection with the outside world and is suffering
through loneliness. But she does have one saving grace: She has a
quirky, insane, totally unrealistic “ability” of sorts. Ara can
experience the world through someone else’s senses for 12 hours, so
long as she touches that person. We’re talking sight, sound, taste,
et cetera. She’s been bobbing through life for the last three years
using her ability to make faux connections to what’s going on
beyond her window, until finally she is hit with one experience
through someone else’s senses that she can’t ignore. And that
sets her off on this funny journey that will hopefully get her back
to normal and help her find love in the process.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">That’s the surface
meaning. A deeper dive into the book for me starts to unravel one of
the few themes in the book. This story is very much about connection,
not only between people, but also with ourselves, our innermost
feelings, and our own unique physiology. It plays off the old notion
that love is more than just how you think about someone or the sweet
words you share with them, but that it is a chemical reaction in our
bodies. It essentially asks us the question: What is it that draws us
to someone and creates a bond with an otherwise complete stranger?
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><u>What inspired you to
write this book?
</u></b></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Well, as funny as it
may seem, the pandemic inspired me to write it. No, not the 2020
pandemic, the 1918 one. Okay, so I’m going to try to sound as
respectful to what’s happened in the last year and a half as I can
here. I know that the pandemic was extremely hard for a great many
people throughout the world, so I wanted to write something that
would be uplifting to all of us, be relatable both to the pandemic
and to the chaos that is the modern dating scene, and give us all a
few good laughs along the way. Well, as it turned out, I realized
back in May of 2020 that I had already half-wrote a story that would
fit that perfectly. It was entitled the same name—Lips Like
Strawberries—but was a period piece, in which a young couple first
separated by World War I, then by the pandemic of 1918 had to re-find
each other. Total honesty here, I think that version was far more
romantic, just because we have flashbacks of the couple before the
war and they knew each other and how they felt about each other then.
It also had a more heartbreaking feel to it as well, but it had the
same mysterious powers at its center as Ara has in this one. So, I
took the bare bones of that, changed the races, gave it a modern-day
twist, and added in more humor. Adding more humor was a conscious
effort because I really believe that in this day, especially with
cancel culture, the pandemic and political unrest, we all need things
we can come together and laugh about. Humor that can help to unite
us.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><u>Hm? Interesting that
this was actually based off of a different pandemic. That sounds like
it could be a pretty good read all its own. You mentioned changing
the races. Why?
</u></b></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">First off, thanks
me. I always appreciate the self-appreciating compliments. Yes, I did
change the races between the two books. The original Lips Like
Strawberries featured a black couple, where this version features a
white one. This was a conscious decision to flip the races after some
of the events of last year. Although I do try to keep it as
lighthearted as possible throughout the read, I didn’t want to
ignore some of the heavier issues that we as both a nation (the US)
and the world dealt with in 2020, and still must confront on a daily
basis. And for me, the best way to do that in this book, at least,
was to switch the races of the main characters. If I reveal more it
might be considered a spoiler, so I will leave it there. As for the
other version of the book, I’m toying with the idea of releasing
that one as well with the name Lips Like Blueberries a few years down
the line. It’s funny because I had already been working on that
version for over a decade when the pandemic hit and decided to switch
gears and re-configure it into Lips Like Strawberries. So, hope is
not dead for that one yet.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><u>Who do you think
this book is for? Who’s your target audience?
</u></b></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">I think this book is
for just about anyone, really. For starters, let me put this out
there, it doesn’t have a whole lot of cursing throughout its text.
I don’t really curse in my actual life, but I have been known to
include cursing in many of my works. Here, however, I wanted to limit
the amount of bad words so that even readers who prefer not to read
that type of vocabulary could enjoy the read. And while I would say
that it leans toward a younger crowd, I believe there’s a high
amount of relatability for everyone, including an older reader set,
as well as people who are married or not. Again, it’s really about
connection between all people, and allowing us to realize that even
though what we all went through was collectively bad, it is okay for
us all to start having hope in a newer, brighter future again. In
other words, I’d say anyone over fifteen could enjoy it. If it were
a movie, it would definitely be PG-13.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><u>With the pandemic
still going, why did you feel now was the best time to release Lips
Like Strawberries?
</u></b></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Good question. For
starters, I really didn’t know how long the pandemic might last.
The previous one did go on for about two and a half years, but with
our current technologies, we got predictions ranging from anywhere
between it ending in summer 2021 to 2022. So, me being an optimist, I
went with the earliest date. But also, even though we are still in
the pandemic, I wanted for people to be allowed to have hope for the
future. That’s one of the reasons why I set the book in 2023.
Because even though we are currently having variants rise up and we
may have to take a step back, it’s still okay for people to look
forward to a time when we’ll be able to think of this pandemic as
just another event that couldn’t deter us from living out our
dreams, finding love and happiness, and becoming our best selves.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><u>Great interview. And
where can people find your novel Lips Like Strawberries?
</u></b></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Currently, it is
exclusively on Amazon as an Amazon Kindle digital ebook download. I
hope to have the physical hard copies out by Christmas of this year,
2021. Look to Amazon for that as well. You can click on<span style="font-size: medium;"> <a href="http://mybook.to/LipsLikeStraw" target="_blank">Lips Like Strawberries</a></span> here and follow the link straight to the page. And check out the rest of the tour dates below. It was
great talking with you, me, and remember to check out some of my
other works as well. </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-oYjt1jt0z6ugTcj8WntatWMi8PiKiK_7mwYpzglPd3rdNK3WCQXs1x5NPVmRyEQJcGQQ24kxiav6O5KpZVwX8Q6hp_nZM6kBVvvDVeeLo71jly_1qrkVh-lxNSmFdsGjrN4BeGyqXcc/s1000/LipsBLOGTOUR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-oYjt1jt0z6ugTcj8WntatWMi8PiKiK_7mwYpzglPd3rdNK3WCQXs1x5NPVmRyEQJcGQQ24kxiav6O5KpZVwX8Q6hp_nZM6kBVvvDVeeLo71jly_1qrkVh-lxNSmFdsGjrN4BeGyqXcc/w384-h640/LipsBLOGTOUR.jpg" width="384" /></a></div><br /><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">#LipsLikeStrawberries </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-64194664924013651732020-05-30T10:40:00.001-07:002020-05-30T10:41:24.549-07:00<h2 style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background: transparent;"><b>Book
Tour: The Ones That Stare </b></span></span></span></h2>
<div>
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background: transparent;"><b><br /></b></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEyUPY3aQpHvMvRe3SHqun0LoCeUKfDjr9grkEqvdxjtKBJcwRe-REMSJN9FxzqlWT-c08Pe225Wm_q1rcXP0Cs3D1-VvG9C_lqJcXyrB-bH2IhDAMRbSlnTXsTQXoyJPKpA6trrsJuJU/s1600/TOTS+arblanca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEyUPY3aQpHvMvRe3SHqun0LoCeUKfDjr9grkEqvdxjtKBJcwRe-REMSJN9FxzqlWT-c08Pe225Wm_q1rcXP0Cs3D1-VvG9C_lqJcXyrB-bH2IhDAMRbSlnTXsTQXoyJPKpA6trrsJuJU/s640/TOTS+arblanca.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;">Greetings,
everyone. And now... the end is here... No, seriously, though. Today,
this very blog post (my first in quite a while) marks the end of the
digital book tour for my latest thriller novel The Ones That Stare.
If you've been following along this whole time, then I thank you
wholeheartedly. I hope you learned something about me or the book on
the way, and look forward to your support. You know, artists can't
produce these things without your support. So, during this trying
time of Covid-19, with many of us staying at home, entertained by
copious amounts of books, film and TV, please remember that all of
that great stuff you consumed, and that kept you from going
completely insane is somebody's job to put together. I know, it seems
like a lot to ask you to spend money on entertainment when the
general idea is that artists and entertainers should do their job for
free, but please buy a copy of things instead of pirating them. The
book only costs six dollars in ebook form, less than 20 for a
paperback. You'd be helping to create more, even better
entertainment. </span></span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="color: #111111;">Now,
for those who know nothing about the book, well, here is a link to it
on Amazon: </span><a href="http://mybook.to/TheOnesThatStare"><span style="color: red;">http://mybook.to/TheOnesThatStare</span></a><span style="color: #111111;">.
You can read the book blurb there. But basically, if you like to read
thrillers, or if you enjoy the films of Alfred Hitchcock, then you
might like my novel. I have compared The Ones That Stare to such
novels as The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, The Woman in the
Window by AJ Finn, The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware and Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn. It grabs you with a twist at the very beginning of
the book, and never let's go after that. You follow Darien Coby, an
average guy married to a fantastic woman. But now his wife is GONE,
and he's going crazy just trying to figure out what happened to his
love. He knows but one thing: one of his neighbors knows what
happened, but who? And why haven't they said something to him about
it? Now, he must go the extra mile to figure out who knows the truth
about the situation. This is the 2020 thriller that you simply can't
miss! </span></span></span></span></span>
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO1VgXKrVHYcspBXZGOUtqNyN60PwdQKnAL98eOb9BydroZT0b4IoTvgbQHpzn4AwYg93YKNbOw85bS3mTv8N6w6C-L29dLFSfr5zfKl8NVF3g-jjHRDpLzTHBImun3ly45Nfs3m78NAo/s1600/totsto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1443" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO1VgXKrVHYcspBXZGOUtqNyN60PwdQKnAL98eOb9BydroZT0b4IoTvgbQHpzn4AwYg93YKNbOw85bS3mTv8N6w6C-L29dLFSfr5zfKl8NVF3g-jjHRDpLzTHBImun3ly45Nfs3m78NAo/s400/totsto.jpg" width="360" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;">Still
not sure if you should spend your hard-earned money on an author
you've never read before? Then follow me farther down the rabbit hole
as I introduce you to one of the main characters in a brief excerpt
below. You can meet Bernedette below. </span></span></span></span>
</div>
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<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;">But
before that, as for what is next for me, I have another book coming
out later this summer entitled blEND (that's the word blend; yes, the
capitalization is part of the title). It is a horror novel in a
similar vein to Jordan Peele's Get Out. I am currently looking for
reviewers with an open mind, who aren't offended by reading about
racial and social issues. I also am still planning another season of
The Writer and Extraordinary for later this year. And I hope to get
the novel blind out as well, come this December. And finally, I look
forward to releasing my first full-fledged romance sometime next
year, entitled Lips Like Strawberries. Look for that, hopefully, next
February! </span></span></span></span>
</div>
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<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;">Well,
this tour has been very short but sweet. Whenever I embark on a book
tour, I always go into it with as little expectations as possible. No
matter how much planning and communication you do with others on the
internet, you still never know what you're going to get. I hope that
you all enjoyed the little bits of insight here and there and aren't
afraid to comment below or leave a review of my book on Amazon,
Goodreads or another social media site. I look forward to it all.
Thank you for coming today, and I'll see you again soon!</span></span></span></span></div>
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<h2>
An Excerpt from <span class="italictext">The Ones That Stare</span></h2>
<div class="otherworks1">
</div>
<div class="centered">
</div>
<br />
<div class="pagefol">
<span class="fontsize"><span class="boldtext">T</span></span>he clock read 7:35, yet Darien hadn’t returned home. He used to have long days that started in the earliest of dawns and stretched beyond dusks. Lately, he hadn’t had such days. Lately, he had busied himself with getting home to his wife. Now, with her gone, he hadn’t need for punctuality.</div>
Plus, he had other business to attend to for the night. Still, his absence on the street made Bernedette curious.<br />
“Hm? Why isn’t he home yet?” she asked herself as she stopped in front of his house and stood on the sidewalk. She stared through his front window. Favorite program? Not tonight. Tonight: static.<br />
“Come on,” she bade her dogs. They crossed to her house and slipped through the freshly locksmith-ed front door just as a car rolled onto the street.<br />
<span class="italictext">Kaduunk!</span> A gallon of oily, dishwater-brown rainwater splashed from asphalt reservoir. Nearly hit a jogging Eli. He flinched at the beads of filth flung his way. The driver inside cringed, “Sorry! Sorry! Really sorry!”<br />
Eli chuckled, shooed her and continued his jog—apology accepted.<br />
The woman made a left into Darien’s driveway, parked, exited the car.<br />
Meanwhile, Bernedette undid her dogs’ leashes and rubbed the giant Danes’ coats. Sarah sniffed and scratched at the front door, prompting Bernedette to ask, “What, honey? What’s wrong? We just came from outside. You need to go again? Huh? Does some little doggie need to go again?”<br />
<span class="italictext">Woof! </span>A no.<br />
Bernedette pushed up erect, like an upright Buckingham soldier. Peeked out her living room window. Her eyes captured what her dogs’ noses already had. “Who is that knocking on Darien’s door?” she mumbled with sleuth’s intent.<br />
It was Hannah, the woman she saw that night but hadn’t met. Her brows arched with recognition at the shape of the woman from behind. Bernedette had once thought her power of recognition a special gift. No matter how bundled-up someone was, or how they stood or walked, or what hair they had, she could recognize them. Face not required. “It’s that girl,” she breathed. Every young woman a girl to her. She let her tongue nip at her lip in salivatory anticipation. She had to know what happened. She had to know why she was there.<br />
<span class="italictext">Ba-rooo!</span> One of the dogs howled desire. Bernedette kept her gaze on the girl.<br />
At Darien’s house, Hannah rang the doorbell, knocked twice and called, “Hello? Hello? Is anyone home?” No answer fated to come, she waited an over-polite five minutes before walking back toward her car.<br />
“No! She’s leaving.” Bernedette’s voice vibrated against the pane. She hid half-eyed behind the curtains. “Hm? What should I do?”<br />
<span class="italictext">Woof!</span> One dog responded.<br />
“You’re right. I should learn who she is.”<br />
<span class="italictext">Woof!</span><br />
“Alright, I’ll feed you first. Come on! Hurry, before she leaves!” Bernedette dashed to her kitchen and yanked open the fridge. She stopped to grab her heated forehead. Winded. She hadn’t jogged, let alone <span class="italictext">dashed</span> in over a decade. Wet dog food, out. And into two bowls.<br />
She crumpled the dog-food bag, threw it on the counter, and ran back to the front in time to see the car pull down the street.<br />
The race on, she jetted out of her front door, locked it behind her, and glided to her car. In less than a minute she was in her car, gripping life into her steering wheel. She caught up with Hannah’s car. “How do they do it in the movies?” she asked herself. “Three cars behind. Yes, that’ll do. That’ll have to do. And what will you say to her once you stop? What will you say…?”<br />
Bernedette hadn’t a proper plan. She hadn’t accounted for any scenario other than her succeeding. What if the girl didn’t stop someplace where she’d be able to speak with her? What if she went straight home? What if she caught on to someone tailing her and called the police? A thousand what-ifs—questions left for fate. She only knew she needed to speak to her.<br />
The harder she thought, the fewer good ideas came. She’d have to make chasmic leaps: total stranger, to knowing about the girl’s association with Darien, to interrogating her about Sayen. Were she a social genius, she’d ably manage the transitions. Had she a brilliant light? Yes, once. It shone through from spirit to skin. However, a social genius? Never that. But she needed to know some things and the girl had the answers.<br />
Ten minutes morphed into 20. Twenty into 28. Thirty-five… Forty-two. Each minute cost one strong beam of sun. Finally, it was a mariner’s-blue night. A murky dew spritzed each car. Lefts. Rights. More lefts. More rights. A never-ending drive. It welcomed doubt. <span class="italictext">Oh, she must know I’m following her, otherwise why the insane driving pattern? She must know. She must. No, you can’t back down from this. Press it, even if the situation becomes tense. What do you say? What do you say…?</span><br />
More lefts. More rights. As they drove—one safely lagging behind the other—Bernedette let her mind wander to darker twists. Who drove like this, taking short roads and sudden burst-turns to get off main streets? Where was this mysterious girl leading her? Into a trap? A trap of what doing, of what kind? Who was this girl leading her farther down a rabbit hole she so willingly tumbled into?<br />
And then the girl pulled into a parking lot. And Bernedette knew most of her questions would soon meet answers.<br />
Hannah parked in front of a lingerie store and went inside to escape rain’s pattering. Look over her shoulder uncomfortably? Flee helplessly into the store? Feel her neck-hairs stand on end? Hannah did none of that. In all that driving, she hadn’t noticed her shadow.<br />
Bernedette sat in her car for a full minute, waiting. Through storefront glass, she watched Hannah browse. “Come on, Bernedette. What the hell are you gonna say to start a conversation?” Nothing came. How do you politely coax someone into an interrogation? Maybe you couldn’t. “Oh, just do it already!” she commanded herself.<br />
Out the car! Into the store. Darker inside than what it appeared from outside, the store had medium-dim mood lighting, mimicking lingerie-wearing conditions. Bernedette spotted Hannah perusing along the right wall, drifting toward the rear. The old woman then looked to the left to see the cashier ringing out another customer. The cashier welcomed Bernedette to shop the scant-fabric-ed wears.<br />
With one scan of the store, the aging dog mom knew this store wasn’t for her.<br />
<span class="italictext">They call this clothing? Wouldn’t even cover a toothpick</span>, she thought, rubbing her hand over a thong. Years, decades even. It had been so long since she felt… She was the type of woman who knew she’d never love another man after her husband. She hadn’t the strength to start over, be so vulnerable with someone again. One was more than enough.<br />
“Don’t lose focus, Bern. Keep your mind on task,” she instructed. Eyes up, she scoped the store. Hannah’s eyes focused solely on the wall racks in the purple and black-coated store. Bernedette saw opportunity. Little time for stealth. She bypassed the mid-store displays—aromatherapy and massage oils—and traipsed to the back. She feigned looking at the wall-hung bustiers and leather garter belts.<br />
“Come on. Closer. Closer,” she willed Hannah, hoping to bump into her to break ice. <span class="italictext">Just a little.</span>..<br />
Bump!<br />
“Oh! I’m so sorry. I should’ve been paying closer attention,” Bernedette apologized.<br />
Reciprocated smiles. Hannah slid around Bernedette, saying, “It’s OK. Aisles are pretty tight.”<br />
“Ha!” Bernedette stepped back but kept eyes on Hannah. She made sure the girl could feel her gaze tickling her neck and behind her ear. Her best acting job in years. Bernedette waited for the girl to turn back toward her. Then, she squinted, saying, “You look familiar. I’m sorry, but have we met before?”<br />
“Um… I don’t think so,” Hannah shook her head. She stopped flicking through clothes and stood dead-faced with Bernedette.<br />
“Pretty sure I know you, or I’ve at least seen you somewhere before.”<br />
“Well, I do some acting. Maybe you’ve seen one of my commercials? I was in a gum commercial a few years back. Oh, and I’m in a Prilosec commercial. I also do some stage—”<br />
“No, that’s not it,” Bernedette said, her façades more convincing than Darien’s. “Wait, I know. I saw you at my neighbor’s house a while ago.”<br />
“Your neighbor’s house?”<br />
“Yes, 8495 Stillborn Street. You know it, right? Sure you do, you were there,” Bernedette led.<br />
“Hmph,” Hannah hummed, neither offended nor defensive. Bernedette intrigued her.<br />
“Yes, it wasn’t too long ago. I saw you dancing with him, through his front window.” Her smile evaporated and turned into an observant <span class="italictext">Colombo</span> eye. She edged razor-close to creepy, witch-like.<br />
Hannah grinned, replied, “So you like to spy on your neighbors?”<br />
“Oh! Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no! I apologize if I made you feel intruded upon. I happened to be passing by at the time and saw you inside… in rather familiar clothes,” Bernedette backtracked.<br />
“It was a joke.”<br />
Bernedette chuckled, then added, “Bernedette, by the way.”<br />
Hannah looked at the old woman’s outstretched hand. <span class="italictext">Shake it. Eh!</span><br />
Changing her mind, she smiled and said, “Hannah.” Hannah believed Bernedette had a <span class="italictext">diary</span> face. The kind of face that made you want to spill your secrets even when you hadn’t known her for any time. Beyond matronly, motherly kindness. She had a warmth about her that reminded of a roadside inn in a torrential storm. Her spirit a safe haven for wayward travelers caught in weather’s fury.<br />
“Hannah, it’s nice meeting you. So, you spent some time with Darien? You know his wife, too?” Bernedette resumed faux-browsing.<br />
“Darien? Hm? So that’s his name? I thought it started with an M. Anyway, no I never met her,” Hannah explained.<br />
“You didn’t know his name?”<br />
“Couldn’t quite remember. It was foggy.”<br />
“Hm? No offense, but it seems like you would know the name of your date,” Bernedette led the witness. <span class="italictext">Come on, honey. Confirm it was a date</span>.<br />
“Date?”<br />
“Sorry, it looked like a date, what with the dancing and all.”<br />
“No. No, it definitely wasn’t a date. He… I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” Hannah said, resuming perusing.<br />
“It’s fine. I guard secrets.” Hollow, ghostly words. For a brief second, Bernedette sounded guilty of something heinous. Like she already knew what happened to Darien’s wife. Like she needed to hide her own secrets. “Well, he hired me for a job. God, now that sounds sketch. He didn’t hire me for that kinda job. I’m not a woman of the night or a street vixen—”<br />
“A hoe?”<br />
Taken aback by the old woman’s blunt verbiage, Hannah pointed at her and nodded. Bernedette then asked, “Then what are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”<br />
“An actress. Plain old actress. He hired me to act like his companion for a few hours. Didn’t wanna be alone.”<br />
“Alone. Hm?”<br />
“Said it was for some therapy. Looked a little depressed and I had sympathy for him, so I did it. Money helped, too.”<br />
“What about his wife? What’d he say happened to her?”<br />
“Not much. He simply said she was <span class="italictext">gone</span>.”<br />
“Gone?” Bernedette said with a smile and a lilt in her voice.<br />
“Yeah. I got the feeling she was dead.”<br />
“Dead?” The word saddened her into a new low. <span class="italictext">My god, Darien, what were you thinking?</span> Three minutes of standing silence. Contemplation overtook her muscles. She ran through every scenario that could lead to Darien’s expressed status about his wife. She had suspected ill of Darien. This helped cement her feelings.<br />
Bernedette stood in that catatonic state for so long that she didn’t hear Hannah’s calls to her. The girl finished shopping and departed with one purchase. When Bernedette looked up again, she spotted Hannah exiting into hard rain. “Wait.” She sprinted after her.<br />
Hannah stopped in the thundering wetness, keeping dry beneath her umbrella. Her older counterpart had no covering. It didn’t matter. She needed only answers. She asked, “Those clothes, they weren’t yours, were they?”<br />
“No. They were his wife’s. He wanted me to wear them.”<br />
“Why?”<br />
She held up her hands and did air quotes as she said, “‘To be more convincing’ – His words. I guess he wanted me to look like her. Sorta wanted me to act like her, too.”<br />
“To look and act like her?” Bernedette mumbled to herself. It made no sense. None of it made sense. She’d think about it all the way home.<br />
At home, she stood on her front stoop looking across to Darien’s house as she saw one light on in his bedroom. What had he done? What hadn’t she done?<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">To Be Continued In… </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>The Ones That Stare</b></i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Out now!</span></div>
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Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-56509086768643395622018-06-20T09:57:00.000-07:002018-06-20T09:57:37.775-07:00It’s Finally Here!!! #TheManOnTheRoof #TMOTR #BookBlogTour <div>
<b>It’s Finally Here!!! #TheManOnTheRoof #TMOTR #BookBlogTour </b></div>
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It’s finally here, people. This Friday, June 22nd, my psychological mystery-thriller The Man On The Roof will release in ebook Kindle format on Amazon Kindle. It’s been in review for a few months now and, I’m not gonna lie, some people are loving it. I have been comparing it to Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train meets Big Little Lies. Others have seen hints of the once-popular TV show Desperate Housewives. It has complex male and female characters and a narrative that draws you deeper and deeper into its mystery. It will captivate you. </div>
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Currently, I am on a book-blog tour across a slew of lovely book blogs on these-here interwebs! If you join me, along the way you will be gifted with author Q&As, interviews, guest posts, book excerpts, and reviews. And the tour doesn’t stop on June 22nd. It keeps going into July. After the main launch tour ends on July 6th, I have a special Spoilers Q&A planned for July 22nd, and another interview on the 24th! You are going to want to be there. </div>
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You like a good book. You love a good mystery. Hell, you love good TV and film based off of good books, which means you’re probably anticipating HBO’s Sharp Objects coming out in July (post on that later). But sometimes you feel that you’ve seen it, been there, done that. How many drunk women are going to solve a murder? You want to be entertained this summer, right? Not just to be entertained, but a bonding experience, something that will get you talking with your fellow readers. And chances are high that you’re going to risk your time and pocketbook on buying some over-hyped book that comes from the bigger publishing houses and that will cost you near 30 dollars, then regret it when you can’t get into it. A digital copy of my book will only cost $7.99. That’s about as much as you’d spend on two specialty burgers at a fast food place, only my book lasts longer and doesn’t give you high cholesterol. It's even cheaper than the digital copy of that $30 book (12.99 to download a file? You're kidding me, right?) Is it self-published? Yes. But, at one point, so was Fifty Shades and Andy Weir’s The Martian. When you buy my book instead of that other expensive book, one day you’re gonna look back and say that you were part of something great before anyone knew about it. And you want to be part of something great, right? </div>
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Then take the risk. Order my Kindle book. Be entertained! Solve the mysteries! You're not just buying a book, you're buying an experience. You are buying a bond with others who have read the book. And if you don't like it, you'll still have $22 left to buy that other, more expensive book. But I think you're going to feel glad that you got your own copy of The Man On The Roof. </div>
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Well, what the heck are you waiting for? The book is currently on preorder here:<span style="font-size: large;"> <a href="http://mybook.to/TMOTR">The Man On The Roof</a></span>. </div>
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You’ve read the comparisons: Gone Girl, Sharp Objects, The Girl on the Train, Big Little Lies, Desperate Housewives. Mysteries await! Go buy a copy. </div>
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Still not convinced? Then start following the tour! It’s already started. Click on the tour graphic to make it bigger. Catch up by clicking one of the links below! </div>
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13th: Duffy The Writer blog interviews me here: <a href="https://bit.ly/2l5HhUH">DuffyTheWriterBlog</a> <br />
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14th: Jan's Book Buzz gives you a cool review: <a href="https://bit.ly/2JR4GaC">JansBookBuzz</a> <br />
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15th: Snazzy Books has an interesting Q&A: <a href="https://bit.ly/2l8SpQ%20G">SnazzyBooks</a><br />
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16th: Reel Literature Should be THE blog for film & book lovers: <a href="https://bit.ly/2ydjRWO">ReelLiterature</a> <br />
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17th: Princess and Pen has an interview for you: <a href="https://t.co/9k6qq9ZsDf">PrincessAndPen</a><br />
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20th: Sarah Rieveley has an interview for you here: <a href="https://bit.ly/2lnNfAw">Sarah'sBookCorner</a> </div>
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Until next time, see ya! </div>
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P.S. Oh my god! You haven’t blogged in so long that... Did you forget how to blog? Michael, you were supposed to have a quirky, ridiculous, humorous, referential, eye-roll-inducing sign-off for your readers. Why didn’t you reference any cool pop culture in a sarcastic way? Frickin’ Ted Cruz just beat Jimmy Kimmel at basketball. You’re wasting that opportunity!! “Uh... I’ll come up with a better, more creative sign-off next time, maybe?”<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a> </div>
Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-57376873164592424972018-04-22T10:07:00.001-07:002018-04-22T10:07:59.898-07:00Pretty Sure CW Is Gonna Give Viewers Early Parole #LifeSentence #CW #3weekroundup #recap #review <div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Pretty
Sure CW Is Gonna Give Viewers Early Parole #LifeSentence #CW
#3weekroundup #recap #review </b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of the CW</span> </div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Let
me start by spoiling the review section and saying that I don't find
this show dreadful like I did Krypton, I just can already read the
wall's ample writings. This show was moved from its original premiere
day of Wednesday to Fridays and hasn't done any better than that
other godawful show My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and that show doesn't even
pull in a million viewers a week. It is possible that it could be
outright canceled and yanked from air, which rarely ever happens to
CW shows (again, see Crazy Ex). Still, I didn't think it was that
terrible, it just wasn't what viewers are looking for. So, is Life
Sentence living its best life or is it in desperate need of being put
on support. Ay yay yay, that was a bad one. Let's find out together! </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Life
Sentence stars Lucy Hale as Stella Abbott, a young woman who, at the
age of 15, was diagnosed with cancer. Ever since then (I think it's
been eight or nine years) her family has worked tirelessly to make
sure that she could have the best last days of her life ever. Her
sister brought the party to her when she missed out on parties. Her
brother (both siblings are older, by the way) tried to teach her
everything cool he knew and dared her to live an adventurous life.
Her parents cared for her even through her constant trips in and out
of the hospital and lobbied for her to get into a potentially
life-saving clinical trial. But she was still missing out on that one
great thing: true love. So her college professor father decided to
send his youngest daughter on a life-changing trip to Paris, the city
of love, in order to go on that one last great adventure and maybe
fall in love. And she does. She finds a great guy (black English
bloke) who falls for her in a moment straight out of a Hugh Grant
movie, and marries her within a couple weeks of meeting her because
she supposedly only has six to eight months to live. I know that was
a heck of an info-dump but don't worry because Stella does the same
thing at the beginning of the first episode to get you caught up so
that you can be just as shocked as she is when she goes to her doctor
and finds out: </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">She's
cured! Yay! The clinical trial worked for her, which means that her
funeral that she and her husband were planning must go on hold for a
long time. And though she tells her family at the strange pre-death
wake she wanted to have, and they celebrate appropriately, things
change for the worse almost immediately. Now that she is no longer
sick she can learn who her family really is and no more be deceived
by their work to make her happy. </span></span></span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_LEL93jV8Rdf90DWUMr85p4pKi12_WUBWVcgHh9YIp4GR2X1_gJuEHcRTHYuWriR5ew34gi8FWosfKnKyWWjGnL72ijUZxTtQDlMqpONu-WqzgmtrgGJCyZO7Q6uGX7PL_lEFrYykLqQ/s1600/life-sentence-cw-tv-show.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="825" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_LEL93jV8Rdf90DWUMr85p4pKi12_WUBWVcgHh9YIp4GR2X1_gJuEHcRTHYuWriR5ew34gi8FWosfKnKyWWjGnL72ijUZxTtQDlMqpONu-WqzgmtrgGJCyZO7Q6uGX7PL_lEFrYykLqQ/s400/life-sentence-cw-tv-show.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Family with Stella at center. </td></tr>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
it turns out, while she lived the dream rom-com life that would
ultimately end in her untimely death, her family was falling apart.
Starting with her brother Aiden, we learn that he is a 27-year-old
burnout who dropped out of college, has no job, lives at home and
uses his sister's cancer to guilt-trip soccer moms into having sex
with him. Things get crazy when the latest soccer mom he's banging
(the one he brought to Stella's faux-wake) is actually married to a
very big dude who threatens to kill him. He runs around most of the
episode trying to avoid being pummeled to death by this distraught
husband. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
jump to her older sister Elizabeth who seems to be the responsible
one who can keep things together through the chaos. But we learn that
the career-driven woman partially resents getting married to Diego
and having two children so early in life, something she only did to
make sure her parents had something happy to focus on. Also, because
she was such a responsible one, she gave up her dream of being a
writer, and a scholarship to a prestigious college, in order to stay
home and help take care of Stella and make sure their mom didn't lose
it. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Speaking
of her mother Ida (played by veteran actress Gillian Vigman; she's
been in a ton of stuff), she seems to be having the hardest time and
is adopting an almost completely new second life. Apparently she's
been having an affair with Stella's godMOTHER for a few years and
announces that she's coming out as a “Bi” (bisexual) at a family
dinner party, but only after Stella finds her mother and godmother
sitting on the porch of her godmother's house making out (Stella came
to talk with her mom after learning that Ida was leaving her husband
and had already moved out the next day after Stella's announcement). </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhNAVGPkeRdcKfq7byGkfRv6ztMbHk3OUoTL7BPnmdyYgU7c9RfFpJ0t837oIMY3PjfvhqOs_AEUMXiwdQpSFvlWeFqXO4oUBSdOR36txcb4iba8nDvHrsDAk_HdLH13-Kq5WkfRvqTRs/s1600/elliot-knight-gives-stella-wes-coolest-ship-name-life-sentence-08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="806" data-original-width="1206" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhNAVGPkeRdcKfq7byGkfRv6ztMbHk3OUoTL7BPnmdyYgU7c9RfFpJ0t837oIMY3PjfvhqOs_AEUMXiwdQpSFvlWeFqXO4oUBSdOR36txcb4iba8nDvHrsDAk_HdLH13-Kq5WkfRvqTRs/s320/elliot-knight-gives-stella-wes-coolest-ship-name-life-sentence-08.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stella and Paul</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">That
husband that Ida is leaving is Paul Abbott (played by Dylan Walsh of
Mighty Joe Young and Nip/Tuck fame), a conservative-looking father
who, like most dads, tried to be the rock his family needed and found
himself sinking deep into debt to keep his sick child alive and help
her live out her dying wish. He has even been paying her rent on a
small downtown loft apartment (it's not a big city so it shouldn't
really cost that much). </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Finally,
there is her husband Wes who doesn't know if he can continue the
charade he started to live when he first met her. Almost half of the
stuff they do together he hates to do, including having her fall
asleep in his arms every night, having sex by candlelight literally
every time they do it, eating boiled eggs and a bunch of other stuff.
He was attending a grief counseling group for spouses of terminally
ill people until they kicked him out after hearing his story of woe
that his wife is going to live far beyond the six months she was
given to live when he first married her. Basically, Stella got the
best news of her life—that she would even have a life—and then
that said life immediately went to crap. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
as she learns all of the secrets her family is keeping from her, she
also must plan a celebration party for her doctor who cured her just
to tell her thank you. Basically she does that while telling everyone
throughout the episode that these problems they have can be fixed,
and even does a big speech on that very subject. But the speech goes
terribly and her sister once again points out that most of the
family's problems stem from her having cancer and them trying to
create the happiest, safest environment for her to live in, in order
to foster a recovery. Still, all is not lost because she has now
committed to change each one of her family members' lives so that
they have a great one just like she did, in a huge pay-it-forward
kind of thing. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
end the first episode with her talking to a sick kid and realizing
that even though life is tough, it's not the end of the world so long
as you have people who care about you. She, for the first time, has
sex without the candles, tries to setup her brother with her doctor
only to learn that he has already impregnated that married woman,
gets her mother to tell her dad the truth about her sexuality, gets
her dad to realize that he needs to sell the house to pay his debt,
and tells her sister that she will start babysitting the kids more so
that she can finally start on that book she's been meaning to write. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
two is the classic example of the best laid plans of mice and men.
Paul puts the house on the market but can't part with it when a
couple low-balls him and wants all the furniture inside. This drives
Ida into a crazed tizzy, and she wants to tear down the walls (bangs
a huge hole in one of them) and dig a pool as part of the upgrades
her husband wants to make before selling it. It's an overreaction
even when you discover her reason for overreacting is because while
Stella could remember all of her best memories in the house she grew
up in, her mother can only remember the house as the place where her
daughter got sick and her love story fell apart. Forget the fact that
it's also the place where you learned that your daughter was cured
from a cancer you thought would kill her, where you learned of the
news that you had grandkids and where you learned that you were
actually more into women than your husband. Her complaints about the
house feel more like a jilted soon-to-be ex-wife craving for money.
If she didn't want to have to see the house anymore, she could've
opted not to come around until the house was sold. And when her
husband offers to instead rent out a few rooms in the home which
would give him enough time to make renovations and updates that could
raise the price, she flips out and bangs a hole in the wall. And
there I started to wonder why she would lower the buying price if she
wanted the damn house sold so much. It didn't make logical sense. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU46I-AkjKlFB8yG_d6tGH6PRZvV9JfLGC0R2pT7Hp4BUbqFnUo9fPPC6UIuu9j1ej5hoB8qJcaee5w02cJV9hPR_RX_L1jSmUbMXwm2CnbX8C6Xakw_7EgwKymVrxz7pKk1i_XwhqsEY/s1600/lfs101f_0327ra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU46I-AkjKlFB8yG_d6tGH6PRZvV9JfLGC0R2pT7Hp4BUbqFnUo9fPPC6UIuu9j1ej5hoB8qJcaee5w02cJV9hPR_RX_L1jSmUbMXwm2CnbX8C6Xakw_7EgwKymVrxz7pKk1i_XwhqsEY/s400/lfs101f_0327ra.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stella Talking To Another Sick Kid</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
Elizabeth has lost her writing moji on account of not having done it
in so long. She is easily distracted by Stella's bad
parenting/babysitting skills which result in her daughter (Stella's
niece) swallowing Stella's ring. Surprisingly, she's on the show so
little in the first three episodes that it made me wonder if the
actress had double-booked another TV series or film. But she is
around long enough to team with Stella to try to get their brother to
take some responsibility. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Yes,
Aiden's now got a baby mama, but if the rest of his life is any
indication, he's gonna not be responsible about that, too. In fact,
he tries avoiding the woman completely, shutting the doors of his
guest house and hiding out from the still-married woman, while also
banging out every girl he meets. He says he'll change but that's
going to take some time. His father gets tough on him, and they have
a little heart to heart about how he knows his son is a smart kid,
but just doesn't apply himself. Aiden's deal is that once he
discovered that he was going to lose the person he loved the most in
his life, his baby sister, he decided to never love or really care
about much of anything anymore. But Stella convinces him that he can
be a great dad if he just tries and stops selling pills to
housewives. Stella also gets her sister into a writer's retreat,
starts volunteering at the hospital that treated her and commits to
listening more to her husband. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYPDDlptbYj04V18J4I1loO7N-2-UlmbpX9tXQtLfzD008Qvh9t48DL7FGo01rB9ndqvLKHfxZLHDAWHHobnrDRlyzCdtpBpulYzApkSVdHhMfaaHyj3GjMnQF8ZjR6JNJe1HHivZG0v8/s1600/life-sentence-cw-tv-show-590x348.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="348" data-original-width="590" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYPDDlptbYj04V18J4I1loO7N-2-UlmbpX9tXQtLfzD008Qvh9t48DL7FGo01rB9ndqvLKHfxZLHDAWHHobnrDRlyzCdtpBpulYzApkSVdHhMfaaHyj3GjMnQF8ZjR6JNJe1HHivZG0v8/s320/life-sentence-cw-tv-show-590x348.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stella and hubby Wes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
three opens with her and her husband being confronted by INS. Yeah,
dude married a terminally sick American white chick after knowing her
for about a month. INS was bound to show up sooner or later. To make
sure their relationship is real the agent is going to ask them a
series of personal questions, but oddly gives them time to prepare
for such a test. They have the weekend to make sure that they know
possibly everything there is to know about each other. And Stella
realizes that she really doesn't know this man at all. Not only did
she not know his favorite meal (bangers and mash) but she didn't know
that he slept with 11 people before her, doesn't have a great
relationship with his mom and believed that this was the first time
he had ever fallen in love. In fact, he had actually lived with a
woman for two years prior to going on that fateful France trip. She's
got a lot to learn. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">But
as she is trying to learn everything that she didn't know about her
husband, which is everything, she decides to try to get the young
cancer patient girl she was talking to at the hospital into the same
clinical trial that she was in. Bad news, she lies to keep the girl's
spirits up when she learns that the rich guy who was sponsoring the
trial pulled his funding. So she, along with a hottie doctor, scheme
to visit the rich guy at one of his hotel's restaurants to beg him
for the funding or at least figure out why he pulled the funding. As
it turns out, she talks to the guy after mistaking him for the
bartender, and learns that he pulled the funding because she was the
only survivor and that the FDA couldn't support the trial procedures
any longer. So she must go back and tell the girl that she lied about
getting her into that particular trial, but says that they will try
to get her into a dozen other trials. </span></span></span><br />
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Her
nighttime adventure to the restaurant leaves Wes at home to babysit
Elizabeth's kids while she is at the writer's retreat and her husband
is taking off work to go visit her. But when the niece gets sick, he
calls Ida to come and help, only to learn that she doesn't do well
with sick kids and overreacts to everything. Hello! She had a sick
child that was probably suspected of having a stomach ache and ended
up having cancer. She basically says what I just typed, and they have
a come-to-Jesus moment with each other. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjohETwuvM8AJA_xbIglaSlWfbHD9yo7KoKWol4yWAjgfEsr4fdoN2OYzlhF5HOWcHBLY-q79WWjefjZi4m-M6TfEsN6Jqxpl41laFnLA80NpVALyZYwL3WE9B62si8vfasa-Xg90r4vKk/s1600/life-sentence-cw-lucy-hale-aiden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="780" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjohETwuvM8AJA_xbIglaSlWfbHD9yo7KoKWol4yWAjgfEsr4fdoN2OYzlhF5HOWcHBLY-q79WWjefjZi4m-M6TfEsN6Jqxpl41laFnLA80NpVALyZYwL3WE9B62si8vfasa-Xg90r4vKk/s320/life-sentence-cw-lucy-hale-aiden.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stella and brother Aiden</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
at the restaurant, Stella happens to run into her loser brother and
equally-loser father on a father-son night out. On Stella's request,
Aiden decided to get their father out of the house because all he
could do was look in at the new owners all day. Oh yeah, they sold
the house but made a deal that allowed for Stella's father and
brother to continue to live in the guest house. Now Paul lives with
his rather disgusting son, who he hasn't hung out with in forever.
Aiden thinks they should go and chase tail at the local hotel bar.
His dad isn't that interested in it, but after a few very strange
encounters, including a woman who had serious daddy issues, he finds
a woman also going through a divorce and they vibe. They go back and
have some meaningless sex only for Aiden to come home later and run
into the woman. Yep, he's slept with her. Slightly older women seem
to be his thing. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
night ends with that hottie doctor telling Stella that he wishes he
had met her seven months ago (she got married six months ago). This
show is the epitome of “life comes at you fast.” </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihMjGZ3a2d9NRkwieS5giL9MW5G4LgznwIq9AXT3prIvbtP73vGzvSOxhzqMQ0qWE_H-7FsSWLLiClDQuaWeJYQm6TDmQE3dAC07-f-GxFknCTXhhJmTtHeLt8YtAC3gmfYDUDfgCKt4M/s1600/Stella-Abbot-and-Wes-1c8d98f1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihMjGZ3a2d9NRkwieS5giL9MW5G4LgznwIq9AXT3prIvbtP73vGzvSOxhzqMQ0qWE_H-7FsSWLLiClDQuaWeJYQm6TDmQE3dAC07-f-GxFknCTXhhJmTtHeLt8YtAC3gmfYDUDfgCKt4M/s400/Stella-Abbot-and-Wes-1c8d98f1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sick Stella</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What's
my grade? I give it a solid <span style="color: #cc0000;">C+</span>. The problem with this show is that it is neither wholly dissatisfying
nor satisfying. It's very middle-of-the-road. Yet, it kind of feels
like this show could've been so much better if put into the hands of
the producers of either Grey's Anatomy or This Is Us. It is a
pseudo-sweet show that doesn't quite push far enough to get to the
emotional peaks you might want it to, nor does it sink to the level
of funny you want it to either. It feels like a nondescript CW show
or one that doesn't have a hook to it. I know that it does have a
hook, but it doesn't feel like it does. It's hard to explain it
because it's all so vanilla. Ultimately, the show is about figuring
out how to live life once you've been given a second chance at it and
everything you thought you knew about living it the first time is
terribly wrong. It is similar in tone to last year's No Tomorrow
which I actually loved. (Goodness, I don't know what it is about CW but between this show and that show, these lighthearted comedies have made me fall in love with their respective female stars--Lucy Hale here and Tori Anderson off No Tomorrow). This show is OK, but I don't think it is better
than that show. In fact, I would prefer to watch that show again than
to watch this. Frankly, I absolutely hate the mother. I have seen the
actress in so many roles before and this is, by far, the one I hate
the most. She's an annoying, over-reactive, boring character that I
really don't care about. And I would've loved if her character
magically disappeared for multiple episodes at a time rather than the
sister. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? It's a decent show but it premiered in the literal
middle of March (like March 14<sup>th</sup>; the exact middle) when
there're tons of other shows that are more heartwarming and better
written. But these characters are easy to relate to and the acting is
on point. I'd say check out at least one episode before this gets
canceled. Life Sentence next airs on April 27<sup>th</sup>, CW
Fridays at 9pm.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of Life Sentence? If you haven't, do you
think you'll check it out now? If you have heard of it, have you seen
it? What do you think? Should this show really be facing the axe so
soon in its life? And with the CW expanding to six days of
programming next season (now they'll be showing stuff on Sundays,
should this earn a shortened season order? Let me know in the
comments below. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “Oh my god! This
discovery... could change life as we know it.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'Dude, I totally loved that show.'
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“By show you mean movie, right?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'Wait, aren't we talking about the show
currently known as 3<sup>rd</sup> Rock From the Sun?'
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
Yeah, I just hit you with a little TV history that is super-easy to
learn if you do just one IMDb data search. I hate when shows that
could do fairly well aren't given time to find an audience while
shows that clearly should've been canceled (lookin' at you Crazy Ex)
have somehow remained on TV to suck resources and opportunities for
better programming. Oh well! I'll try to think of a better sign-off
next time. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-52798970715095348822018-04-21T20:46:00.005-07:002018-04-21T20:46:40.988-07:00Farewell, Gladiators! #Scandal #ScandalFinale #seriesfinale #ABC #Shondaland <div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Farewell,
Gladiators! #Scandal #ScandalFinale #seriesfinale #ABC #Shondaland </b></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWmUkLQ3PnjjefRV7qwyliTtnzpQshd3BKvu6tZA-RRU4iDMsm9LoMfNaL0M4pmg-BnlEy4_jCq81giW6ozZOP8eneaTVO_9081H4EziF9ZSob25uBKk-b8dzU6IWX3SAoGp8SSMfA57A/s1600/f2dd2932-4d22-4525-a312-f07e6bc8d984-large16x9_SCANDALTHEFINALSEASON.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="986" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWmUkLQ3PnjjefRV7qwyliTtnzpQshd3BKvu6tZA-RRU4iDMsm9LoMfNaL0M4pmg-BnlEy4_jCq81giW6ozZOP8eneaTVO_9081H4EziF9ZSob25uBKk-b8dzU6IWX3SAoGp8SSMfA57A/s640/f2dd2932-4d22-4525-a312-f07e6bc8d984-large16x9_SCANDALTHEFINALSEASON.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of ABC and Shondaland Productions </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">It's
rare that I get to write one of these. I think the last time I wrote
one was for the short-lived, but twisty-good (in my opinion) series
Revenge, another ABC show about backstabbery, betrayal, lying,
cheating and rich people problems. In the TV-landscape it is quite
rare to encounter. A TV show is very akin to a new restaurant or
business, in that over 90% of them fail their first or second year
out, and often close up shop without warning. For years, fans have
lamented about their favorite new shows suddenly being canceled or
put on long, indeterminate hiatuses often without proper conclusions.
I think the most flagrant example and probably the one that started
the cancellation trend of unsatisfying ends was that of Alf, the
1980's sitcom about a bizarre-looking alien that comes to live with a
family in suburban America. It is now not only known in pop culture
as one of the strangest shows with a cuddle-ugly alien thing to
possibly ever exist, but is infamous for its final episode's final
shot showing Alf gazing into the sky while a spaceship, presumably
from his home planet, is beaming light down on him. Does he ever get
back home like E.T.? What happens to the family who cared for him for
four seasons? And what about the government agencies that have chased
after him? Fans will never know because the show ended on a huge
cliffhanger in hopes of the network keeping them on another season,
only to be axed a week or two after the finale aired. All of that
long opening paragraph and out-of-the-blue Alf reference simply to
say this: It's a big deal when a beloved, long-running scripted
series gets a series finale. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx52IxLgIFhE6qqk9YHtdEWPF7YpbgsAe-KWnI0yx2A24HPTMa9o5d1J-EdZ237-pX4YPUZ9W3uuIVHcUFo3oWHvq_XnP_rq9lKc3Gs1Ys0mQ7d40H9A1wtrBd_IE6rv29R0hNmq8psUc/s1600/Bellamy-Young-Kerry-Washington.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="411" data-original-width="619" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx52IxLgIFhE6qqk9YHtdEWPF7YpbgsAe-KWnI0yx2A24HPTMa9o5d1J-EdZ237-pX4YPUZ9W3uuIVHcUFo3oWHvq_XnP_rq9lKc3Gs1Ys0mQ7d40H9A1wtrBd_IE6rv29R0hNmq8psUc/s400/Bellamy-Young-Kerry-Washington.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">President Mellie Hardly Factored Into This Episode If You Ask Me</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">B</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">ut
did we deserve this finale? Eh! Let's first recap for any of those
people who just like reading my words or like to experience things
over again. With Olivia having told her clan that the only way to get
out of their current predicament—on the cusp of being taken down
and Mellie's presidency being de-legitimized due to charges of
treason—was to go over the cliff and actually... tell the truth
(gasp!). The truth about everything, but mainly about B6-13. Our
finale, aptly titled “Over The Cliff” opened with them readying
to testify about their involvement in and/or knowledge of this
organization. Everyone from sitting president Mellie, to Fitz, to
Olivia, to Huck and down the line were going to testify. They'd do
this all to prevent Cyrus from taking over the white house. But
first, in order to even get the clout and grand hearing that they
wanted, the guy that was looking into Mellie's supposed treasonous
attempt to bring down Air Force 2 had to do something drastic. See,
he was threatened by Jake and saw no way to prosecute B6-13 without
also incriminating himself and bringing everything down. He was a
true white hat who only ever wanted to be in a position of power to
push strongly for gun control. He asked one thing of Olivia: that she
make Mellie act on gun control as one of her first agendas after they
got their hearing. The promise made, he then shot himself, which
triggered a shift of power back to David Rosen. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">David,
the long-suffering white-hat lawyer who saw himself stripped of his
position a few seasons ago, only to come back and claim the seat as
the USADA, was now taking over the investigation into B6-13, which
held a higher priority than the treason against Mellie, from which he
had to recuse himself. Cyrus' plan to take the oval has gone awry. So
while David briefs Olivia's brood on what to expect during their
testimony, telling them to give as much of the truth as possible,
Cyrus goes to Jake and tells him that they need to get rid of David.
Frankly, he wants a hit out on almost all of them at this point. Jake
doesn't actively agree, but does go to find Rosen and tries to
intimidate him out of continuing the investigation and bringing
charges. He reminds him that he shot Cyrus' husband in the back on
the street right in front of Rosen, and even raises his gun to him.
But David, in his own glorious impersonation of the old Olivia Pope,
gives Jake a serious talking to about being good and decent, and
actually believing in something for himself and no longer being the
puppet of everyone around him. It saves him and Jake disappears. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Jake
goes back to Cyrus and tells him that he didn't do as “ordered”
because he didn't want to, and that Cyrus can't say a single word to
him about it because he isn't strong enough to do the killing
himself. At this point, I got a little confused because I could have
sworn that we did see Cyrus kill at least one person before through
some means. I digress. Cyrus takes the criticism to heart and calls
Rosen in in the middle of the night, while Rosen was cuddled up with
Abby, so that he can sign a confession and make a deal that will
absolve him of any future charges. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimNvL_VLmNBO5BEtZcjYGyPC_1wpNB0-aXDqnLNyk7lSaDqUOTjb-og2gSG_QpQASZbKQffqBukUcTnUz5GR-NQkDatduGSvaFtj7AA2Xh70u_15hWTp3zi1xw764fyVj472aCZRAUPwI/s1600/148871_8267_-_h_2018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="768" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimNvL_VLmNBO5BEtZcjYGyPC_1wpNB0-aXDqnLNyk7lSaDqUOTjb-og2gSG_QpQASZbKQffqBukUcTnUz5GR-NQkDatduGSvaFtj7AA2Xh70u_15hWTp3zi1xw764fyVj472aCZRAUPwI/s400/148871_8267_-_h_2018.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David (L) is the stupidest, most trusting lamb on the show. Why meet Cyrus at night? </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">It's
a trap that tries (and fails) to be rather Shakespearean in nature
when he offers Rosen a drink of poisoned wine. Rosen falls to the
floor as he is choking but is still alive. It takes too long for
Cyrus, and he grabs a pillow and suffocates the man, but only after
showing us the many faces of horror that we are to believe have
changed him. He can't believe he's killed someone for the first time.
After all of those orders to kill, all that bad-wolf bloviating he's
done through the years, agony is writ upon his face as he must kill
the most honest, upstanding, white hat probably on the entire show. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
as the group awaits a final decision about each of their testimonies
to come in, and they all know that they will go to jail based on what
they've said, Quinn and the group go to prison to visit Charlie, and
perform a solo-visitation-room wedding officiated by Huck. It could
be their last chance at tying the knot and Quinn wants to commit even
if she'll never see Charlie again. Redhead Abby struggles not to cry
and break down now that David is dead because they need to see this
over-the-cliff thing all the way through to the fiery crash at the
bottom, and if she starts mourning now, she'll never stop. Olivia
goes to her father and asks him to stand in the sun with the rest of
the group and also testify, to which he says that he is retired. They
argue back and forth about the kind of woman he always wanted her to
be and her fulfilling that destiny only for him to still say no and
say that he is escaping the country. Olivia then hops over to Fitz
and challenges him either to fight with her about their past bad
decisions or make love to her on their potential last night of
freedom. He chooses the latter, but Shonda then fails to give us one
last great love scene. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
then they get the call. The call comes in that the decision has been
delayed because of a new witness with new testimony. Yes, it is Papa
Pope, Eli or Rowan as was his kill name, come to testify before the
slew of white men looking at the facts concerning B6-13. In one last
great speech for Joe Morton, he pulls out an epic white male
privilege speech that sees him gloat about how he, a black man,
quietly ran the country for 30 years, deciding presidencies, what
laws would and wouldn't get enforced, who lived and who died, and
basically every decision and every freedom that most US citizens take
for granted, especially the white male ones. He was the true ruler,
and he was the architect of such an organization that became bigger
than the US Federal government itself. He was command, and you can't
take command... But you can give it away. He appeals to their
racist/racial bias bones and tells them that while he is command, the
author and finisher of the American fate, they don't have to give the
US public him. He doesn't have to be the face of this organization
which surely must be dismantled and prosecuted. Instead of giving the
public a black face in charge of everything, he (and they) sacrifices
Jake, the current command. Jake is arrested and thrown in jail (I
guess we were supposed to assume that the trial already went down)
and everything is then pinned to him and his secret organization. The
treason charges against Mellie quietly go away and Olivia tells her
that she, too, is going to go away and let Mellie rule how she wants
to, instead of being in her ear the whole time. Mellie respects that.
</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujCxzm3KERTtJ2c7mLlJpeNsGc8xFRRZ7GWT_MNXCUUvzr8fH1prQLxtEUmTWTvqwQUe3XaNOCC4n0IXDOylRsek3_GvFOBFqL08O1CHbUyBEXD_TWTaRsUw3SbXKwAJjZkOsdc2e0OM/s1600/scandal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="780" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujCxzm3KERTtJ2c7mLlJpeNsGc8xFRRZ7GWT_MNXCUUvzr8fH1prQLxtEUmTWTvqwQUe3XaNOCC4n0IXDOylRsek3_GvFOBFqL08O1CHbUyBEXD_TWTaRsUw3SbXKwAJjZkOsdc2e0OM/s400/scandal.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From An Earlier Season. Also This Finale Episode Felt Like Morton's Time To Shine Most</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Olivia
then goes to Jake in jail and talks to him one last time before he is
set to be shipped off to Federal Super-max prison in Indiana (it
might have actually been Illinois, but I watched the Cavs-Pacers game
right after and my fury at its outcome may have soaked my memory).
She asks who he might've been had she left him on that island a few
seasons back, left him to stand in the sun and not dragged him back
to DC. Like how many licks it takes, the world may never know. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Finally,
Olivia calls Cyrus into the oval before officially packing it in and
hands Cyrus his resignation papers. He starts talking about how he
was never charged with anything and how he is clear and free. But
then he shifts and asks Olivia if she can still enjoy a drink. Not a
reference to David per se, he insists that after having finally
crossed that mad line by killing David, he can no longer get the
insanity and brutality of what all they've done over the years out of
his blood system no matter what he tries. He can't even enjoy a good
drink without thinking of the blood shed. Maybe it is time for him to
finally go. He signs the papers and does just that. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
end with Charlie getting out of prison, Huck standing around with no
real meaningful ending, Abby finally breaking down into tears because
not only are they all not going to jail after their testimony was all
redacted in order to charge Jake but Rosen is still super-dead,
Mellie signing gun control as one of her first new measures and
Olivia meeting Fitz on the sidewalk and doing the old romantic “Hi”
thing that every writer has written at least once if they've ever
done anything about romance (their, “You had me at hello,”
moment). But the final shot is the most curious because it features
two little black girls walking through the hall of presidential
portraits and seeing Fitz's portrait which is of him behind a window
(almost as weird as Obama bushes, but that one had some seriously
hilarious symbolism). But then they turn a corner, walk a little
farther only to stop and see a portrait of Olivia Pope in a dress
that looks very similar to one that Shonda herself has worn before.
Some fans have wondered about this ending and Shonda refuses to give
the answer, but I think it's quite clear judging from Papa Pope's
speech about power and her serving at the pleasure of white people,
not to mention her having put two presidents into office and her own
love affair with the oval, that this is a shot from far into the
future, and she was, at one point, president. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkakscM_4vmuIoMO7hnitO02B3AJTAn3VNN3XXEAEQksho8C1jjG7GoPXZdmUicLkrsQAzsL-G6IgSyVrbbNrcOHP0cH3Qv9RNtQWJ8VQQWmrSaxjMh0MKZ0nDpB7KMhuckqLvyzys3YI/s1600/olivia-pope-scandal-finale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="509" data-original-width="768" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkakscM_4vmuIoMO7hnitO02B3AJTAn3VNN3XXEAEQksho8C1jjG7GoPXZdmUicLkrsQAzsL-G6IgSyVrbbNrcOHP0cH3Qv9RNtQWJ8VQQWmrSaxjMh0MKZ0nDpB7KMhuckqLvyzys3YI/s320/olivia-pope-scandal-finale.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You're A Villain</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">OK,
so now that we're caught up with the recap, I have to say that I
absolutely hated this ending. It wasn't satisfying in the least and
fell into the trap-trend that I saw possibly developing years ago.
First, to talk about the potential trend, I have to mention the wave
of reboots. If you look back through some of my posts, I completely
called the trend of reboots slowly drifting back into TV now that
movies were inundated with them. For certain, if you aren't a
cinema/entertainment history buff, you should know that TV often
follows the trends set by film, lagging behind by about eight years
give or take. Had we seen a few reboots of old shows in the 90s?
Sure. But not like what we have seen in the last 15 years with
everything from Roseanne to 90210 to Dynasty and Dallas returning to
our airwaves in some form or fashion. We are getting reboots and
remakes at an alarming rate in a medium that must feed on new ideas
in order to thrive. We're also realizing that the actors and
actresses we absolutely loved on past series have found hard times
after such big success earlier in their careers, leading many of them
to be open to come back and retread familiar characters even after
saying adieu to them so long ago. And no, hard times doesn't
necessarily mean monetary-wise but can be just getting good roles
again. So with this, I predicted about two years ago (unfortunately,
I don't think it made it on to this blog, so if this is the first
time you're reading it, remember where you heard it from) that some
popular series of today would start writing series finales that leave
a wide berth of story lines and characters to play with for possible
reboot or “sequel series” considerations. This series finale
completely smacks of that potential future nostalgia-pandering on
both ABC and Shonda's behalf. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">For
starters, for the last two years I have maintained that Olivia was,
in fact, the actual villain of the show. Thankfully, she said as much
on the penultimate episode. I called that she was a villain after
seeing the abortion episode. But note that it was not the act of
having the abortion that made her a villain, rather the actions
leading up to and beyond it and the way she went about everything in
her life at that time that made her the villain. This also marked the
show's long-gestating but finally completed transformation into
something almost wholly different from what it started as. No, the
show did not start as a political spy thriller, which it became in
later seasons, but more as a romance/law show. It's crazy to think
that while the political theater was always there, Olivia did more
lawyering than politics: she helped people escape bad situations,
defended the innocent, advocated for proper law and due process, and
could try a case in the court of public opinion which would lead to
their never being a trial. She and her group found evidence on people
that no one else bothered to find, they helped stop terrorist plots
and made good on promises to clients who they saw as good and decent
people in a bad situation. The White House's role was more as a tool
by which Pope could wield clout and get things done for her clients,
rather than something she desired so that she could shape the world. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6LzLwKg43WqLtxxweRCEMP_ZC9uYEKWZzr5qTywNGGZLZeQXe26IXO_CBMmW705Qu_pwZOkQKKmOvqiO2o_V5l2E7uTzj-ZwtwUQJatMlDcFWH5D0M5u_6B13e3SNYLH_olnDqLJhR1k/s1600/gkXgy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="940" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6LzLwKg43WqLtxxweRCEMP_ZC9uYEKWZzr5qTywNGGZLZeQXe26IXO_CBMmW705Qu_pwZOkQKKmOvqiO2o_V5l2E7uTzj-ZwtwUQJatMlDcFWH5D0M5u_6B13e3SNYLH_olnDqLJhR1k/s400/gkXgy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Remember This? Back When We Were All Shipping Olitz and Thinking Side-Chickdom Might Not Be That Bad?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">But
as the show grew more political in story-line (not in tone. In tone,
it was always addressing the social justice issues of today and
kicking butt doing it), it shifted away from romance and went full
steam with plots focused solely on the white house, even dropping the
weekly cases of innocent people in need of help—I think they only
had two of those this entire season, if I'm counting correctly and
that's even after Quinn took over at OPA. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I
said all of that to say that the shift in tone is what allowed the
writers to be so lax in writing the finale and have it be perfectly
setup for a reboot. See, now they can reboot the show either as the
political drama it ended as or as the romance it started as, using
the “hi” moment as a jumping-off point for future storytelling
involving Liv and Fitz. But I also mentioned the change in the show
to highlight the change in Olivia's character from good guy to bad
guy, and suggest that the show should have concluded the way I have
been suggesting for the last two years: either Olivia Pope dies or
she falls on her sword for everyone and is imprisoned for life. We
usually demand villains be punished in some way to make a satisfying
ending for we viewers. Either that or everything goes back to
happy-go-lucky times to give the viewers a happy ending. But I'd
contend that Scandal askew-ed both in favor of an ambiguous ending
that, again, allows for future stories to go anywhere. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">On a show that
was not shy about killing off its guest, main and recurring
characters, none of the main players died in the finale after doing
the most dirt through the seven-season run. Huck, Jake and Eli (as
well as the gay secret service dude who killed the president's son)
were all known killers throughout the duration of the show over its
11-year span of time, yet they all lived at the end. We also had
Charlie and Quinn live happily ever after. Cyrus, the mastermind and
right-hand to two presidents, who often communicated with his B6-13
cohorts openly and honestly about whom to kill, got to walk away
without a single scratch to tarnish his legacy. The only important
person who died was David Rosen, a good guy but someone whose death
was, strangely, not felt as much as it probably should have been.
Essentially, everybody who did crime and who did the most dirt got
away, lived to see another day and lived through the BS. “We all
did a bunch of bad stuff and nothing happened.” </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
show started as a lovesick woman trying to atone for her past sins
(rigging the election) by doing as much good for people that she
could while using her White House influence to the people's
advantage. But the worst thing is that the series and its finale
never fully make this atonement. Yes, B6-13, the long-tentacled Hydra
that controlled the government, is gone, but what of the rest of the
crimes committed outside of their purview? </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Even
more troubling than the fact that everyone lived was that we still
didn't get that great of an end to the romance. Some can argue that
Liv's speech about making love to Fitz answered that question, but
did it? Because to me that seemed like an everyday speech they'd make
to each other. It wasn't memorable and wasn't a declaration of some
higher level of feeling, it was just in the moment. It was far from
Fitz's “Slave to you” speech in season 3(?), far from the stand
in the sun speech, far from him begging to go to Vermont with her.
And as far as it being a “You had me at Hello,” moment, even that
Jerry Maguire speech was preceded by Jerry's/Tom Cruise's brilliant
commitment plea to her. He had finally decided after all the back and
forth that he was in. Here, I feel like they could probably break up
the next week. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLphn6E6Y4H4EQ9uVemhyqeaGNADVlaTDYbdwjxE-slA4RYg8WAXDw6Mo4C4AX-kOcxy2m_VWHCc1pxUlXFgQQC8bxXSoCLWXKqXn-ZayjV0cgEhq1dUXXJj1jQCuz2C_mVdXllgt-HUE/s1600/9aa6f4d4-fe93-4646-87fc-0339edf451b4-590x398.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="590" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLphn6E6Y4H4EQ9uVemhyqeaGNADVlaTDYbdwjxE-slA4RYg8WAXDw6Mo4C4AX-kOcxy2m_VWHCc1pxUlXFgQQC8bxXSoCLWXKqXn-ZayjV0cgEhq1dUXXJj1jQCuz2C_mVdXllgt-HUE/s400/9aa6f4d4-fe93-4646-87fc-0339edf451b4-590x398.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We Shoulda Known This Was A Different Show When She Went From White Coat to Dominatrix Carmen San Diego</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">If
I'm thinking about it, the same goes for the entire OPA family.
Olivia's relationship with the others didn't feel restored to what it
once was or even to what it was midway through the season. She still
very much seemed lost and without a home at the end of the season,
similar to how she found Quinn at the beginning of the series. It
would have been great if that was the poetic note to be gotten from
the show, but their switch in roles wasn't stressed enough for me
throughout the series because Quinn never became white-hat good and
strong. Just a few weeks ago she was going to kill Liv. And though we
know where Quinn and Charlie are destined, what of everyone else?
Will Mellie have her Olivia Pope-esque affair with her own younger
black confidante in the one guy (you know, what's his name) or is
that done? What about Abby? Where does she go from here after David's
death? And why did Huck have that none-ending ending where all he did
was basically stand in the background while everyone else got to
emote about love, loss, doing the right thing or entering into a new
chapter in their lives?</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Ultimately,
a good series finale is supposed to try to tie up loose ends about
the fans' favorite characters. Yes, we know that the characters will
probably continue on in their lives in the fictional worlds created
by the show's creators, writers and producers, but finales are
supposed to feel like the ending chapter in a very long but enjoyable
book. But with the amount of loose ends left untied, this felt more
like a run-of-the-mill season finale rather than a series finale. And
it seemed quite clear from the ending that Shonda is open to
revisiting it probably within the next 8-12 years, if only because of
how I originally thought the series could end after viewing that
electrifying first season way back in 2012: Olivia Pope becomes
president. Fitz would be the first man, OPA would still be around and
so would Mellie. And Cyrus, after maybe growing used to killing,
would decide to resurrect B6-13 out of seeing a need for the
organization in the country. And frankly, if this current trend of
rebooting TV continues, and Kerry Washington is exposed to the world
of so-so roles for actresses (though, the industry is changing and I
think she won't have problems finding work, especially now that she's
partnering to produce a TV adaptation of Celeste Ng's Little Fires
Everywhere), she might be glad to come back and do a
13-episode-a-year season for a few seasons. Most certainly everyone
else will want to, maybe with the exception of Cyrus. Outside of him,
these are the best roles that any of these actors and actresses have
ever played. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
a season finale of a show that will go on an “extended hiatus”
for maybe a full three presidential terms, it's fine. But as a series
finale like what it purports to be, it, without conflation or
exaggeration, is literally in my top five shows that had the worst
series finale ever. I should mention that I, unlike most people
(apparently) think that Seinfeld still holds the place as the
greatest series finale ever when you consider the entirety of the
show and the rich silliness of the characters. Them going to prison
for not helping a citizen being robbed was the most ironic (and thus,
fitting) end to a group of people who lived their lives by trying to
slip, cheat and obfuscate the system, and unintentionally doing some
of the most infuriating things ever. They were regular people but
also terrible regular people which is what made it so great for them
to be imprisoned for being the regular people they were. They rarely
ever tried to be good people, they just didn't want to be bad. I
still contend that it was genius, and that it was able to bring back
all of our favorite characters in the series in one of the least
contrived or overly done (so many wedding finales) that we, to date,
have ever seen. The end to Scandal should be considered a partial
scandal in itself, because it definitely needed some fixing. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMdDqBqUAjjM-zbyYvRY6b5PoLj9ILSBec_MqeMmqgS6p9TlglVeIsnLtKwn-qL_in659fpr3GhvsUBJpvNkuRr4vvbfKc1K4gXQyFEEaYT-MtfT7APLI2Yd2XuxzhzokcXwFVbBKYWnU/s1600/scandal-finale-portrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="620" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMdDqBqUAjjM-zbyYvRY6b5PoLj9ILSBec_MqeMmqgS6p9TlglVeIsnLtKwn-qL_in659fpr3GhvsUBJpvNkuRr4vvbfKc1K4gXQyFEEaYT-MtfT7APLI2Yd2XuxzhzokcXwFVbBKYWnU/s640/scandal-finale-portrait.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Either She Was President Or They Credit Her As A Founding Mother Of The New B6-13-less Republic<br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Did you watch the Scandal finale? Did you like it? If
you did, why? What were your favorite parts? Where do you think the
characters will go? What do you think of the meaning behind the last
shot? And would you be down to see Scandal get rebooted a few years
down the line? Let me know in the comments below. </span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
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on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
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Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my
blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “Well, well, lovers
of liberty. You've hung in there for six years and seven twisty,
good, OMG seasons. Now, maybe it's time for you—”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'Wait, did we not kill Sally Langston
either? And after she got away with killing her husband?'
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“We should call somebody about this.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'Command?'
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“That'll work. Wait, what's his
number?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'Don't worry. It's been handled.' <br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">P.S.
Wow! Everybody got to live. This is literally the reverse of Hamlet.
I have to hand it to Shonda, she said she'd only have the show run
for seven seasons, and she kept her word, even though it didn't quite
satisfy all the cravings. Even though I didn't like the last two and
a half seasons, I stuck it out (I usually do once I commit to a show.
Can't wait to finally break up with Grey's and Once Upon a Time some
day), and you tried your best to deliver. And sometimes your best is
all that someone can ask for. Well done!</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-25019911284237739442018-04-21T12:52:00.001-07:002018-04-21T12:52:43.471-07:00I Can See Why Pieces Of His Home Planet Weaken Superman #Krypton #3weekroundup #recap #review <div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>I
Can See Why Pieces Of His Home Planet Weaken Superman #Krypton
#3weekroundup #recap #review </b></span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjED5CEQjag7TiTgJ4DQGk7DTrhXLtFt0O1sFXxqY6NFfF2cTLWm6LChTX4HmUJDzlS3MtdJtL2i88mnmwg9G0gP-Bh5bHe2VW7NgvTaiBuUIQ74uaqQrDsJiBZAZWSvUkI6Vno8b22W8M/s1600/krypton-syfy-season-1-ratings-cancel-renew-season-2-590x218.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="590" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjED5CEQjag7TiTgJ4DQGk7DTrhXLtFt0O1sFXxqY6NFfF2cTLWm6LChTX4HmUJDzlS3MtdJtL2i88mnmwg9G0gP-Bh5bHe2VW7NgvTaiBuUIQ74uaqQrDsJiBZAZWSvUkI6Vno8b22W8M/s640/krypton-syfy-season-1-ratings-cancel-renew-season-2-590x218.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of Syfy Channel and WB DC</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Sigh!
I don't know why it is that I feel like if I had a few thousand
subscribers I would somehow be able to make a living off of ripping
Warner Bros. DC these days, but that's where we are. I'd love to fly
straight to the review and finish with this but that's not how we do
it around here. Let me stop stalling and adding more words to what is
already shaping up to be a long piece. This week, we're looking at
Syfy's new show Krypton. So, is this show poised to take flight into
a new stratosphere of mythos and intrigue for the Superman legend, or
should this planet have stayed blown up and forgotten about? Let's
find out together—well, I already know that it kinda sucks, but
you're finding out as I write this. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Krypton
is DC Comics' latest TV show because they can't do anything good
concerning their movies. Birthed from the mind of David S. Goyer (one
of the writers on Man Of Steel), we venture into the historical lore
of Superman's famed home planet. Yes, we know that Superman was
shipped away from the dying world by his parents on the eve of the
world's destruction, but what happened before that, and why should we
care? Frankly, we probably shouldn't, but some of the stuff we can
assume could be relevant with his parents and whatnot, right? Wrong!
Because this show doesn't follow his parents but his grandfather.
What?! I know. It's rather crazy. Even crazier, we begin with his
grandfather's grandfather being executed. OK, first some basic setup.
</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
planet, or at least the city we are dealing with on Krypton, is
divided into a caste system. You have the rankless or the lowly
workers (though I haven't seen much of what they do, similar to on
ABC's ill-fated Inhumans, but I digress) and you have the ranked. The
ranked members of society are split into houses that are labeled by
name. So you have the house of El (remember, el was always like a
surname for Superman and Supergirl and their respective parents),
house of Zod, so on and so forth. These are the people who are ranked
high and generally have high education and high jobs in the
government. Remember, I usually try to watch the first three episodes
of a series twice and take notes on them before writing one of these
reviews. Here, just like on Inhumans, I can't remember them ever
saying why there are the ranked and rankless. It literally just is
because it is. The only thing I can assume, however, is that the
rankless still give birth naturally which is why their quarters are
overpopulated. That would make sense to me on why they would be
deemed rankless because they would be going against the grain of the
rules society has put into place. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">From
these rankless there is a small faction of rebels (some of the
high-command call them terrorists) called The Black Zero. What their
agenda is, I'm not quite sure. Again, it's rather murky. Yes, they
want to overthrow the current oppressive government, but I'm not sure
if they want to rule themselves or install something new or what.
It's a little too early to tell. Right now all they are doing is
terrorist stuff, and I know that's how most wars and rebellions
start, but it would be good to know their list of demands. I'll do
more world-building as we go throughout, but just know that there's
some government and military stuff going on that tries to mimic every
other political drama out there right now. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjuJlRGOFvA8I4eT4ktDkvTwd-_8ECc5gVdZJG4kB2dPU4E7sQSdrlPCeGcQhnXp6QuWP9gE9h9f2PlGrEA_EpE9eMRueQkNVgMYSacXEJ_JwvIzRjZC6J0FXu5BlQ18uBdj6c6NApp8I/s1600/nup_180176_0543.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjuJlRGOFvA8I4eT4ktDkvTwd-_8ECc5gVdZJG4kB2dPU4E7sQSdrlPCeGcQhnXp6QuWP9gE9h9f2PlGrEA_EpE9eMRueQkNVgMYSacXEJ_JwvIzRjZC6J0FXu5BlQ18uBdj6c6NApp8I/s320/nup_180176_0543.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Val-El</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
back to Superman's grandpa's grandpa. His name is Val-el, played by
veteran actor Ian McElhinney. Oh yeah, as an aside, everyone is
apparently English on this series for some reason. Why, I have no
idea. As if there aren't tons of really good American actors that
need work, but I digress. Val is in court and has been accused
basically of two things: working on a secret scientific project that
the leaders think is something destructive and that tries to prove
his ridiculous theory (Oh-ho-ho, more on that theory later. It's a
doozy for this show), and that he has been working with The Black
Zero. Frankly, he isn't quick to deny either assertion as they're
both partially true. So they make him walk the plank out of the dome
and into the frosty abyss. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Ready
for more world-building? OK, so apparently Krypton is actually an ice
planet that is nearly inhabitable, save for these few domes in which
the people live. That's fine as some (NOT ALL) of the comic writers
have pictured Krypton as this as well, not to mention the Donner
Superman also has the planet being like some kind of frozen tundra of
beautiful white. But, in most of those renditions it was understood
that the Kryptonians could still survive in their planet's own
environment, you know, because if you're not a religious person,
then... Science. Look, I am a Christian myself, but I know that
science tends to say that through evolution dominant species evolve
enough to live in and pseudo-conquer their environments. In other
words, dominant species are able to live on their planet's surface
without much need of other coddling from nature or their own
ingenuity. But with the planet ravaged the way it is, it makes me
think one of two things: either the planet has been plunged into this
chaotic ice desert due to the Kryptonians own mismanagement (ie. Some
kind of climate change/environmental destruction message which I
would be all for even though they've said nothing to that effect), or
they are not native to that planet. Both conclusions bring up
intriguing questions. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The second conclusion speaks more to the
bizarreness of the show, which I'll touch on further down when I
reveal Val's big theory. But the first conclusion also is interesting
because it posits that the planet wasn't always this way, and we even
see what are clearly supposed to be ruins of an old world now
reclaimed by the frost. The problem I have with that, however, is
that why not show us that Krypton? Hell, if you're gonna go back to
his grandpa, why not go all the way back to when Krypton, I assume,
was thriving, and then show us the destruction through the years. You
could even expedite it and have this ice thing coming insanely fast,
panicking all of society and sending them into this archaic governing
system. Hell, the writers and producers on this show talked about how
“unexplored” Krypton was as fodder for great storytelling. They
literally could've done anything far more creative here, but kinda
missed the ball. Frankly, that is the entire critique of the show
that you might read multiple times throughout this post. I digress. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Getting
back to the story, Val is convicted of the two crimes, his honor and
his house's name and rank are stripped (no more house of El) and he
is forced to literally walk a holo-plank out of the protective
force-field bubble around the city where he then plummets to his icy
death. This all happens in front of his family and his nine-year-old
grandson who absolutely adores him. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2lDMhIlEIqvo1hxayU5fczYL4NZ0HVDvzKLltFv3hc1_Sm8xUyNXK-0HNNo0HtnKvDVm68RB1qdAbwpY4bgzLYeao12yrENnXCWRFPiV7MxFXWODbey2kn8MRoQxzlB6L2lK0PlKM8Gc/s1600/920x920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="920" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2lDMhIlEIqvo1hxayU5fczYL4NZ0HVDvzKLltFv3hc1_Sm8xUyNXK-0HNNo0HtnKvDVm68RB1qdAbwpY4bgzLYeao12yrENnXCWRFPiV7MxFXWODbey2kn8MRoQxzlB6L2lK0PlKM8Gc/s400/920x920.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kem and Seg, the more handsome one. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
then we zoom ahead 14 years. Val's grandson's name is Seg (formerly
of the house of El). Now a 23-year-old rankless trotter, he works
cons down at the local pub owned by his friend Kem (I think that's
his friend's name, although it could be the name of another
character). His friend owns the bar/tavern and makes bets on him
about if he can get into fights and how long he can last in them or
if he can win them. They win a little money and Seg leaves. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Now,
for about the next two paragraphs it is really going to seem like I
didn't actually watch this series at all, because you're gonna hear a
common frame of me not knowing stuff. What Seg does for his regular
job, I really don't know. In fact, similar to on Inhumans, I can only
see maybe five jobs that are even available for people on Krypton. If
you're ranked you can be a politician, soldier in the guard/army or a
scientist (whether that's working in the baby farm or teaching). For
the rankless you can be a bar owner or a salvager of the old lands. I
assume that there's maybe some kind of mine somewhere to work because
most rankless look dirty like they've been digging coal to power the
force-field, or that there are farmers to feed everyone, although I
guess the scientists could also be doing the food creating. Frankly,
I don't know any of this stuff because the show does such a poor job
at trying to meld two far-different dichotomies: hyper-advanced
future with medieval barbarism. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway,
I mention Seg's job (or lack thereof) because he somehow winds up in
the high court just as the many-faced god (or maybe it's priest?) and
the other guy in charge Daron-Vex (again, Vex is the surname) are
about to make a ruling on someone. The guy on trial is a member of
The Black Zero and has a bomb implanted in his arm. Seg suddenly
appears, sees the bomb and tackles the guy to the ground before he
can blow it, which was strange because the dude had the bomb's
trigger in his hand and only needed to press his thumb down and
everyone would've exploded. Anyway, the guards shoot the guy's arm
off with a cool laser blaster and everyone is impressed. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Suddenly,
just from that little act of heroism, Seg is brought in front of
Daron and his daughter Nyssa, and told that because of his hard work
(again, doing what?) and heroism from earlier in the day, he is being
absorbed into the House of Vex. He is to marry Nyssa but must take
the Vex name (again, he technically has no name anymore as El was
banished and it is even a crime to say that name). While he already
hates this, he thinks that at least this will be good for him and his
parents to get out from living in the rankless slums. They know they
can't go with him, and they still believe in what his grandpa was
doing. So, before there is even some kind of ceremony he and Nyssa go
to that Matrix-looking baby farm, give some blood through a thumb
prick and have their baby start to be grown in an egg. They learn the
imprinted future of the baby and everything, learning that it'll be a
boy, he'll live for 173 cycles and will serve in some government
office nobly and faithfully for years. This way is efficient. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyDsgNrvo0CfzDcblE0j_SRB5xlGwoiSnAgUNgKIKJOTTNXz0d8CxccyHBW74-vGWymvQr9YV4-PRnFiYM4cH94gcgQ5G-VzyVIgkuRMIgnu2wZLn0H8Pdgwa-XK9cCq64b60AN4zlAfk/s1600/180202_3662041_More_to_the_Legend___House_of_Zod_1500x844_1152453699996.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="844" data-original-width="1500" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyDsgNrvo0CfzDcblE0j_SRB5xlGwoiSnAgUNgKIKJOTTNXz0d8CxccyHBW74-vGWymvQr9YV4-PRnFiYM4cH94gcgQ5G-VzyVIgkuRMIgnu2wZLn0H8Pdgwa-XK9cCq64b60AN4zlAfk/s400/180202_3662041_More_to_the_Legend___House_of_Zod_1500x844_1152453699996.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jayna on the left; her daughter Lyta on the right</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
we also learn of the warriors/soldiers. Here, we learn of the house
of Zod. As the current leader of the house of Zod we have Jayna Zod.
I usually mention race just to give a full-rounded picture of what's
going on and for we POC to be able to cheer on people that look like
us getting roles. Here, however, I have to point out that Jayna, her
daughter and most of the soldiers are black (or of other minority
races) for a later critique. Yes, you already know that critique
partially, but I digress. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Jayna
seems to be the commanding general or at least one of the highest
ranked in the military at the moment. She is teaching a class on
combat to her young soldiers when we meet her. We also meet her
daughter Lyta-Zod who is part of the newest class of soldiers
officially ready to take to the field. Lyta is currently arranged to
be married to Dev-Em (another black guy). He seems to be the hallmark
of a potential favorite son-in-law: tall, dark, handsome, follows
orders, is intelligent and sticks to the status quo. But Lyta is
actually in love with another. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Yep,
you guessed it, Lyta-Zod is in love with Seg formerly of house El.
And that's when you realize that they have made the legendary fight
between Zod and Superman into a Hatfields vs. McCoys feud that has
been going on for centuries. Yes, in both films Jor-El was against
Zod but it still didn't feel like two families feuding because one
broke the other's heart. Here, that's exactly what it is shaping up
to be. Jayna makes an example of her daughter by stabbing her through
the hand in combat and telling her that she is weak because she asked
for mercy and this group of warriors never ask for mercy. You fight
to the death, period. So she sneaks off and has a roll-around with
Seg where they talk about not making waves and his offer to be part
of house Vex. The funny thing is that their dialogue isn't filled
with longing and heartache as they discuss how madly in love they are
or how they wished that the rules were different. I assume that maybe
they aren't really that much in love, but who knows. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">At
this point I must mention that this first episode, with commercials
removed, really only clocked in at around 37 minutes because they
followed it up with a 9 minute discussion from multiple comic book
artists, writers, movie writers and everyone you would associate with
Superman on screen or on paper, even Geoff Johns. I say that because
I will mention it in the review but also because it sorta cuts the
episode short. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzxddiSl9qGK9QkQUDeWpQdG9Brhc0vO5E1Rbwioa4e5L8O3Yg-lzdDQN0uNURyVwSwKJMJ_zO-AHm3bYPuFPrNAY4DwGJsPmrEZ6HpgGfiksVhNfUBnWRV1krcAOSJoXJhyphenhyphenhSaP3xPsM/s1600/180202_3662130_Krypton_Legacy_Trailer_1500x844_1152520771775.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="844" data-original-width="1500" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzxddiSl9qGK9QkQUDeWpQdG9Brhc0vO5E1Rbwioa4e5L8O3Yg-lzdDQN0uNURyVwSwKJMJ_zO-AHm3bYPuFPrNAY4DwGJsPmrEZ6HpgGfiksVhNfUBnWRV1krcAOSJoXJhyphenhyphenhSaP3xPsM/s400/180202_3662130_Krypton_Legacy_Trailer_1500x844_1152520771775.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seg and Superman's Cape</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Next
Seg runs into this guy who is dressed in human clothes and looks like
a human and is wearing a Detroit Lions hat. This guy gives him that
weird little Superman-emblem crystal like from Man of Steel and tells
him to find the fortress. Seg's parents debate whether to tell him or
not. Finally, his mom rescues him on the street from being beaten by
some guards and hovercrafts him out to this place where Val used to
come to do his science stuff. There's an apartment there that they
can get into and another space that he must use the crystal to open,
and she says that they tried opening it but couldn't but now maybe he
can. But then she's caught and is accused of being a traitor like her
father-in-law. When they ask who was in the hovercraft with her, her
husband steps forward to take his son's place and lie. Her husband
then, for no real reason, tries to shoot the Vex only to be blasted.
His wife soon follows. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Seg,
knowing his parents died to keep this secret and hoping to do
something with the crystal, goes back to the place Val had hidden in
the icy always-blizzarding tundra and inserts the crystal. It opens
into a Fortress of Solitude that his grandfather had. And poof, the
Detroit Lions guy is there again and gives him the disintegrating
cape of Superman, tells him that he is a time traveler from centuries
in the future where Seg's grandson is this symbol of greatness but
that the future is in danger because Krypton is currently in danger
from a powerful force. This force is the consumer of worlds known as
Brainiac. So together Seg and this mysterious guy must work to stop
Brainiac from taking Krypton because Mr. Tentacles is already out
there and is coming there way. Oh, that big theory that his
grandfather had: that they are not alone in the universe and that he
saw a biological life form heading their way. Whaaatttt?! Yeah, I
know it's kinda blowing your mind and making you question everything
you knew about Superman and his home planet. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
two sorta picks up where we left off. Seg explores the fortress more
and comes to discover a hologram of his grandpa is all up in and
through that place. His grandpa does this info-dump on him and talks
about how he was working on technology that could see far into the
stars and even let him travel to these places. Mr. Detroit or Mr.
Strange (or something like that; sorry, I can never quite catch the
names in shows no matter how hard I try. But he's supposed to be a
known comic character who uses a stone to travel through space/time)
tells him about Brainiac. He says that he himself is from earth and
that Brainiac collects civilizations, planets and cities he finds
interesting, often destroying the rest of the planet or civilization
in order to preserve what he thinks is the most perfect example of
that civilization. He travels across space looking for planets and is
headed their way. He urges Seg and Kem to help him look for any
forward scouts that Brainiac sends out to make sure there is life on
a planet and it is worth taking or “preserving.” So while Seg has
to continue to deal with his new status as part of house Vex, Strange
and Kem go into the forbidden lands to search for an orb that
Brainiac sent out. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy3DKZ9pnwDCdCQmLmeIgGfOvogUjlj90wadrskGostKVbVhAPfBU5GjeUANA9YWeRqhdg6si3nMJZwKaW7oRRSwoGS0NZ1xZdklxK9-0_exOx6kL_N_1-3YqCjQe8Vx3PEuIszrzJ6Y4/s1600/krypton-dev-em-628.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="418" data-original-width="628" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy3DKZ9pnwDCdCQmLmeIgGfOvogUjlj90wadrskGostKVbVhAPfBU5GjeUANA9YWeRqhdg6si3nMJZwKaW7oRRSwoGS0NZ1xZdklxK9-0_exOx6kL_N_1-3YqCjQe8Vx3PEuIszrzJ6Y4/s320/krypton-dev-em-628.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lyta's Betrothed</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile, Lyta tries to prove that she belongs
not only in house Zod but that she belongs in the warriors brigade
and should be taken seriously as a fierce warrior and leader. It's
your basic legacy-stuck-in-her-parent's-shadow story that you'd find
in any teen fantasy book or show. There is some trouble and whatnot
that's brewing down in the rankless sections, and they are planning
to go to war with them to combat The Black Zero before it grows even
larger, but Lyta doesn't want that because, even though she is
highborn, she has always looked at the rankless as people too,
especially now that Seg is part of it (we are to assume that they
knew each other as children all the way up to age 9, hence the
romance that seems improbable). So she challenges her superior
officer of her squad to a ritualistic dual that has its basis on the
actions of some previous dude that came along, climbed to a mountain
and decreed that anyone who thought they could rule could come and
challenge him in a battle to the death. Somehow, he became the first
general or ruler. I should take this opportunity to say that, among
the things I don't know is what kind of government this is: kingdom,
twisted republic, etc. Yes, the castes are there and it seems to be
Vex calling most of the shots, but he's not the most powerful one
from what I can see. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway,
everyone doubts her, and her betrothed and mother both say she'll
probably die and that it was stupid for her to challenge this dude.
She beats the guy, he asks for mercy, and she utters the same line
her mother said on the first episode after she snaps his neck. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
she is proving herself worthy, Seg wanders around and sorta does a
lot of nothing on this episode. He manages to say that he will not
bow to house Vex and take their name because he won't be used as
their puppet, but will, somehow still remain among the ranked. Now,
at this part I will say that I got a little bored, let my mind wander
(on both viewings) and missed what he figured out, but it was
something that he thought he could use to somewhat lord over the
Vex's head. And we also learn that Nyssa chose him to be her
betrothed through some kind of twisted plot. In other words, she
somehow influenced his being at the courtroom to stop that bomber
that day so that his heroism could be a huge public spectacle. Why? I
don't know. But again, I assume that Seg, Lyta and Nyssa all knew
each other when they were young and all still part of the ranked.
However, it's hard to think that she might've had a crush on him that
lasted for 14 years or that she could know who he is now as opposed
to then, so I'm not sure why she chose him. A mystery for the season.
</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
biggest thing was that Detroit (my nickname for him) and Kem went to
the ice lands and did find an orb that they learn at the end of the
show is one of the scout orbs that Brainiac sent. This signifies just
how close he is to the planet (basically, he's already here). </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7I2gwLUze4TUlmNt6ggV0gelFgn2wQnTlWxWuuaTHwlgjXihQ9qzTVz8F-RN3BQJBeZnRh64PtLtsKj5vdWusVqqAb2jPh9WDFQfDqq20MD1ALfPD3bhSBL3nFHopcFlsyAyJ4OREQdE/s1600/180221_3671727_Krypton_Official_Trailer_1500x844_1166768707963.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="844" data-original-width="1500" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7I2gwLUze4TUlmNt6ggV0gelFgn2wQnTlWxWuuaTHwlgjXihQ9qzTVz8F-RN3BQJBeZnRh64PtLtsKj5vdWusVqqAb2jPh9WDFQfDqq20MD1ALfPD3bhSBL3nFHopcFlsyAyJ4OREQdE/s400/180221_3671727_Krypton_Official_Trailer_1500x844_1166768707963.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brainiac's Skull Ship</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
three dives deeper into Brainiac. We learn—get ready for this one
because this is gonna sorta blow your mind—that Val actually
created the Phantom Zone. That's not the kicker, though. The kicker
is that the Phantom Zone to him is not some prison or empty zone like
it has been in pretty much every TV, film and, for the most part,
comic book iteration of Superman and/or the Justice League that has
come along, but is actually like some kind of wormhole. Think of it
as a mix between The Flash's Speed Force and that strange
four-dimensional book case from Interstellar. According to Val he
explored the universe by using the Phantom Zone, was able to go to
different planets, and he learned of Brainiac through one of his
Phantom Zone excursions. Granted, the way he talks about it is that
he has done all of this through some sort of phantom projection
similar to Marvel's Doctor Strange, so he wasn't there physically and
the zone acts sort of like a TV and telescope combined. But the idea
is there. To recap, the Phantom Zone is not a prison, it's not an
empty vast void like it always has been, it's actually a tool or
passage to another dimension where the mind can travel freely across
time-space. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Val's
Fortress hologram explains that it is because of this travel that he
knows that the orb they found is supposed to be filled with a
parasite. Brainiac himself can determine if a planet has organic
life. Once he knows it does, he sends out the parasite to latch on to
any organic host. That parasite is supposed to get the lay of the
land in order to send info back to Brainiac on whether this city,
culture or planet is worth taking. But the parasite always kills the
host after relaying this info. Of course the orb they find is empty.
They immediately switch to the rankless outlands scavenger who found
it to show us that the parasite has gotten into her and it's just a
matter of time before she is taken over completely. We're supposed to
feel bad for her because she has a daughter and is a friend of Kem
and Seg, but she loses it halfway through the show, beats up a bunch
of guards and runs off for Seg to find her later. Seg does manage to
find her and sees her eyes completely blacked out like Brainiac's
usually are. She tries to strangle him for a while, but he manages to
bop her on the head as she is trying to tear some stuff up with a
computer, so she can learn and send the info back to Brainiac. They
then bring her back to the fortress only to realize that she has
become a Kryptonian transmitter and is sending B the info right now. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
that is going on, Lyta is sworn in as her squad's new leader after
killing the old one. Even though her mother is proud of that
accomplishment, she's still upset because she doesn't think Lyta will
be good at this job and disobeys the way it is too often. Her
betrothed thinks the same. She proves them both half-right when she
and her squad are dispatched to the rankless slums to quell the
hottest breeding bed for the radicalism of The Black Zero. They're
supposed to question and arrest people and put fear into them that
they should not try to help these rebels. One of her troops gets
overzealous and shoots one of the people, claiming self-defense. Lyta
has her arrested instead of the rankless, ruffling House Vex's
feathers. But Lyta has more to be concerned with because Seg comes to
her with news of his grandfather being right and an evil alien coming
to attack them soon. She suggests they take such proof to the top
government officials, but he says no because he actually has a brain
and has been paying attention to the show. We end with another shot
of Brainiac in the middle of his skull ship with all of his tentacles
crawling across his face as he gets his jollies on anticipating his
next takeover. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZpIMdxrlExxF1GPWlmCZ3ZqE35oHXhUFO128bSrA0tkxvkX60hRxcppRQt3TWzzSxFWfCuPPVhyQscvjxaH3QB2nVMEbTA-Wh8WCmdW4ujDPDMuT4TrdSwJR62-fWO5YG3qAeCCXsdQ/s1600/krypton-premiere-date-syfy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="620" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZpIMdxrlExxF1GPWlmCZ3ZqE35oHXhUFO128bSrA0tkxvkX60hRxcppRQt3TWzzSxFWfCuPPVhyQscvjxaH3QB2nVMEbTA-Wh8WCmdW4ujDPDMuT4TrdSwJR62-fWO5YG3qAeCCXsdQ/s400/krypton-premiere-date-syfy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seg, Daron-Vex, Nyssa-Vex</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What's
my grade? I give it a shaky <span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>C</b></span>. Yep,
that's the first time I've ever given a TV show a shaky grade. I say
that the grade is shaky because one, I'm not grading just for myself
but for you too, and with that in mind, I would say that whether you
enjoy this show depends on so many variables it seems almost unreal.
All I can say is what I do and don't like and why I have judged
things that way. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">For
starters, this show is waaaayyyy too dark. Not just in tone but in
actual aesthetic texture. I was literally ten minutes into the first
episode and knew how I'd feel about almost the rest of the series and
came up with this line: they took the Man of Steel aesthetic but
seemingly dropped most of the history and mythos built within that
film. That's factor number one on whether you'll like this show. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I'm
guessing you're reading a post about a comic book show based around
the legacy of Superman because you like Superman, and if you like
Superman you probably saw Zach Snyder's version in the last three
films of Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman and Justice League. If you
like those portrayals, particularly all the stuff from the opening 30
minutes of Man of Steel when they are on Krypton, I'm not saying
you'll like this show, but I am saying that your probability of
enjoying it has increased by 50%. (For a marker, I semi-enjoyed Man
of Steel, but still felt it was far from the Superman we want and
deserve, and thought the opening was incredible). Even better, I
think I can confidently say that they (Syfy and WB) clearly spent
some good money on this show. The sets, for the most part, are real
and not CGI/greenscreened to death. The CGI that they do have (some
of the flying vehicles and beams of light and Brainiac's spaceship,
etc.) have rendered fairly well (better than that monster they
expected us to call Doomsday in BvS). And the angles and shots
sometimes (not all the time) have a film-like quality to them. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQgQiOuUGJvuwqo2UpKpFIhJbNdJbd1ok7QZOfaLbn7E6dOwQfjKdTjezh-Dq3kOjimFSszYfM29bXdmxiN01x4UW8MHpIcjEPHggJlrlqZvp9QovIENMGhEw4-yEuuHxPciDReO2cpyU/s1600/MV5BMzgwNTljNzAtMWQzMS00NjY0LTlkNGMtODQwZTkwM2FlYWM4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzI0NjE5NDA%2540._V1_UX477_CR0%252C0%252C477%252C268_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="477" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQgQiOuUGJvuwqo2UpKpFIhJbNdJbd1ok7QZOfaLbn7E6dOwQfjKdTjezh-Dq3kOjimFSszYfM29bXdmxiN01x4UW8MHpIcjEPHggJlrlqZvp9QovIENMGhEw4-yEuuHxPciDReO2cpyU/s400/MV5BMzgwNTljNzAtMWQzMS00NjY0LTlkNGMtODQwZTkwM2FlYWM4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzI0NjE5NDA%2540._V1_UX477_CR0%252C0%252C477%252C268_AL_.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This Aesthetic Appears Only Once or Twice An Episode</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">However,
with all of that said, this aesthetic, this vision of Krypton does
not fully match the vision of any other Krypton. I usually watch my
shows late at night after everyone has gone to bed and I am done with
my writing work. That way my eyes can adjust and let more dark light,
shades and tones in, so I can see stuff better, but this show still
felt dark at 1:00am. Everything is soaked in black or dark blue, all
the sets are moody and gray or a dirty white and even much of the
reddish hue that you saw in Man of Steel's rendering or that you
might see on CW's Supergirl, Smallville or in the comics is gone
because everything either happens at night, or the few day shots you
do get the red is more of a burnt sienna or auburn color. Now, I get
why sci-fi TV shows dealing with space often adopt this kind of
aesthetic (look at Expanse, the 90s Star Trek shows, Battlestar
Galactica): because filming with dark tints or color-adjusting in
post helps to hide flaws of set design, costume design or even bad
CGI, etc. It's just like how indie filmmakers will often shoot a film
in black and white because it's cheaper than color-correcting. But my
god, you've got to be able to see all that's going on. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Worse
still, this, like the Man of Steel franchise (we'll just say this for
now and include BvS and JL in that), uses a character in Superman who
is uniquely associated with light and strips away all the vividness
of the precursor narrative. No, they don't have to show some kind of
happy-go-lucky people like what Superman is, but if the name Krypton
was not on the show, you wouldn't think this had anything to do with
Superman. It feels more like a Batman prequel which leads me to my
next point:</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
plot and tenuous connection with Superman. Back when Gotham first
premiered I remember some of the live-or-die-by-comic-books fanboys
losing their mind and bawling their eyes out because they were going
to feature a Batman show without Batman. Now, while some die-hards
still hate the show, it has garnered a healthy and loyal following
that has supported it through multiple seasons. Remember, Gotham
along with Krypton (it took much longer to get this show off the
ground due, I'm hearing, to massive story problems) and Marvel's
Agents of SHIELD came along in a time when the studios wanted to
capitalize on their comic book properties more than ever but didn't
want to overexpose their big-name properties, so figured they could
give side stories that surround our mightiest heroes lives. In other
words, you don't get Thor but maybe you get Lady Sif to come and help
out with a tiny non-world-threatening mission. But where Krypton
differs from Gotham and, to an extent, all of those other peripheral
shows, is that it has nearly no connection to Superman, nor what we
know and love about the character. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">On
Gotham it is intriguing to see how the city became so corrupted and
grew increasingly more and more desperate until Batman became a
needed force in the streets. Not only that, but we are able to see
the genesis of some of his villains, especially the older ones.
Batman had a gaggle of different ages of villains, whether it was the
much older Penguin or Professor Strange or Ras Al Ghul, or those
nearer to his age in Catwoman and Poison Ivy. Was there a desire to
see them all in their youth? No, but there was intrigue to see how
they became the desperate, damaged people they are, and what, if any,
noise they made during Batman's formative years. It let us know that
people didn't suddenly explode into villains once Batman came on the
scene, and they weren't all stable adults that had one bad day and
decided to start killing. No, they were around and living often
normal lives but had secrets that slowly revealed themselves. And
Bruce no longer had to be this Jesus-like character: we learn of one
instance in his childhood (Jesus was in the temple being about his
father's work) and then zoom forward to him becoming Batman in
adulthood. His transformation isn't triggered by one or two things,
but a slew of horrible things that forces him into the cape and cowl.
</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj_CpcP8LFG8SK_iEBhVnnef7CB-BlnlVWKjs995vu4bizzx3NXzOzYjTgEjAGJfUbu54JlTNu1Mn3G9TRNMa89aSUUHbGb1GKEt79ZpRvy1U71_qXCecKsRsnraM2MC6UAz0jvY1tp74/s1600/imagesGEZVD6AY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="159" data-original-width="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj_CpcP8LFG8SK_iEBhVnnef7CB-BlnlVWKjs995vu4bizzx3NXzOzYjTgEjAGJfUbu54JlTNu1Mn3G9TRNMa89aSUUHbGb1GKEt79ZpRvy1U71_qXCecKsRsnraM2MC6UAz0jvY1tp74/s1600/imagesGEZVD6AY.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Brainiac Does Look Cool</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">On
Krypton, we have almost none of that. For starters, setting the show
almost a hundred (or maybe a couple hundred, according to Detroit)
years in the past is such a baffling idea that I can't for the life
of me figure out why they made it. If you're going to go to the past,
either go to the extreme past, like before the world became the ice
palace it is now, or close in the past, like showing his father
either as a child or doing his own fighting as an adult. This
intermediate selection disconnects us from both. Those ruins, how
they got there and why the people now live in force-fields seems like
a far more interesting story I would want to see enacted rather than
told in an expo-dump later this season or in seasons to come. On the
reverse side, showing a young Jor-El maybe falling in love, fighting
with Zod, fighting to save his planet or learning of its imminent
destruction is also more intriguing. But in this show, they decide to
choose his grandfather? Huh? Even worse, his grandfather is talking
to <i>his</i> grandfather, which lets me assume that the world has been like
this in these bubbles for a while. And then they make it into a
political show where the have-nots are fighting against the haves on
a planet we all know will soon blow up. Like, huh? Why should I even
care? Because it's not like there's any drama surrounding a potential
countdown before the world explodes. They don't even now they're in
danger and the danger they have is superfluous to Superman, really.
Again, why should I care? I don't know. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
time is also interesting because we have no idea how time works on
Krypton, and they refuse to tell us in any solidified agreed-upon
way. We first hear that time operates in years because the show skips
ahead 14 years to catch Seg as an adult. But during the baby Matrix
conception we hear that his and Nyssa's child will live for 173
cycles. So is a cycle a year? Does that mean he'll be 173 when he
dies? How does the time on Krypton compare to the time on Earth? How
old can they live to be on their own planet? And yes geeks and freaks
out there, I know that time and measurements of it work differently
depending on your revolutionary path around the sun and rotational
spin on the planet's axis, but there has to be some set marker of
time between their planet and ours that we can properly identify. We
need that because of my third point on time: </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
villains' ages. If this makes it past season one and it probably will
because it is super-expensive and studios don't like giving up so
easily on expensive stuff related to tentpoles, I assume it will
feature more galactic villains that are familiar to Superman fans.
OK. I'm fine with that, but you have to tell me how old they're
supposed to be, because if they're thousands of years old by the time
they get around to fighting Superman, then they should've clearly won
those battles on the count of them being wiser. But even more to the
point, these villains are world-ending villains. How would these
backwoods Kryptonians defeat them enough to not have killed them but
allowed them to go free and terrorize some other part of the universe
until arriving at earth? With Joker/Jerome (now his twin brother) on
Gotham we know that the kid has been through a bunch of craziness
already and has gone to Arkham and been dead before, so once he and
Bruce finally make their full transformations we'll understand why
they haven't already destroyed each other and might never get around
to it. Here? Brainiac is coming and I have no idea how they're going
to defeat him in an adequate way that will make me think he could
still come back and be this huge villain against Superman, especially
because of my next point: </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">They
didn't know they weren't the only ones in the universe. Like... what?
Remember back when I started the review section and said that this
show took the aesthetic of Man of Steel without taking the history.
This is what I meant. In that movie, Zod mentions that they've been
going around to different planets and scouting them to see if they
could hold Kryptonian life for thousands of years (yes, we're back on
the time thing). How would they not have encountered aliens? If they
were doing any kind of interstellar travel, wouldn't Oa have
contacted somebody about this? Don't know. In fact, the show posits
that they've never done any kind of space travel. That only leads to
more questions. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Are they really an advanced society, because it seems
like they're a society that Captain Kirk and Spock would have orders
to not interfer with. Really, the only super-advanced thing I've seen
them have is how they make the babies, and a few flying cars here and
there. But everything else seems primitive. And if they do get all of
this technology (maybe they obtain it by beating Brainiac), then how
do they get adept enough to use it to send a baby off to a far-off
planet populated with people when they DON'T EVEN KNOW OTHER BEINGS
EXIST! This show is nonsense. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">How would they learn all of this
knowledge about the universe—enough to have those tons of crystals
for Superman to study in his Fortress of Solitude—within the span
of two generations? Again, I see where they are or at least could go
with this and use Brainiac as the Deus Ex Machina that launches
Krypton into a golden technological age that would dwarf our own of
the last 60 years in comparison, but gimme a break. Would it even be
fair to call them an advanced civilization at that point if they only
get advanced in the last two generations of their existence? This is
one of the problems I had with Black Panther: they are this
super-advanced society yet still settle matters of a thousand
different other things, including their politics, by rather barbaric
means. I get the fascination for writers to juxtapose the two ideas
of technological advancement with caveman-like behavior but when does
the line get drawn? Hopefully on an alien planet. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif1Da4ZvVhGL7wNA7-FGqO58-s6k263bT2-pesk0IeNMR86p-nh9iCruZ1vorUvzI60FJ69biQ0n4894jVQM5-ED5bygk6Fl231tXYpK5HxI0oC4rOEvAg-qWTuhqpDVHAr05Cg1cSQIc/s1600/RDMTONM64NCKHPDUZUSFWAEKNE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="787" data-original-width="1400" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif1Da4ZvVhGL7wNA7-FGqO58-s6k263bT2-pesk0IeNMR86p-nh9iCruZ1vorUvzI60FJ69biQ0n4894jVQM5-ED5bygk6Fl231tXYpK5HxI0oC4rOEvAg-qWTuhqpDVHAr05Cg1cSQIc/s400/RDMTONM64NCKHPDUZUSFWAEKNE.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seg and Lyta</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Speaking
of alien, for all my sci-fi geeks out there, this show is the most
geekworthy-devoid show I probably have ever seen on the Syfy channel,
and I don't watch much of the Syfy channel. There's almost nothing in
it that tells you it is a science fiction show, and that goes doubly
for a show based off of a superhero or comic book character. Dark
Horse comics or some of the other comic vendors that don't have the
big name of DC or Marvel behind them, I can see this being one of
their shows. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">But a DC show? This? I don't know what this is. On
Krypton none of the Kyrptonians have any superpowers which I'm OK
with (maybe their superpower is to live excessively long regardless
of what planet they are on), although I would've liked it if everyone
had at least one power that everyone could do and to them doesn't
seem super, but I digress. They live like humans, have the same kind
of governmental problems as humans, fight like humans and even love
like humans, but they just don't procreate like us. But here's the
kicker, they also don't seem to have an atmosphere all that different
to earth. I say that because of Mr. Detroit's (Strange) seemingly
unaffected demeanor from walking around on Krypton. Granted, we have
no idea how long he has been there or if he himself is an alien to
both Krypton and Earth, but what we do know is that we never once see
him in a space suit or struggling to breathe in their air or adopt or
adapt to their culture and environment. It literally feels like an
American Michigander crossed the border into Canada and discovered
everyone speaks curiously with a British accent. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">With a lack of alien
presence (outside of Brainiac who still isn't on the planet yet),
politics that are playing out too similar to our own (but
surprisingly with dumber twists to them; think India's caste system
and sprinkle in a little bit of Brexit), a weakly-plotted and
executed environmental message (again, where's the story about the
ruins and why the planet is so cold that they can't survive for too
long outside of the force-field), and the fact that they are only
just now realizing that they aren't alone in the universe (mimicking
our current NASA-fueled questions) it makes you wonder as to why they
even decided to make this show and call it Krypton. You take three
things out—the names, the cape, Brainiac—and this is a
run-of-the-mill Syfy channel show with no draw, no comic book fanbase
and rather boring politics. It's trying to be a knock-off of Game of
Thrones but takes none of the good parts of that series and doesn't
add in its own good parts. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Remember,
I've gone through this entire review without talking about the
strange mixing of races which I promised to talk about, the fact that
they felt compelled to use the Man of Steel aesthetic yet used the
Donner movies Superman music, inexplicably have a Fortress of
Solitude for Val (so Superman can't have anything that he himself
came up with?), have yet to show the red sun in all of its glory,
have failed to explain the dude who wears the mask of the many faces,
have failed to explain why the Vex and the others in charge are so
against Val and anyone else talking about life beyond their planet
and have failed to make me adequately care about any of the
characters. Still, with all that said, this is a toss-up to me. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Finally,
I go back to something that Geoff Johns and Goyer were saying. They
were talking about how DC gives their artists so much leeway to do
whatever they want with material. They (Goyer specifically) stressed
how Superman is, even though he grew up in the Midwest, an alien.
They even talked about how he as a superhero is so important and what
he means as a character. Ultimately, the reason why I still hear bad
stuff coming out of DC (this time about Aquaman) is because I still
don't think they understand their properties. Sure, Geoff and Goyer
might understand the character but fail to understand what really
shapes the character and how the fans view the character. Yes, he's
an alien but the only thing that makes him an alien are his powers.
Superman... Clark Kent... Kal-El is ultimately a humble boy from
Kansas who grew up being instilled and filled with love, an
appreciation for all life and understanding the joy of living it.
He's not a hero because it's in his blood or because he feels it is
his duty, he's an ordinary guy who does heroic shiznit because he is
the one who can do it. Literally none of the history of Krypton
shapes Kal-El. Kara on the other hand... </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Yet,
even in here, within their own declaration do they fail. While Superman
is supposed to be this big alien playing human, they do nothing to
make this world feel alien to us. In fact, this world is no more
alien to us than Mexico is alien. And before half of the population
starts spouting off about illegals and drugs and poverty and blah,
blah, blah, remember that we have all that crap, too, not to mention
the same dominant religion. Now, Americans going to some place like
Iraq or Jerusalem would be way more of a culture shock than Mexico. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? This is why the grade is so shaky, because I really
don't know if the average viewer would enjoy this or not. Granted,
there's been plenty of stuff that I've said is stupid and manages to
stay on TV while stuff that I enjoyed was canceled, and I still watch
Agents of SHIELD after all this time, so... But with that said, I
know that some of my own expectations probably clouded my judgment. I
was really excited to see this show because I wanted to know
what they would and could do with a famous name and an almost blank
slate waiting for creativity. What I felt I got was an amalgam of
some of the worst ideas and retreads that I have seen in an original
property in a while. It, sadly, feels like Goyer's other series Flash
Forward which premiered to amazing numbers and had an amazing premise
but sputtered out after only a few episodes because it was big on
concept, yet had no emotional weight and terrible execution. It was a
great idea in theory, but in execution... Eh! Feels the same with
Krypton. If you like political shows where the politics is fuzzy, you
might like this. Like young people rebelling against their parents?
Might like this. Like Game of Thrones but don't like that pesky magic
or the intricate writing? Might like this. Liked the aesthetic but
not the story of Man of Steel? Might like this. Like your sci-fi and
fantasy shows light on sci-fi and fantasy? Might like this. But if
you like something that is fresh and new and exciting and filled with
adventure, or doesn't move slowly, or feels like stuff actually
happens on every single episode, or you're looking for cool Superman
Easter Eggs, or think that Krypton is going to be this rich world
full of fantastic stories to tell, then look elsewhere because this
show is not for you. Krypton airs Syfy Channel Wednesdays at 10pm
EST. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of Krypton? If not, do you think you'll
check it out now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Do you
like it? Was I too rough on it? What is your favorite part? Do you
think Brainiac will be the main villain for the shows duration or
will they bring in other extraterrestrial rogues? And tell me
honestly if you would've preferred to see a show or at least
something about the ancient past of the Green Lanterns instead. Let me know in the comments below. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
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For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
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The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
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on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
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<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “It's a bird!”
“It's a plan! It's su--”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'Hold on! Why the hell are we all
suddenly looking up in the sky and pointing at things that fly? Is
this some weird flash-mob thing I'm in? Or do you two guys just
always travel together and do this in random groups of people to make
them think they might see Superman?'
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
Yeah, I never quite trusted some of the writers behind these Superman
comic books. I always get this sneaking suspicion that they actually
hate Superman as a character and think that he's too goody-two shoes.
It's strange that people are loving Captain America right now but so
many comics fans always credit their dislike of Superman by saying
that he's too perfect or too goody-goody. What the hell do you think
Captain America always was? I digress. I still want to write a
Superman/Justice League movie, because I think I can do the
characters justice, but that's just me. I'll think of a better
sign-off next time. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-48591051876845676932018-04-18T14:11:00.003-07:002018-04-18T14:11:58.479-07:00Oh! Oh! Ohh! It's Magic #Deception #ABC #3weekroundup #recap #review #newseries<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Oh!
Oh! Ohh! It's Magic #Deception #ABC #3weekroundup #recap #review
#newseries</b> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I
am back once again with another super-late review. Again, some shows
I'm not even gonna get to review so get off my back. They probably
suck anyway. I'm sorry. That was wrong. I shouldn't have written that
and then not edited it out. I know we all work very hard to be
creative, so saying that something is terrible without even seeing it
is something a troll would do. Let's start this review before I get
totally off track. So, does Deception bring back that magic feeling
or is it a one-trick white guy—uh, I mean pony. White guy.
Whichever. Let's find out together! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">ABC's
Deception is the newest procedural that follows the craze of taking
one hardened officer of the law and partnering them with a rather
goofy genius of his trade. Before, ABC succeeded in spades with this
concept by partnering the quirky mystery novelist (shameless plug:
The Man On The Roof on sell June 22<sup>nd</sup> on Amazon Kindle)
Richard Castle with sizzling, yet dedicated tough cop Kate Beckett on
the show Castle. While it had a great run that saw the pair slowly
fall in love and eventually get married while solving murders and
mysteries together for the better part of seven seasons, it ended
rather abruptly after ABC, in a hugely sexist move, refused to pay
lead actress Stana (happy early B-Day Ms. Katic) the raise she
rightfully deserved, while Nathan got a raise and the idea floated
around that the series could go on with just him at the helm. Yes,
it's been two or three years and I'm still a little bitter at that
non-finale finale that they had (what the hell are we to think about
them both being shot and then suddenly cutting to a scene of them as
a family with two new kids? Was that a dream sequence? Are they dead
or was that real, and they both survived being shot?). I digress.
This time around ABC has decided to pair an FBI agent with a
magician. Yeah, this is gonna be tricky. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjABBGIFK2mNXfBUzoGMrVvv-cJhzkOGjZm5ezRlI8q7Uxeu2h2odTxA-99VRdqd0C0E_Y7ZcFoX2T3hYBByZXYVmAcPoQVmH4V4RU_Pm1bcJHGdFA0834rCr7j050u5uACSDqlZSydMZI/s1600/c02c55a0103fef8eae78dbee160c9a05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="808" data-original-width="1200" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjABBGIFK2mNXfBUzoGMrVvv-cJhzkOGjZm5ezRlI8q7Uxeu2h2odTxA-99VRdqd0C0E_Y7ZcFoX2T3hYBByZXYVmAcPoQVmH4V4RU_Pm1bcJHGdFA0834rCr7j050u5uACSDqlZSydMZI/s400/c02c55a0103fef8eae78dbee160c9a05.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cameron and Kay </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">FBI
special agent Kay Daniels (played by Ilfenesh Hadera. Damn, I just
bit my lip thinking about her. I really have to cut down on the
creepy sexual stuff on this blog if I ever wanna be successful or at
least stop mentioning it to you all. Damn, I just bit my lip again.
Hey, if Christian Grey and Ana can get away with it...) is magically
paired with world-renowned magician Cameron Black (played by Jack
Cutmore-Scott). Wait, let me reverse this a little. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">It
all starts with Cameron's Vegas show he calls Deception. He starts
small by talking directly to the camera about a card trick and
describing the idea behind a magician's setup, his slight of hand and
the prestige. After the trick, he walks to his behind-the-scenes
assistants. We first have Gunter (Vinnie Jones) who seems to be the
props guy. He builds the contraptions for Cameron to use in his show.
We also have Jordan (Justin Chon; happy to see more Asian men getting
some shine) who seems to play the techie behind the more advanced
illusion parts of, uh... illusions. We round out the team with Dina
(Lenora Crichlow; how many beautiful, in-charge women can this show
have. Apparently, only three) who seems to be his business manager.
He handles the magic while she handles everything else. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisRNek5avZHVNHmhIDHhWDytI0DPhJ0g7339Tluj1kG6FCkvdL1aW4y_ubsKIxS_SiPRJvMjp8xsGKvC-Ks1jiZeUI9WxGjMDn3Iy0YkqOcEnd0VojlBsWLRlQtnUpPfumNz7_m2e9IGc/s1600/deception-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisRNek5avZHVNHmhIDHhWDytI0DPhJ0g7339Tluj1kG6FCkvdL1aW4y_ubsKIxS_SiPRJvMjp8xsGKvC-Ks1jiZeUI9WxGjMDn3Iy0YkqOcEnd0VojlBsWLRlQtnUpPfumNz7_m2e9IGc/s320/deception-4.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Mysterious Woman and Johnathon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
to the trick, Cameron moves from the cards to an escape act that sees
him hanging above a bed of spikes while escaping binds as a blow
torch burns through the rope. Gunter says it's too risky, but he
still goes through with it and has to swing out of trouble and crash
through a mirror only to... </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">...end
up in New York's Times Square, having completed the illusion for a TV
special. The trick and show ended, he walks off and gets into his car
with a gorgeous mystery woman played by Stephanie Corneliussen. As
they flirt and go back and forth, and she throws herself at his feet
in hopes of being his next conquest, he notices that she has two
different color eyes. And then they crash. While he is able to get up
and walk away from the crash, he finds that she has been thrown from
the car and is dead on the road. The problem is that when he goes to
check on her, she no longer has two different colors of eyes. It's a
different woman and this new woman has been dead for some time. He
then runs. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
next morning police come to Cameron's Vegas hotel room/home and try
to arrest him for the accident. The only problem, it isn't actually
him. Nope, this dude pulled a Christopher Nolan's The Prestige and
has lived his entire life with a twin that no one knew about. His
brother is the one that ran. Now, his brother Johnathon, is in prison
for the murder of that woman. He explains what he remembers about
that night and hopes that Cameron can find this woman. Now that their
secret is out, Cameron swears that he will do everything in his power
to find this mystery woman. And then we jump a full year into the
future, and he's made no progress. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
special agent Kay Daniels and her partner Mike Alvarez (Amaury
Nolasco) are hot on the trail of a big drug-cartel member. She even
is sitting on his private plane, ready to take him in when things go
haywire. As soon as she gets off the plane and is joined by her
partner and the other agents, the other tactical agents' smoke
grenades start going off, sending up clouds of red smoke that fill
the plane hangar. Kay and the others evacuate right before the plane
explodes, leaving a terribly marred wreckage and zero bodies. This
shows on the news. Cameron sees it and recognizes the red smoke as a
signature that he used in a trick where he made a plane disappear on
one of his specials. A take-initiative kinda guy, he goes to the
still-active crime scene and does some charming magician's stuff to
tell them that their plane didn't blow up but disappeared, and he
thinks that the magician that did it specifically wanted him to know
that they did it. He even theorizes that they drove the plane away to
another hangar somewhere close in the middle of the night. Kay is
naturally skeptical about all of this until Cameron shows her the
tracks they used to move the plane and knocks down the false
back-wall that was the door through which they snuck out the plane. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqsokNvtziFMNuXVzpwKEpZbYE6cujoPplleYBWzeL_kU8YzhVAINtKXqoV8pag8RsFBIcjKpCXR3poBC8qX8DwVrJAVm4acl4u6VYH8VROHgmqXE_AmlU1efX8iPMNWW-TZeF1wU94n0/s1600/deception-abc7-320x400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="320" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqsokNvtziFMNuXVzpwKEpZbYE6cujoPplleYBWzeL_kU8YzhVAINtKXqoV8pag8RsFBIcjKpCXR3poBC8qX8DwVrJAVm4acl4u6VYH8VROHgmqXE_AmlU1efX8iPMNWW-TZeF1wU94n0/s320/deception-abc7-320x400.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
that's it. It's over. But of course it's not really over. Somehow,
Cameron believes that the magician that did this trick did the red
smoke thing to tell him that they were also the magician that framed
his brother for the murder of that one woman a year earlier. So, he
devises a plan to dress as the cartel's accountant in order to insert
himself into the investigation about this gangster because he wants
to talk to the man and ask him who the magician was that he used. The
disguise doesn't work and Kay sees through it immediately, but her
magic-obsessed partner Mike doesn't see through the disguise and
seems impressed with everything Cameron does. They do use the
disguised Cameron to fool another one of the low-level cartel members
that they catch only after Cameron and Kay find out where the plane
went (a chop shop). Along the way Cameron uses small magic tricks to
impress people and get them to open up about what they've seen. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
plan changes after Kay sees how convincing Cameron's disguise is to
everyone else. He agrees to be used as bait to lure the cartel boss
out of hiding because they know that word will spread that the banker
has supposedly been talking to the Feds. They kidnap the real
accountant and replace him with Cameron, and follow the SUV that
takes him straight to the cartel boss. Cameron is tied up and
blindfolded and nearly killed when he causes some chaos, knocks the
cartel boss's guys out and grabs the wheel of the SUV while still
blindfolded. After a harrowing drive through the city, he and the
boss escape into an alley where the boss is about to shoot him until
he notices that the end of the alley is only a painting. He hasn't
even realized that he walked literally right into a trap, a fake
alley surrounded on all sides by wood. He's already imprisoned. He
still tries to shoot Cameron, and thinks he's succeeded when the
magician goes down. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">But our guy pops back up and shows the bullet he
caught from the old bullet-catch trick. Really, he just replaced the
cartel guy's gun with a Gunter prop during the chaos in the SUV.
Unfortunately, the guy gives him some gobbledygook about a dragon
when Cameron asks about the evil magician. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
end with Cameron in a wrap party with the special agents and Kay
unveiling a small piece of evidence she found at the scene of the
plane disappearance. The trick was exactly like his, except for one
thing: a deck of cards was left behind. Cameron takes out the deck of
cards to reveal a one-way burner phone. It automatically calls the
evil magician who is... the mystery woman that Johnathon had in his
car with him that night. The two-colored-eyed mistress set the trick
up on his brother as well. In her best Carmen San Diego impression,
she stands in a Germany airport in all red as she is a
globe-trotting, sexy, magical illusionist. And the game is on,
because it seems like she wants to be caught, or at least pursued. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP9gn2_6NLP-tF5fSoc9t2ydG_DRzhKMDeC1Ur1xO5OJ80fPDoAId-n2zwSqJRJBBWC4l5IoF4SQZuUyJ7fDiTJuPgOdLbFxpcWpT-sKlS5j7x0JDvrI0gcqPxiYyTtWM28M0VrxzMFGE/s1600/deception-magic-team.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="203" data-original-width="300" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP9gn2_6NLP-tF5fSoc9t2ydG_DRzhKMDeC1Ur1xO5OJ80fPDoAId-n2zwSqJRJBBWC4l5IoF4SQZuUyJ7fDiTJuPgOdLbFxpcWpT-sKlS5j7x0JDvrI0gcqPxiYyTtWM28M0VrxzMFGE/s320/deception-magic-team.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jordan, Gunter and Dina</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
two focused on Cameron and his group's attempt to stay working with
the FBI. While their expertise proved useful for the first crime that
involved a magician's trick aimed specifically at getting his
attention, every crime is not like that. Even more, the FBI doesn't
really care that much about his brother and the supposed “I was
framed” story that Johnathon is telling. But Cameron knows that he
needs the resources of the FBI to help find magical Carmen San Diego.
And unlike Richard Castle who had a legit reason to shadow the NYPD,
not to mention a very close friendship with the mayor who owed him a
favor, Cameron has none of that. So, he decides to audition by using
magical tricks to impress the special agent in charge. Unfortunately,
she is not impressed and while Kay may be semi-open to the idea, she
is not about to bend over backwards to get him privileges. </span></span></span><br />
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
then another murder happens. This time some criminal lawyer who has
worked for the Russian mob for years is murdered during his morning
run. At a stop in his run, some young kid (19) comes and shoots him
in the face with a water gun, yells “got you” and runs away. The
man first thinks that the liquid is just water, but then breaks out
with red splotches on his face and kills over from a poison. The mob
wanted him dead because he had just recently decided he had enough
with criminals after having a child with his foreign wife, and was
working on a deal with the DOJ to rat. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Cameron
injects himself into this investigation by overhearing the breakdown
of the crime, then showing up to the murder scene like he did with
the plane disappearance. He explains that while it was not a magic
trick, this whole thing—the gotchu, the bright blue and orange the
killer was wearing, even the full-framed appearance in a security
camera that caught the murder—is all a performance. He surmises
that this was not just a killing but a well-planned, staged killing.
Kay and Mike decide to see where this could go. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">It
goes up to a second floor apartment just outside of where the man was
murdered. A young boy, who always throws paper airplanes out of the
window in the morning, happened to have seen a blue van with a very
distinct business decal sitting outside filming the murder. As it
happens, they spot the van at a park across town and catch the
murderer about to do the same thing to the lawyer's wife and baby.
But when they catch him, the kid thinks he's on a reality TV show and
wonders if he's won the game. The van gets away and they catch the
kid. Cameron thankfully stops the agents from shooting the kid who
doesn't even know the squirt gun is filled with a toxin. They take
him back to questioning and discover that he only just moved to NYC
and was approached on the street by a supposed producer. The
producer, as it turns out, is a Russian mobster who works for the big
boss. If the young boy can tell them more about this guy, they could
maybe get him. The problem: the kid suddenly falls ill with the same
poison while in the interrogation room, presumably for having gotten
drops of the liquid on his skin after carrying the squirt gun around
all day. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Now,
the race is on to find the gangster so that they can find an antidote
to save the innocent kid's life. Even worse, the special agent in
charge has to follow the law which states that the kid is the killer
until they can actually get the real killers behind this plot.
Cameron and the agents go to the square where the kid was picked by
the producer and find a street performer to ID the “producer” he
saw trying to get volunteers for the reality show. But they still
need the kid to ID the Russian in order to get a warrant for his
nightclub. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Cameron,
however, doesn't have to operate by the same rules of law. He and his
team devise a plan to go to the club and speak to the Russian.
Cameron sneaks through the club, uses Dina to help him get into the
private part of the club and gets into a place where he can talk to a
secret VIP bartender to ask where the Russian is. The old bartender
tells him that he shouldn't be there. Still, Cameron pushes farther
and discovers where the blue truck is, but is caught by the Russian.
He does a magic trick where he breaks the guy's phone in half, then
puts it back together before pulling a disappearing act before they
shoot him. Kay and Mike finally show after getting the near-death kid
to ID the “producer.” There's some gun-play and the Russians get
away. But Cameron has a plan. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4-eKQG0gAY17PxbJHlaV31YAn6tlkHzcSFQUrnz3sOWt4OATMD6_ypzm3FysLwSZyrzpH5vziBHLAXUJSoMeuXxPAOkN3E4Xr6owC0wptvOJ6J-wzNUoojzKjzFe7enSgbNlbvmZPkL4/s1600/Deception-on-ABC-Laila-Robins-620x375.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="620" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4-eKQG0gAY17PxbJHlaV31YAn6tlkHzcSFQUrnz3sOWt4OATMD6_ypzm3FysLwSZyrzpH5vziBHLAXUJSoMeuXxPAOkN3E4Xr6owC0wptvOJ6J-wzNUoojzKjzFe7enSgbNlbvmZPkL4/s320/Deception-on-ABC-Laila-Robins-620x375.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kay and the Special Agent in Charge</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">While
Cameron gets sent into the Dunce corner by the FBI, he and his team
concoct a plan to not only catch the Russian but also get him to give
them the antidote to the poison. The FBI discovers where the Russian
is hiding and stakes out his place. Cameron comes and tells them of
his plan and begs them to believe in his idea. The decision is left
in Kay's hands.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">They
go and arrest the guy against Cameron's wishes. But then, as they are
transporting him, their car is hit by one of the Russian's underlings
who, instead of rescuing him, says that the big boss wants him dead,
then squirts him and Cameron in the face with the water gun. As it
turns out, this is a trick. The underling was a very good mask done
by Gunter. The setup is to show Cameron dying from the poison and
convince the Russian that he, too, is about to die from it unless he
tells them how to combat the poison. He does only to realize that the
hospital room really isn't a hospital room but a well-constructed set
and that Cameron isn't dead or sick at all. In a moment of severe
oversight, everyone takes their eyes off of the dude, and he gets up
and holds a knife to Dina's throat. Mike manages to knock him down
from behind and Kay says that they aren't going to arrest him, but
release him back to the mob who will kill him for sure unless he
gives up the big boss. As it turns out, the big boss is the bartender
Cameron met, disguising himself as a low-level worker. Cameron has
helped them throughout the case and the special agent in charge
agrees to keep him on. But he knows that his brother's case will
still not be a priority. Luckily, Kay has already started a board for
his brother's case and has agreed to help him. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">In
Episode three Cameron, Kay and the gang had to deal with a Thomas
Crown Affair-style heist (the 1990s one with Pierce Brosnan and Rene
Russo both looking maturely hot). For the first time in three
episodes, this one doesn't open with Cameron doing a magic trick
straight to the camera. Instead, we open with him talking over a
young woman walking through a museum (clearly not the NYC
Metropolitan) and into a special exhibit wing where she notices
something strange around all the paintings. She touches something and
suddenly the gate goes down, and she's trapped inside. This is a job
for... an escapologist! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-U1fDMVXVi3EEWcOvkikjXgGBtz4ypyfeoG25EJEPWxlSC2UrLhaDEk1QDvHXBdcyaVXTwQ533cB_mhEnA_5OO0Hq8p3EY7QNSW1y-3I331eBagCfHMCn0u11gGdnWquqiPktgpzxBPM/s1600/OWYRGZZMSVEMHM3Y6AL4OSPSPA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="1400" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-U1fDMVXVi3EEWcOvkikjXgGBtz4ypyfeoG25EJEPWxlSC2UrLhaDEk1QDvHXBdcyaVXTwQ533cB_mhEnA_5OO0Hq8p3EY7QNSW1y-3I331eBagCfHMCn0u11gGdnWquqiPktgpzxBPM/s320/OWYRGZZMSVEMHM3Y6AL4OSPSPA.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Cue
Cameron, who we find in bed with a random black woman. This serves
two purposes: let's us know that he is definitely single, and lets us
know that he likes a little coffee with his cream (see what I did
there). He slips out of bed and tells the one-nighter that he's gotta
go because the FBI needs him. He gets there just as the person behind
this whole trap calls the FBI and demands a ransom of some 125
million dollars or else he's going to blow up the entire room one
priceless painting at a time. Yeah, those strange things on the
paintings that the woman saw: bombs. So, they have to figure out how
to get the woman and art out of the room and/or find the madman
behind the bomb threat. The rules: don't touch the gate, he will see
(he's got two of his own cameras installed in the room) and if you
don't transfer the money within 90 minutes, he triggers all the
bombs. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Cameron
sees this simply as a bad escape trick, and he's done them a thousand
times. All he needs is to figure out a way in, and he'll be good. The
exhibit happens to be sponsored by some big-time billionaire
businessman who shows up with his adult son to complain about the
pictures. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Unfortunately, Cameron touches the gate and the guy blows
up one of the paintings. Luckily the woman and the other paintings
are still fine. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
time is ticking away, and they need to first figure out a way into
the room. The museum director tells them that only one man has ever
snuck into that room, but he was caught and is in jail. As it would
happen, he's in jail with Johnathon. Johnathon must get the man's
secret by promising him a favor. He tells him that there is a secret
opening through a floor panel. The next thing is that they then have
to figure out how to distract the cameras. Through a simple roll-out
mirror trick, they are able to trick the camera into seeing an empty
floor as Cameron worms his way across the floor to a camera blindspot
(most of the room is in a blindspot). They replace most of the
paintings in 90 seconds but Kay sneaks into the room also and grabs
the final two paintings that are still in the camera frame. They
manage to get out of the room just in time as the man blows the room.
We learn that Kay saved the painting because her sister used to be a
painter and loved this particular artist. Sadly, we learned in the
second episode that her sister died by overdose some years back
before Kay became an FBI agent. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
move on to see Cameron meeting the </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">museum woman for a lunch after
they are safe, while the FBI have to still find out who was behind
the bombing. As it turns out, they discover the guy behind the
cameras only to find him shot dead in the head. They then discover
that he was the janitor and that this was a total inside job because
the woman was also in on it. But she tells Cameron that it's not what
he thinks right before they get kidnapped. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Cameron
and the woman wake up in the trunk of a car where she explains that
the mastermind behind this whole thing contacted her online, and took
advantage of her desire to be an art restorer and seduced her with
the possibility of money. But he always planned to kill her. She was
supposed to take down all the real paintings and throw them into the
garbage can where the janitor would then take them down to the
dumpster to be picked up later by the mastermind. Well, Cameron
escapes the trunk just as the car stops and rolls into the backseat
and into the driver's seat. They then manage to dress him as the
janitor, go back to the museum and capture the billionaire's son as
the mastermind. He stole the paintings because he was tired of his
father loving the paintings and his “life's work” more than him. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
end the episode with Dina getting close to Mike, and Kay and Cameron
getting closer through her story about her sister's desire to be an
artist. It's far from there, but it's getting there. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggdOwVlRamfeSMBGNNEPZ-UqK_25pteGznhAVMmPciw7xkM55wfhrhUphweqf_YYO1RpSiy1OFxph3i5KZuHt3E8_4P7c_529qjp7XdUJiChOHCGSCbDM_u1jsQVYsjL7Z7XGuNwZpb4Q/s1600/Deception-Episode-2-Season-1-Forced-Perspective-02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="737" data-original-width="1100" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggdOwVlRamfeSMBGNNEPZ-UqK_25pteGznhAVMmPciw7xkM55wfhrhUphweqf_YYO1RpSiy1OFxph3i5KZuHt3E8_4P7c_529qjp7XdUJiChOHCGSCbDM_u1jsQVYsjL7Z7XGuNwZpb4Q/s400/Deception-Episode-2-Season-1-Forced-Perspective-02.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What's
my grade? I give it a solid <span style="color: #cc0000;">B+</span>. Yes,
we've seen this show before and its name was Castle. Yes, Castle felt
somewhat like the originator of this modern wave of eccentric
non-police partners with police, and the two leads (hear that, ABC?
Both the man AND the woman led the show) had some serious chemistry)
but since that show has been taken off the air, this show can serve
as a very good child or clone of that one. You have the overly
stylish lead female cop or in this case FBI agent with demons in her
personal past that motivates her to be in law enforcement. Beckett's
mother was a lawyer and was murdered when she was young; Kay's sister
had the overdose, although that is a crime that can easily be turned
into her having been murdered for some reason in later years. Castle
slyly charms his way onto the force and into the good graces of all
the cops around him; Cameron ditto, both impressing and mystifying
his fellow workers along the way. Castle had a rather complicated but
relatable family dynamic in that he was a single dad who took care of
both is daughter and, to some extent, his aged mother, and had money
to burn in order to do it; Cameron, instead of a mother has a brother
who he needs to get out of prison for a crime he didn't commit, not
to mention a team of trusted technicians he must care for and pay,
still with money to burn after one year away from the stage to pursue
his brother's innocence. Speaking of family, we have the highly
intelligent woman in both men's lives—Castle had his daughter while
Cameron has his business partner Dina—and we have the quirky but
dependable sidekick to our lead law enforcer in Mike on Kay's side
(you could choose from Havi or the other guy for Beckett on Castle).
We have the boss who is skeptical, and we even already have a budding
romance between the two side characters that will most assuredly be
complicated in Mike and Dina on Deception, and Havi and the ME on
Castle, literally mirroring the Latino man falling in love with the
black woman. Hell, even the names Kate and Castle, and Kay and
Cameron start with the same letters. If you're looking for a carbon
copy of that show, I guarantee that you probably will not find
another one quite as close as this without them infringing on some
copyright or just straight-up rebooting Castle. But with that said,
there are some flaws in this setup even if you were a fan of Castle. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">First,
I don't like the boss. I figured I should just get that out of the
way right now. I don't like the special agent in charge. I think
she's bland, she comes off as too tough and rather emotionless. Where
we had Castle doing some great comedy against Beckett's original
straight-man captain, here she feels more like an energy suck if ever
I saw one. I'm hoping that she gets better and fits more into the
tone of the show, but as someone who has seen that actress before I
will say that I think she mostly belongs in harder-hitting political
dramas than this one, if she wants to stay in political or cop
dramas. But, frankly, she's not a chief concern. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">My
first chief concern is the charm of Cameron Black himself. OK, so I
am not sure that he matches the level of charm that Nathan Fillion
had. Don't get me wrong, I like him in the role so far, but he still
doesn't seem quite like the lady's man that Richard was and doesn't
come off as quite as confident. I think this is mostly due to age and
especially his age compared to Kay's (Ilfenesh) age. In Castle, it
was not only clear in the narrative but also just from looking at the
two of them that Castle was at least a good ten or 12 years older
than Kate who he would eventually fall in love with. There was a
goofiness and maturity which only came either from age or from being
a dad. He was dad-goofy, dad-mature and dad-sexy which made them a
perfect match on the chemistry level. They had a playful banter back
and forth that I could see evolving into something deeper from,
literally the second episode, and made me believe that they could
actually be a couple in real life. Here, I can't quite see him ending
up with Kay if that is where the show takes it. Are they both single?
Yes, but he, so far, just doesn't fit. For starters, he still feels
stuck in the goofy stage where he's trying to impress everyone too
hard. Yes, Castle was goofy but you often felt that he was really
only trying to entertain himself and kudos to you if you came along
for the ride. She almost seems too old for him. This might just be my
age/male bias because we've seen so many older men with younger
women, but something doesn't quite sit well here with their
chemistry. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">On
the flip side, she is not exempt from this criticism. My partial
criticism with her has also to do with the writing and her acting. I
love me some Ilfenesh ever since really taking a look at her in the
disastrous Baywatch film from last year. I think she could be really
good if she keeps getting work or is able to have steady work like a
weekly show over the span of a few seasons, but here she tends to
switch a little too often. From what I've seen on the show, she goes
from hardened law enforcer at the beginning of each episode to soft,
jovial regular girl at the end of the show. Yes, some of that is
because they've usually solved the case and whatnot, but some of it
is also how she plays the character and how the character is written.
The girl at the end of the show you can potentially see yourself
meeting in a grown folks lounge/bar setup and having a deep
conversation with. The girl at the beginning of the show seems like
she's got kids, a husband, 9 to 5 job and no time for anything
outside of what orbits in her personal bubble. She's closed off and
often not as charming as Beckett. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Again this could be just the fact
that the actors are all still getting to know both each other and the
writing staff, and are trying to build character so much that they
haven't taken leeway to build the small quirks of character, so I'm
not saying this couldn't or won't get better over time. But if I'm
looking at the original, Castle allowed Beckett to smirk and smile
and make snide comments back to Castle, feeding viewers a humor
sandwich. He came with the slapstick/goofy/absurd comedy like a
classic Steve Martin film; if you didn't like that, she came with the
sarcastic/sardonic/cutting humor that felt like her showing her
dominance in that field and properly putting Castle in his place when
his britches got too big. They played well off each other. Here, Kay
and Cameron haven't quite gotten to play well off each other. It
feels more like mother or teacher chastising her child or the class
clown, than girlfriend and boyfriend joking with each other. We'll
see how this picks up. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Oddly
enough, everything else feels fine. The pacing is what's to be
expected. They actually make the rather whimsical idea of a magician
consulting with the FBI work (with Castle, and I don't just say this
because I'm a writer, the idea didn't feel as whimsical even if it
was rather novel. (A-tee-hee!) He was a crime novelist who had to
research ways to kill people to write convincing crime novels). The
cast is nice and diverse and each one of the cases has, so far,
supplied enough of a wow factor to keep people's attention. It won't
blow you away as something new and original, but it could distract
for an hour a week. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? If you are/were a fan of Castle and still feel a
little peeved at that finale or just want to see the old gang solve
more cases, well, unfortunately you're outta luck because I doubt
that show is coming back anytime soon (check back in ten years). But
if you're OK with satiating your thirst for hot law enforcement woman
potentially falls for equally handsome, but very intelligent
goofball, then Deception might be for you. But fair warning, they are
going to expose a lot of magic tricks throughout the series, so if
you don't like knowing how things are done when you go to your next
magic show, then this might not be the best show for you. Yes, not
watching a show because you don't want to know all the magic tricks
sounds crazy, but some of you out there have your reasons. While I
think that this show is far better suited in the Monday time slot
that was previously held by Castle, or even on Tuesday nights,
Deception currently airs on ABC Sundays at 10pm EST.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of Deception? If not, do you think
you'll tune in now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? What
did you think of it? Who is your favorite character? Do you think Kay
and Cameron will end up together, and if so by what season? And when
will they manage to catch Carmen San Diego and get his brother out of
prison? Let me know in the comments below. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
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the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this summer. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “The trick is to
make hay while the sun is out.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
Yeah, my mind totally blanked on something good to say there. I
couldn't even think of a proper magic joke or a good old saying.
Geez, I am mentally out of shape. I've gotta start doing more mind
calisthenics. I'll try to think of a better sign-off next time. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-11029551665350790202018-04-09T16:05:00.000-07:002018-04-09T16:05:06.972-07:00It's About Justice, But For Who? #ForThePeople #3weekroundup #recap #review #ABC #newseries<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>It's
About Justice, But For Who? #ForThePeople #3weekroundup #recap
#review #ABC #newseries</b> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWJ8HdZToU9snybJuiB0b242E-FXcRx1Y787qcJ1iWHMLzqZjAK_V_9_X2eMypFX5AHkWivPNVHYNR2wrcN1PBmtaZrr8gZ0v5r52RWC4WajuQptEQHnfIrfLJWFclFJrWsSvUSutZywg/s1600/p14159355_b_v8_aa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="960" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWJ8HdZToU9snybJuiB0b242E-FXcRx1Y787qcJ1iWHMLzqZjAK_V_9_X2eMypFX5AHkWivPNVHYNR2wrcN1PBmtaZrr8gZ0v5r52RWC4WajuQptEQHnfIrfLJWFclFJrWsSvUSutZywg/s640/p14159355_b_v8_aa.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
All pictures courtesy of ABC</div>
<br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Is
it late? Yes, it's late. Very late. Like, super late. Like, the
rabbit in Alice in Wonderland kinda late. But I've been very busy
cooking up good stuff for you all, desperately trying to get people
to read and review my upcoming novel The Man On The Roof (#TMOTR) and
getting a thousand other things ready. I'm also trying to get The
Knowledge of Fear ready for release by the end of this month
(yikes!), and get work on the second season of Extraordinary done and
ready for summer release, not to mention start this new mystery novel
entitled The Ones That Stare, due out this December. I'm very busy
and booked to capacity, as bald-headed Tamar Braxton might say. But
I'm still reading and viewing some of the latest in entertainment for
you all. (I know I haven't put up a single book review in the life of
this blog, but it's comin' eventually. I think). With all the
excitement going on, I am set to miss more shows this year than ever
before, not to mention I have decided to skip this year for The
Writer (eek!). I might have mentioned this before, but yes, I am
skipping a year of my summer serial The Writer in order to try
(keyword) to catch up on some other projects that have been
languishing in editing or development and desperately need my
attention. How the hell I will finish all the work that I need to do
this year, I really don't know. Every year it seems like I'm slowing
down far more than I should be and I'm still not that old yet. But
enough about my deteriorating health, we're all here for For The
People. So, will Shondaland's new show bring it, or do its legal
antics already seem like old-hat? Let's find out together. (Oh boy,
that was a terrible opening paragraph. Sigh! This is gonna be rough).
</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">ABC's
new show For The People comes straight from super-producer Shonda
Rhimes. Using her Shondaland production banner, she has recently
built an incubator of talent, often cultivating new show creators
from the inside, while also reaching beyond her own imaginative
bounds to grab intriguing intellectual properties. While the most
recent Shonda-produced show didn't fare so well (see: Still
Star-Crossed), the creator behind this one is hoping to piggyback off
of the initial concepts, tropes and starry-eyed qualities that made
Shonda's original hit Grey's Anatomy a phenomenon when it first
premiered some 14 (13?) years ago. For The People follows a group of
young, wide-eyed lawyers headed by Britt Robertson, Jasmin Savoy
Brown and Susannah Flood as they take on some of their first cases in
New York's famed Southern District Federal court, also known as The
Mother Court. This is supposed to be a show not like most other legal
shows. Both sides work for the government and are split up at the
very beginning of the first episode. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
two sides we see are the public defenders and the US prosecutors who,
essentially, bring the cases against criminals for the people. You
get it? The show's name has a double or even triple meaning because
technically both sides are working for the people, the common man,
the little guy and oh my god, I'm explaining the meaning behind the
name as if I'm talking to a bunch of idiots or children. Sorry. When
you're away from reviewing for a while things get super sticky when
you come back. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5so2KuRp7kaI0WtbVgoN2FrVFV4plGqF7It5wgiiGmkXL7LlYwxCQ9JRNTJ8w4AIHeOV729ixmmE0wCwFzEK8SOiJe9WLKdp0GuLWUunsB-9Y3OT_TmRLQNNlBuEZwXoZ-3JUPCfw14c/s1600/MU2ARANCDBFDZBJTHB4EPFAIJM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="1400" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5so2KuRp7kaI0WtbVgoN2FrVFV4plGqF7It5wgiiGmkXL7LlYwxCQ9JRNTJ8w4AIHeOV729ixmmE0wCwFzEK8SOiJe9WLKdp0GuLWUunsB-9Y3OT_TmRLQNNlBuEZwXoZ-3JUPCfw14c/s400/MU2ARANCDBFDZBJTHB4EPFAIJM.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sandra Bell played by Britt Robertson</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway,
we have on our public defenders' side: Sandra Bell played by Britt
Robertson in her first major TV role, Allison Adams played by Jasmin
Savoy Brown, and Jay Simmons played by Wesam Keesh. Sandra, while not
a loner, is a super-driven defender with a Meredith Grey-complex: she
expects to one day be either the best or the second best but doesn't
let her ego overshadow her drive to do what's right. On her first
day, after being sworn in with all the other lawyers (both defenders
and prosecutors), she immediately jumps at the chance to be the
“on-duty” defender, or the person who is automatically sent a
case by the court clerk because the case needs to go in front of a
judge that day, and hasn't been vetted and assigned by the defenders'
boss. The public defenders' boss, played by Hope Davis, tells her
that “on-duty” is usually for more experienced lawyers who have
gotten a handle on this high court. But she is brash and bullheaded,
so Sandra takes the duty anyway. Her first case: defend a young man
(college-aged) accused of terrorism (trying to blow up the Statue of
Liberty). Her opposition: Leonard Knox. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
other side or the US prosecutors are led by (meaning led by star
quality, in my opinion) Kate Littlejohn. Played by Susannah Flood,
Littlejohn is the essential Cristina Yang of The Mother Court. While
Sandra shows up first to the swear-in, hours before they are supposed
to be there, Kate shows up a close second. She is the rule of law
hawk, the stickler for details, the
everything-must-be-done-by-the-book woman who tolerates no fool, not
even her boss or fellow all-male colleagues. Let me mention here that
it is a very intriguing power and sexes (genders) dynamic that this
show has setup. I will discuss it more in the critique section, but
just know that battle lines are clearly drawn almost exclusively by
gender and the gender politics are quite easy and rather blatant to
pick up. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI9zE76z-YVMikVnfwYExZattGrsL8CW4qUM2jsegBY6W98xu7OmfTfN7Nc3mWxTCHbBqKZpmh1zC02YMEfC7bWAxPh00suKJNYHHvTe2wtpmHsq_9pb0TWoQsN1Qc53H5M332y1fx1rA/s1600/for-the-people1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="299" data-original-width="446" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI9zE76z-YVMikVnfwYExZattGrsL8CW4qUM2jsegBY6W98xu7OmfTfN7Nc3mWxTCHbBqKZpmh1zC02YMEfC7bWAxPh00suKJNYHHvTe2wtpmHsq_9pb0TWoQsN1Qc53H5M332y1fx1rA/s400/for-the-people1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Prosecutors (Lto R): Littlejohn, Seth, Knox</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway,
the prosecutors team is rounded out with golden-boy and God's gift
to... himself Leonard Knox, played by Rege-Jean Page; the oafish
everyman Seth Oliver played by Ben Rappaport; and their boss played
by Ben Shenkman. We all know that every lawyer is arrogant because
they have to be in order to think that they can win their cases, but
Knox's arrogance has been taken to another level, and for good
reason. Reasons we'll get to in the next episode. But in the first
episode, upon getting assigned their first cases, Knox asks Seth what
case he got, only to find out that their boss handed Seth the
terrorism case. While he pats Seth on the back, he wholly plots to
snatch the case from him because the case he's been given isn't
high-profile enough. His next stop is his boss's office where he
lobbies for the case and wins, already dumping on poor Seth who
recently worked in a rinky-dink law firm. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
it is Knox versus Sandra in trying to convict this young
brown-skinned Muslim man (kid, really) of terrorism. Meanwhile, as
Sandra ignores her boss's advice to not let the case go to trial
because she will inevitably lose, Sandra's friend and current
roommate Allison takes a case about a man's embezzlement that has
affected his family. That case just happens to be the one that was
handed off to Seth after Knox pulled the robbery. Seth just happens
to be Allison's on-again off-again boyfriend. They made a deal to not
let their relationship get in the way of their work, but didn't know
they'd be pitted against each other on the first day because I guess
they've never seen any TV involving any kind of competitive
environment and romance, like, ever! Seth's boss has given him what
he thinks should be a complete gimme (Knox knew this) but somehow the
young attorney manages to mess it up by leveling with his girlfriend
during an at-home argument. Allison doesn't want to use the
in-private information he freely gives her, but she does and ruins
his case, allowing for the wife of the embezzler to slide, resulting
in Seth losing his first case. Now, he's on probation. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvcgQXvnwEj0Uq1CEzLclxOfKGLjuHB3A2KWDSNnTfF7BAF4vbaSVG8amPPPo3yQat2vLvTeHCPh_O4QB65xxN_D81jQx387DCtFH1BL3_H9okaiWEHatmfkfnXVTvBluqtewTHOyd7Lw/s1600/MV5BNjFjZDBhZDctZmE3ZS00ZmI1LWIwZmQtYmQxZTEyZDEzNjI1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTk2ODc0MjY%2540._V1_UX477_CR0%252C0%252C477%252C268_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="477" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvcgQXvnwEj0Uq1CEzLclxOfKGLjuHB3A2KWDSNnTfF7BAF4vbaSVG8amPPPo3yQat2vLvTeHCPh_O4QB65xxN_D81jQx387DCtFH1BL3_H9okaiWEHatmfkfnXVTvBluqtewTHOyd7Lw/s320/MV5BNjFjZDBhZDctZmE3ZS00ZmI1LWIwZmQtYmQxZTEyZDEzNjI1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTk2ODc0MjY%2540._V1_UX477_CR0%252C0%252C477%252C268_AL_.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jay Simmons played by Wesam Keesh</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Finally,
Ms. Littlejohn outwits both Jay Simmons and his client. Jay, a
brown-skinned law romantic wants to see nothing but the good side of
people and give them compassion and an ear to bend because all
criminals are simply people who society has chosen not to listen to.
While I will somewhat agree with that, he takes it too far by going
into his first case without reading the brief on his client and
instead relying on the word of the man. In an embarrassing turn, he
stands up to plead for the court to go light on his client because
the man was just trying to take care of his brother while stealing
money, only to immediately find out from Littlejohn that his client
is a conman and pathological liar who didn't even tell Jay his real
name and doesn't even have a brother. Jay's naivete and gullibility
continue when he goes to the jailhouse to talk to his client about
the government bureau he concocted in order to rob people of their
cash. Jay is convinced that the man truly believes he works for this
fictitious bureau and that he is insane, only for Littlejohn to hit
him with the jailhouse video of the man talking up the effectiveness
of his con while on his one call. Littlejohn then tells him that he
could be a good lawyer if he tried, he's just not trying.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
to Sandra and Knox who both give it their most valiant effort. Sandra
learns that her “terrorist” client was not alone in the attempted
bombing and that he was, in fact, set up by undercover FBI agents who
posed as college kids, coached up what little radicalism he had for
18 months, picked a soft target for him to bomb and even built him a
fake bomb to carry in a backpack. While all of this evidence is
admissible and heard by the jury, she loses the case based on jury
bias (he's a brown-skinned Muslim with a bomb. Doesn't matter if he
was completely setup, he fell for the trap), and her own outburst at
one of the ferry captains that day—a well-strategized ploy from
Knox to draw out the jury's bias. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT34e7V-XJClD6xtnY2cjeQXAbz4KBOOvcxpZjsvjtPqT9LhZokkBDHp2jHVQopenBf5P2vg3x6QyiYpoKyj6NbRcihtvaEYlG0b7zqrE0ZSXKhbwF8TRncwXGjIirLoiscoQwoyuNs70/s1600/image.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="340" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT34e7V-XJClD6xtnY2cjeQXAbz4KBOOvcxpZjsvjtPqT9LhZokkBDHp2jHVQopenBf5P2vg3x6QyiYpoKyj6NbRcihtvaEYlG0b7zqrE0ZSXKhbwF8TRncwXGjIirLoiscoQwoyuNs70/s320/image.png" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left to Right: Boss played by Shenkman; Knox</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">While
Knox gets the old pat on the back from his boss and freshly poured
concrete for his golden-boy status, Sandra gets a parental talking-to
from her boss who tells her that she should get something from every
case, and today she got beat, but she'll learn from that. Everything
wraps with a tinge of both hope and cliff-hangery-ness when we see
Seth breakup and move out of Allison's apartment, and Sandra cement
her living status as permanent roommate with Allison. While Allison
has hope that she and Seth are just going through another off-again
phase, she and Sandra take a walk across one of the many bridges in
New York (maybe the Manhattan bridge? I don't live there, so...) so
they can turn back and see where they work all lit-up at night. Oh,
and they also discover that the two bosses—lead prosecutor and lead
public defender—are pseudo-seeing each other or at least hang out
often and go to ball games together. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
two sees Jay have to step up to defend a white supremacist who was
accused of shooting and wounding a congresswoman during a protest
clash. A skinhead, a myriad of offensive tattoos adorn the man's
body, including on his neck and face. He believes in the RaHoWa,
which, if you aren't familiar with it, stands for the Racial Holy
War: the belief that one day all “minority” races will rise up,
band together and come to attack whites... and the whites will win
and eventually dominate the planet as one race. Side note: I found
out about this theory while doing research for my as-yet to be
released future sci-fi novel Mulatto. It's an insane belief. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">At
first Jay wants to cover the man in makeup and present him to the
jury as a regular citizen who happened to be in the wrong place at
the wrong time, but he changes his mind upon hearing about the
RaHoWa. Instead, he seeks to prove that the US hasn't brought in any
good witnesses that can effectively ID the racist as the shooter, and
shows three pictures of other tatted-up skinheads that attended that
protest. He wins the case, but feels terrible about himself. He goes
back to his parents dry cleaners only to have a good pep talk from
his father who, even though he dislikes that he got this racist man
off, tells him that what's most important is that he was able to
utilize the law and actually have a trial because in many places in
the world that is not guaranteed. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
because of Seth losing his first case and earning himself probation,
he is paired with Littlejohn as her helping hand for her case. It
comes from their boss's boss that they need to make an arrest that
has an effect on the opioid epidemic. The prosecutor's office has
been looking at a gaggle of doctors for over a year now, trying to
pin over-prescribing charges to someone in order for the president to
save face in this drug war. Littlejohn wants to comb through all the
info they have gathered on the doctors to see if anything sticks out
about their medical practices, and she wants Seth to sit quietly in a
corner with his hands folded, so he doesn't touch anything. His idea:
don't look at their medical practices but at their houses because
they could've slipped up there. He wants to get warrants to randomly
search 25 houses with no cause or evidence of any wrongdoing because
I guess he doesn't know how the law actually works. The judge shoots
them down, only for Littlejohn to use a twist of his idea and look
into the doctor's personal finances instead of their business books.
She finds that all but one of the doctors has a housekeeper. This man
has three children, a dog and a working wife, not to mention a giant
house and more money than he knows what to do with in New York. But
no housekeeper in a culture where it's natural to have one. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Littlejohn
and Seth get their hands dirty and go to see about the housekeeper,
suspecting that he not only has one but that she is illegal which is
why he doesn't have her on the books. Lo and behold, he does have
one. Not only does he have a housekeeper but she is actually his
unpaid (yes, you read that right) slave who has worked for him for 17
years so she can get back her passport, which he took, to go back
home. She doesn't even want to be in this country. Even more
shocking, he's been using her name to setup shell corporations to
funnel international drug money for a cartel that ranges in the
hundreds of millions. They not only bust him for human trafficking
(slavery), but for the drug stuff, too, and are able to guarantee
that his never-paid housekeeper gets no less than five million
dollars of the seized money. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX6HTFnPkpO3BqhpTuxGt2zlOO_CUmOm10N6I_79Q1Akcrxgn6keOi_C8INF9BwRfnd1JxllH5oEPvbNBjOmL0FTytns3kLtdeMrpIXGFahFFJQUjlMeRvpOTv1n5ph-XgZIwl5QG_DE0/s1600/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="700" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX6HTFnPkpO3BqhpTuxGt2zlOO_CUmOm10N6I_79Q1Akcrxgn6keOi_C8INF9BwRfnd1JxllH5oEPvbNBjOmL0FTytns3kLtdeMrpIXGFahFFJQUjlMeRvpOTv1n5ph-XgZIwl5QG_DE0/s400/image.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Allison </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">While
Knox mopes around the office, thinking that he has suddenly fallen
out of favor because he was given a simple gun possession case, and
Allison battles to out-wait Seth, so she doesn't have to be the first
to apologize, Sandra takes a non-duty case when she sees a black
woman come five minutes late to file some court papers concerning her
living arrangement. Here, we meet court clerk Tina Krissman, the
no-nonsense clerk who shows little to no emotion about doing her job,
and, similar to Littlejohn, is a stickler about following the rules
to a T. Sandra sees this as an outrage and decides to take the
woman's case when she learns that the reason the woman was late to
file was because she has poor living conditions. The stairs in her
tenement are crumbling and there is no elevator, so she had to
carefully and cautiously carry her special needs son down the stairs
and frantically drive him across the city to his therapy before
coming to court. She takes it to trial and gives a story about how
terrible it is for people (children especially) to have to live in
terrible conditions where they are always threatened with the idea of
having to move—something which she herself experienced, which is
why she refuses to unpack her things in Allison's apartment. She wins
the case. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So
while we learned that Knox is a rich-boy son of a US Senator and
calls his mommy to the office to parade her around his boss in order
to try getting him better cases, we also learn that Seth was
completely done when he moved out because he no longer wants to be
second fiddle to Allison who made all the decisions during their time
together. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
three sees Allison take on a trial in which a young black man has
stolen something. It is a routine trial but the judge orders that she
will ultimately make her judgment with the aid of Evaluate, a new
computer program that uses a complex and complicated algorithm to
make a sentencing suggestion. After doing some research, she believes
the software could be bias against black and brown-skinned people and
needs a mathematician to testify on this point before the trial. As
it so happens, her brother is a mathematician (and possible college
professor) who lives a borough away from her. But they don't get
along as well as she'd like. She is the oddball out in the family
because she is the only one who didn't go for a math and/or science
discipline like her mother, father and brother. He thinks she is the
chosen one in their family because their parents gave her that
apartment to live in rent-free. Even worse, he knows of the Evaluate
technology and thinks it's brilliant, but he does tell her that bias
is human and that she needs to look at it with humanity. That leads
her to come up with the percentages of tough sentences, which shows
that the software recommends tougher sentences than both the national
average and the current judge. She would rather trust the judge's own
human-error-filled sentences than the machine's. She gets the young
man a light sentence. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Knox,
the slimey worm he is, tries to poach a case from the very woman he
is sleeping with when she, a lawyer for the northern court or some
other big court in New York, lets slip after their coitus that she is
pursuing the stalled boat of a billionaire embezzler—think Bernie
Madoff—trying to flee the country. Unfortunately, a storm is
coming, which makes getting to the boat nearly impossible, so the
harbor master is willing to let the boat drift to whichever island
the wind blows it. Knox uses Seth's meteorology expertise (he was a
weather nerd in his youth) to predict where the boat will have to
dock in the storm. It docks in New Jersey, but Knox knows this ahead
of time and sends a group of Manhattan cops to a restaurant that
literally sits right near the dock where the boat has to pull in, and
he gets his billionaire. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">But
the biggest case comes when Littlejohn and Sandra go against each
other in a national security case ala Eric Snowden. A young NSA agent
and former military soldier procures some information that exposes
that the US government was apparently using medical records to track
down and deport illegals. While that might sound good to the Blood
and Soil type, they had to secretly dig through millions of medical
records, mostly of citizens. To the prosecution, the soldier is a
traitor. To the public defenders, she is a hero doing her civic duty
to protect the rights of citizens. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Each
woman matches the other's wits as they battle over this young woman's
life. Sandra goes to the press with the woman's story. Littlejohn
prepares to make a deal of 78 months in prison. The woman believes
she has started a movement and doesn't want a deal at all, but she is
too young and naive to realize what she is doing. Sandra counters in
court by saying that she wants all of the documents exposed,
otherwise the US should dismiss the case. Littlejohn knows that by
exposing all the documents or “evidence” they are opening up
millions of classified documents that could be harmful to national
security. Yet, she is willing to do it to win but asks that all the
classified information be redacted and blacked out, which she
estimates will take at least 18 months. The judge realizes they are
both going to go for each other's throats and tells them to hash out
a deal in his chambers. After Littlejohn tells a story about how she
never got to go on a field trip to DC to see the capitol building—a
lifelong dream—because some idiot thought the rules of the class
didn't apply to him, they hammer out a deal that sees the young woman
in jail for no more than a year and a lengthy probation. In the end,
we see the respective groups (minus Jay) hanging with each other and
the two leading ladies of each group feeling more comfortable around
the people they will ultimately call family. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKZMm89_qaMUSlzonOb5M8-30V0B8IrwMaGn0VKANUrZjqKRll5s2BR28OcnO7XeOuDJKvZTrYJCswIeSrJRAZ393mY1aaiH-Ie9uHPp_PSZw4uuRSoXG2tEMFLDwrsSa9NqqT1ptAuMo/s1600/for-the-people-renew-cancel-wk-26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1400" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKZMm89_qaMUSlzonOb5M8-30V0B8IrwMaGn0VKANUrZjqKRll5s2BR28OcnO7XeOuDJKvZTrYJCswIeSrJRAZ393mY1aaiH-Ie9uHPp_PSZw4uuRSoXG2tEMFLDwrsSa9NqqT1ptAuMo/s400/for-the-people-renew-cancel-wk-26.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What's
my grade? I give it a <span style="color: #cc0000;">C+</span>. Grey's Anatomy
this ain't. I know this is a cliché, and we writers are supposed to
hate them, but it is as they say that lightning almost never strikes
twice in the same place. It will be hard for Shonda to ever replicate
the success of Grey's, especially because of the steadily changing
landscape of TV (although, you'd be hard-pressed to see the change
with all of these crappy reboots). Again, Grey's Anatomy (along with
Desperate Housewives) was a show that essentially changed the entire
fabric of TV-viewing for a generation. It came with its own language,
its own way of doing things and its own style that made us care about
the characters and truly showed heart in TV making. It was, arguably,
far more emotional than ER, and felt like it came from a younger mind
with a different voice and way of looking at life. None of that is
really here in For The People. Grey's had an angle. While it was
definitely a good medical drama, it was far more of a contemporary
romance. Sure, some people tuned in for the medical stuff, but most
watched for the relationship drama that went on from week to week. It
was about the adult-coming-of-age story of finding your true love,
your clan and how that effects our work lives. Frankly, this is the
criticism of Grey's in recent years: it focuses far too much on the
medical and less on the romance, and while the medical has gotten
more cutting edge and wowing, there is hardly one single couple that
you can look at on the show right now and say, “Yes, I want that.
I'm shipping them.” And don't tell me you're shipping that
Avery/black Grey half-sister (I can't even remember her name most
times) because they are very boring and their romance is as tasteless
as tap water. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">For
The People, essentially, comes from the same place. While recent
Shonda launches like How to Get Away with Murder and Scandal both
still tried to employ the old Grey's formula (HTGAWM's love story was
more familial with Annalise and Wes being like mother/son), For The
People drives hard at the legal aspect which, after 50 or 60-some
years of legal dramas, has to do something amazing to grab audiences.
While this may reflect well the life habits of Millennials—more are
work and cause-driven rather than relationship and sex-driven—it
does little for the audience and doesn't allow us to connect with the
characters nearly as much as we might want to. The one romance we
have is immediately disassembled on the first episode, and there
don't seem to be any other tenuous connections between anyone else,
save for the sad attempt of Seth to try bonding with Littlejohn on
some human level. Could they sleep together at some point? Sure. But
do I care? At this point, not really. That means that the show has
but one aspect to it and that is the legal aspect. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">That
one aspect? Eh! It ain't that great. While I appreciate the
differences in using a higher court and in having everyone be a
government employee, there isn't much to separate this from any other
legal show. The one great thing it currently has going for it is that
there aren't many legal dramas on right now. This show feels devoid
of... feels. Do you feel a sense of family? No, not really. Sure,
that last shot on episode three went a long way in trying to install
some sentimentality, but it was held for so long and so little about
the characters own families or struggle to fit in in life is still
known that it almost felt synthetic, like they were trying to
manufacture a connection to these people. This isn't a quirky,
work-intensive bunch that all need acceptance and are super
vulnerable, it's just a group of young, attractive people who work at
an important place. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Then
there is the subtle politics of today: gender politics. The fact that
almost every main character on the public defender's side is a woman
and almost every main character on the US prosecutor's side is a man
is not lost on me. In fact, it also doesn't bother me, which is
actually rather... saddening because I feel like it should bother me
a little. No, not because they are playing gender wars on the show,
but because the show is failing to exploit its fundamental design. A
great deal of these cases are, I'm assuming, going to be ripped from
the headlines and focus on hot-button issues of today that are highly
political and easily dividing. Yet, here, I have yet to feel a tear
in my heart about which side I should root for or come down on. For
instance, the terrorist case should've had me more invested and
questioning which side was right and which one was wrong. I should've
agonized (as much as you can about a show) over the fact that the
prosecutors easily won that case, even though it was clear that the
young man had been set up by the FBI. But... I didn't. In fact, I
really didn't care which side won. Granted, I sorta wanted Sandra to
win but only because I like Britt Robertson so much, which has
nothing to do with the narrative of the show. Would it have been nice
to see the arrogant Knox get put in his place on the first case out?
Yeah, and it might have given his character more dimension, but even
that idea can only induce a shrug from me. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
show's premise is that the law is a two-sided coin. The exploit is
(or at least should have been) that the public defenders are the
compassionate ones, thusly why they are almost all female, while the
prosecutors are the ruthless, cold, calculating ones, thusly why they
are almost all male. And even though they do somewhat make that
distinction, they never drive it home in a meaningful way. Instead,
they fail to setup a good versus evil, and they fail to setup a good
you choose who to support debate. I want to root for the public
defenders and see Knox get crushed every time, but I am often left
asking why should I cheer for anybody? </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">To
me, this show feels similar to FOX's The Resident. Where that show
had people that I didn't feel I could properly root for, this show
feels like it doesn't have people I could properly remember. Everyone
feels like a walking, talking ideal, more of a symbol for something
rather than an actual person. Yet, they don't even feel like very
strong symbols and I can't particularly pinpoint why that is. Maybe
that is because it doesn't dwell in the extremes that often make
these shows watchable. It's cutthroat, but doesn't feel cutthroat
enough. It tries to be real like a Law and Order, but is far from
that level of grittiness. It doesn't employ the over-the-top
wackiness of Boston Legal and isn't the hard-driving
tough-issues-dealing kind of drama that The Practice was. It's really
sorta ho-hum, and I can see why it was a mid-season replacement for
the month of March. It couldn't even get a prime January spot. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? This is a tough one because while I think that the
show could be ten times better, or that it could make a really great
summer show, I'm not sure it's worth a watch right now. Considering
what it replaced was Kevin (Probably) Saves the World, which I rather
adored because it showed middle-America in a nice light while also
mixing the good-naturedness of a My Name is Earl with a
pseudo-religious magic, I don't think this warrants a full season in
its current time slot. Again, as a writer and creator myself, I
really hate talking bad about someone else's creation, but this
doesn't ring the bell. It's a shame, too, because I think that it has
a pretty good cast. I like Jasmin and really like Britt, and think
that Hope steadies the show. For The People airs on ABC Tuesdays at
10pm EST. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard about For The People? If not, do you
think you'd tune in for an episode or two now? If you have heard of
it, have you seen it? Did you like it? Was I too hard on it? And do
you think Seth will get back together with Allison eventually, or
will he hook up with Littlejohn? Let me know in the comments below.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
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the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
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action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
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on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “...that it be for
the people, by the people.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'Right. But remember that we also need
to do something for big corporations, too.'
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“What? But they're not the people.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'OK, I see your point. But check this
out, what if they were?'
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Ohhhhh!”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
It's still rather baffling to me that corporations can legally be
treated as people. I try not to make political statements on this
blog but it would seem that if we are supposedly so economically
sound now that we almost have full employment, then our next focus
should be on one of two things: healthcare, and a critical and sound
look and restructuring of the criminal system from new ways to police
and all the way up through to new ways of picking judges and how
trials are decided. Currently, our legal system is a mess and will
only get worse. That is something that politicians should do for the
people. I'll try to think of a better sign-off next time. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-68403469738882973172018-03-03T22:34:00.001-08:002018-04-09T15:49:15.531-07:00The 2018 Olympics #Olympics2018 #recap #review<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>The
2018 Olympics <a href="https://www.olympic.org/">#Olympics2018</a> #recap #review</b></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx5e2oJRRU_Siq66qLeRX82Qj6Q2wAVo1OwnJgjaRluu9zpm7mixgKj4OCgwCT1SuBQsBqL4fjdECNhyphenhyphenoRJOaJC6viCl8dJyhtPqBUZTy9r9znsY4nBXrKaywSLbvg93lRrm22hwYV0XU/s1600/oly18_home_page.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="352" data-original-width="632" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx5e2oJRRU_Siq66qLeRX82Qj6Q2wAVo1OwnJgjaRluu9zpm7mixgKj4OCgwCT1SuBQsBqL4fjdECNhyphenhyphenoRJOaJC6viCl8dJyhtPqBUZTy9r9znsY4nBXrKaywSLbvg93lRrm22hwYV0XU/s640/oly18_home_page.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">All pictures courtesy of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or NBC unless otherwise stated</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">I'll
try to make this post as short as I can, but I had a few gripes and a
few cheers for this years Olympics. With the 2018 Olympics finally
come to an end, it is important to highlight the achievement of all
the athletes that worked extremely hard for four years (far longer,
actually but you get the point) in order to come to these games and
make a household name of themselves. Whether American or otherwise,
your efforts in both wins and losses should be commended and I hail
you for them. Congratulations to all who medal-ed, and a special
congrats to all the Team USA athletes that managed to get on the
podium. Ultimately, there were many winners but really only one big
loser here: the die-hard fans like me. Let's go through some
highlights first, shall we?</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;">America
started with a fairly strong showing both in the figure skating (love
it!) team program, and on the slopes and halfpipe in snowboarding.
Beginning with Red Gerard, we secured our first gold of the games
with his fantastic rail work and jumps in slopestyle. The
17-year-old, even after not scoring high or even landing his first
two jumps, completely stomped his third and final run to catapult
himself from the teens all the way to first place. Oddly enough,
while he may not have had the meme-worthy face that McKayla Maroney
did, Red didn't seem very impressed with his Olympics gold.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj12FUZg_JMN0x6mct9XudkTdZyvD3hmoSHvPjCgbkT4IehNupwGCRxtFTHT4xqyOpzxXTG-HoKDPPDc7jEVLxHXYfcsDjQLagHqXOyG_d6-R98nnm8oAyIx4vTtWOBNJ9-j-vAt07hA2s/s1600/105005910-GettyImages-918080622.1910x1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="838" data-original-width="1600" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj12FUZg_JMN0x6mct9XudkTdZyvD3hmoSHvPjCgbkT4IehNupwGCRxtFTHT4xqyOpzxXTG-HoKDPPDc7jEVLxHXYfcsDjQLagHqXOyG_d6-R98nnm8oAyIx4vTtWOBNJ9-j-vAt07hA2s/s400/105005910-GettyImages-918080622.1910x1000.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Chloe Kim</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;">The
snowboard domination continued with Chloe Kim. Yet another
17-year-old, Chloe shredded the halfpipe with a score of over 92 out
of 100, only to top herself in her final run with a 95 (or it might
have been a 96 or 97)--as close to a perfect score as any woman has
ever come in the Olympics. She did that by not only ripping the
highest air but pulling off some new tricks that only she has been
able to cleanly stomp in any of the previous world competitions or
X-games. And with Kim being a first-generation American Korean (her
parents migrated from Korea in the 80s), these 2018 PyeongChang
Olympics seemed poised for her coronation.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;">We
switched back to the slopestyle to see Jamie Anderson repeat as an
Olympic champion and defend the gold she won in 2014 by being one of
the only women to safely land all of her big tricks on a severely
windy day. However, the weather conditions led to some controversy;
ultimately, even she fell on her third and final run (she had secured
gold by then). Nevertheless, she would have enough time to relax,
recover and regroup for her second event, the newly added Big Air
snowboarding event which made its inaugural debut nearly a week
later. An event where the boarders are given a few runs down one big
ski slope in order to hit their biggest trick, Anderson took home a
silver medal to add to her two golds.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi58KP1rYRgdIqqcTJr_vPFmH5FWfP4HFz8tWtJ0K63FYeNmnco26C-n0C_AVsAqhR-jaoMuP066lANWB1JooKoBpxdA81L8uvQ-m5A0_baDx5CkzGiO5Bm41iJFrF73aYIXHQ39gsZ_lw/s1600/GettyImages-917979640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi58KP1rYRgdIqqcTJr_vPFmH5FWfP4HFz8tWtJ0K63FYeNmnco26C-n0C_AVsAqhR-jaoMuP066lANWB1JooKoBpxdA81L8uvQ-m5A0_baDx5CkzGiO5Bm41iJFrF73aYIXHQ39gsZ_lw/s400/GettyImages-917979640.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Shaun White</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">But
the biggest and most talked about medal performance probably of these
2018 Olympics came from the old Flying Tomato himself, Shaun White.
After a disappointing showing in Sochi in 2014 where he, as a
favorite to get his third gold medal, failed to medal at all and
finished in fourth place, White showed up healthy, determined and
ready for redemption. And boy did he ever earn it. In what was some
of the biggest air ever seen in the history of the Winter Olympics
competition, Shaun White flew into the air at more than 16 feet out
of the halfpipe, landing every single trick with authority on his
<span style="font-family: inherit;">final</span> run after splashing out on his second run. With the scores
close and in the record-breaking territory, Shaun needed over a 96
out of 100 to get the gold. He'd get a 98, two points off of his
perfect score back at the American qualifying competition over a
month ago. And with that, he'd cement not only a legacy of brilliance
on the halfpipe but would get the USA's 100</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><sup>th</sup></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> gold medal
in the history of the Winter Olympics, securing him a new nickname
White Gold (#WhiteGold). </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Unfortunately,
while the fun for the USA Olympics team didn't stop there, it's
dominance took a tumble and seemed to become <span style="font-family: inherit;">weaker</span> with each day
passed in the games. The figure skating team event, a new addition to
the games' most watched competition that only made its second
appearance at an Olympics, supplied the USA with a rocky start to
their on-ice aspirations. While we had a few potential challengers
for the gold medal in their own discipline, many didn't get to the
level needed either in individual competition nor in the team.
Beginning with the much hyped Nathan Chen who was pre-coronated the
next king of international figure skating and the first US male to
potentially win gold in near 20 years, audiences were quickly let
down. Chen was exalted by commentators as being the only young man at
18 who had the gall, the audacity, the bravery and gumption to put
not one, not two but five quad twists into his program—an unheard
of accomplishment especially when some men still had yet to achieve a
single quad. While I fully support that he simply had a bad Olympics
where the pressure got to the young kid, he failed to complete a
clean short program in both the team and individual events, missing
practically every one of his quad-jumps in both programs. While he
didn't skate the freeskate/long program for the team, he managed to
get through a fairly clean freeskate for the individual event, which
saw him nearly complete a historic comeback from 17</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><sup>th</sup>
place to third before three big-hitters came in at the last minute
and knocked him off the podium. </span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Gay
Olympic stand out Adam Rippon made the most of his Olympics debut by
bringing home the long program in the team event and doing his
absolute best in the men's individual. He was never going to be
anywhere near the podium but after being left off the team in 2014,
he made his mark on this PyeongChang games. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq1Pw5JSK1O4xRwg9Ymf31Cx0GfdnpZaxuiQiptnWs9zG_DqM_QHzLOgbHeyoKsA1tdeFINXn0icrEEV-Rppt7FoQvtCwHwGFMvlV-dfmgUKbxF-uLJE7_lEXOUbYKPAcApyZyxcvK-Jg/s1600/nbc_figs_shibutaniicedance_180105.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq1Pw5JSK1O4xRwg9Ymf31Cx0GfdnpZaxuiQiptnWs9zG_DqM_QHzLOgbHeyoKsA1tdeFINXn0icrEEV-Rppt7FoQvtCwHwGFMvlV-dfmgUKbxF-uLJE7_lEXOUbYKPAcApyZyxcvK-Jg/s400/nbc_figs_shibutaniicedance_180105.bmp" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sister Maia and Brother Alex Shibutani</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Next
we had the Shib Sibs #ShibSibs Maia and Alex Shibutani, the
20-something brother-sister duo who ice dance. They've had a large
social media following for a number of years now and made their
voices known this Olympics. These Shib-lings twizzled their way into
American hearts and threw down two great programs in the team event,
and two great programs in the individual event, earning them a Bronze
for the USA in the Ice Dance event. I will stop here and say that I
don't know if it was strange or just a sign of the cultural times but
this year's US entrants in figure skating were dominated by Asian
Americans; in fact, the only category that wasn't Asian-heavy was the
pairs skating. I wonder if this is an effect from Michelle Kwan and
Kristi Yamaguchi for having skated for so long or if this was due to
the love of figure skating throughout all of Asia. Hm? </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5z0hr8DIuSUZLkODm1CgGG233nVIGD3-cz5QbozU6hsEmFHg7AGVsPDp9ZiXLKUKAQlRqStVVaHljjnSOoDxBRqqZ3Pf2mK5H9_DzevxmDwr60j2YQfqKIEQxBW8SxEMmebEVoSK0EjE/s1600/gettyimages-918365772_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="652" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5z0hr8DIuSUZLkODm1CgGG233nVIGD3-cz5QbozU6hsEmFHg7AGVsPDp9ZiXLKUKAQlRqStVVaHljjnSOoDxBRqqZ3Pf2mK5H9_DzevxmDwr60j2YQfqKIEQxBW8SxEMmebEVoSK0EjE/s400/gettyimages-918365772_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Pairs Figure Skaters The Knierims</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Speaking
of pairs skating (Note: for those not familiar with the difference
between pairs and ice dance, a few simple hints: pairs does jumps,
dancing does not; pairs has a lot of non-touching tricks and
technical moves whereas ice dance requires a close proximity and
touching of your partner through at least half of the program) the
Knierims, Alexa and Chris won viewers' hearts with their story of
love and perseverance that led up to these Olympic games. A couple of
years back Alexa suffered a serious medical problem that led to
multiple emergency surgeries to clear some kind of intestinal
blockage. Chris, her skating partner and boyfriend at the time, was
forced to make decisions for her that would ultimately save her life.
They married soon after and not only skated on the US's Valentine's
Day, but helped to keep the US stable and in the medal hunt in the
team event. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">And
finally we had the crown jewel of the Olympics, the women's figure
skating. The two crown jewels of the US team were Bradie Tennell, the
20-year-old skater that came out of nowhere within the last five
months to earn herself a spot on the team, and the veteran Mirai
Nagasu who, like her best friend Rippon, was passed over in 2014.
Mirai Nagasu became the first American woman ever to land a triple
axel on Olympic ice. With clean skates both from her and Bradie, the
team was propelled to win a Bronze medal in the opening team event.
Unfortunately, neither woman would fair well in the individual event
which saw all three American women bunched in ninth, tenth and
eleventh place after disastrous short programs. The
technically-gifted but performance-bland Bradie Tennell actually fell
on one of her first jumps, an occurrence that commentators Tara
Lipinski and Johnny Weir were keen to point out never happens. Mirai
also turned in a lackluster performance in which she singled many of
her triple jumps and was unable to pull off the same triple axel feat
as before. Not that it would've mattered for either of them. The
women's individual figure skating event was all about the two Russian
princesses. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5gCQhLdnKK0rxdr_EDNVDJEtLkNqUyKM9PzksOf6N3SQ-Vl40AFhZ_CvbkFNjtc2zx0xNNdExPdpBGY289wRr1fzhpLNcGLj6Dl_oLpKKqHF0842ftV8hHCBX2UVGkZRWLSrGZ6oRI8c/s1600/hi-res-75ef4ce3662d273c66a13e0b3e54cc97_crop_north.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5gCQhLdnKK0rxdr_EDNVDJEtLkNqUyKM9PzksOf6N3SQ-Vl40AFhZ_CvbkFNjtc2zx0xNNdExPdpBGY289wRr1fzhpLNcGLj6Dl_oLpKKqHF0842ftV8hHCBX2UVGkZRWLSrGZ6oRI8c/s320/hi-res-75ef4ce3662d273c66a13e0b3e54cc97_crop_north.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Russian Skater (Y)Evgenia Medvedeva</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">In
a games in which Russia as a national contingent was banned due to
doping, the OAR or Olympians from Russia still showed in droves,
hoping to claim precious Olympic medal for their country. But as luck
would have it, they hadn't earned a single gold in any event through
two weeks of competition. And then, on the final night of the women's
individual figure skating freeskate, their chance at gold went from
fantasy to reality. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The
intense competition between the near-perfect Alina Zagitova and her
rival Evgenia Medvedeva made the two young Russians skate beyond
their hearts, pushing artistry and technical brilliance to their
limits. Alina, the 15-year-old skater who had only gone from juniors
to adult competitions in the last year, had a razor-thin one point
lead after the short. Evgenia, the 18-year-old with a love of Sailor
Moon and K-pop, thought this Olympics would serve as her coronation.
The girls not only have the same coach, but train together throughout
the year, leaving their friendship off the ice just that: off the
competitive ice. After skating her everything to close the freeskate
and seeing Canadian Katelyn Osmond skate brilliance to earn her the
silver spot, Evgenia watched as she finished just one point behind
Alina once again, earning her the silver and bumping Osmond to a
bronze. For long-time figure skating fans (and those older than the
two Russian teammates) the results bore a familiar ring to the 1998
Olympics when Tara Lipinski snuck in from seemingly nowhere and won
Olympic Gold out from Michelle Kwan's more seasoned grasp. Kwan,
while hailed as an American sweetheart during her career, would never
attain that gold. Lipinski would retire very soon after and now
commentates every Olympics. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">But
the joyous highs and bleak lows would not stop at the Olympics Ice
Pavilion in Gangnueng. In what has to have been the most
roller-coaster-y Olympics I can remember in the last 24 years, each
day of competition was met with someone who was triumphant in
securing a medal while another US team member in a different sport
caved beneath expectations and barely finished the event. Mikaela
Shiffrin, the 22-year-old gold medalist slalom and alpine skiing
specialist from 2014's Sochi, was scheduled to race three (actually,
maybe five) events, but had to back out of one due to event
re-scheduling because of windy weather. She'd eventually race in
Giant Slalom and Alpine Combined where she'd win Gold and Silver
respectively. But elder stateswoman Lindsey Vonn, in her third
Olympics and seeking redemption after missing Sochi due to an ACL
injury, was bumped from Gold to Bronze in her specialty the Downhill
after drawing a terrible start at first. Even worse, she failed to
even complete her slalom run in the Alpine Combined, earning
disqualification in the event within a few gates from start. The
most-likely final Olympic showing for the 33-year-old past Gold
medalist came to a disappointing end. But on the bright side, she got
to ski in memory of her grandfather, a Korean war vet who helped
inspire her love of skiing.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3kaWWhfJqUPWUE_wkLO-8U11-8I2Go3jxLjSw6kYaKhY7LS5NF9f-9LYxDf43VumqlXGhFU4R0uGIY7p3OSFiDM0ZvGzt29yrqwwas2_cboB_8wRAD-uHYDNwZqmIVGGd4_IhFJAJTEM/s1600/Pyeongchang_Olympics_Paul_Newberry-Falling_Short_22728.jpg-e10bf_c0-0-4075-2375_s326x190.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="326" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3kaWWhfJqUPWUE_wkLO-8U11-8I2Go3jxLjSw6kYaKhY7LS5NF9f-9LYxDf43VumqlXGhFU4R0uGIY7p3OSFiDM0ZvGzt29yrqwwas2_cboB_8wRAD-uHYDNwZqmIVGGd4_IhFJAJTEM/s320/Pyeongchang_Olympics_Paul_Newberry-Falling_Short_22728.jpg-e10bf_c0-0-4075-2375_s326x190.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Vonn</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Then
there was the slopestyle and halfpipe for skiers which took over in
the second week. While wind wasn't as big of a problem for them,
cleanly landing tricks proved to be their albatross. The much
cheered-for Gus Kenworthy—one of the few openly gay Olympic
athletes to make his political leanings known—failed to medal or
even sniff at the podium in ski slopestyle, never landing a big
enough trick to propel him into winner's position. But barely talked
about American Nick Goepper managed to snatch a silver. The same
couldn't be said for the women's slopestyle in which Devin Logan
failed to even place above ninth place. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">David
Wise, the defending gold medalist in free skiing halfpipe
competition, suffered through equipment malfunctions his first two
final runs, escaping unharmed in what shaped up to be a very
dangerous halfpipe for skiers. With crash after crash from skiers,
multiple men were never able to complete their final runs out of
three. But a quick tightening with a screwdriver and some
determination to stomp his last run propelled Wise into the gold
spot, allowing him to properly defend his Olympic title and put a
proud smile on his two children's faces. The same couldn't be said
for his female counterpart Maddie Bowman. The defending gold medalist
ranked high in her qualifying runs while holding back her best
tricks. However, when it came to the final runs, she not only crashed
on the halfpipe during the warm-ups, but she crashed on her final
trick every single time in the exact same place (at the end of the
run) in every one of her three final runs, earning her no greater
than a score of 30 out of 100. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">One
of the most high-octane sports on the slopes, snowboard cross handed
yet another defeat to world-class snowboard racer Lindsey Jacobellis.
The 32-year-old who, in 2006, foolishly tried to do a trick at the
end of her winning snowboard run only to fall on the trick and go
from gold to silver, tried for redemption in her fourth Olympics. And
while she didn't fall like she has in every other Olympics snowboard
cross race, she finished a heart-breaking fourth and off of the
podium. Virtually the same results happened in the men's snowboard
cross with the two Americans in the final run wiping each other out
halfway through the race and ultimately getting up and finishing off
the podium. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvzFeCHLw95TNBSc6WADlnAD90iTiPXyY_Ixg1i19uldcOqkhGfHsHY4gIfYRM9-UKNxqaIVTS56nxr4zyshzuZ9MkK8t1EqJBuKVKahVTfnAhOxA86GZ8C-8heaNL457cEBWgXiEKEt4/s1600/fc3caa61ab8a9291443be104795fc749_crop_north.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="627" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvzFeCHLw95TNBSc6WADlnAD90iTiPXyY_Ixg1i19uldcOqkhGfHsHY4gIfYRM9-UKNxqaIVTS56nxr4zyshzuZ9MkK8t1EqJBuKVKahVTfnAhOxA86GZ8C-8heaNL457cEBWgXiEKEt4/s400/fc3caa61ab8a9291443be104795fc749_crop_north.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Team Pursuit Bronze Medalist Team, Far Right: Heather Bergsma</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Speaking
of speedy sports, America didn't fare much better on the ice than
they did on the slopes. In speed-skating, on both long and short
track most of the USA was out-skated either by the Dutch/Netherlands
or by Norway, both of which dominated even over the South Koreans
that love and revere speed skating so much. Young speed skater Maame
Biney failed to even get to a single finals race, though the light
hasn't dimmed on a potentially very bright future. I look forward to
seeing her in 2022. Long-tracker Heather Bergsma, while her love
story with her husband and fellow speed skater Jorrit was touching on
Valentine's Day, failed to get on the podium in any other event save
for the team pursuit in which the women made history by winning a
Bronze medal. And even the short track speed skaters wouldn't fare
very well. We failed to podium save for in one men's event.
John-Henry Krueger managed to eke out a 1000m silver medal in a sport
that routinely sees its competitors go down and into the safety walls
surrounding the rink. And though Elise Christie was not on Team USA,
skating for her homeland of Great Britain instead, I felt bad for her
for not being able to properly complete a single race, repeating
virtually her same performance from Sochi four long years ago. At the
same time, I also couldn't help but laugh when she began the one race
that she did ultimately complete by falling within two steps,
tripping over her own blades. She would later be disqualified and
yellow carded for disrupting and improperly touching two of her
fellow racers. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Oddly
enough, many of this year's gold (or medals for that matter) came in
sports that were previously either uninteresting or simply low-rated
in viewership. The cross-country ski team saw their first medal in
over 20 years and first ever for women when Jessie Diggins (a
much-hyped young skier who hadn't quite lived up to medal
aspirations) and her much older partner Kikkan Randall won gold in
the Women's Team Sprint Free. Yeah, I watched it live at 5 o'clock in
the morning. The US's Elana Meyers-Taylor and her brakewoman Lauren
Gibbs claimed silver in Elana's third Olympics which seemed ripe for
a gold medal (the upstart Germans shocked everyone and took the top
spot). US Men's Hockey, after giving us an all-time great game versus
Canada eight years ago in Vancouver suffered through the first
Olympics without NHL players, getting bounced early in the
quarterfinals. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">However, it was the less popular women's hockey team
that took the golden crown from Canada, demanding that you watch them
because the boys weren't the only ones on the ice. Still, some fans
of the sport scoffed at the fact that the match was decided by a
shootout, which I also watched live. And after flunking out of the
medal bracket in the debut of mixed doubles curling, Matt Hamilton
and team leader John Schuster propelled the men's US team to curling
gold on the nearest to final night of the competition. I say that
these were the rarely watched sports because most of them came on
early morning hours (3-7am) and on NBCSN, which leads me to my
biggest gripes of these games. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">NBC's
2018 Olympics coverage was some of the weakest, most boring Olympics
coverage I have seen in quite a while. Just a year and a half removed
from the best Olympic coverage since Beijing 2008, in almost every
way that NBC succeeded with Rio it failed with PyeongChang, South
Korea. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Let's first get some political BS out of the way because I
read an article on FOX news where commentators thought NBC was
promoting North Korea and making it seem like a great place. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Obviously this was fake news and anybody who watched the Olympics for
two days in a row can tell you that they hardly ever talked about
Little Kim's northern regime. Like I said, I watched practically
every sport at least once and I counted a total of four times they
mentioned/talked about North Korea during the games: at the Opening
Ceremony where they pointed out NK's cheerleaders, Kim's sister, and
the fact that North and South would play hockey as one team; during
the Closing Ceremony (ditto the stuff about the opening); during the
figure skating pairs program where an NK couple skated, and either
during speed skating or luge (can't remember which one). They
honestly didn't even talk about the difference in the Koreas that
much during the hockey game they played together. Most of the talk
was about South Korea but seeing as how Trump watches FOX News
religiously, I can understand how viewers wouldn't have the
intelligence to distinguish between north and south. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Speaking
of South Korea, NBC played it overly safe in their coverage. I don't
know if it was some programming idiot's decision to move cultural
fluff pieces of the past to the network's plethora of morning shows
or if they annexed them completely, but I missed out on all the
Korean culture that I thought I'd be getting. I've been watching the
Olympics for a long time, summer and winter, and in the past they've
been great not just because they featured rarely-watched sports with
athletes performing at the top of their field to prove after a
lifetime of training that they were the best in the world, but
because they were also immersive experiences. Maybe some people don't
like it or are still snobs about TV but I've always viewed the medium
as another tool for learning. You could learn just as much as you can
be entertained by TV. The Olympics were often the epitome of that
clash of infotainment. You not only got to root for “your people,
your country,” you also got to learn a great deal about how other
cultures get along on this little blue rock. With Beijing, I remember
the exploration of the temples and how they incorporated the number
eight/infinity symbol into their culture because it's such a huge
part of their belief that everything continues on forever. With
Sochi, I remember Mary's reports on how the Soviet Union broke up to
become Russia, it's suffering through a bleak economy after that, the
rise of Putin, it's love of ballet and how that translated into
figure skating, their particular traditional style of architecture,
and even stuff about the propaganda trains used in World War 1 and 2.
London was an exploration of how this small island with, technically
three nations on it managed to create such strange games that became
part of the Olympics, whether it was golf or the modern version of
shot put. Not to mention it explored the effects that WWII had on the
people there and told harrowing stories about how people felt and
survived while bombs rained down on their cities. Rio took us on a
journey of art and easy living in not-so-easy conditions, having us
explore the culinary arts and eats with Ryan Seacrest and Adriana
Lima, or helping us understand why nearly half of the city of Rio and
Sao Paolo is painted in vibrant street art commissioned by the
cities, or even going back to talk to the inspiration for the song
“...and when she passes, every time she passes...” (you know the
one. Yeah, I can't think of the title either, hence, the lyric).</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdQik7OiG68JSMWU_3G0Hh9-qVLeE3oLXP7LxT530o9xJFilT8BNKXF34OcqmfLHTYolLxzq_sxsAJY0QukbiO146Bj8gPQutPY3dVM4qZxt8gNAjZ3tlV_LtgISsMnhaLe3diAufw2cY/s1600/Intel-drone-show-at-Pyeongchang-2018-Winter-Olympics-1280-720-B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdQik7OiG68JSMWU_3G0Hh9-qVLeE3oLXP7LxT530o9xJFilT8BNKXF34OcqmfLHTYolLxzq_sxsAJY0QukbiO146Bj8gPQutPY3dVM4qZxt8gNAjZ3tlV_LtgISsMnhaLe3diAufw2cY/s320/Intel-drone-show-at-Pyeongchang-2018-Winter-Olympics-1280-720-B.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">One Good Memory: First Ever Olympic Drone Show</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">But
with South Korea...? Here, I'm left with nothing. Sure, South Korea
likes dragons and white tigers, apparently. And they obviously go
wild for anything on ice skates seeing as how, up until this
Olympics, all of their medals in the winter games have come either in
speed skating or figure skating. But stepping away from the sports
what did I get? A few fleeting Johnny Moseley cultural moments where
he talked usually about temples while not ever actually visiting one
himself. And those were sponsored by Subway. Sure, the games started
with a food tour from a professional chef (it's killing me that I
forgot his name because he's been on Top Chef a few times as a
judge), and I even dared cook two Korean dishes for the Olympics (I'm
a bit of an Olympics fanatic and like learning new things and tasting
new things), but it hardly satiated my appetite. In past Olympics
they not only tried to elevate the games, but the places that held
the games, doing their part to help keep the Olympics in high-demand
around the world. The host cities and countries knew they could count
on people growing ever-more curious and wanting to know more about
this foreign and/or exotic place, and would hope that people wanted
to come there to start their own adventure. Previously Olympic cities
did see a slight bump in tourism either in the same year or the
following year of hosting the games. Or at least the countries did,
you know, when we weren't in a new-era cold war with them (I'm
lookin' at you, Russia). While we have our problems with the North,
South Korea is open for visitors. The Olympics used to make the host
city feel like it was a place you had already visited and now you
craved to go back. This time around... eh! Hell, I didn't even see
anything funny or interesting concerning Leslie Jones being there.
Again, they may have moved this stuff to the morning shows in a
terrible ploy to get me and other fans to watch shows we aren't keen
on viewing in the first place (Megan Kelly trying to cover the
Olympics? Endless hours of the Today show? Meh!) but why do such a
thing when they had ample time to fit some of this stuff in during
the nightly broadcast, either during the main show or the hour and a
half post-news show? Spare eight minutes and you're golden. But nope!
They couldn't and this was due to the third complaint I had: </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJpKTihnPUq83XPpGhnSqqM7YkbPoDlxT4z5qIMtdI1eKMZ6uy-p5uYNWmROFjB2Cwd_-k2LzEgHagWFAX9kkU6VDl4DcMsjtQH2LqfzWUd81QQlsp9odmGfMpbR9MEcbrcXrFOlBKavY/s1600/mans-hedberg-of-sweden-crashes-during-the-men-slopestyle-qualifying-at-the-2018-winter-olympics-in-pyeongchang-photo-ap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="675" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJpKTihnPUq83XPpGhnSqqM7YkbPoDlxT4z5qIMtdI1eKMZ6uy-p5uYNWmROFjB2Cwd_-k2LzEgHagWFAX9kkU6VDl4DcMsjtQH2LqfzWUd81QQlsp9odmGfMpbR9MEcbrcXrFOlBKavY/s320/mans-hedberg-of-sweden-crashes-during-the-men-slopestyle-qualifying-at-the-2018-winter-olympics-in-pyeongchang-photo-ap.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">So Many Wrecks, So Many Missed Opportunities</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Everything
was LIVE. Look, I know that this is what the people wanted (read:
complained about) ever since the dawn of social media. In an age in
which everything is immediate and results about wins or losses come
directly to your phone or stream on your [insert your social media
platform of choice] timeline it is hard to keep up with viewer
interest if they discover that the snowboarder girl who raced on
Mikaela Shiffrin's borrowed skies and won gold actually accomplished
that bizarre feat 12 hours before you show it but there needs to be
some kind of compromise between tons of LIVE events and the cozy
shows that used to make up the Olympics just two summers ago. This is
especially important because the games will be played in this
particular region for the next two games (one summer, one winter)
with both Tokyo and Beijing being within two stone-throws from
PyeongChang in either direction. And on top of that, even when trying
to show events live, you'll still miss a lot of great stuff. Case in
point, snowboarder Ledecka's gold medal skiing run on Shiffrin's
skies. While she was hardly expected to get on the podium for the
event, let alone win gold, and I commend the producers for cutting
away from skiing during the downhills of the “also-rans,” this
very miscalculation actually helps prove my point: everything doesn't
need to be shown LIVE. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Frankly,
I think the complainers of yesteryear who wanted everything LIVE
shouldn't have been heeded so unabashedly. Is it a different type of
feeling to experience everything in the same moment as it happens,
yes. But there's something to be said about maintaining adrenaline
throughout these long sports events. Unlike, say any of the major
three professional sports in the US (I guess you can throw in Hockey
as it is growing in viewership each year), the Olympics is quite a
different animal, though that shouldn't need to be said. It's,
essentially, the run-up, the playoffs and the championship all in
one. It's a condensed season of our longer sports and it is where
everyone is laying it all on the line for one chance at something
that comes around once every four years. The drama should be there,
yet it's not fully built in. Unlike in the “ball” sports, where
fans care just as much about the off-the-field/court drama as the on
(die-hards will tell you they don't, but they do) and are subjected
to months of rumors, speculation and analyst talk about who is the
best team/coach/player/management and filtered information about
little quirks in these people's lives, the Olympics doesn't get the
long build-up. Tons of football fans now know that, like me, Tom
Brady is a water fiend who drinks multiple gallons a day. Does that
have anything to do with how he throws a football? No, but sports
analysts have twisted, bent and manipulated the story to find an
angle they can use to somehow make it relevant to his career. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq-qLgC9EjyVqMXD9UlmL4CSXfYa3U6eBfGGauk_L6q92qxak6PSbQt0s5Q8MZPvEKlozJaUV2UcoCaHtxwOJS1YDIjBxA6xWrHaEYnvQR2Lkn9hA4o9OG-H0skQnjhH6rDqQIg-pH_fI/s1600/gettyimages-919166936-1518890322.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq-qLgC9EjyVqMXD9UlmL4CSXfYa3U6eBfGGauk_L6q92qxak6PSbQt0s5Q8MZPvEKlozJaUV2UcoCaHtxwOJS1YDIjBxA6xWrHaEYnvQR2Lkn9hA4o9OG-H0skQnjhH6rDqQIg-pH_fI/s400/gettyimages-919166936-1518890322.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Nathan Chen Failed To Medal</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The
Olympics is inherently different. Most people don't tune in for the
season-long coverage of skaters, skiers, snowboarders and the like.
So you not only have the run-up to the big finale, but you also have
to build a story around these athletes, make us care about them, make
us believe in them and their vision of how they want this Olympics to
play out, enhance the drama that is naturally built into this
worldwide event all in the span of a few days. And while some of
these stories may play out over years due to us remembering what
happened in the last Olympics (still a little sour that Ashley Wagner
got left off the team this time around when I was mad four years ago
that Mirai Nagasu didn't make the team), many will be new to us. So
when you spend less time on the stories because you have to (or at
least feel like you have to) spend more time covering events LIVE in
primetime, viewing will inevitably suffer. I find it weird that I
hardly know anything about any of the US men's figure skating
individuals off the ice, even though I spent a full Olympics watching
Nathan Chen cave under the pressure of the spotlight (I am rooting
for him 2022), watched Zhou get nearly no recognition (he finished
sixth overall and was in medal position up until the final three men)
and saw Adam Rippon light up social media as he gave wild and
fabulous interviews. That's right, even Rippon, a media darling for
this Olympics, is a mystery to me. They covered none of their stories
from childhood on up. While we got a brief look at Nathan Chen saying
he'd be at the 2018 Olympics back when he was about 8 or 10 years
old, the heart was missing from the story, something which I'm sure
could've been included had it not felt like they were rushing for
time during LIVE coverage. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">In
fact, the pacing of the entire coverage felt strange. Too many
commercials? Hell yeah! That, coupled with the lack of good stories,
fed the overall malaise of this year's games. A lot of the fluff
pieces that made me care about athletes either came on NBCSN in the
middle of the night, and during events where they had no business
being, or on Olympic Zone. For instance, our female long-tracker Heather Bergsma had a piece on her about how she fell in love and met her
husband Jorrit, and even moved to the Netherlands to train in the
speed-skating culture over there. It was a romantic story in which
she asked to kiss him on the first date after she also paid for
nearly everything. And then he proposed to her by fingering the words
into the sand on a beach in which her family has a home in the states
and waiting for her to awake that morning to see it from her
beach-facing balcony. Cool story, right? You know they showed that at
3:30am eastern time on NBCSN and not even during a long track speed
skating event? It was a break between a curling game and
cross-country skiing. Her race took place two hours later. Then, a
day later when in primetime coverage they could replay her earlier
race ON VALENTINE'S DAY, you know what they showed? No, not that
sweet story of how they fell in love, instead they showed a secondary
shorter puff piece about how she and her husband competed on a show
in his country called Battle of the Sexes, and she lost the race and
got pretty ticked about it. The love story was about three minutes
longer and would've cut into LIVE coverage—that's the only reason I
can think of why they'd not show it. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Cultural
servings, as said before, were nearly left out completely or pushed
down to the Olympic Zone—the half-hour pre-show that was supposed
to air every night (except Sundays) before primetime coverage. Not a
national show, the O.Z. was run by your local news affiliates and
tried to feature at least one story that was given to them by the
national HQ but then filled it with stuff that you were supposed to
find interesting to your region. Eh! Did I really need a full
seven-minute segment on the growth of curling in Northeast Ohio? No.
Did I want to see more about America's effect on Korean culture or
how vastly different the north and south are? Yes. But with all of
those duties shirked off to the half hour local team, I barely got
anything, and didn't even start watching O.Z. until halfway through
the games. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY7rzBWRzV5l3jdDIs-Fduz2EZgp2Dl3WfY7akIcN8i2VIRVE3eeGFx1hqWXeMcOtSzDTsAE705J7yW6BOjatPy0B1F4n7Z4uCkOFMFo3WbwMGxNIyXO7x8oNUqhCGMiIUIQaBX1KcOxc/s1600/ea8kosj4mpyx9crrtpdz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="800" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY7rzBWRzV5l3jdDIs-Fduz2EZgp2Dl3WfY7akIcN8i2VIRVE3eeGFx1hqWXeMcOtSzDTsAE705J7yW6BOjatPy0B1F4n7Z4uCkOFMFo3WbwMGxNIyXO7x8oNUqhCGMiIUIQaBX1KcOxc/s320/ea8kosj4mpyx9crrtpdz.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Not Americans</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">My
point is that focusing more on the stories of the American athletes
or of the expected champions/greatest competition to those athletes
during primetime would've served us as viewers far better than
sitting through a slew of also-rans in any of the competitions. Sure,
snowboard was a favorite of mine and I enjoyed watching all 30
competitors do their qualifying runs... Once! There were often two
qualifying runs for each event, then three final runs. In the hour
and a half of time that each event took, I couldn't have been the
only viewer sitting there and wondering, “Do I really need to see
15 skiers who supposedly have no chance of medalling ski down a hill
only to end two seconds off from the leader and wind up in 13<sup>th</sup>
place?” Where is the drama? Where is the adrenaline in that?</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Show
me the Americans regardless, because I'm here for that, and also show
me the top five best in the world, but don't give me the chick skiing
for Hungary (I think that was the country) who is going down the
halfpipe pulling no tricks and is only there because she shortcutted
the system. It makes for funny social media fodder, sure, but I
hardly want to watch her go through twice and listen to the
commentators struggle to say anything worth a damn. I'm hardly ADD
and ably sat through all of this, but for the love of god switch away
from these events and show something else so that viewers' minds
don't wander. There was other junk on and other stuff to do.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Ultimately,
this is the problem with most sports but got highlighted during the
Olympics because of the nature of the Olympics: most sports are
legitimately only interesting for about seven minutes of playing
time. Think about it, the first two quarters of football are nothing
worth seeing unless one team immediately starts to run the score, or
when one team pushes their downs to within 20 yards of the end zone.
Only about the last quarter of basketball is even worth watching and
you can catch that crazy dunk or pass highlight from the second
quarter on Sportscenter later. Soccer only gets truly interesting
when the ball gets to within 20 feet of the goal, which actually
rarely happens. Baseball is only interesting if someone steals some
bases, hits a homer or the field team flubs the ball, allowing a run.
Hell, even a pitcher's no-hitter can leave you feeling like you
wasted your three hours if, in the final inning he lets someone hit a
homer. Don't misunderstand my complaint, they definitely should still
have LIVE events, but they need to jump around more in order to keep
the ADD attentions of tech-distracted viewers these days. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRhUdtrExZF4gbJ3SsRt7EonlpMBGYmgzVpI2D6EWpC6VtC1nj6zHol7FYnn6EFJqN106HDj7srfaMSqaLlJR-bjXUTLT1YXrGGJIFBkKfitdYmwc_l-4y7a4jNHiNb56ScQP6mHgiP8I/s1600/93e9658f796e4f449497db34c7d0d0fc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1279" data-original-width="1600" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRhUdtrExZF4gbJ3SsRt7EonlpMBGYmgzVpI2D6EWpC6VtC1nj6zHol7FYnn6EFJqN106HDj7srfaMSqaLlJR-bjXUTLT1YXrGGJIFBkKfitdYmwc_l-4y7a4jNHiNb56ScQP6mHgiP8I/s320/93e9658f796e4f449497db34c7d0d0fc.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Left to Right: Kikkan Randall, Jessie Diggins</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The
little secret about all of this is that I, as an Olympics die-hard,
know that they have been showing events LIVE for the past two
Olympics where people complained. The biggest problem that some
idiots seem not to understand is that most events take place during
the day, meaning that events played LIVE during work hours. I
remember seeing gymnastics at the Rio Olympics in 2016 at noon and it
was LIVE, then watching the replay of it in primetime. They featured
the beach volleyball LIVE because Brazil was too hot to play it
during the day. Sochi was a similar case where the time difference
was just enough to have events play at odd hours just outside of
primtime, but you could still find stuff with that LIVE tag somewhere
in the screen's corner. These people who complained about LIVE
coverage are still doing that and remained unhappy for the last four
years. Rather than cater to them and suffer through the worst ratings
in years, maybe focus on putting out the best possible show you can. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Seemingly
in an effort to make up for their lack of good programming, NBC and
its affiliated networks stuffed in a few good things in the last two
days of coverage, after most events had concluded. First was the
micro-documentary on the figure skating competition of 1988 in
Calgary, Canada that played on NBCSN in the dead of night on
Saturday-Sunday. Following the four expected champions, the film
angled itself as two sets of rivals finally going at it for the
golden prize. On the women's side you had American Debi Thomas versus
East Germany's Katarina Witt. Thomas, the first black female to skate
into the international spotlight during a time in which the black
community was suffering through the crack epidemic, became an instant
beacon of hope and adoration for young AA girls. Katarina was the
Olympics darling that needed to win Gold a second time after winning
in 1984 simply to remain a figure skater in her country. In a strange
political barring, Germany was not going to allow her the privilege
of becoming a professional figure skater (it was somehow outlawed)
unless she beat the black girl. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Debi
hadn't the same fire under her that Katarina did, distracted more
with her boyfriend and academic studies (medicine) than with what her
coach had to say. They would skate to the same opera, each choosing
<i>Carmen</i> for their final free skate. But where Katarina oozed
the sex appeal of a grown woman confident and sure in her allure,
Debi stumbled through her program and let her “Just Do It”
attitude (a phrase she is seen uttering to herself before her short
program and takes credit for coining months before Nike adopted the
saying) sink into an aura of doubt and self-defeat. She'd finish with
bronze while Katarina earned gold. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQy385QojMjnD3jmXzcirYyPgCIA33uehyphenhyphenqSJPTU4JumArfscAAZUF3CWt2Zhlm5qDm-LeoCicN9CVdAXTgie61N4ySqL0P8DPWgQTVB5Hi1NwLqhKQLcq53OlRoMLgz5NspgFiOUm-Wg/s1600/witt-thomas-carmens88.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQy385QojMjnD3jmXzcirYyPgCIA33uehyphenhyphenqSJPTU4JumArfscAAZUF3CWt2Zhlm5qDm-LeoCicN9CVdAXTgie61N4ySqL0P8DPWgQTVB5Hi1NwLqhKQLcq53OlRoMLgz5NspgFiOUm-Wg/s320/witt-thomas-carmens88.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">I Own No Rights to this Pic; Left: Katarina; Right: Thomas </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Katarina
would return to her country and go on to not only become a pro skater
but do TV, film, movies and become an all-around darling of her
people. Debi would go on to marry her boyfriend at the time and
become a surgeon, only to later get divorced, be declared bipolar,
get into another abusive relationship, and end up broke, nearly a
million dollars in debt and living in a trailer with her newest
husband. She appeared on <i>Iyanla Fix My Life</i> a few years ago,
trying to reclaim her peace, yet doesn't regret anything that
happened because skating wasn't that important to her. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">On
the other side, we had the Battle of the Brians. In a story that
directly connected to 2018's figure skating competition, Canada's
Brian Orser would skate in his home country against America's Brian
Boitano. In '84 Orser was the would-be champ that loss gold to Scott
Hamilton due to a part of the competition that is little known to
fans of today's sport: compulsory figures. Figure skating got its
name from the first part of the three-pronged competition, compulsory
figures or just figures. Figures preceded the short and freeskate and
consisted of skaters having to draw complex figures on the ice with
their blades, often only using one foot at a time. The skaters would
have to go forward and backwards carving their blades into the
pristine ice to draw shapes and pictures determined by the
judges—think figure eights but more complex. This showed body
control and superior technique. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Shockingly, it accounted for 60% of
the overall score. Orser, an amazing showman with both jumps and
emotive connectivity in both his short and freeskate programs, scored
terribly on the figures in '84, costing him what would've easily been
a gold then. He worked harder than he ever had before on his figures
between then and Calgary. Feeling the weight of a country upon his
shoulders he sought only to finish in the top 3, then he'd have a
chance at the gold. He succeeded. But Brian Boitano, the ten-year
rival that Orser couldn't shake, had arrived. With Hamilton now out
of each of the boys' way, it was between the two of them, each
matching the other during the world cup skating season. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Boitano knew
he'd have to be perfect to defeat Orser. He finished just one spot
ahead of Orser in the figures competition, so it would all come down
to the programs. In the short he slightly faltered, leaving room for
Orser to sneak into gold's spot. But it was in his long freeskate
that he connected the most perfect performance ever, propelling him
to gold over Orser and forcing the Canadian to take silver once
again. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiomBzllQ6QBPVGu-5dX016d030i1ESWKzAAD0eEtzUmBtB7mGgEOe7OJDv0BJyNoaT-7Hhw8UlNpvz2YAbZouGlVA7wIxPoxwsjG3p5njU98WTyaRJhx4NrSxiVSnldxKH0CUy_V8xrU8/s1600/636531689979537516-XXX-S091221-SPORTS-SD138-29028653.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="1200" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiomBzllQ6QBPVGu-5dX016d030i1ESWKzAAD0eEtzUmBtB7mGgEOe7OJDv0BJyNoaT-7Hhw8UlNpvz2YAbZouGlVA7wIxPoxwsjG3p5njU98WTyaRJhx4NrSxiVSnldxKH0CUy_V8xrU8/s400/636531689979537516-XXX-S091221-SPORTS-SD138-29028653.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Left to Right: Brian Orser in red, Brian Boitano in blue </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">After
that Boitano went on to become a hugely popular skater throughout the
90s in the US and would eventually appear on an ambassador delegation
of gay past athletes sent to Russia under Obama's direction for the
2014 Sochi Olympics. Brian Orser went on to become a highly
sought-after coach and has coached current two-time gold medalist
Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan for the last couple of years. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The
2018 coverage also had another documentary on the 1968 Olympics.
While it was good, this Serena Williams-narrated film felt slightly
disjointed and jumped around trying to cover everything that happened
during the lead up to and playing of the Olympics. Focusing on the
“summer” (that's in quotes because two reasons: the winter and
summer games used to take place in the same year, and though these
were the summer sports like track and field, they held the games in
October) games, the film became an amalgam of four different stories
that all intersected around the games. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCvtBoKsqHwdQ2UPbYVW91Jqc9KLz_aM3LD5yw2pLBG_-DxsJevM78CcFP9N0Hbni-29JbgC5SKoLAocPccKZz1a3ZxeQmqrdlMUCtjZ3f4H4Dh53MrQWgQsPiXVWfSQyJtFEhUu0aSvY/s1600/imagesR3RLFHFK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCvtBoKsqHwdQ2UPbYVW91Jqc9KLz_aM3LD5yw2pLBG_-DxsJevM78CcFP9N0Hbni-29JbgC5SKoLAocPccKZz1a3ZxeQmqrdlMUCtjZ3f4H4Dh53MrQWgQsPiXVWfSQyJtFEhUu0aSvY/s1600/imagesR3RLFHFK.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">First
was the unrest in Mexico and Mexico City at that time. Still seen by
some as a third-world country, Mexico City's Olympic games was “the
first to ever be hosted by a Spanish-speaking country” (that's
racist coding for those brown people beneath the US, because no way
they'd actually say the same thing about Spain). Mexicans were
supposedly lazy, inferior and/or violent similar to negroes, so
questions arose about how they could ever pull off a proper Olympics.
The president and mayor of Mexico City decided to squelch any
negative press that could arise about Mexico in the lead-up to the
games. And as it so happens, all hell broke loose just a few weeks
before the start of the Olympics. What would later be known as the
Tlatelolco Massacre occurred when a group of protesters consisting of
students and laborers looking to improve their lot through political
action were met with military might. The documentary revealed that in
1998 classified documents were released stating that the first shot
may have come from a military person mixed into the protesters crowd,
specifically placed there to insight violence and give reason to the
soldiers to start shooting the protesters. No less than 20 people
died that day, 10 days before the games. Upon arrival to the city,
some athletes visited the area (it was previously a sorta tourist
attraction as it sat right near a Mayan temple) and noted the
pristine appearance, only to then be able to swipe their hands across
the cleaned surfaces, or peel back thin layers of paint to see the
blood stained stones beneath. Still, the games went off without a
hitch or uprising, even daring to have a woman light the torch for
the first time ever, showcasing a forward-thinking mindset. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The
second story followed high jumper Dick Fosbury. A young white man who
wanted to do the high-jump but could never quite clear the bar with
his gangly limbs, he pioneered the most commonly used technique today
by leaping over the bar back first. Up until this gold-medal-winning
technique, people laughed at him for his inability to complete proper
jumps. It also briefly touch on another athlete who set a record in
the long jump, jumping so far that they had to go to a local store to
get a tape measure because the device they had wasn't long enough. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jke0gDGMosa9a20KRm8Wn9P9QQJc_Z6eoLQJ10M9EUGescDDCCahjvll1sTkXx_z9nKwVzD7DgFQrK4_v1CdlRFaPVHB1VpPCa3OrGi2uiKm5BLsBUtsy97PKYJUbjMuW7Hu-Cyp8h4/s1600/imagesU3Y2INTD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jke0gDGMosa9a20KRm8Wn9P9QQJc_Z6eoLQJ10M9EUGescDDCCahjvll1sTkXx_z9nKwVzD7DgFQrK4_v1CdlRFaPVHB1VpPCa3OrGi2uiKm5BLsBUtsy97PKYJUbjMuW7Hu-Cyp8h4/s1600/imagesU3Y2INTD.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The
third story was about Czechoslovakian gymnast Vera Caslavska. At the
time, her country (now divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia)
was under immense political pressure from the USSR to essentially
surrender to its power and become part of its would-be empire. A
partial power-play in the ongoing cold war between the USSR and the
US, the former drove tanks down the streets of Czechoslovakian cities
as they staged a minor invasion. Vera, inarguably the greatest
gymnast in the world at the time, had to sneak way from her home in
one of the big cities in order to train in the hidden countryside.
She only had whatever the forest gave to train with. When she went to
the Mexico City games she tried not to let politics get to her but
could hardly turn her mind away from the sights she remembered seeing
as tanks rolled into her hometown. Slated to win all of the
individual medals in gymnastics, the film framed it as though she may
have been cheated out of such an honor when in one event the Russian
girl was marked higher than her though she hadn't ever been marked
that high in any other world's competition, and in another event,
after some deliberation, Vera's score was changed to match that of a
Russian competitor's, ending the discipline in a tie. Vera made her
strongest political statement when, during the medal ceremony, she
stood next to her Russian co-gold medalist and looked away and down
at the floor when they played the USSR's anthem. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Finally,
the biggest storyline of the film focused on the iconic symbol of
black power, oppression and the struggle for blacks and minorities to
be heard: the two fists raised in the air. Months before that
peaceful protest, college student athletes who were black were
gathering up to plan a boycott of the Olympics completely as a
protest against what they considered to be unfair collegiate
treatment of blacks. Outside of the overarching civil rights
movement, blacks were recruited by colleges to play various sports
but after graduation they were essentially sent packing back to
wherever the hell they came from and told not to show their faces
again. One past athlete who went on to very quickly earn a doctorate
after his undergrad education, saw the problem in the white or
integrated colleges having no pipeline for past black students to
become coaches or even faculty members at their alma maters, whereas
whites were routinely invited back to become part of their college's
sports legacy. Not only that, he, having lived it, realized that many
of the athletes came from poor upbringings and remained poor during
and after their collegiate experience. Scholarships would cover their
rent, leaving barely enough money for food for an entire week, let
alone a full month. And with tough schedules put on athletes finding
a job was near impossible. Even if they were able to handle their
schedule, few people hired negroes. Essentially, it was the same
argument then as it is today, except with racial politics playing an
even stronger role. Something had to give. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">If
that weren't bad enough, the Olympics were to permit a country like
South Africa to participate, which at the time was still battling its
way through apartheid. Blacks were looked at the world-over as race
horses, animals that could do the work to entertain or win sports
events but hardly useful outside of that. And the topping on it all
was the current IOC president Avery Brundage whose history with
racial prejudice made many black athletes bristle with rage. In the
1936 Germany Olympics it was Brundage himself who told Jewish
athletes from all countries that they would not be allowed to
participate in the Olympics because it would make Hitler very
unhappy. The athletes wanted him gone. They wouldn't get Brundage to
step down in time for the Olympics, but they would get some
concessions from the USOC who allowed them a certain bit of leeway in
living accommodations, promised to look at the college system of
black athletes treatment and even allowed for black and other
minorities to coach the Olympic teams. They even got South Africa and
another country uninvited to the games. Still, a great bit of work
was left to be done. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVnfxH2YMEGf2u6E6_JR1dIyRG0OipYvZQVFLh5PaNBqwKVY6Jh5GwOEREDjKmDoTB6v21hlPmAdR6eVELZBUaYWb1o2FNIF5mQerJom6hna1Cpo1ACVGgFYJ16-l5weehPFy-EHociE8/s1600/1968-black-power-olympics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVnfxH2YMEGf2u6E6_JR1dIyRG0OipYvZQVFLh5PaNBqwKVY6Jh5GwOEREDjKmDoTB6v21hlPmAdR6eVELZBUaYWb1o2FNIF5mQerJom6hna1Cpo1ACVGgFYJ16-l5weehPFy-EHociE8/s320/1968-black-power-olympics.jpg" width="280" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">In
a move that would not only backfire but crush the inspiring image of
a past hero that some of the black athletes still held, the USOC and
IOC contacted Jesse Owens to play their house negro. As one of the
interviewed athletes said (paraphrased), “They dug Jesse out from
somewhere, dusted him off, put him in a suit, stuffed a wad of cash
in his pocket and gave him a script to read.” He warned them about
protesting, guaranteeing them that they'd have a near impossible time
finding a job if they were to visibly protest in any way during these
games. They booed him out of the room, recognizing that he had
appeared during those German Olympics, then disappeared from the
American conscience for near 30 years until that day. He was never
truly allowed to make money as a racer after his Germany golds.
Instead, he was relegated to a bit of a negro sideshow, often taking
clownish races that pitted him against fast animals like horses or
dogs in order to make ends meet. Strangely, it now seems as if he was
speaking the truth to them rather than a script, which is precisely
what they were fighting against happening to them, but in fighting
against it, it would be the exact thing to happen to them. This, in
no way, says that they shouldn't have protested. To the contrary,
they should have made their protests more known. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">While
the raised, black-gloved fists of gold medalist Tommie Smith and
bronze medalist John Carlos during the playing of America's national
anthem has become iconic and is commemorated in two statues (one on
their alma mater's college campus and another in the national black
history museum in DC), they were far from the only ones to try
protesting. In what was still to this date the most decorated track
and field US team, many of the black athletes that won medals
protested by wearing all black, taking off their shoes to symbolize
the poverty of black collegiate athletes, wearing tall black socks,
blocking out the American flags on their uniforms with protest
buttons and the like. Many went unrecognized or passed with little
fanfare. Some even earned the ire of both white and black people. One
athlete's wearing of a black beret to identify with the Black Panther
Party was first seen as distasteful by the whites, but then when he
took it off and held it over his heart while saluting the flag as it
raised, that was seen as treacherous to the cause by blacks. </span></span></span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBVVJaZRSGba3-0A_VJANrZgWsC6LTE-4Mh4aKT79rPyY8LsD08EAj06WP5APPMQC5PYo9f3P8gZHsQXuuJPO_vP3CvAAaz22LedS9xRhSBQljOXHTdlfNqGQZMMJdnqvK7KFgIglB0aA/s1600/922877200_22726109.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBVVJaZRSGba3-0A_VJANrZgWsC6LTE-4Mh4aKT79rPyY8LsD08EAj06WP5APPMQC5PYo9f3P8gZHsQXuuJPO_vP3CvAAaz22LedS9xRhSBQljOXHTdlfNqGQZMMJdnqvK7KFgIglB0aA/s320/922877200_22726109.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Black Bobsledders Lauren Gibbs and Elana Meyers-Taylor</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">In
the end, Carlos and Smith's protest would get them sent packing
immediately back home to the states. And just like Jesse Owens
warned, they would return to an economic climate that didn't respect
their stand for equality in sports. Many of the job offers they had
before the Olympics, even from other blacks, suddenly disappeared in
the wake of their early return. For years, they would struggle
through little to no employment opportunities, and even see their
friendship challenged by John Carlos' claim that he let Tommie Smith
win the race. Carlos' life would hit a terrible low when his wife of
more than nine years killed herself, unable to deal with the up and
down of financial struggle. But they pressed on and today have
regained some semblance of their friendship and are each enjoying new
lives that consist of community involvement with youth. They don't
regret their protest as they believe that without it, there wouldn't
have been such changes in American society that eventually led to the
first black president. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">In
the end, this 2018 Olympics felt lacking and somewhat bland and
boring in comparison to past Olympics. In fact, that feeling was only
highlighted by the dive into the pasts of 30 and 50 years ago when
the world sat on edge to witness great competition between Americans
and foreigners, or when athletes from all walks of life made subtle,
yet powerful statements about social and political issues that would
ripple through time. With the lack of medal ceremonies shown in
primetime (I don't care that Shaun White's medal ceremony would've
not played LIVE and would've played a full day after he won the gold.
You can “spoil” the sporting event, you can't spoil a medal
ceremony) NBC tried to somewhat make up for this on the back end by
showing a one-hour showcase of Olympic Gold, but even that fell
supremely flat because it focused more on snowboarding's impact in
the Olympics in the last 20 years rather than focusing fully on the
stories behind each medal we won in this Olympics, gold or otherwise.
And it still didn't fully show a medal ceremony. I wanted to see that
anticipation on an athlete's face when they see the tray with the
medals come out, and they see their fellow competitors get the bronze
and the silver, and they tear up a little before the gold is even
placed around their neck. This Olympics, unlike in the past, tried to
tell stories but failed to build an initial connective draw to these
narratives, then not dragging us all the way to the end by showing
the athletes on the podium. And don't blame the IOC for this, NBC
knew the schedule well beforehand. </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfqGy5HHIUk6fMpfcgI6cG9bctsEGV02Aw-HBSQzRq-ZmOOPPJ3jp5hAwOT2sIMs_6zs6BGf3rzx2SP0kZUNMg0DE5LWRWAtX9oIf9WqCSm2dvwFEx-Bt_L3g1C8ZAHVkCn69aqvmnvcA/s1600/_100181147_cbcf6b0b-a399-4901-a05f-0b9712846d86.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="976" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfqGy5HHIUk6fMpfcgI6cG9bctsEGV02Aw-HBSQzRq-ZmOOPPJ3jp5hAwOT2sIMs_6zs6BGf3rzx2SP0kZUNMg0DE5LWRWAtX9oIf9WqCSm2dvwFEx-Bt_L3g1C8ZAHVkCn69aqvmnvcA/s400/_100181147_cbcf6b0b-a399-4901-a05f-0b9712846d86.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The
closing ceremony was far superior to the opening, which is all upon
the host country. For whatever reason, whenever I watch the Olympics
with someone now, they always have to compare it to Beijing's opening
and closing in 2008. Look, I know that it was great and that it will
most likely go down as one of the greatest openings of all time
(frankly, the entire Olympics was one of the best Olympics I've ever
seen) but we can't keep comparing that opening to every Olympics
ceremony in perpetuity or else we'll never appreciate another
ceremony again. With that said, Korea's opening was rather weak. In
what was certainly a try-hard ceremony, all I got from it were that
they liked white tigers, among other animals, and that they like
digital stuff. While you can say virtually the same thing about the
closing ceremony, it simply felt different, more artistic and more
intriguing. I loved the blend of K-pop with traditional cultural
sounds and music, the guitar kid was absolutely shredding to life,
the snowflakes extinguishing the fire was uniquely brilliant, I liked
the extravagance of EXO's stadium-filling performance and I even
enjoyed China's presentation with the skating pandas. In all, it felt
like a spectacle, which is precisely the way I want the opening and
closing to feel. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO9eGEIQWyhxRTQCFc_djM8pvXfri48QtT1zc6HEtfeHjEvJ5jRJ1Y8YUs5ZY2t6F_Mx2BMMwzuec2Yc5KJYn4U58QeuhNaBtpG-JyuiEG9q8PslY1rA14Vbf2XYSQZLx5Jnp_ue9yi0A/s1600/a7510f1d-fa61-4765-a044-0b614141fd3d-AP18040476777907.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1144" data-original-width="1600" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO9eGEIQWyhxRTQCFc_djM8pvXfri48QtT1zc6HEtfeHjEvJ5jRJ1Y8YUs5ZY2t6F_Mx2BMMwzuec2Yc5KJYn4U58QeuhNaBtpG-JyuiEG9q8PslY1rA14Vbf2XYSQZLx5Jnp_ue9yi0A/s320/a7510f1d-fa61-4765-a044-0b614141fd3d-AP18040476777907.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">With
everything that has taken place in the world in the last 18 days both
inside and outside of the games, I still couldn't look away from them
but for two and a half brief hours on a Saturday night. For me, they
are the epitome of a quote by a woman whose name I simply can't
recall. She stated the quote on a show while sitting on a panel and
talking about sex and about it being good. Well, the Olympics are
like sex: even when it's not that good, it's still pretty good. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">What
do you think? Did you watch the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Winter
Games? If so, did you enjoy it? What was your favorite event? Who did
you root for most to get a gold? Were you enticed to try out any of
the featured sports? And what are you looking forward to from the
next Olympic games, summer or winter? Let me know in the comments
below. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
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Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “Whoa! Hey,
snowboarder dude, you just cut me off while I was skiing quite
modestly down this mountain.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'Dude, it's like they say there's no
friends on a fresh powder day!'
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">P.S.
Yeah, I don't know. I heard that second line from one of the
commentators during one of the snowboard cross races and thought it
was kinda cool, and totally sounded like something a boarder would
say, though I've never boarded in my life. Anyway, I'll try to think
of a better, more original sign-off next time. </span></span></span></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-44819203144480775472018-02-22T16:01:00.001-08:002018-02-22T16:01:26.295-08:00Was That The Revolution? So It Wasn't Televised But Filmed? #BlackPanther #review #recap #Marvel #BlackHistoryMonth<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Was
That The Revolution? So It Wasn't Televised But Filmed? #BlackPanther
#review #recap #Marvel #BlackHistoryMonth</b> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of MARVEL Film Studios and Comics</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
to say, what to say? Hmm? OK, so this is going to be a very trying
review for me because there's a lot to unpack about this film. I will
include my final rating of the film early in the review so that
people who still haven't seen it won't have to read through my
ultimate analysis of the film, and be spoiled—oh yes, there will be
spoilers. But before I even do all of that I have to break a few
things down and have a legit fireside chat with everybody who happens
to come across this blog looking specifically for this film. Before
we start this thing in earnest, let me do my lame intro line. So, was
Marvel's Black Panther the raised-fist-at-the-Olympics that we needed
or was it just another “first-black [insert thing that blacks have
actually already done but are only now getting credit for with this
new generation]” that won't be looked back on as fondly as our
current sentiments imply? Let's find out together! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">With
much fanfare surrounding Black Panther, Marvel's latest release, it
has been billed as the first black superhero (it is not). It stars
Chadwick Boseman as the titular character Black Panther, an African
king imbued with the sacred powers of his ancestors that makes him
the superhero known as black panther. He, similar to Batman, wears a
dark black suit that is supposed to resemble a panther in the dead of
night. But not only is he a superhero, as I stated he is also the
king of a fictional African nation known in the MCU as Wakanda. For
years the nation, while known enough to be invited to the United
Nations, has hidden its true identity from the rest of the world.
Though much of the globe thinks of it as a third-world, poor African
nation seemingly like any other African nation (if you go by what
white nations show of it on TV), in movie-ality it is the most
technologically and culturally advanced society in the world. Their
advancements are due, in large part, to the near indestructible metal
known as Vibranium having crashed to the earth in a meteor/comet
thousands of years ago. Five tribes settled on the very land where it
crashed. Now, I am going to give a bit of a spoiler here but it's in
the first five minutes of the film, so I don't feel too bad, plus it
is part of the character's background. The five tribes that settled
on that land warred against each other for some years before one dude
from one of the tribes drank the nectar from a particular purple
flower and was imbued with the powers of the black panther, making
him stronger than anyone and allowing the rest of the tribes to bow
before him. However, one tribe did not wholly buy into the society
that the others wanted to form with the BP as their leader. That
tribe retired to the mountains where they've stayed ever since,
rarely coming down save for the occasional political gathering (we'll
talk more about that later in the spoilers section). </span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmFSVfL9RcmdANH2UK7iOVKyt1znKH1p4Vcg_59t9hu8SLLab6TlvwwMWoV7gyp2UFUh2kvGHdlPcgF36lLlvLF01CYiypjYT7oHhSRDVO8DGtRzSITOqtvT8LDtLyEXliN4BgWMfC1T8/s1600/blackpantherfinal__1_.0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmFSVfL9RcmdANH2UK7iOVKyt1znKH1p4Vcg_59t9hu8SLLab6TlvwwMWoV7gyp2UFUh2kvGHdlPcgF36lLlvLF01CYiypjYT7oHhSRDVO8DGtRzSITOqtvT8LDtLyEXliN4BgWMfC1T8/s320/blackpantherfinal__1_.0.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sometimes The Movie Was Too Dark Aesthetically</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
the nation grew, they kept a close watch on other nations around them
only to see the carnage, atrocities and all-around evil that man
imposed on man. Instead of coming to the aid of other people's, they
chose to hide themselves away in a cloak of invisibility that they
were able to create using the Vibranium, and they've stayed hidden
ever since. Now, evil from the outside threatens to destroy their
cultural way of life and that of the rest of the world's, forcing BP
and his closest followers to decide whether they should finally
reveal themselves to the rest of the world, or if they will remain
shrouded in secrecy and tradition. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">OK,
now let's dip into some cultural significance and whatnot. Oh, did I
mention that this is going to be a long read? Surprise, it's going to
be a long read. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Let's
begin with this idea that this film is the first or that it is making
history, progress or change. Just as I stated in my Wonder Woman film
(after not liking it) that a great deal of hype for the film was
built around the idea that she was finally the first female superhero
and how that was false hype and not to be overly qualified with the
truth, so too does Black Panther need qualification. Before Wonder
Woman, we got Elektra, Catwoman, Supergirl, and a fourth one that I
can never think of during my writing process. We also got strong
influences from female superheroines in other films; I would make the
argument that Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique drives the new First-Class
rendition of the X-Men far more than Magneto or Professor X, and that
the lack of her influence in Apocalypse was one of the things that
severely hurt the film. I qualified Wonder Woman by saying that yes,
she is the first female superheroine... in a highly successful,
highly critically praised film that was made in the modern superhero
film era. All of those things need to be within the same spoken
breath as Wonder Woman in order for her “first/barrier-breaking
success” to be accurate. Same goes for Black Panther. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Before
I qualify BP, let me state that I am black. Not only am I black, but
I try to keep a very close watch on entertainment history as far as
it has to do with film, TV and books. I have always felt that, up
until now, black people never really give the credit to other
successful blacks that they might deserve. Sometimes that is simply
because a louder noise outside of the black community is not made
about something, and sometimes it is simply that black people forget
or don't value the contributions of these particular blacks. For
instance, I will always remember about ten or 12 years ago when Tyler
Perry first became really big in the black community and someone
interviewed Spike Lee who said that Perry's films were “coonery and
buffoonery” and that he would never want to be associated with
them. And a lot of blacks agreed with him. So while Perry's success
is certainly history-making, even to this day he is sorta pushed
aside and not seen by young children as someone who they should
strive to be like, whether that means they want to be in the
entertainment industry or just as a business man in general. Most
blacks hear that a new Perry film is coming out and a great many will
roll their eyes at such a proclamation. Instead of supporting while
also demanding a richer, deeper dive into narrative and helping to
influence him to create even better movies with the brand he
currently has, blacks have been quick to dismiss his films as little
to nothing. But note that he is an indicative example of a bigger
problem: blacks have been doing this to black filmmakers and those in
the entertainment industry for years, diminishing some people's
accomplishments while uplifting and praising others. The sad part
about this is that often times the praise is heaped onto blacks that
are heavily supported by whites. Again, I have no hatred left in my
heart for whites or any other race, and I hope to be supported by all
races myself, so I am not saying that white audience/critic approval
is bad. What I'm saying is that it can't serve as the foundation for
whether blacks or any other minority race believes that something is
good. With that said, let me finally get to the qualifiers for Black
Panther. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
I said before, Black Panther is not the first black superhero and
unlike in many of the columns that I have seen featured on sites like
The Grio, Madame Noire, the Stir and alike, this film has actually
broken far fewer barriers than originally believed. To start, yes it
can be said that he is the first solo black superhero we have in the
modern era, but not the first black superhero that children can look
up to. With Marvel's gamut of diversity throughout their cinematic
universe, we've seen a bevvy of blacks align themselves with the
heroes as sidekicks. In fact, when thinking about it, just about
every main superhero through these first three phases has a black
sidekick. Iron Man and Cheadle's War Machine; Captain America and
Anthony Mackie's Falcon; Thor and Tessa Thompson's recent addition of
Valkyrie or Idris Elba's Heimdall; even Dr. Strange has the
sidekick/rival turned villain Mordo played by Chiwetel Ejiafor. The
only one who doesn't have a black sidekick really is Ant-man.
Spider-man is still too new and could have a black Harry pop up and
all hell break loose. The point is that there are plenty of other
black superheroes even if they didn't get their own film. But again,
they all play as sidekicks, even if they are just as cool as their
leading counterparts. </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqSIUrEBz8bMC3LUf74wawvoFIpNbD3V8SOXjlLvGGWsXAVCoEpwxUUv8JaeyjOY06KA6a7aaO57BvkjxhDMzeofCbMoS45A7cabKerj_yqOUHnGMeMdfWVJawCuE8nlJblkeXlhXdbEY/s1600/black-panther-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="675" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqSIUrEBz8bMC3LUf74wawvoFIpNbD3V8SOXjlLvGGWsXAVCoEpwxUUv8JaeyjOY06KA6a7aaO57BvkjxhDMzeofCbMoS45A7cabKerj_yqOUHnGMeMdfWVJawCuE8nlJblkeXlhXdbEY/s320/black-panther-poster.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Stepping
away from the current era, before Black Panther we had Blade (a
superhero/vampire hunter who, in a very intriguing Wesley Snipes
interview, is partially credited by Marvel for saving them from total
bankruptcy and allowing them to bounce back with the MCU you see
today), Spawn, Shaq's STEEL, and Damon Wayans' Blankman. Granted,
Blankman was more of a superhero parody but you have to look at the
times. In fact, my next entry is also one that you'll have to
seriously look at the times for. Remember that up until the first
X-Men or Spider-man (though I would still argue that those are partly
in the old comic era and that Spider-man 2 is what really started
this new era of treatment) comic book films were still largely looked
at as goofy and for children (remember this because I'll talk about
this in the next section when I talk about BP's meaning to kids).
Even the original Batman movie and Batman Returns, while really good
films, were rather goofy not only when compared to today's films but
also for their time. Nobody was taking any comic book film seriously
as evidenced by Joel Schumacher being handed the reigns to the Batman
films after Burton departed for the never-made Superman Lives. They
were simply supposed to show bad guys getting beat up by
super-powered good guys in costumes. Keep that in mind for the final
film I bring up: </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meteor
Man. For starters, Meteor Man already broke many of the “barriers”
that Black Panther supposedly broke. And while other black critics
want to diminish or denigrate this achievement because the film was
not looked at as a critical or box office success, it nevertheless
still holds those banners. About a rather nerdy school teacher that
finds himself imbued with powers after a meteor falls to earth and
effects him (hmm, wait a minute, does that sound familiar to
anyone?), the main character Jefferson Reed decides to become a
superhero in order to fight against the gangs in his inner-city
neighborhood. Should this movie be considered a classic or good? No,
probably not. However, it was partially a sign of the times in its
goofiness. It was one of the first black superhero films that was
written by a black man, directed by a black man, produced by a couple
of minorities (at least one producer was white I think), and had
ethnic goodness running all up and down the below-the-line crew
billing. This was not only a positive movie that showed the full
gamut of African-American behaviors and successes (you had
intelligent, hard-working black people as well as your typical
thugs), it also tackled an ongoing problem of youth corruption by
gang leaders and showed the youth that education was something not to
scoff at and that blacks could be heroes. Where it failed was in a
full-on incorporation of black women as powerful, butt-kicking
allies--Black Panther succeeds here. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Even
Meteor Man's budget was sure to give people pause in those days.
Topping out at around 30 million dollars, it certainly could not be
considered small nor even medium budget FOR ITS TIME. To put that
into perspective, the first Batman film cost near 35 million dollars,
and Steven Spielberg's huge hit Jurassic Park that came out a year
later cost 63 million dollars. Jurassic Park, at the time, was one of
the most expensive films to make ever, and then Titanic came along a
few years later and suddenly budgets ballooned to 100 million easy. I
say that to say that Meteor Man was the first big budget black
superhero film that was written and directed by a black person, NOT
Black Panther. And regardless of Meteor Man's quality, it should hold
that title for better or worse. Just because you don't like it
doesn't mean that it didn't achieve it. On top of that, it was a
superhero that was created by a black man and was his original idea,
not based off of something created by white people. Again, for all
the great things that Black Panther has achieved and I definitely
don't want to crap on that (I'm trying to be positive and lift up all
black and minority filmmakers), being the first black, big budget
superhero film written and directed by black people and starring a
predominantly black cast is not one of them. However, practically all
of the African-superhero infusions are new to the game and should be
commended. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Now,
on to the children before I give my grade. For this we'll have to
actually dig back into history and talk about the very nature of
comic books. Some reviewers, both white and black but more white than
the latter, have called BP just another movie and dismissed it for
its politics and said that it's a “movie that caters to kids” and
“that everybody is only going wild over it because it shows blacks
being something other than thugs and gives kids someone to emulate.”
In reality, they're kinda right. But I think that they're also
forgetting the root of comic books because the last few years of
superhero movies have taken an adult route to storytelling. If we all
go back to the first few comic books, back to Superman and Batman
three-quarters of a century ago, we have to realize why they were
created and the climate in which they came. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Comics
were originally created by young adult men that saw the chaos in the
world around them and knew that if they as adults were having a hard
time struggling with the world's darkness, then so would children.
They, partially being adult children themselves, just wanted to write
stories that could make it seem like things would be OK, like the
adults knew what they were doing and the world wouldn't crumble
around kids, and also give them a fantastical ideal for which to
strive. It was a world where good always won over evil and most
superheroes stood as examples for what children could one day be in
adulthood, regardless of if they had powers or not: good, humble,
smart people.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">That was it. There was nothing <i>more</i> ridiculous
about a black or ethnic person/character being a superhero than it
was about a white person being a superhero. It was never really about
the powers or even how cool the hero was, but more about what the
hero stood for and how it made the reader (usually a child at that
time) feel about themselves and the world around them. You could feel
good about the world if you saw Superman or Captain America punching
out Nazis and kicking Hitler's butt because your parents and all the
adults in your life told you the guy was bad. Again, these were
always “feelings” books, regardless of what any republican,
fascist or racist wants to tell you. They tried to make you feel
good. So, in my mind, I went into both Wonder Woman and Black Panther
with this mindset, even though I know that comic book-superhero films
have evolved as have the books themselves. In my mind, if a strong
Black, African superhero is what blacks not just in America but
around the world need to see to feel good about themselves, to have
their children feel good about being little black boys and girls, and
for everyone to feel that there is some since of hope for an even
better future, then I'm here for that, regardless of how the movie
actually turns out. It is solely off of that notion alone that I
bumped my final grade for Black Panther up by half of a grade. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What's
my grade? I give Black Panther a <span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">B-</span>,
instead of a C+. A quick run-through of things I didn't like: the
pacing, similar to Wonder Woman, ebbed and flowed without
consistency, making the film feel long. You felt every bit of that
two hours and 15 minutes which is, in large part, due to the second
problem: the writing. If I ever make it to Hollywood myself, I'll
address this in more depth because I don't want to make it seem like
I'm just trying to crap on him because I'm a little jealous of his
success (I am definitely a little jealous but I'm gonna have to get
over it), but with that said, I don't think Ryan Coogler's a very
strong writer. I think he's a decent director who is getting better
with every film but as far as writing goes he lacks subtext. And it
seems like the person they chose for his co-writer on the script,
while he has some pretty good credits under his belt, this was far
from his finest work. Again, more on everything later but this is my
rundown. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I
thought that the music, just like in every Marvel film (save for
Captain America: Winter Soldier and Civil War, and Thor: Ragnarok)
was boring, bland and forgettable, and actively dreadful in other
parts of the film. Again, they did exactly what I criticized the show
Black Lightning for doing in that instead of going strictly for
orchestral music, they would have some fight scenes infused with
hip-hop music to make the film seem hipper, or more black. I don't
understand why black filmmakers feel they have to do that. Sure, the
use of rap music is better used in the active background of a scene
rather than as part of the passive soundtrack (more on that later)
and I enjoyed a few of the Kendrick Lamar-curated songs off the
soundtrack, but the OST (the original soundtrack or otherwise known
as the orchestral score) was bland, even with infusions of
traditional African sounds. The CGI was great at times and terrible
at others. But the set design was amazing. Oh, and so were the
costumes. But I thought that the acting for at least a third of the
cast (Black Panther himself and Killmonger) was weak. And finally,
one of the weakest characters in the movie is actually the titular
character of the movie. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">OK,
so is everybody ready? Again, I give it a <span style="color: #cc0000;">B-</span>.
</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Prepare
for SPOILERS because there are spoilers ahead and I'm gonna breakdown
all that I did and didn't like. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">SPOILERS
</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">AHEAD!!!!
</span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMII8cDAGeHOYS4vpLgyVmGWDP27-_ZTPYOXR37OJxRCa_bduoUN9ivU0w0EJ4RriNXdK0zOWshZzX70avra146plDae5eNai8vXJphza0myySEZ59N2kIUtt_LMmtK0Dznt-tNc8XtvY/s1600/636526458976202193-BlackPanther596d2f0946755.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1275" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMII8cDAGeHOYS4vpLgyVmGWDP27-_ZTPYOXR37OJxRCa_bduoUN9ivU0w0EJ4RriNXdK0zOWshZzX70avra146plDae5eNai8vXJphza0myySEZ59N2kIUtt_LMmtK0Dznt-tNc8XtvY/s400/636526458976202193-BlackPanther596d2f0946755.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Let's
start with a summary of the movie. It takes place one week after the
events in Captain America: Civil War and picks up with T'Challa going
home with his father's body presumably stored as cargo on his
advanced plane. With him we see the general of his army Okoye played
by Danai Gurira (The Walking Dead). For those that know of CA:CW, I
guess we are assuming that he either has Bucky on the ship too, or
that this is a second mission away from home to go pick up another
main character. This third main character is Nakia played by Lupita
N'yongo. She is supposed to be his love interest and ex-girlfriend.
Let me say that I found it interesting here that they went with the
super western and modern take on dating where the partners choose
each other rather than some kind of arranged marriage. It felt very
non-traditional for an African country that supposedly has stayed
traditional for thousands of years. I digress. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
get our first action scene where BP fights some jungle slave
merchants to rescue Nakia, but she hardly needed rescuing because she
is a spy for Wakanda and was going to stop a truck of women from
becoming slaves somehow. BP freezes at the sight of her, presumably
because she's so beautiful, however I would've loved if he told her
how beautiful she was. Black women are both oversexualized and
undersexualized in media; they are often shown nude or ass-shaking
but are rarely called <i>beautiful</i> by characters in films. I just
would've liked a few “your skin is beautiful” in there. And does
that sound cheesy? Yes, but the film had its fair amount of
provolone. Anyway, he tells her that his father has died and he wants
her back with him in Wakanda as they undergo the transition. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL6wE3Dm5HRSX5R9qfcmDJu3FQPy7KBSGq31K5ubN8R6Vzj_1wfKt2r5yC8M7YmWm_mENJuLGl7TNN0cQHw3WoT3UESkAyVadPo5bSy9Q0Mh9nZmR7edPb2lvcVhfECtC6CGrC5JqEaXI/s1600/blackpanther596d2f1ece577.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="763" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL6wE3Dm5HRSX5R9qfcmDJu3FQPy7KBSGq31K5ubN8R6Vzj_1wfKt2r5yC8M7YmWm_mENJuLGl7TNN0cQHw3WoT3UESkAyVadPo5bSy9Q0Mh9nZmR7edPb2lvcVhfECtC6CGrC5JqEaXI/s400/blackpanther596d2f1ece577.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
get to Wakanda and break through the invisible barrier to see an
amazing city that mixes old world African huts with new world
skyscraper designs, along with a myriad of color. But here is where
things start to get somewhat sticky. Apparently, though T'Challa is
the prince, he must still battle for the right to be king. Tradition
says that he must drink some kinda detox juice to get the powers of
the BP out of his system before taking on any challenger that wishes
to fight him for the throne. Yes, this is important for the rest of
the film. He does that and defeats the leader of the fifth mountain
tribe, then retakes the BP powers by drinking the juice from a purple
herb and traveling to another realm to talk with his dead father
about not being ready to be a king. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Here,
I backtrack to the very beginning of the film because it becomes
important as we switch to the villain. At the film's start, just
after the story about Wakanda's existence, we flash back to the 90s
where we learn that T'Chaka (T'Challa's father) as a young king sent
out his only brother to be a spy in America. As it turns out, his
brother had some radical ideas about the world and Wakanda's
Vibranium and betrayed the king by stealing and selling it to villain
Klaue (played by Andy Serkis). T'Chaka begrudgingly kills his brother
to save his other spy's life and leaves behind his brother's son—a
byproduct of a relationship with an American woman. That boy grew up
to become Erik somebody, better known as Killmonger. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
first meet adult Killmonger in a British museum working with Klaue to
steal some vibranium. For non-comic book readers, Klaue is one of the
main villains of BP. He also appeared briefly in <i>Age of Ultron</i>
where Ultron sliced off his arm. Anyway, Klaue led a few missions
into Wakanda and has stolen Vibranium countless times, so he is
number one on the nation's most wanted list. As luck would have it,
BP and his people back in Wakanda hear about him readying to make
another vibranium sell in South Korea. Nakia has contacts there that
they can use to get Klaue once and for all. So they all go there with
tech created by T'Challa's younger sister Shuri (played by Letitia
Wright in a breakout role). Shuri, to put it bluntly, is the younger,
blacker, maybe smarter Tony Stark who has not only created a new BP
suit, but leads the science division for all Wakandan technological
advances. She can drive a car remotely or do a bunch of other stuff
too. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />Anyway, Klaue comes to the meeting and runs into both BP and
his crew (General Okoye and Nakia) but also Agent Ross (Martin
Freeman) who we saw in CA:CW. There's a fight, they capture him and
Ross interrogates him only to have Killmonger come rescue Klaue while
also shooting Ross in the back, nearly killing him. So while BP takes
Ross back to Wakanda where they have the tech to save his life,
Killmonger kills Klaue and takes him to Wakanda. His plan: turn in
the most-wanted criminal and claim his birthright, which is a chance
to challenge the king for the throne. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSF8NOn8Hb0ZBlu-_UAbRfcQr0d-ac6on9JStPNImFExCL9hlF4pATjiL8_mBWfGAEQaL0GEeCOYFPszekcN2PR4tMY_1IY3BhrQPfMTSZ4QVao1geGU65Q_XSO7GdF8Pp9eSuT0eLQ48/s1600/Black-Panther.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="907" data-original-width="1440" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSF8NOn8Hb0ZBlu-_UAbRfcQr0d-ac6on9JStPNImFExCL9hlF4pATjiL8_mBWfGAEQaL0GEeCOYFPszekcN2PR4tMY_1IY3BhrQPfMTSZ4QVao1geGU65Q_XSO7GdF8Pp9eSuT0eLQ48/s320/Black-Panther.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T'Challa at left, Killmonger at right</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
he wins, tossing T'Challa off a cliff. Killmonger's real plan is to
take all the vibranium and weapons Wakanda has and send them around
the world to oppressed blacks so that they can rise up and subdue
their oppressors (mainly whites). He sees history as not having been
fair because whites always had better tech while Wakanda stayed out
of it. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Naturally
BP's family objects to this while Okoye swears her loyalty to the
nation and traditions of Wakanda, though she is conflicted. Her
presumed boyfriend W'Kabi (played by Oscar nominee Daniel Kaluuya)
has always wanted to see Klaue dead because his father died in one of
those Klaue invasions, so he is all for Killmonger's plan. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Well,
Killmonger becomes king, drinks the purple flower stuff, gets the
powers of the black panther and starts to enact his plan. But
T'Challa's family finds the defeated king and gives him the purple
drink too. He has another vision where he suddenly disagrees with his
father, then awakes and devises a plan to reclaim his throne. In a
big final fight, Agent Ross has to shoot down the planes carrying
vibranium out of the country while Shuri, Okoye, and Nakia fight
against an army of Killmonger supporters and BP fights Killmonger
himself. The fifth tribe comes down to help in the fight, siding with
T'Challa. Killmonger is defeated and stabbed in the chest and
delivers one of the best two lines in the film about a little black
boy growing up in the inner-city believing in fairy tales, and about
his ancestors jumped off slave ships because they knew death was
better than bondage. We end with T'Challa deciding to open Wakanda's
borders to the rest of the world. And in a second after-credits scene
we see Bucky finally getting up from out of a tent in Wakanda and
still having no arm.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">OK,
so let's unpack. There are so many things here that I did and didn't
like, so maybe we'll take it slow and do a few comparisons with
Wonder Woman to start. Note: Wonder Woman was certainly not a better
film than Black Panther but is also noted as a supposed turning point
in the comic book genre. There are things that it did better and
things that it did worse, but I feel that by pointing out a few key
comparisons, you can understand my critique of both films better. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOvGLGLIJFChWHpkUNeFLhV9Qcl0LZevxTEgDQk6CU2EJlnvfjX6bzsHONgXqF0kn5NKycyJfT0kGCteWXFhgpmX0VQTvu5zpubqgtGlCMSg6GYW3xlMh_GbbrzR_QoAZEo2Rl1RrkHyo/s1600/dwvzjftdj2ay8acxmvfj.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOvGLGLIJFChWHpkUNeFLhV9Qcl0LZevxTEgDQk6CU2EJlnvfjX6bzsHONgXqF0kn5NKycyJfT0kGCteWXFhgpmX0VQTvu5zpubqgtGlCMSg6GYW3xlMh_GbbrzR_QoAZEo2Rl1RrkHyo/s400/dwvzjftdj2ay8acxmvfj.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left to Right: Nakia, T'Challa (black panther), Shuri</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">To
s</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">tart, Black Panther is far more of a feminist film than Wonder
Woman. You literally only see the titular character Black Panther as
opposed to his normal name T'Challa (note: he does not have a secret
identity within the nation of Wakanda but does in the rest of the
world, similar to Wonder Woman) a total of three times: once at the
beginning during a fight scene, a second time during a chase scene
through South Korean streets, and finally at the climactic end. The
majority of the fighting and, frankly, the majority of everything
that keeps the film pushing forward comes from the women. Women <i>are</i>
the army, they don't just run it. Young Shuri runs the technological
developments for the entire nation with seemingly few people under
her. T'Challa's ex-girlfriend and future queen (maybe?) Nakia serves
as one of the many Wakandan spies. Even though we see Forrest
Whitaker's character taking care of a garden at one point, it is
mostly the women who take care of the gardens that keep the special
flower that gives Black Panther his powers. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">In
Black Panther they show the women doing pretty much everything, even
having a hand in governing, but in Wonder Woman we get very little of
this. While we open the film on the island filled with women, so
little time is spent on that island that you barely get to know any
of the characters and the film's overarching message of female
empowerment and yay, feminism gets muddled, especially after you
leave the island and only see three female characters from then-on:
WW, the secretary and Dr. Poison with that village woman as an
honorable mention. Black Panther's women are smart, dedicated to a
cause, loyal to their men, brave, and wholly capable on their own. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Wonder Woman was more of a baby in the world, constantly having to be
ushered from location to location and innocent to the wicked ways of
men, yet had supposedly read tons of books. Black Panther is
incapable of just about any action unless he is heavily assisted by
the women in his life. Even when he is defeated in battle and
presumed dead, it is the women who come back and help save him after
he is found by the fifth tribe's ruler. This does far more for female
empowerment than anything that came out of WW. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">WW,
however, has a clearer message and theme within the movie whereas
Black Panther does not. The idea from WW is that women are strong and
that men have created a world that lacks love—the ethereal power
that can truly conquer all. Black Panther is a movie that is built
around making a statement about race, about the identity of blacks
within both the microcosm of America as well as the macrocosm of how
we are seen throughout the world and how we view ourselves, and
sprinkles in a little immigration politics. It is a movie that, by
its very existence, should make a statement about what it means to be
of African descent, yet it doesn't. At least it doesn't make any
clearly defined statement about anything. And don't for a second take
these neo-philosophers of Youtube talking about hidden messages and
deeper meanings in the film. This film is really not that deep. It's
not that deep. There is no fight between the Ego and the Id here, and
if you think so, then you don't understand Ego and Id.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">This
is also partially indicative of all Marvel movies, including the ones
made by Sony and FOX. They go more for popcorn fluff rather than
trying to make a statement about anything. The one that has made a
decided statement and kept to that theme, oddly, is Captain America.
Captain America's theme is not doing the right thing or that America
is the greatest country, but simply that friendship is something that
should be, nay, <i>must be</i> cherished above all other things
because friendship is love. So the progression between Bucky and
Steve throughout all the films grows exponentially until we got what
we did in Civil War, making for a potentially ultra-emotional end in
Infinity War. No homosexual romance between them, yet Bucky and Steve
only have each other in all of this craziness in the world. That has
transcended Steve's patriotism as Bucky is/was a Russian operative,
transcended his romance with other female agents, and even
transcended his commitment to the Avengers. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Last
year's Logan, which I only just saw, tried to have a theme to that
movie as well, speaking about how everything must end and something
new can come along, and touching on the debilitating feeling of
losing a parent/friend due to disease, however, I thought that it
failed in that pursuit unlike so many others that loved the film. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg29lPr7ruLUR-cCvNpGnTjGdy3h-GnMqFF68fMWaLSS3xH0jAklqy6hNQtQvLjgiu76zkinLpJIdfwf1PCCjQyuI_KRRvvCvQ1fQeWZp0eEWR0BVV7EX16xJGIRIfVJ7W2GHznu8GBMsg/s1600/MV5BNTA1NGFhOTAtM2I3Zi00ZTE1LThkYTYtYWQ3MmEzODQyYzQ3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjg2NjQwMDQ%2540._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg29lPr7ruLUR-cCvNpGnTjGdy3h-GnMqFF68fMWaLSS3xH0jAklqy6hNQtQvLjgiu76zkinLpJIdfwf1PCCjQyuI_KRRvvCvQ1fQeWZp0eEWR0BVV7EX16xJGIRIfVJ7W2GHznu8GBMsg/s400/MV5BNTA1NGFhOTAtM2I3Zi00ZTE1LThkYTYtYWQ3MmEzODQyYzQ3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjg2NjQwMDQ%2540._V1_.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">General Okoye</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Black
Panther, presented with a glut of potential messages and themes that
it could tackle that would resonate with the audience as a whole,
fails to really choose one or at least one that is poignant enough to
be remembered. Again, while it has a strong line of black feminism
through it, it never makes a definitive statement about said female
empowerment. Does it say that blacks are stronger together? No. Does
it say that we should take personal responsibility? Not really. It
tries to make some mixed up notion that we as blacks or as a society
should share and help other nations but to what degree? And haven't
blacks already been doing that and don't get any of the credit nor
riches due to them? No offense to any white readers, but there are
still some of you sitting around right now not knowing anything about
the myriad of inventions just in your house that have come from
Blacks. And we're in black history month!! </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Does it make a definitive
statement on border security and immigration? It attempts to, but
never explores the deep-rooted fear of why Wakanda's “tradition”
of staying hidden should have remained intact. The assumption is that
they fear the vibranium will get out and be used to negative effect,
but that's never shown. We never hear nor see anything about a
vibranium weapon or villain causing mass havoc. There's never an
impetus for staying hidden unlike in the current US and UK's
immigration debate that broaches both violence from immigrants and
job loss. Moreover, their unwillingness to let the outside world in
supposedly because it brings war is actually proven when Killmonger
(Wakandan by birthright, but outsider nonetheless) comes in and
starts a civil war within a few days of being there. They let one
outsider in, and he nearly destroyed the country. That brings Nakia's
whole idea that “we have enough resources to both help the outside
world and keep ourselves safe” into question if your whole society
can fall in a matter of a week due to one person. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">It
tries to pull a Star Wars: The Last Jedi and suggest that getting rid
of the past ways is the best way to move forward, suggesting that
blacks all around the world need no longer dwell on past
transgressions like slavery, but even that is weak and far from a
good point in this political climate. Honestly, the closest real
statement I could come up with that the film made is that we as black
folks and as people in general must be much wiser and more careful in
how we choose and who we choose to lead us, which I guess can be
partially seen as a warning about Trump. In any case, there was no
other real message that I could assess from the movie, at least not a
good one anyway. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Now,
if we want to talk about a fairly bad message that I could produce
from the film, then that would have to be the same one that American
black men and children have been hearing for years. Take the main
villain in Killmonger and strip him down to his bare bones and what
do we get? We get an African-American who had a rough childhood (his
father, who we can only assume was his only care giver because we
never see a mother) is killed. He grows up in the mean streets of an
inner city with all sorts of violence and because of this he becomes
a homicidal killing machine that is well-trained and who only wants
to do more killing in order to even the score with whites. Yet, he
educated himself, tried to make something of himself with an MIT
degree, joined the military and fought to get out of his proverbial
“hood.” In other words, he grew up, rose through all the
difficulties he could only to still not be worth a single damn as an
adult black man who had nothing handed to him. In other words, you as
a black American male, if you are born/raised by a single parent
and/or grew up in the inner-city, no matter what you do in this life
you will still be the subject of ire for others because you are, by
nature, filled with hatred.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
if that message isn't enough, rather than trying to figure out some
great way to bridge the gap between Africans and African-Americans,
this exploits the trouble and strife that already exists between the
two groups. Side note: If you as a white person or even as a black
person have never known or seen this strife, then hang on for a quick
history lesson. Do many blacks try to band together for civil and
social justice? Yes. However, there has always existed some tension
between emigrant Africans and African-Americans. For one, many
Africans see AAs in the same light that some whites do: that we are
lazy, ghetto and complain far too much about slavery having set us
back. Regardless of whether they come from a poor or rich African
country, to them America is seen as a land of golden opportunity, and
they can't believe that AAs haven't made more of it. On the reverse
many AAs believe (especially some older ones) and rightly so that a
great many of the African tribes that were able to stay in the
“motherland” were traitors to and traders of their African
brothers. It's a well-known fact that in the African diaspora some
tribes fought against the enslavement process while others sold
weaker tribes out and even helped to hunt other blacks in order to
sell them to the whites for the triangle trade. Hence, some AAs blame
current-day African's ancestors for being the very reason why AAs
ever got onto this continent in the first place. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidIKyVdU_TfjTXViFDjYNn1kYN7uTj8oouqRSCewPML0rcyuRH2oBvd7y9UJT8cm5qaYlvB2l5u3LlSIy8o7QB-yWKWp_qu_QwPZCRPSED8WHWRi7JMtnTdD6qT9Faj6wyfZ1lVaeg8vI/s1600/TRA0160_MP_V1_WR.1029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="844" data-original-width="1600" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidIKyVdU_TfjTXViFDjYNn1kYN7uTj8oouqRSCewPML0rcyuRH2oBvd7y9UJT8cm5qaYlvB2l5u3LlSIy8o7QB-yWKWp_qu_QwPZCRPSED8WHWRi7JMtnTdD6qT9Faj6wyfZ1lVaeg8vI/s400/TRA0160_MP_V1_WR.1029.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left to Right: Killmonger, W'Kabi</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
does the movie do? Not only does it pit the “I grew up without a
father, poor, bitter and angry, and thusly someone who you can easily
deem a villain” Killmonger against the “when you look deeper into
my character you will really see that I'm a rich, self-entitled
prince turned King who grew up in a highly protected land and became
an adult with the guidance of my two loving, ALIVE parents” Black
Panther, the film also plays directly into the overall disdain
between AAs and Africans. The very nature of Wakanda is isolationism,
a “we are better than the rest of the world, including other
blacks” mentality. We stood by and watched as other blacks were
sold into slavery. And even though T'Challa finally calls out his
dead father and the rest of his ancestors for such a decision,
there's never a definitive statement to Killmonger that they were
wrong; in fact, Wakanda's reveal of themselves to the rest of the
world is treated more as an arrogant, showy shrug-off of all the
atrocities that they had previously ignored. Black Panther smirks at
the UN's question of what he has to offer. There was something so
icky about it which leads right well into my next point: the
characters. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Many
people have praised Marvel and Michael B. Jordan for this rendition
of Killmonger. Even harsh critics of the film are saying that they
enjoyed his villainous portrayal because he was understandable and
you could kind of see his point. And here is where they are actually
half-wrong. As I said before, being likable does not a good villain
make. But nor does understanding the villain's motivations. While the
latter is very key in building a well-rounded villain, the most key
ingredient of making a good villain is... (drum roll)... making a
good protagonist. The problem with saying that Killmonger is a good
villain is that it totally ignores the fact that Black Panther is a
supremely weak hero. You can't have a villain without a hero and BP
really is not it. In fact, you can fully cut him out of the film and
just have the final battle be between Killmonger and BP's three women
(Shuri, Nakia, Okoye) and lose absolutely nothing. And when I say cut
him out, I mean cut him almost completely out. Literally the only
scenes you need him for are the two waterfall challenges. That's it.
Hell, he even disappears from the screen for a full 10 minutes of
runtime. OK, question for those that have seen it: after watching the
film what can you tell me about Black Panther that you couldn't tell
me about him after seeing Captain America: Civil War? What are his
motivations? Why does he do practically anything in this movie? Why
does he change his mind about allowing Wakanda to be seen by the rest
of the world? More importantly, who is he as a person? A king? A
warrior? What's that one ideal that he lives by, that you can point
to and say, “That's definitively Black Panther!” Hell, what even
is his story arc in this film? </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">In
each case of criticisms I have, I can only ever think of one or two
answers at the most. The only new thing that I know about BP
personally after sitting through this nearly two and a half hour film
that was supposed to be about him is that he gets super nervous
around his ex-girlfriend, but who doesn't, especially when she's as
fine and smart as Lupita N'yongo? But outside of that, BP is the
weakest character in the film. While everyone else is making a case
for what they believe, you never hear what he himself believes and
why, until the end when he regurgitates what all the women have told
him he should do. You never quite get that he's a strong
traditionalist which is why he wants to keep Wakanda hidden. You also
never quite get that he's a new-age thinker, ready to implement his
own new, revolutionary ideas and abandon the old ways of his father
and ancestors. None of that character development is there. And while
heroes are always more reactive, while the villain gets to be
proactive, he is reactive even when not around his antagonist.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8IPatWrSDFNexI0LZP6VqCncBwGfjs1UoifJj11sKFldNupRf2mX-wmfxGLR7y1zw4NEwT0CGJZbHsdodPpx4YArDKUj3Th2FTztYyudu92BQOhnRUO-oeKINuDmnKgUDAW7-9BWaCTg/s1600/Still-from-Black-Panther-trailer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="1600" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8IPatWrSDFNexI0LZP6VqCncBwGfjs1UoifJj11sKFldNupRf2mX-wmfxGLR7y1zw4NEwT0CGJZbHsdodPpx4YArDKUj3Th2FTztYyudu92BQOhnRUO-oeKINuDmnKgUDAW7-9BWaCTg/s320/Still-from-Black-Panther-trailer.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shuri Shows Her Brother New BP Suits</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">If
you think back through the film, literally every conversation he has,
save for three, maybe four has the same structure: someone tells him
how they feel about some subject, they tell him what they think he
should do about it, he then tells them that he doesn't know/think
that that is the best way to handle it. And then in the next scene
the plan goes awry. That's the whole movie. “Bruh, you should kill
Klaue on sight.” “Eh, I don't know.” (Klaue is rescued, then
subsequently killed by Killmonger). “Bruh, you shouldn't fight this
new dude/your cousin who just showed up.” “Eh, I don't know. He
does have royal blood and it is in our laws.” (Killmonger tosses
him off a waterfall and becomes king). Every time something came up
he was indecisive or said that he would do the recommendation only if
it came down to that, and it always went left. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
worst part about this Killmonger is a good villain/Black Panther was
a weak hero thing is that in the end BP sorta ends up doing a similar
plan to what Killmonger had in mind. Wakanda revealed itself as the
technologically advanced society it has always been, but instead of
allowing for other oppressed blacks to have the tech that would help
them to rule, he's gonna share that same tech with everyone,
including the white oppressors. So, in a sense his plan is actually
worse than Killmonger's plan, and don't for a second think that all
the weapons they have won't somehow get out of the Wakandan borders
and that only the good tech (breakthroughs in medicine and math) will
reach the outside world. He, essentially, is doing a reverse Tony
Stark in giving more weapons to the world. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Granted,
I understand the cage that Ryan Coogler and all MCU writers are put
in because they have to make things fit into the overall vision that
Feige and the other Marvel brass have for the universe, so Wakanda
needed to be revealed in order to set up Infinity War, but did no one
see this conflict in circumstance? I almost feel like Killmonger's
real objective and accomplishment was not to become the king of
Wakanda, but to <i>Inception</i> the hell out of T'Challa and make
the new king think it was his idea all along to give the vibranium
and other scientific discoveries and weapons to the rest of the world
because then they'll destroy each other quicker and Wakanda will rise
from the ashes. Hell, we even had T'Challa turning from his father's
old ways and becoming “his own man” and his father sorta being
cool with that. Killmonger: We should send out these weapons so that
oppressors can be destroyed. T'Challa: Nah, bruh, we should share
'em with everybody, including oppressors. Killmonger: Ooohhh! I
ain't think of it that way.” The breakdown in logic is
breathtaking. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Every
other character was either good or so-so. Shuri, as was evident from
her first scene, stole the show, and I really love that young black
girls have her as a fictional role model to look up to while she also
gets to be cool and young. Would've liked to know how she was so
smart, though: was she our equivalent of a doctor, had she studied
for years (how old is she), was she born a genius, what's going on? I
also loved Okoye. The wig scene was a bit much but every other scene
was good. Wish I would've seen more with her and W'Kabi. They
couldn't sneak in a little kiss? Missed opportunity or maybe it
landed on the cutting room floor. I thought that Sterling K. Brown
was good but wasted in his role as Killmonger's father. As someone
who would've made a great villain or fellow superhero in this world
or in the MCU at all, killing his character off so easily was a
bummer. Frankly, the same goes for Klaue. They haphazardly used him
in <i>Age of Ultron</i> which felt like it was building up a great
battle between him and BP, then had Killmonger off him?
Disappointing. I loved the fifth tribe's gorilla men and their
leader, reminding me of the Q-Dogs or some other black fraternity. I
wish that they gave Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett more to do
than just stand around and look older and wiser than everybody. On
top of that Angela just disappeared after the mountain scene. I know
BP asked for her to stay there, but it didn't even feel like a proper
send-off between her and the rest of them. Like, her whole family
could've been dead in a matter of a few hours, but she doesn't get a
tearful goodbye to her daughter, soon-to-be daughter-in-law or her
son? Hm. Sad. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Oddly
enough, I thought the worse one was Agent Ross. Look, I enjoy Martin
Freeman and think that he is funny in the movies I've seen him in,
yet they hardly give him any funny lines here and at the end, in the
strangest twist of fate, they still have him play the white savior.
Did no one else notice how it really didn't matter if those who
agreed with BP and those who agreed with Killmonger all killed each
other? The most important part were the ships getting out, which Ross
stopped. In fact, that final battlefield scene was rather silly
because neither side was really protecting anything. The ships had
already flown away. At least in Wonder Woman when they got there
Trevor had enough time to fly the bombs away from the area where it
would harm people and Wonder Woman and the others had to make sure he
had the protection to do that. And considering the scene further,
what was the point of shooting down the ships when BP decided minutes
later to reveal Wakanda to the world? The whole scene smacked of
blacks around the globe squabbling with each other while whites came
in to do the “real work.” </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiztsgWs-mQDWBTACxFwkKYtplz5ar6Em6jV6AvcLIaRitRswDiGIbKTnbhyc40WHPs-sauX_ag64lVe29AN6RiIOaRzmCSV8-lb8L_f_lzAPTs1zesTkrTjpA_T2w_qhMDcAhLNJtmOr4/s1600/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiztsgWs-mQDWBTACxFwkKYtplz5ar6Em6jV6AvcLIaRitRswDiGIbKTnbhyc40WHPs-sauX_ag64lVe29AN6RiIOaRzmCSV8-lb8L_f_lzAPTs1zesTkrTjpA_T2w_qhMDcAhLNJtmOr4/s400/maxresdefault.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agent Ross Shooting In South Korean Fight Scene</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Speaking
of, there are lots of plot holes and inconsistencies that just don't
make sense if you give them even a modicum of thinkery. Going back to
that final scene where Ross is shooting down the planes, uh... why?
Based on the film's parameters, it should be safely assumed that the
majority of their technology can be operated remotely. We see this
with the car and with the planes/jets/hovercraft thingys. If that is
the case, then should I not also be able to assume that there are
remote pilots of those flying crafts, too? Why not just find those
people and stop them? And if there are real pilots up there, do they
just not care about killing their own people in Wakanda? Like, I
thought this was supposed to be sort of a paradise for blacks but
apparently it's just a more technologically advanced American city.
And if both of those first two statements are false and those things
are just programmed to fly, then can't they override the programs? Or
even better, don't they have those EMP balls that they can shoot at
the planes like how they stopped the cars at the beginning? Look, I
know that this is supposed to be one of, if not the richest nations
on the planet and T'Challa is the richest character but you really
just don't care about wasting resources at all? Damn! Well, OK. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">While
I can get behind the fact that I assume Shuri has some kind of
contact with the outside world as she knows a lot about memes and
even gives her brother the finger at one point, why am I having
trouble figuring out why Black Panther needs that costume? Everyone
in Wakanda knows who he is, and from what I surmised, Black Panthers
rarely went outside of the real Wakanda to play superhero unless it
involved their own spies, which seems like it would be a rare
occurrence, so why the suit? Again, I get it as a battle suit from
back in the day when the Black Panther first came into being, but
now...? At least Batman had a legit reason for having the suit
regardless of where he went: in Gotham he was Batman and in
Metropolis he was Batman. Here, Black Panther is Black Panther to the
rest of the world but if he wants to go out on a nighttime
crime-fighting patrol in Wakanda won't they just say, “Hey, there's
King T'Challa lurking around again.” It was a pet peeve that
bothered me because I thought it was something more to it than that.
I feel like even if there wasn't more in the comic, they should've
tried to elevate the source material so that it makes the stories
even better, but I don't feel they did that. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgzMcObtsWHNqIqKjVvFNztV8wJB8OqhXI4m02dN5lr-48sH2CENdyw2e8_OV0PQk9YCSXG5tXgX5C5Y2QFiLE-xubXqjv4MlvLt8YeBcoCNJdfocHekf94jX1O3GSkeGoazds8k0a0fk/s1600/marvel-black-panther-official-trailer-00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1200" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgzMcObtsWHNqIqKjVvFNztV8wJB8OqhXI4m02dN5lr-48sH2CENdyw2e8_OV0PQk9YCSXG5tXgX5C5Y2QFiLE-xubXqjv4MlvLt8YeBcoCNJdfocHekf94jX1O3GSkeGoazds8k0a0fk/s400/marvel-black-panther-official-trailer-00.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">M'Baku Leader of the Northern Mountain Tribe</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
then there's the purple flower drink. OK, so one must drink the
“purple stuff” (usually kept in front of the Sunny D in the
fridge) to not only become the BP but also be the king and walk with
their ancestors on a different plane, and that the drink gives them
the powers associated with BP which is equal parts magic and science.
I get all of that. But where I start getting a little fuzzy is in the
drink's effects. So, throughout the first half of the movie we see BP
getting stabbed-up like a bagillion times. Not only that, but the
wounds should be mortal wounds. That White Gorilla dude stabbed him
literally an inch or two from where his heart should be, and
Killmonger nearly disembodied him with that slash across his gut and
a stab into his chest. So I'm guessing that this purple elixir gives
one healing powers, too. No wonder Drake and other rappers are
constantly talking about mixing the purple with the Sprite. But if
this is the case, then how strong is this elixir and does it ever
degrade? I ask because, for one, it would seem like T'Chaka, BP's
father and the king that died in Captain America: Civil War would
have still had that stuff flowing in his blood, no? Or do you have to
give over the warrior duties to your offspring while you retain the
governing duties as you age and become less able to jump around? </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I
can live with that explanation which would explain why he died so
easily, but that wouldn't explain why Killmonger died so easily, or
at all. When he and BP fight at the end, I'm not even sure that three
days have passed since he drank the purple drink and had all the
flowers burned. To me that means that it should be nearly as strong
inside of him as it is in BP. So why then is it that Killmonger can
be stabbed through at the end of the film and is presumed dead by the
audience? (And the filmmakers want you to assume this). I get that
the magnets messed with the suit and allowed for BP to stab
Killmonger in the flesh, but they had all been stabbed in the flesh
throughout the film. Why does this one stab in the gut kill
Killmonger when he takes out the dagger? It makes little logical
sense in the movie. The purple drink should be able to heal him fast
enough to keep him alive. Or did I miss where the dagger was some
special dagger or something? I don't know. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
pacing in this thing was atrocious. For starters, not only does it
feel like a long movie, but you don't need a lot of the story, and
I'm not even talking about all the world-building stuff that they
did. Klaue is superfluous to this story as is Agent Ross. I feel like
the only reason they appeared in this was so that they could say they
had two white people in the film. Yes, Klaue's death is important to
W'Kabi and Killmonger briefly, but the latter's entrance into Wakanda
could've been accomplished multiple ways that had nothing to do with
Klaue. Replace Klaue with Killmonger in that casino scene and you
save at least 15 narrative minutes and may have a stronger film.
Speaking of Killmonger, why was he so slow on his plan? We see
Killmonger fairly early in the film then he's dropped for about 30
minutes of screen time before he re-emerges to rescue Klaue only to
kill the dude. But it feels like a better narrative if he stole the
vibranium himself and returned to Wakanda with a stockpile of it that
he maybe stole from Klaue to prove how loyal he is to Wakanda. Then
save Klaue for the main villain of a second film. I say this because
Killmonger's plan, for someone MIT-taught, seems very on-the-fly. If
he always planned on killing Klaue, then why not just do it when he
first meets up with the man? Why wait? Why work with him to steal a
tiny bit of vibranium? Why then make a big spectacle out of rescuing
him? None of it makes sense within the confines of the movie-verse.
One of the biggest movie sins is having smart people acting stupid
for no reason. They can act stupid, just give them a smart reason for
doing it. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw-C7KnrQyPKwV29mjuEOc93eMNbzurmVflr0_tCT8UeOgAtwXAZaxJxCw-mgKAu__KomQEA6Hl6W3svY5Vcrieq3Zx5gtq_famLr1QvL0ES55cPY5HfWn3flU0Sk3ujoBPhMUwHjdjv4/s1600/black-panther-official-photo003-1500404504754_1280w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1280" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw-C7KnrQyPKwV29mjuEOc93eMNbzurmVflr0_tCT8UeOgAtwXAZaxJxCw-mgKAu__KomQEA6Hl6W3svY5Vcrieq3Zx5gtq_famLr1QvL0ES55cPY5HfWn3flU0Sk3ujoBPhMUwHjdjv4/s400/black-panther-official-photo003-1500404504754_1280w.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">OK, This Is A Bad Picture, But It's Killmonger Readying For Final Battle</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Moving
on, the CGI was good at some points and terrible at others.
Basically, all the stuff that you see in the commercials is the good
CGI because they had to focus on it looking good in order to lure you
into seeing the film. Almost everything else (big CGI) looks rather
bad. They have some fake rhinos which look as bad as the fake rhinos
in Jumanji (both Jumanjis); the final physics-defying fight between
BP and Killmonger both in a panther suit looked more like someone was
actively photoshopping out the two characters and moving them across
a black screen trying to figure out where to put them. It looked
horrible. On the bright side, the costumes, set design, makeup, hair
and cinematography were all pretty good. I really enjoyed the shot in
which Killmonger is walking into the throne room as the new king and
the camera is turning from upside down to rightside up, symbolizing
that this whole situation is not how it's supposed to be. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Let's
briefly touch on the music because I'm tired of saying this to Marvel
and they clearly don't care. The music was dreadful. There is a
difference between the soundtrack and the Original Soundtrack better
known as the Score. The soundtrack curated by Kendrick Lamar is
pretty good and a few of the songs (two at the most) fit really well
into the film, but others do not. Again, I hate when black films put
rap or hip hop in the film during fight scenes because they rarely
have the same cadence as the fight which makes it less impactful, but
they did it in a chase scene to so-so effect. Taking out the
soundtrack songs and focusing on the score, it's rather bland. Each
of these films generally have their own composer and I hear that
Coogler got permission to work with his usual composer, and I'll even
commend them for doing what they were supposed to by incorporating
authentic African rhythms into the music, however this was not good. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">First,
all great composers from Bernard Herrmann of yesteryear to Hans
Zimmer of late know that you incorporate bits and pieces of whatever
culture the movie is steeped in into the music. For example, the
whole Desi (deshi) Bashara chant in The Dark Knight Rises was in
there to remind/reference the middle eastern vibes where Talia was
supposed to have been in that hole with Bane (I know Bane was
supposed to be from South America but that wasn't it). So while Black
Panther gets credit for it, it was what they were supposed to do.
However, they went the easiest route by incorporating nothing more
than a few drums and maybe a horn. Africa has more instruments than
just drums, and they are rarely ever shown or heard in film scores. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitaZTHC4hyxGB37AU83D6pyc-t8E_XD3RrIUm0E6jBv-FikUMZ8ugOqj8Ngn6EwrdXPcQoGs8nHxfEWs2wWqtMyvABKfoW4E2yyf_ePxKhRkVcZSosK_rDtKa6a6yyYC8kV_Vn60fzDMo/s1600/youtu.be-dxWvtMOGAhw%252B%25285%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="900" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitaZTHC4hyxGB37AU83D6pyc-t8E_XD3RrIUm0E6jBv-FikUMZ8ugOqj8Ngn6EwrdXPcQoGs8nHxfEWs2wWqtMyvABKfoW4E2yyf_ePxKhRkVcZSosK_rDtKa6a6yyYC8kV_Vn60fzDMo/s320/youtu.be-dxWvtMOGAhw%252B%25285%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shuri Looking Dope</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">If
that wasn't enough, the score is super forgettable, overly repetitive
and leaves not a single mark on the viewer-listener past the
wastebaskets placed at the theater exits. And while you can't easily
slot most of the songs into any other Marvel film (one of my gripes
on other Marvel films), you can slot it into just about any other
film made about non-modern Africa ranging from any era previous of
the 1980s. You could probably slot this into the new Roots film or
you could slot it into Lawrence Fishburne's Madiba mini-series about
the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and not have the audience blink an
eye or bend and ear in either film. It doesn't really offend, save
for maybe the fact that it is so nauseatingly redundant that it might
stick in your head like a bad jingle or catchy song (remember “Who
Let the Dogs Out?” Who?! Who?! Who?! Who?! Who?!). It's just not
good. Thankfully there is some hope due to the first Infinity War
trailer. It takes the old, rather bland Avengers theme that they've
used since the first film and made it tougher, bulkier and far
darker, which made that trailer feel all the more epic. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtu0rVp3dpIUdSaBTVNjgNXIWCwGZAtPc5Wnu2PVwJMck-ouiwToyTdNZTvlYBETL5B0Yvie6qIiiE1UysEsAbMXRxRhxdjFXiipe4ZXexO1oMgaZLPBNJ0BiEzghMf3p2zXaCduONABM/s1600/20-black-panther-2.w710.h473.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="710" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtu0rVp3dpIUdSaBTVNjgNXIWCwGZAtPc5Wnu2PVwJMck-ouiwToyTdNZTvlYBETL5B0Yvie6qIiiE1UysEsAbMXRxRhxdjFXiipe4ZXexO1oMgaZLPBNJ0BiEzghMf3p2zXaCduONABM/s400/20-black-panther-2.w710.h473.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Notice The Color Scheme of Green, Black, Red, same colors of Pan-African Diaspora Flag</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Again,
this was a C+ movie at best, but I bumped it up that minor grade to a
B- because the joy on all of those little black kids' face was so
melaniny magical and pure that I softened my judgment of it by the
tiniest of percent. It was a decent start to the character's own
corner of the MCU and hopefully they can really do something
phenomenal with the characters and Wakanda in the future. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="color: purple; font-size: large;"><u><b>FUTURE
OF THE MCU </b></u></span></span></span><br />
<b><u><span style="color: #b01218; font-size: large;"></span></u></b></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<b><u><span style="color: #b01218; font-size: large;"></span></u></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><u><span style="color: #b01218; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQfH8KP-eEYD7aN10kxBz4rzTuRK7XTTSwxLs7BY_bhRkyQItxYSGU19PvDgLfv2q55LndDntvz5kXXpIfev0XYM7i9vXrT39mX39ocD4wLT4CzPdnfyFoX-qwQma95MhjmQlC8JtBP_E/s1600/Avengers-Infinity-War.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="630" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQfH8KP-eEYD7aN10kxBz4rzTuRK7XTTSwxLs7BY_bhRkyQItxYSGU19PvDgLfv2q55LndDntvz5kXXpIfev0XYM7i9vXrT39mX39ocD4wLT4CzPdnfyFoX-qwQma95MhjmQlC8JtBP_E/s400/Avengers-Infinity-War.png" width="400" /></a></span></u></b></div>
<b><u><span style="color: #b01218; font-size: large;">
</span></u></b><u><b><span style="color: purple; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></u></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Speaking
of the future, what does this all mean for the MCU going forward?
First let me get a few caveats and disclaimers out of the way and say
that a few things I had to look up. They include: the chronology of
all the films and TV shows combined all the way through Avengers 4
(that includes Ant-man and the Wasp, and Captain Marvel), the
whereabouts of all the infinity stones, and who is and isn't under
contract for more Avengers films as well as how their pay bumps up
with each film. And I also had to look up a few story lines
surrounding Thanos, and all that Marvel has been building up to, as
well as what that could mean for the next stage of the MCU. And
finally, I talked to some of my insider contacts that are working
close to Marvel. So, with that said, I am going to drop some
“theories” that I think could happen and may or may not blend in
some stuff that I already know will (or could) happen. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
let's start with the obvious and say that at least half of the fans
believe that the upcoming Infinity War and Avengers 4 will,
essentially be two halves of the same movie, meaning that little to
no time passes between the end of the first and beginning of the
second. That would mean that the two films released between those two
films Captain Marvel and Ant-man and The Wasp would have to take
place before Infinity War. Captain Marvel we already know will occur
in the 90s (keep this in mind for later), so we then must look at
Ant-man and the Wasp being somewhat out of place. With the movie
referring back to the airport scene in Captain America: Civil War,
many fans have said that this film takes place one week after CA:CW
similar to Black Panther, which means that both of those films would
take place somewhere in the calendar year of 2016 I believe. If
Infinity War then takes place in 2018 that means that two years are
missing from the earthly calendar in the MCU (more like a year and a
half) if you believe that the airport scene occurred sometime in the
late spring or summer of 2016 and Spider-man Homecoming takes place
at the beginning of that fall. That means that the only film even
close to our current year is Thor: Ragnarok which supposedly takes
place sometime in 2017 or even early 2018 if you believe that Hulk
has been gone for two years as Thor states. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcsV7zPDVmpmFIEMJBxo_cq0lFpZbH4fj0nq4HYYWUvWxHAikghgqtZGoyaXEWMvdD4pYFzKohvhQqh1F8nARqFsLyCeExMJFTqBzHbm1WQkRKB6wC-cUuW_ymse9frsUx7sikInJy21M/s1600/3340770-infinitywar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcsV7zPDVmpmFIEMJBxo_cq0lFpZbH4fj0nq4HYYWUvWxHAikghgqtZGoyaXEWMvdD4pYFzKohvhQqh1F8nARqFsLyCeExMJFTqBzHbm1WQkRKB6wC-cUuW_ymse9frsUx7sikInJy21M/s400/3340770-infinitywar.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Again,
I'm giving you a rundown of people's consensus about the timeline
because it plays heavily into my ultimate “theory” of what we
could see in these next two <i>Avengers</i> films. Just know that
there is still about a year and a half between the Infinity War film
and both Black Panther and Ant-man and The Wasp within the MCU,
meaning that they could still have sequels to both films and release
them after Infinity War, but set them in that space of cinematic
time, you get me? You'll understand why this is important in
literally the opening line of the next paragraph. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
move on from the timeline to the potential deaths (yeah, you're
having your own “oh!” moment right now and wishing that I'd just
get on with it). Ever since Feige and the Russo brothers announced
that there would most likely be a death of one or more of the
superheroes, fandom has debated and theorized about who could meet
their maker. I can tell you that it is definitely going to be more
than just one person. So what I have done is approached it as a
writer. In a story, when trying to build emotional resonance for a
huge finale, if you haven't already killed off a bunch of people and
you have a group of no less than 12 main characters, the magic number
is four. Four characters is the baseline of how many you should kill
off, otherwise don't even bother, and here's both the breakdown and
why you do it this way. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg82Nd0FFH4nb4FkFQgY0CcfTm8m55VhY1OINPRdUkJwLlufJ-lh5uhb7ljiga46tevxM743w7znrOKDRlFGYMnZnIyvwUnC4LMAz8jXc3KKE8hSFTuuxBe3JTkHpnnDVRCwoCwmT1PF1o/s1600/Screen-Shot-2017-11-29-at-5.13.04-PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="970" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg82Nd0FFH4nb4FkFQgY0CcfTm8m55VhY1OINPRdUkJwLlufJ-lh5uhb7ljiga46tevxM743w7znrOKDRlFGYMnZnIyvwUnC4LMAz8jXc3KKE8hSFTuuxBe3JTkHpnnDVRCwoCwmT1PF1o/s400/Screen-Shot-2017-11-29-at-5.13.04-PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
four characters that you want to kill off are: someone who is
obvious, someone who is loved/hero, someone who is loved/hated
villain and someone who is completely unexpected. You do this because
it gives the fans every satisfying and “entertaining” feeling
that they can have. The obvious one satisfies the mystery lovers who
are obsessed with “getting it right” so they can turn to their
friends and say, “See, I told you so.” The loved/hated villain is
the person who you admire for his badness and dubious coolness, but
he's been causing so much trouble that you are satisfied to see him
die. And both the loved hero and the unexpected person are two that
give both the film and the characters left alive within it the
emotional weight the story deserves. Their death elevates the
narrative to something classic and draws the audience into the
silence of the moment. With that said, let's get the first two deaths
out of the way. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
obvious death we will have to see (we basically half see it in the
trailer) is that of Vision. In <i>Infinity War</i> Vision will most
likely die for two reasons: he is the least used character in the
films, and his very life is predicated upon one of the infinity
stones. Vision was really only relevant and useful in the Ultron
storyline, and while he can be used to fight Thanos and be somewhat
of a robotic superman, his lack of overall appeal in the MCU has put
him on a surefire DOA list. Plus, he can't keep flying around with
the life(?) stone in his head. If we are to assume that Thanos will
complete his quest to put all the stones into his gauntlet, then that
stone has to come out of his head. Don't worry though, because while
his body might die remember that he started as Tony Stark's personal
computer-jeeves, so he could come back as a program if really needed.
</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgizpXSJGtN_e7VQ2eIpSNxkNhvdd3pxlsoZoucQAcwMmO9UD6E6bjO1aEV2tyRSbJqQP7nZDH-WH3c4y-evECyKc0W8YrJCRvb_w-RbT3xaAMIEH8vmRn0AIhwkaoctzpRQNVQJ3TdI3w/s1600/451754add270097d3ac61dcf517169dc83dc5cb8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="600" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgizpXSJGtN_e7VQ2eIpSNxkNhvdd3pxlsoZoucQAcwMmO9UD6E6bjO1aEV2tyRSbJqQP7nZDH-WH3c4y-evECyKc0W8YrJCRvb_w-RbT3xaAMIEH8vmRn0AIhwkaoctzpRQNVQJ3TdI3w/s320/451754add270097d3ac61dcf517169dc83dc5cb8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
next death, the loved (hated) villain death is somewhat of a toss-up
between Guardians' Nebula and Thor's Loki. I know, when I said
villain in the list of four you all immediately assumed Loki which I
do think it will be, but don't count out Nebula as having this honor.
The thing here is that both Nebula and Loki have had dealings with
Thanos and have essentially served as his minions. Nebula was given a
task and kinda failed, and the same goes for Loki; in fact, not only
did Loki fail to attain the Tesseract (one of the infinity stones)
but also allowed for the mind stone (his staff thingy in Avengers) to
also be taken by humans. Nebula and her appearance are the physical
manifestation of how harshly Thanos takes failures. Every time she
failed to defeat Gamora, he took another part of her body away and
replaced it with electronics. Seeing as how they both failed him big
time, it might be a good bet that he kills both of them. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Now,
let it be known that Karen Gilliam (Nebula) so far as I know is still
under contract for a few more Guardians movies, but that doesn't mean
much because both Guardians films supposedly only take place a month
or so apart from each other. That means that both the 2014 Vol. 1 and
the 2017 Vol. 2 occur in 2014. So it may sound crazy, but we
basically haven't seen the Guardians in 4 years cinematic time if
Infinity War is assumed to take place in 2018. That gives them four
years to fill in if Marvel wants to have Vol. 3 take place before
Infinity War. Still, I think that Loki is the most likely choice here
as Tom Hiddleston is trying to branch out and see if he can't flex
his leading-man muscle. He already did that with a successful King
Kong film that is building its own cinematic universe, so he might be
good with leaving the MCU behind.</span></span></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgizpXSJGtN_e7VQ2eIpSNxkNhvdd3pxlsoZoucQAcwMmO9UD6E6bjO1aEV2tyRSbJqQP7nZDH-WH3c4y-evECyKc0W8YrJCRvb_w-RbT3xaAMIEH8vmRn0AIhwkaoctzpRQNVQJ3TdI3w/s1600/451754add270097d3ac61dcf517169dc83dc5cb8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Now
we're getting into the harder deaths to call. Speaking of that four
year gap between the last Guardians film (the teen Groot credits
scene is partly the indicator for knowing that a lot of time has
passed between the very end of the movie and that scene) we might see
a Guardian or two die. What I think is that Drax and Mantis, after
having had years to grow together, will have had some romantic
relationship, but that will have to be cut short once Drax finally
gets a chance at his most reviled nemesis, Thanos. Drax has wanted to
kill Thanos since the first Guardians film and won't let anything
stand in the way of trying to do it. As a lovable hero, I think that
surprisingly both he and Mantis will die while trying to fight
Thanos, and probably quite early in Infinity War seeing as how Thor
ended with him running into Thanos' spaceship. If they are able to
rescue Thor after a brief battle with Thanos, I don't doubt that
they'll have a second brief battle with Thanos in which Drax dies
before Thanos takes off toward earth or Asgard, and the guardians and
Thor play the chase game. That would be the unexpected death. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I'll
get to the fourth and potentially final death in a second but first
let me talk a little plot. At the end of Thor we were left with Thor,
the Asgardians, some of those prisoners from the Grandmaster's
planet, the Hulk, Valkyrie and Loki all on a ship toward earth we're
assuming. They run into Thanos' ship in the end credits. So, with
Cate Blanchett supposedly having played Hela and some of the comic
book lore stating that Hela and Queen of Death are one, I'm going to
make a guess that at some point Thanos discovers that she is dead and
either will use one of the infinity stones to try to bring her back,
or he will be partly motivated to kill everyone based off of revenge
for her. I know that revenge sounds like the worst motive for the
ultimate villain, but love is all a part of that. I think that we'll
start off with Thanos invading the world, then jump around in time to
show how he got there. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
I'm thinking is that Thanos will first land in... (drum roll)... NOT
New York. It might sound completely crazy seeing as how NYC has been
the backdrop for the Avengers for tons of battles that they've had,
not to mention it serving as the home for many of our favorite heroes
and was the setting for the final battle scene in the first Avengers,
however I think that his first landfall on earth will actually be in
either Washington, DC or New Orleans. Why? I believe that both of
these places have a connection to the future MCU character Captain
Marvel. Granted, I do not believe that that character will make an
appearance in the first Infinity War film, but I do believe that
Thanos wants to first go to the place where the government runs or
where a Kree/Skrull invasion has taken place because he knows that
those places will be some of the strongholds that will properly
challenge him and help announce his arrival. I know that it shows
Peter in a school bus looking back at that spinning space gear in
what appears to be New York, but I think that comes later. In fact, I
think that is one of the many portals he will have around the world. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qySPqEqX1A-54PSwzuzP551JJkLTk7vF0AK5JKBPxcF2yob2l9e-nWvNfZgsMqKwgJpCmTJ_1D9vslBEjtA8qDNuppLtDm9txgMwT2mBsJz3_vSCC_A2rjjvn9md99TYoCf9Mwht8g4/s1600/a668874b-61af-417e-92e1-4e6b02b554df-avengers-infinity-war-black-panther.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="748" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qySPqEqX1A-54PSwzuzP551JJkLTk7vF0AK5JKBPxcF2yob2l9e-nWvNfZgsMqKwgJpCmTJ_1D9vslBEjtA8qDNuppLtDm9txgMwT2mBsJz3_vSCC_A2rjjvn9md99TYoCf9Mwht8g4/s320/a668874b-61af-417e-92e1-4e6b02b554df-avengers-infinity-war-black-panther.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Next,
after battling with Thor and the Guardians some more, I think that he
will make a concerted effort to try to start gathering all the
stones, so he (and when I say he, I mean him and/or his minions) will
go to Wakanda. After a brief scene showing where everyone was during
the invasion getting around the world in record time, we'll catch up
with Bucky, BP and non-Captain America and see what they are doing.
Thor will have stayed with what's left of the Guardians to go and
warn Stark and the other New Yorkers while War Machine and the Hulk
will go to Wakanda because of something about the scientific
breakthroughs that they have maybe being able to help control the
beast. We'll get a scene between him and Black Widow and some talkie
bits between all the team before action starts again. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
action will come because Thanos and his goons will believe that the
last infinity stone, the soul stone, is there because of the meteor
that crashed and all of that. This is when we get the battle we see
in the trailer. However, after reeking havoc on this land, he'll
learn that it's actually not there and that the thing that everyone
thought was a soul stone is nothing more than something that was
influenced by the soul stone at one point, like a radioactive
signature left behind on the meteor by having once been in contact
with the stone. In this fight, do not be surprised to see someone
die. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymW-SkXlvfI0S5NExB_yEAEqP1IJXXskvMGMB0B37c7AjO1LOnP9-w-ltUJkBunaKpjxaDBqB3qlxrD1otbKMK5wP4rBeKITxobXFkzRGOeL2xKaAr8Bn7Y4UEtu3DSJffLoxsuR1TzE/s1600/thumbnail_27167.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymW-SkXlvfI0S5NExB_yEAEqP1IJXXskvMGMB0B37c7AjO1LOnP9-w-ltUJkBunaKpjxaDBqB3qlxrD1otbKMK5wP4rBeKITxobXFkzRGOeL2xKaAr8Bn7Y4UEtu3DSJffLoxsuR1TzE/s320/thumbnail_27167.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Finally,
Thanos will end up in NYC where the biggest battle will take place.
After the Wakanda thing and multiple visions of destruction shown all
over the world, Tony and Cap will finally realize that their feud is
futile (War Machine will already have forgiven Cap which is why you
see him in the trailer flying in behind Hulk), and they will try to
band together to defeat the big guy. Spider-man will try to stop one
of those transporter rings himself but will fail, and here is where I
will put my fourth death. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Not
one, but two beloved characters will die here. That's right, I
“believe” that both non-Captain America and Tony Stark will die
in this film. After they come together and defeat a couple of Thanos'
minions, I have a strange feeling that either Pepper Potts or Lucky
or someone close to Tony will be threatened with certain death and
non-Cap will step in to save them. At this point, Dr. Strange will
start a time loop where only he and Tony can see what's going on and
in every iteration of the loop, no matter what they do, someone
always has to die. The deaths that could be faked: Spider-man, Thor,
Hawkeye, Hulk, Scarlet Witch and even Nick Fury. Somehow, using his
own time stone Thanos will break the loop and, in a moment of
self-sacrifice as shown to him by non-Cap, Tony will jump into the
way and self-destruct his suit in order to provide the surviving team
with a moment to escape. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh93aA_IeVE48d07rERU4xyxyacc796dw1HkK-Go0TRQ4qZEjkgiBhmw35JasadQ7zJnnia_XeJBrlmUQ4BCGyApNSwVkZ_j7axWQzwsJA_sCeb6KwqXgU4e4NByHJ6vIaK41hkM3RhfA/s1600/Avengers-Infinity-War-HD-08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="692" data-original-width="1314" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh93aA_IeVE48d07rERU4xyxyacc796dw1HkK-Go0TRQ4qZEjkgiBhmw35JasadQ7zJnnia_XeJBrlmUQ4BCGyApNSwVkZ_j7axWQzwsJA_sCeb6KwqXgU4e4NByHJ6vIaK41hkM3RhfA/s320/Avengers-Infinity-War-HD-08.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Thanos
will not chase them immediately because at that point he'll still be
looking for the final stone and will consider their escape a
triviality. He will want real competition because he will believe
that his mistress Death, while she loves dying and destruction, holds
a difficult death in the highest regard. So, and here's the kicker,
he might actually leave Earth or at least go away for a reprieve
while the team licks its wounds and tries to mourn the losses.
Finally, while he is away the final infinity stone will show up in
the form of... </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Adam
Warlock. OK, I had to look this up. Remember that post-credits scene
in Guardians Vol. 2 with the golden people? The golden high priestess
is sitting in her room and says some stuff about destroying the
guardians, then turns to look at some kind of strange chamber? Well,
if you aren't a comic reader you wouldn't have a clue what she meant
when she called her “creation” Adam. Apparently, Adam Warlock is
a character that is inextricably connected to Thanos in the comic
book and appears as his most notable adversary outside of the
Avengers and X-men. He supposedly helps defeat him in the Infinity
Gauntlet/War saga. I believe that Infinity War will end on a shot of
his arrival to earth, which will serve as both a perfect cliff hanger
and the definitive end to a standalone film. Essentially, he will be
like a Nick Fury character coming at the end of Iron Man, saying,
“Need any help?” </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I also believe that his very existence is either
charged or fueled or somehow influenced by the soul stone, meaning
that Thanos will have to come back to the earth (though I think there
will be another battle on a different planet before returning to
earth) to get the stone, which will happen in Avengers 4. Oh, and I
believe that Avengers 4 (which previously had the title of Infinity
War Part 2 and was stated as having a plot-revealing title that would
spoil Infinity War) will be named Avengers Re-birth, Avengers
Resurrection or Avengers Paradox, or some play off of those names,
symbolizing that not only will one of the characters potentially be
brought back to life, but that the entire Avengers team will be
“re-born” into a completely new identity with new members and a
new strength behind them. Granted, it could also be called Marvel
Re-Assembled too, but it doesn't have as much panache to me, though
it has a more poetic meaning behind it. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ8m1_ivyx5-PmhivLWhYOW12s3esDi9O2I7meUMRuEm9rdzt7GThBPxpqK6QuyB5hLiYdOo_JMh8vJledo0pMbdLn1Z_zUBURcx5Us-VLUunJHN0uaKJbCwfyW-WE3zMEtTY77eyfDqY/s1600/gallery-1516116576-doctor-strange-wong-avengers-infinity-war-benedict-cumberbatch-benedict-wong.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="768" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ8m1_ivyx5-PmhivLWhYOW12s3esDi9O2I7meUMRuEm9rdzt7GThBPxpqK6QuyB5hLiYdOo_JMh8vJledo0pMbdLn1Z_zUBURcx5Us-VLUunJHN0uaKJbCwfyW-WE3zMEtTY77eyfDqY/s400/gallery-1516116576-doctor-strange-wong-avengers-infinity-war-benedict-cumberbatch-benedict-wong.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">You
ready for the crazy part? The crazy part is that I have another
theory. I'll try to keep this short. In my second theory, I believe
that just about everyone does, in fact, die, with the exception of
Spider-man (just because he's owned by Sony) and Black Panther (he
might have already been filmed as dead but after the box office of
this film and the overwhelmingly good fan reaction, Disney might shy
away from killing him even if they will just bring him back later).
Remember how I said hold on to that nugget that Captain Marvel takes
place in the 90s? Well, you mix that with the idea from Dr. Strange
that time can be manipulated with magic and the fact that one of the
infinity stones is a time gem and you have a very intriguing set of
circumstances. Somehow, they will have to get Brie Larson's Captain
Marvel character either to the current timeline 20 years after her
movie is supposed to occur, or bring that timeline to her. From what
we've seen of Avengers 4 footage, many of the characters I said would
die are still happily walking around set. That could be in a
flashback or it could be in some kind of time manipulation that Dr.
Strange has conjured long before the NYC battle.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
I would theorize is that Thanos arrives on earth with the Guardians
and Thor in tow. Loki is still alive only because he says that he
knows where another stone might be (I think Dr. Strange had one of
them) and that he will take Thanos to said stone. They start a small
fight in NYC and Thor, the Guardians and the Hulk are quickly
defeated. Hulk falls through Strange's magical book shop or whatever
it is and tells Strange of the impending doom that is coming. So, in
his wisdom, Strange sets a time marker right then and there before
just about anybody dies, creating the start of a potential loop that
then spans the rest of the movie. We still have the
other battles as I explained before but when we get to the end and
Strange has seen all the deaths and carnage, he decides to rewind the
loop, undo the deaths and start over at the Hulk falling through his
place. But he doesn't stop there. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Somehow, in the final fight, before
doing the rewind, he gets the time stone from Thanos' gauntlet and
uses it to boost his power in order to go farther back in time (this
is now going into Avengers 4), and tells the original team of their
impending doom and the world's destruction. Even though they train
for his arrival, they are still defeated by Thanos, which makes him
go back in time yet again to Captain Marvel (his arrival in the 90s
would be an after-credits spoiler in her film) to ask for her help
because she was supposed to have helped defeat a previous alien
invasion. She begrudgingly goes with him, not knowing if she can
fully trust him, and finally appears in Avengers 4. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdf4eH1ekhhbSR9NxIJs3lps9QB7KC0oHNKKKoYjgRnczoqH80CKKSD3nqZr19KxPrGTafAkGsofLksr9JNGSE02CaR3VjsN2lIcWh-03xqwlOFgSK7nbXHM65D_ozAbIKHnx8GEJCsC4/s1600/5a1ec3713339b06c008b457b-750-327.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="750" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdf4eH1ekhhbSR9NxIJs3lps9QB7KC0oHNKKKoYjgRnczoqH80CKKSD3nqZr19KxPrGTafAkGsofLksr9JNGSE02CaR3VjsN2lIcWh-03xqwlOFgSK7nbXHM65D_ozAbIKHnx8GEJCsC4/s400/5a1ec3713339b06c008b457b-750-327.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Still,
some of the same people die or retire from their superheroism, and
she comes to take up the mantle as the group's new leader because
Black Panther, while he would do it, is still busy being a king and
must figure out a way to rebuild his kingdom of Wakanda which now
truly does sit in ruin after Thanos' attack. Also, Adam Warlock
arrives somewhere in the Avengers 4 (and not at the end of Infinity
War) and helps to defeat Thanos. Crazy, right? </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Well,
that was a super lot and I guess I sorta hedged my bets by giving two
theories, but what if both of them prove to be a little right?
Captain Marvel has to find a way to get to this time somehow, right?
And I don't know her powers but freezing her like Captain America
doesn't seem like it will work. They could shrink her into the
subatomic zone where time becomes irrelevant, which is why Ant-man
and the Wasp is released after Infinity war, but I don't know.
Anyway, it will be a fun year and a half to wonder how this will all
end, and begin again. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you seen Black Panther? Did you enjoy it? What was
your favorite part? Favorite character? Did you think Killmonger had
a point and was right, or did you disagree with him? And what do you
think will happen in the rest of the MCU? Who do you think will live
and die in the next two Avengers films? Let me know in the comments
below.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"> <span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “What's your name?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'Kunta Kinte' (whip!)
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“What's your name?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'Kunta!' (whip!)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“What's your name, boy?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'Black Panther! It's Black Panther.'
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Good. Now give us the vibranium
before we chop off your foot.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
Aww, I know it's a terrible joke to make fun of two black films that
mean so much to the community. I still vividly remember the first
time I saw Roots and how powerful it was. So I started to do research
from that day about Africa, and you know what happened? About 15
years ago I decided to outline a film trilogy I called “Africa.”
The worst thing about life and especially this entertainment industry
is that timing is crucial. So many motifs and things from my “Africa”
trilogy would've been groundbreaking before this movie. Now, if I
ever do release it, I will undoubtedly be called a copycat of this
film or people will say that I was “inspired” by this film. No.
Just no. This film is important for the time, but we have to wait for
ten years after this to see if Black Panther truly had a profound
effect on the film industry and western culture as a whole. Anyway,
I'll try to think of a better sign-off next time. </span></span></span></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-38472887681327686152018-02-06T12:46:00.001-08:002018-02-06T12:46:44.153-08:00Can One Really Double-cross Themselves? #Counterpart #Starz #3weekroundup #recap #review<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Can
One Really Double-cross Themselves? #Counterpart #Starz #3weekroundup
#recap #review</b></span></span></span><br />
<b><br /></b>
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All pictures courtesy of Starz</div>
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<b></b><br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">A
beloved character-actor’s journey back to TV has been a somewhat
bumpy one that has landed us here. Yes, it’s time for yet another
recap/review of a new show of the 2017-18 season. So, is Counterpart
worthy of becoming a part of your well-balanced TV diet or is it part
of nothing special? (Oy! That was a terrible setup!) Let’s find out
together! </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Starz’s
Counterpart stars Academy Award winner J.K. Simmons as Howard Silk,
the coggiest cog in the corporate machine that you can find. Every
day, he goes to work at a plain gray building, walks down a plain
gray hall, receives a briefcase with a manila folder inside with
pedantic phrases on it that seemingly have no meaning, exchanges said
phrases with someone on the other side of a thin prison-like glass,
then goes back home from what the first episode shows. It’s very
Orwellian in nature. No, the person on the other side of the pane is
not an inmate but is a simple man just like him. There is no exchange
of greetings as that is not permitted. The other man is the one who
starts the “interface” by saying the phrase that was either given
to him that day, or that he finds in his own briefcase. The case is
filled with other folders each with other phrases on them, but Howard
must choose the one labeled with what the other man says to him. They
then go down the page exchanging the phrases written on their papers
and writing numbers in what seems like a random pattern. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
day ends and Howard leaves to go about his business. A man of
patterns, every day Howard picks up some freshly cut flowers and goes
to the hospital where one of the on-duty nurses always lifts the old
flower from the previous day and allows for him to replace that
flower with a new one while she gives him a brief overview of any
progress. He then takes the remaining bouquet down the hall to his
wife’s room where she has been in a coma for some months now after
a car hit her in the street. He reads to her. </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKiQ9YYn4HIgVG9PvdBynMdC-r7bHCYWMxQU5wSgY96mN3IqSNSclHXRQyR4AR9GV20PqPRiauWXFXE_1lXRZXcZo2Vxnz49gUOFfritEkB7ue-HiCjM02jb-y9idiJxWs_sjEJZax14s/s1600/J-K-Simmons-heading-to-his-mysterious-work-place-564a6a08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1440" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKiQ9YYn4HIgVG9PvdBynMdC-r7bHCYWMxQU5wSgY96mN3IqSNSclHXRQyR4AR9GV20PqPRiauWXFXE_1lXRZXcZo2Vxnz49gUOFfritEkB7ue-HiCjM02jb-y9idiJxWs_sjEJZax14s/s320/J-K-Simmons-heading-to-his-mysterious-work-place-564a6a08.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">This
is his routine. On this night his brother-in-law comes to visit and
hound him about how Howard’s wife’s mother wants her moved “home”
so that she can be with “family” if and when the time comes for
them to give up on her ever waking. Of course Howard objects because
this city is her home and he is her family. His B-I-L is trying to
force him to sign some papers that would surrender his spousal rights
so they can move her. Howard then goes home, sits for a while, makes
himself something to eat and goes to bed. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Every
morning he gets up, goes down to a local cafe terrace and plays
backgammon with a younger friend and always lets the guy win, then
it’s back in to work. Except today is different. See, some guy in
another department just got promoted which means that Howard can get
promoted to that guy’s vacant position. He’s been doing the same
job for near 30 years but finds it problematic. He doesn’t know
what the hell they do there. He has no idea why he has to say the
phrases, has never properly met any of the people with whom he
interacts with through the glass, and never has a proper conversation
with them. But the previous day he messed up. He got up from the desk
and, as he turned to leave, pointed out that the man on the other
side had a little smudge of jelly on his tie. That’s against the
rules, and now things are going to change. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">But
the jelly is not the reason why. No, his life is going to change
because they suddenly need him. His boss Peter (played by Harry Lloyd
of Game of Thrones fame) and his second superior Aldrich (played by
Ulrich Thomsen) have a source that will only talk to him. And we are,
to this point, still just as confused as Howard is. And they bring
the source in, and take the bag off the source’s head and it’s
revealed to be... Howard Silk. But different. Cooler. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Apparently,
about 30 years ago the universe and/or time split in two. Somehow
this earth made a direct copy of itself but left a doorway open
between the two earths. And ever since then the worlds have been
secretly exchanging intel. On it’s face, you should already see a
huge problem with this conceit, but I’ll withhold judgment until
the end of the review. Again, up until about 30 years ago, there was
one world and then there were two, but they still both had the same
history, same memories, same advances, and then they started to
diverge from each other which has led them to become two drastically
different worlds. If you're following this, you will know that Howard
Silk is still Howard Silk in the other universe, dig? He doesn’t
have a different name or looks different, because he was born before
the split, so his timeline could only diverge so much. From this
point on we will call the original Howard “Howard” and the <i>other</i>
Howard “How2.” How2 is a spy of some sort in his world which
we’ll call earth2. From what I could understand from the first
episode, he works for the same corporation/government-funded business
that Howard works for but in an entirely different department. I
wasn’t too clear on it, but what was clear is that he knows all
about the corporation and their various levels/departments as he is
rather shocked and disappointed that Howard is still in Interface,
which is the base department you can be in. Somehow Howard, who is
told not to freak out, doesn’t freak out at seeing his double for
the first time—he must secretly lead a super-exciting life. Still,
he can’t get any real answers until How2 tells his two bosses to
bring him up to speed because they’ll need him for the mission. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY47z_xAYGFlUci1c-IsoC3cTXMuUDR7RqM_keTvgsopHyne2KtMp_FlJ7JOEJ9oOY65I4Jaaeo6qUJ1DtMAQ7NbiA5n4Dhmjc0qKjRFMjTQQmGsozRq-L3J_S_fTxgQyEhebFnh5oDOU/s1600/gpqrrxchmzufjftsgi40.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY47z_xAYGFlUci1c-IsoC3cTXMuUDR7RqM_keTvgsopHyne2KtMp_FlJ7JOEJ9oOY65I4Jaaeo6qUJ1DtMAQ7NbiA5n4Dhmjc0qKjRFMjTQQmGsozRq-L3J_S_fTxgQyEhebFnh5oDOU/s400/gpqrrxchmzufjftsgi40.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left to right: Howard, Peter, How2</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Howard
learns what I already told you: the world split into two different
universes 30 years ago and everything is slightly different on the
other side of this doorway that they call The Crossing. There are so
many sci-fi questions that beg to be asked here but aren’t because
Howard is more concerned with how he’s being treated as a pawn in a
much bigger game of which he knows nothing about. He’s told to go
home and just chill out until How2 returns the next day. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
as Howard is back at home, one of his coworkers and semi-friend is
murdered by this woman at a gay club. This action is a warning shot
to How2. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
to Howard who comes into work the next day with an entirely different
notion of what he does for a living. He meets with his bosses again
along with How2. They tell him that a very bad assassin has come from
the other world into Howard’s and is seeking to hurt How2
emotionally to send a message. How2 tells him that his/their wife is
dead on earth2 but this female killer knows that earth1 wife is still
alive. So she figures that if she kills the comatose wife too, it
will be a double whammy for How2 to have to know that his wife no
longer exists anywhere in the two known universes. Basically, it’s
the “you can never save her” trope similar to Inception. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So
now Howard is all-in on whatever he has to do to keep his wife from
being killed. He thinks he’s going to become some super-spy or
something but all How2 wants is to stand in as him for a while so
that the killer doesn’t know who she’s dealing with. How2 knows
that the killer is already watching Howard’s routines, and believes
that the best way to thwart the murder is for him to pose as this
world’s Howard and go visit his wife in the hospital as usual. Then
the killer will come, and he’ll kill her before she hurts the wife.
All Howard has to do is take him through every step of his routine so
that nothing feels out of place to the killer when she comes. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">They
prepare for the night by talking about how much they love their wife
and how she died on earth2 and the kind of life they lived and how
people are right when they say that one little decision can change
the entire world. Here, I’ll just say that I thought there’d be a
deeper conversation and there really wasn’t. They spent about ten
minutes screen time together just sitting and talking; three days
later I could hardly remember anything they actually said to each
other. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Moving
on, the Howards and the two bosses all go to the hospital at the
usual evening time. How2 goes in posed as Howard while the other one
stays safely tucked down into the seats of the car, hoping not to be
seen. How2 does the routine, save for one crucial detail. As the
nurse sees him coming with the flowers, she plucks out the old one
from yesterday, but he doesn’t stop to put in a new one or talk to
her. He bypasses the nurse’s station completely and goes directly
to her room. He is able to sit with her for a while and remember how
it was to be with his wife. </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvROJNOuUxv37pY_URopzIjMur6Dy9_vt9aYLYgiGE3mC3RDcZw0XWDyBsqARnbyj4Fcdkfy_xy9ByIB9E7UotH2n3GvpdOzAA5ZfFCouwJnMrKs8JLY7Bj1MSKoGdOUyNS_usd3LoInM/s1600/Counterpart-Season-1-Episode-1-41-1c2b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="720" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvROJNOuUxv37pY_URopzIjMur6Dy9_vt9aYLYgiGE3mC3RDcZw0XWDyBsqARnbyj4Fcdkfy_xy9ByIB9E7UotH2n3GvpdOzAA5ZfFCouwJnMrKs8JLY7Bj1MSKoGdOUyNS_usd3LoInM/s320/Counterpart-Season-1-Episode-1-41-1c2b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
then the brother-in-law comes and starts spitting that foolish
nonsense again about signing papers to move her and How2 doesn’t
have time for this. I don’t know how he knows but he does know that
the killer is coming and she’s already in the building. So he shuts
up the brother with some boss moves, then sneaks into the hall with
his gun raised. He hides in the cove of another doorway when the
killer stops near the nurses’ desk and sees the missing flower. She
knows, slips out of her shoes to quiet her steps and runs for cover
before firing off a few shots. They engage in some gunplay which sees
How2 chase her through the building and lose her on one of the
floors. She gets out and winds up exiting right near the car where
the bosses and Howard are, and she fires at him. Now she knows what’s
up and the game has changed. Howard’s wife is safe for the night
but everything will be different going forward. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So
How2 goes back through the portal only to reveal that his wife,
apparently, is still alive. They meet in a bar, and we end on that
shot. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
2 picks up right where we left off in the second world. How2 meets
his version of Emily Burton Silk played by actress Olivia Williams.
But unlike in the first world, here she seems to be his ex-wife as
she shirks his touch (she is with someone else at the moment, leaving
him out in the cold). Emily2, apparently, seems to work for the same
company as him but in the “housekeeping” department, meaning that
she basically has a team that does dirty work on various agents and
brings them in to make sure things don’t get out of hand in the
agency. She has come to meet her ex because he just had a rendition
order put out on him. She asks what he’s been doing on the other
side, and he gives her no details as to his business, the business of
saving the other her. Her team—three men with surly faces and
holstered guns—are already stationed at the bar and How2 says that
he’ll go willingly, but smells something fishy about the whole
thing. Oddly, he walks out and the men follow him out but his ex-wife
does not, which I thought strange seeing as how these are supposedly
her men working on her team. Anyway, they escort him over to their
car where he gets into the back seat with one of them and they start
looking through paperwork and talking to each other in another
language when he takes one of their guns and kills all three of them,
then quietly gets out of the car and walks away, all with his ex-wife
none-the-wiser. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">From
here we start to dive farther into the traditional espionage intrigue
that one would expect from a show like this. How2 goes to a priest
buddy who is also somehow connected to the organization they work for
as he can get “visas” into the other world that last for a few
hours to a full day. The priest tells him that he didn’t hear
anything about a rendition order and that he doesn’t need to go on
the run, just go back in to the organization tomorrow and see if they
arrest you for killing three men or if they let you through. If the
former, then there really was a rendition order. If the latter, then
someone is trying to kill you and cover it up. Guess which one
happens. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
don’t see much more of Emily that is really important, save for a
meeting with her superiors where she is questioned about the
rendition order that never was. And clearly the organization on that
side is just as secretive as it is on earth1 because she sheds not a
single tear for the three dead guys. I’m guessing that even though
she was technically their boss, she didn’t know them. She also has
a meeting with the priest to ask about How2 and see if he knows what
the guy is doing on earth1. He knows nothing. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
back in this world, Howard receives that promotion to Analysis like
he wanted. Now, his job is to take those enveloped, strange dialogues
that he used to say everyday in Interface and interpret/decode them.
How are they supposed to decode them and what are the messages they
are expecting to find? He has no idea, but he knows that they are
supposed to move quickly because they have more and more of them
coming in throughout the day. But before he can even get to decode
one, his boss and the other guy show up again needing his help
because How2 is back on their side and has a plan. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Since
How2 has been a spy for years—he helped establish the entire
clandestine network for the organization that spans between the two
worlds—he knows how this female assassin would think because it is
how he would think. In the process, he also lets Howard in on more of
what’s really going on. So, as stated before this is another world,
but it is not, I repeat not, just a doorway into another realm or
universe. In other words, this world wasn’t just a parallel
universe that always existed but it was definitively created by some
kind of experiment gone wrong which made this world duplicate and
from there they became alternates to each other. Essentially, it is
like a cell that has split. There’s one cell to begin with, but
that cell, in order to reproduce, splits in two, creating two unique
cells both of which have the same things in them but differ ever so
slightly from each other. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Also,
there’s some serious political upheaval on How2’s side which
still felt a little unclear, but know that there are now two factions
that are battling for control and that know about The Crossing. One
faction sent the assassin. The assassin’s name in earth2 is
Baldwin—her nickname—which, up until now was believed to be a
man’s name. The problem: she was born before the split. Yes, that
means that she exists in both worlds and has a doppelganger. How2’s
plan is to exploit her earth1 self to find out how Baldwin might
operate. </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbA2JR139JU8v_Ov0fC97-wystKVLc3nN_No8JP13lbfEqfM2Fmlc_HkVsyG1xC7rB8Ea6ms0FECPpjHtHxLpr9S7gG_v56nz16H06uvVqipYCuZe9e0UXb6OEASjI0F4vaioeXL7gjD8/s1600/b040f276f03a4a7819b90061abdf43b09f862502.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="600" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbA2JR139JU8v_Ov0fC97-wystKVLc3nN_No8JP13lbfEqfM2Fmlc_HkVsyG1xC7rB8Ea6ms0FECPpjHtHxLpr9S7gG_v56nz16H06uvVqipYCuZe9e0UXb6OEASjI0F4vaioeXL7gjD8/s320/b040f276f03a4a7819b90061abdf43b09f862502.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">In
this world, the woman’s name is Nadia. Now, putting aside the fact
that this woman still looks like she’s in her 20s yet her character
is supposed to be near, if not over, 40, she fits both roles they
have her in. Played by Italian actress Sara Serraiocco, Baldwin seems
like a reluctant assassin who shared a childhood with her
doppelganger Nadia. Nadia, after the split, continued in the same
vein as her early years, continuing to study violin until she became
a professional classical violinist for an orchestra. The two girls
grew up under the watchful eye of a stern, drunken, abusive father
who demanded violin perfection from his talented daughter. They even
share the memory of his death. He died by falling on the train tracks
of a subway station and being run over when his daughter dared not
extend a hand to help. After that they both went into the foster
system and their paths diverged with different families choosing
them. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Baldwin
still uses the raggedy shack that her father left her in his will to
clean herself up from the gunshot wound she sustained in the gunfight
at the hospital. She knows that Nadia knows about the place too and
that How2 will figure that out. Somehow, Baldwin also has an earth1
handler on that side that tells her the only logical next step is to
kill her counterpart before Howard, How2 and the organization can
exploit her. So the race is on to find Nadia and keep her safe. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Well,
How2 beats Baldwin to the punch and finds Nadia and pries some info
from her. Howard and his bosses are then able to go to the woman’s
apartment and to that cabin only to find that Baldwin has been there
but is now back in the city. In a genius move, Baldwin calls in an
emergency about two guys being dead (she then kills them) and a man
holding a woman hostage in a local bar (How2 with a drunk Nadia). The
police raid the place and “rescue” Nadia only to take her out
into the open where Baldwin already awaits the woman’s arrival. But
looking into her eyes, remembering that traumatic moment in which
they both witnessed their father’s death keeps her from killing her
otherworldly self. She kidnaps her and yanks her over to the theater
where Nadia and the orchestra practiced earlier. How2 and the dudes
from the organization are still tracking after her while Howard
wanders around. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">At
this point Baldwin doesn’t know what to do. She knows she has to
kill herself but can’t and can feel the cornering guards closing
in. She reveals herself to <i>herself</i> only for Nadia to think
that she is so drunk she has become delusional and is having some
sort of Scrooge-like vision of her past demons (Baldwin has a nasty
cut on her face from a gunshot wound). Baldwin wants to know how
Nadia got over their father’s death and how they were partially
responsible, but Nadia can give her no real answer. Nadia eventually
escapes Baldwin’s clutches only for her to run onto the orchestral
stage and be gunned down by one of the organization’s men even
though Howard tried to shout him down. Baldwin is then so stunned by
this that she can hardly move as she and Howard watch Nadia slowly
die. Even worse, instead of the organization being quick to grab her,
the local police scoop Baldwin right over Nadia’s dead body. What
was once a slight problem has now become a huge mess. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx4wnm1bIkoZS_M9JwmfNH_9y3mPp_QtrHcZUfyLYZW7axp42JKppgSIk8zAYwzDWRw6QwzIUhWy79j8Wpm4fr_E1sBBvF5zbQBeqwFgCw6v8pBv_m3R0kthyphenhyphenuN407Q0pXTui4XRKm894/s1600/imagesM009DVHT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx4wnm1bIkoZS_M9JwmfNH_9y3mPp_QtrHcZUfyLYZW7axp42JKppgSIk8zAYwzDWRw6QwzIUhWy79j8Wpm4fr_E1sBBvF5zbQBeqwFgCw6v8pBv_m3R0kthyphenhyphenuN407Q0pXTui4XRKm894/s400/imagesM009DVHT.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emily</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
three starts six weeks prior with a look at this world's Emily Silk.
Emily was out on a plaza at night and appeared to be looking/waiting
for someone. As she looked back over her shoulder in anticipation,
she stepped off the sidewalk and into the street right in front of
the path of an oncoming van. That accident landed her in the hospital
where Howard has been coming to visit her every night since the
accident. Here I should say that I could have sworn that on the first
episode they said they were going to move his wife to another
hospital, as opposed to another wing of the floor but the way it was
filmed definitely said “same hospital.” But again it doesn't
matter, it's just one of those little details that kind of irritate
you, and I was half-trying to write the review while watching, so I
probably misheard. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
zoom ahead to the current problem which presents as a helluva doozy
for both sides. Somehow news of Baldwin's arrest made it back to the
other side already. Because of this, they have already begun the
process of getting her back which will entail a negotiation between
the two sides. For those fans of political shows this part is for you
as we begin to see more interaction between the two sides on a
diplomatic level, and we see the potential for what the show could
be. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
first we have the plan. How2, in conjunction with Howard's two bosses
comes up with a plan to disrupt the negotiation for as long as
possible. Remember, How2 knows or at least thinks he knows that there
is corruption on his side somewhere in upper-management, so if
Baldwin gets to go back to their side she could very well be let off
free and contracted to do more jobs in the future. He wants to know
what she knows before sending her anywhere and thinks that any intel
she gives them would be far more valuable while in this world rather
than in his. So they feel they must distract from this proposed trade
by any means necessary. The trade is two fold: an ambassador from
earth2 that lives full-time on this earth will meet with some
higher-up management on this world that work for the company or
“embassy” of this world to make a deal. We learn that the two
worlds each have their own problems that they deal with and for. For
instance, earth2 has undergone a worldwide pandemic that decimated
the population. In fact, the destruction was so catastrophic that
they have WWII-era-like movie theater propaganda commercials that
tell of the dangers of not getting vaccinated and becoming sick. You
are to report your friends, neighbors, coworkers, even family members
who do get sick. This epidemic was implied as the cause of someone
from this earth getting through The Crossing to earth2 and spreading
a common sickness that this earth has already cured. One world has a
crop problem and can't feed everyone, the other does not. Different
diseases have been cured in different worlds, different wars fought.
But some things that do remain the same: the makeup of the land not
disturbed by war. And that is what this side wants. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">This
earth's head ambassador is the father-in-law of Howard's main boss
(nepotism at its finest). He wants the geological surveying of the
land around the San Andreas fault line to see if there's gold there
which I guess is something that the other side would know. Anyway,
they dicker about it for a while and finally come to an agreement. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
other side of the negotiations are with what earth2's embassy calls
an Inquiry Team. How2 has to convince this inquiry team that this
earth should hold on to Baldwin longer for the reason I said above.
The problem? The other side sent over his ex-wife Emily2 and her new
lover. They weren't supposed to be talking with How2 but with the
ambassador, and also, this is Emily2's first time to the other side.
In what feels wholly strange but also lacks a certain suspense, we
finally see someone passing through The Crossing. And I gotta tell ya
it's... bland. I don't know what I expected but whatever I did expect
was in no way met by this transfer. When they say it's a doorway, it
really was a doorway. Followed by a short hall, punctuated by another
door. It seriously looked like it was filmed in the basement of some
zoo or something. There was some junk down there and a dark, dank
path and before she knew, she was to the other side. No frills. No
amazing music. No magic of the moment whatsoever. The strangest part
to me, however, was that she walked through the hallway first, before
her lover (everyone, apparently has to go through alone), then, when
she got to the other side, I swear that her lover was already there.
So maybe the crossing has some kind of time element to it or maybe
I'm just trying to make a boring show-aspect more interesting. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway,
they talk to How2 and she tells him to give up this fight for Baldwin
to stay because the deal is already done. She then tells him that the
phony rendition (kill) order that came in for him was sent by none
other than that priest guy he talked to in that church and that he
should be super careful about who he trusts. He then gives her a
coded message about lighting a candle for his mother in that same
church when she gets back. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
the inquiry team heads back, Howard and his second boss are sent to
talk with Baldwin to see if she knows more about the other world's
corruption. She will only talk to Howard because of the death scene
of Nadia from episode two. She, again, says literally nothing of
substance as they talk not about the corruption but about how
different he is from How2 now, but how a person is <i>that person</i>
regardless of circumstances, and that he will eventually turn into
How2. Eh! Whatevs! They get word that the negotiation has gone
through and somehow lawfully walk out of the police station with her
in their custody, even though she killed a police officer. That means
this place must have a ton of power and probably went to someone so
high up in the government to make a call that the very sound of that
person's voice and designation caused the receiver of the call to go
limp. In any case, they load her into a bulletproof van and are
making the short trek back to the crossing at “the embassy” when
a group of mercenaries run by Baldwin's handler in this world shoot
up the van and threaten to blow it up if they don't get her. Under
Howard's pleas for life, they free Baldwin and live another day. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
Emily2 goes back home, goes into the church and lights the candle in
the exact place that How2 asked her to. Beneath where she lights the
candle she finds a neatly folded letter. She walks to the same cafe
terrace where Howard is seen playing backgammon on earth1. Here, on
earth2 it looks like an abandoned warehouse/factory district. She
starts reading the letter and we hear a voice-over of Emily from our
world. That's right, Emily1 knew How2; in fact, she was his informant
in her world and I guess shared info on possible corruption on our
side. Not only does the episode make the implication that she was
waiting for How2 the night she was struck by the van, but that she
may also have been somewhat of “the other woman” in How2 and
Emily2's relationship back when they were still married. Now that
becomes a bizarre and intriguing question of: Can you really cheat on
your wife with your wife? And you finally start to understand that
this series is supposed to be more philosophical than
action/thriller/suspense-oriented. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">After
reading the letter and realizing that How2, after their divorce, was
so in love with her that he was still getting his Emily fix with
Emily1, Emily2 goes back to her apartment. She enters, flicks on the
light, cuts her finger and sucks on the cut a few times. And then she
starts to feel woozy and drops to the floor. From the shadows someone
emerges wearing paper booties so as not to leave a footprint. We
never see this person's face but do see them peel some sort of sticky
goo off the light dial, and empty out all her prescription pill
bottles, staging the scene to make it look like she overdosed. It is
unclear if she is fully dead but her eyes are left open as the unseen
perpetrator exits her apartment. Oh, and back on earth1 How2 has
decided not to go back to earth2, but send Howard instead. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What's
my grade? I give it a solid <span style="color: #cc0000;">B</span> for now,
though that could change with the development of the season. This
show is one of those short-season shows, so it will only have ten
episodes, and we're already near a third of the way through the
season. I had started doing this review/recap thinking that it would
be longer and failed to check how many episodes it had (oversight on
my behalf because I've been so busy and distracted). For these kinds
of series I would usually just do an entire-season review/recap, but
here we are. So, what are some good and bad things about this show?
Let's dive in. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">First,
we can just get this out of the way, J.K. Simmons is terrific. He's
been really good in just about everything he's been in back since his
90s stints on Law and Order, so it's to be expected. He convincingly
plays the two Howards with enough complexity to make you understand
how they are similar (sharing in every detail of their childhood and
young adult life), while still being almost completely different. In
one scene on episode one it is mentioned that they even have
different taste buds somehow because one prefers American food while
the other prefers Chinese and as the viewer you don't make a quick
leap to doubt this bizarre and ridiculous trait because he makes it
believable. And yes it is rather ridiculous, but we will talk about
that further down in this review. The point is Simmons plays both
characters in an intriguing way that makes Howard a sympathetic
everyman and How2 an interesting and complex spy. I've never seen the
show Orphan Black but I can only surmise that this is the type of
performance that the lead on that show gives too as I have seen
people rave about her many roles played. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
atmosphere (cinematography, set design, saturation, overall tone of
the show) is muted and rather bland, almost Wachowskian in nature,
yet not as eye-popping as The Matrix's color palette. Our world, or
the world of Howard is dipped in an olive-green hue similar to the
inside of the Matrix, while How2's world is bathed in blueish tones
similar to the real world outside of the Matrix. I don't know if that
was supposed to be a deliberate callback to that particular work or
if that is just how the show creator and exec producers wanted it
without influence from earlier works, but you can certainly get that
vibe from the entire show so far. Howard was an “office” cog just
like Neo and is only now awakened to the truth while everyone around
him is still, for the most part, asleep in their innocent dreamworld.
Granted, this is/was the plot for many a-movie both before and after
The Matrix, but this feels closer to it. I digress. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">My
problem with this show is, essentially, why I'm having such a hard
time trying to review it. It plays almost just like any other
espionage show out there (the ones that take themselves
super-serious) and uses its major conceit both as a driving force,
yet also as a second thought. What do I mean? I mean that even though
you know that you will have characters from two “different”
worlds interacting with their other-world doppelganger, it doesn't
feel like that. After the initial shock of the first episode wears
off, everything seems rather ho-hum concerning the trick of two
worlds. It never pushes the bounds into that truly bizarre and crazy
sci-fi like what it maybe could've been; instead, it takes that one
sci-fi element, sets up a great “what if” and then doesn't feel
like it does much with that. Both with Howard and Baldwin/Nadia they
each adjusted to the idea of another them too quickly, which made the
whole show feel more like it was about long-lost twins rather than a
sleek sci-fi exploration. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Then
there's the writing—ah, yes, that most foreboding term in any of my
reviews. What to say? What to say? OK, I'm going to have to mingle in
a little bit of the directing here as I talk about this because I
don't know which to blame more. The writing, while intriguing, is
sometimes flat. I watched the first episode twice, OK? Twice. I still
can't tell you details about that conversation between the two
Howards when they were preparing for the hospital visit. And is it
because I have a bad memory? No, I actually have a very good memory,
although lately my brain is slowing and I really need to see a doctor
about it. Yes, I can mention a few details like the taste buds thing
and how they each got married differently, but it wasn't memorable or
even all that intriguing. The idea of, “if you were to interview
you, what would you ask yourself,” has been a philosophical musing
for decades now, yet here it feels so <i>blah</i> that you could
remove the entire conversation and miss nothing. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
about that taste buds thing... I'm confused as to how old people are
supposed to be. Follow me here, everyone who existed pre-split 30
years ago all had the same exact life (remember the cell). If we're
going by Howard's age and by what he said about marrying Emily, that
means they were adults when the split happened. Yet, Howard and How2
have completely different taste buds? One would think that as an
adult your taste buds when drastically change so much as for one to
hate the type of food that the other likes, yet they do. How? There's
never a reason given for this other than the split, which, in that
case I'm more inclined to believe that they shouldn't look as similar
then. If they're eating completely different diets that should even
change how they appear. Yes, it's a small detail but it really
distracted me from the plot. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Even
worse, the writing never quite feels like it builds to something
which is probably why it feels like it goes by so fast. OK, so let me
put on my writer cap for a minute. In writing for film and television
there is the thing called the three-act build. First act you
establish a hero, second put that hero into trouble, third make the
trouble bigger and force the hero to rise to the challenge. What most
people don't seem to get is that the second <i>and</i> third act are
supposed to have action. Yes, you want a good climax in the third,
but the second is where the hero was supposed to have already met
and/or been challenged by the villain in some way, making the villain
only more evil in the eyes of the viewer. Now, I know that a lot of
shows are being written as 10+episodic movies, similar to last
summer's Twin Peaks revival, where multiple episodes can count as a
first or second act, but there needs to be some more breakdown of
that within the show. With Howard's and How2's conversation zipping
by so quickly and being of little consequence, and the explanation
for why How2 is on that side of The Crossing coming so late, the
first episode felt like a rush to the end. Then when we do get to the
action-filled end it leaves you with a feeling of, “wait, that's
it?” And not in a good way. Then the second episode only halfway
remedies this but it starts to jump around too much by trying to
incorporate How2's ex-wife into the story. Episode three does well
but there is something so cursory about Howard's existence that he
feels like the least fleshed-out character on an earth1 devoid of any
good fleshed-out characters. At this point they could almost kill
Howard and just follow How2 and I don't know if I'd care. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
writing is not aggressively smart or funny and it doesn't try to be.
It's simply serviceable. That, combined with the workman-like
directing that both has style and lacks style is so milquetoast that
it doesn't draw you in, but rather leaves you with a feeling of “hm.
That was interesting.” Would I be willing to commit 50 hours of my
life to this show for the next five years based on these three
episodes? Probably not, but it's intriguing for now. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? If you enjoy espionage, government/corporate
corruption, and/or “accidentally important people” stories, then
yes I would say that you should be watching. And because it airs on
Sunday nights in the winter, it doesn't have much competition from
what I can think of (ABC and NBC are pretty dead, CBS is also a
graveyard, and FOX is younger-skewing with most of their comedies now
and I can't even think of what most cable networks have on). Still,
this won't be for everyone--most people, actually. But it's got
really good acting and, even if the writing has yet to truly pop with
something memorable, it does seem to know exactly where it wants to
go, so you can expect the intrigue to become more entangled and
dangerous as the season continues. Counterpart airs on Starz Sundays
at 9pm EST. Catch up with the series on StarzonDemand or Starz.com. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of Counterpart? If you haven't, do you
think you'll tune in now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it?
Do you like it? What's your favorite part of the series? Do you think
Howard will ever become a spy like his Counterpart? Do you think his
wife will ever awake from her coma? Let me know in the comments
below. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"> <span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “I'mma step into
this machine as Steve Urkel... And I'll step out as Stefan Urquelle.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
I started to look up an actual quote from the show but didn't feel
like it. I have to go edit my book The Knowledge of Fear again, so...
Yeah. Anyway, I'll try to come up with a better more original
sign-off next time</span></span></span></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-72045320725515797622018-02-05T12:57:00.001-08:002018-02-05T12:57:04.776-08:00You Heard The Thunder Now Here’s The #BlackLightning #3weekroundup #recap #review #CW #DC <div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>You
Heard The Thunder Now Here’s The #BlackLightning #3weekroundup
#recap #review #CW #DC </b></span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikhIMLBqZGJRj60Wlnclip1ahycVyoVL3l6Mt9Gx1mc9On4haz4susTKsmnLdpyr02okwjYJH-JXGxHrmpT5MJ6U1_GKaVSyNMYXPK4FWZOt5GjhXjb6UIscEhLHwc3U1Uu0IovnaiUBQ/s1600/BLK_S1_KeyArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1100" data-original-width="733" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikhIMLBqZGJRj60Wlnclip1ahycVyoVL3l6Mt9Gx1mc9On4haz4susTKsmnLdpyr02okwjYJH-JXGxHrmpT5MJ6U1_GKaVSyNMYXPK4FWZOt5GjhXjb6UIscEhLHwc3U1Uu0IovnaiUBQ/s640/BLK_S1_KeyArt.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of the CW</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
wait is over! Well, I guess it’s sorta been over for a long time
now. In any case, black superheroes have returned to your screens
both big and small... and handheld. Though Black Panther still has a
few weeks to go, Black Lightning is here to bless you with that
Mandingo power you've been lookin’ for. Don’t act like you ain’t
been lookin’ for it, you know you have. But is Black Lightning
electrifyingly good or is it shockingly bad? Let’s find out
together! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Black
Lightning is the CW’s newest addition to their superhero lineup.
Though it currently doesn’t feature into the same universe as
Arrow, Supergirl, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow, never say never
as Supergirl was previously not part of the group also, and it does
have a producer in common with Greg Berlanti behind it along with
black producers Mara Brock and Salim Akil (a married couple; Mara was
behind the show Girlfriends). Here, we are introduced to a new (to
the audience) hero with a storied past. Black Lightning or Jefferson
Pierce is unlike any of the other superheroes we have seen on the CW
so far. Played by veteran actor (you’ve seen him before but
probably never knew his name) Cress Williams, Jefferson Pierce is a
middle-aged high school principal with two near-grown daughters (one
is a student at the school and the other seems to be a teacher there
but maybe also a college student) that lives in the fictional city of
Freeland. A city similar in tone to Chicago or some other Midwest
city, it has its pockets of good and bad neighborhoods with decent
houses and decent people while also having gangbangers and thugs
lurking around many corners. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3L-Q08wJbKNRVnMBQmlqG-oMQendg9Zo9wucMGPl2B09uLuOgaKWttYqD3qXbw82ZDVndODwZJdmy4YPHOeyIq2ODPvlZYKkZsqNbGNfvqEr-LcFLsnLCpwQxoaZY4MsS4wHYI704Vi4/s1600/BlackLightning2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="1158" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3L-Q08wJbKNRVnMBQmlqG-oMQendg9Zo9wucMGPl2B09uLuOgaKWttYqD3qXbw82ZDVndODwZJdmy4YPHOeyIq2ODPvlZYKkZsqNbGNfvqEr-LcFLsnLCpwQxoaZY4MsS4wHYI704Vi4/s400/BlackLightning2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Right now the city is in the throes of
another bad run which has given rise to a gang known as The 100 (RIP
CW’s teen drama The 100). A predominantly black gang, it has many
members stretched like tentacles throughout the city but seems to be
run by one Tobias Whale; however, the front man for Jefferson’s
section of the city happens to be a man by the name of Lala, a past
student of our do-gooder principal. I don’t want to age neither the
character nor the actor, but I must point out here that it does give
me some pause to think about just how old Black Lightning is supposed
to be. I get that he could’ve been a young teacher that has only
recently taken on the principal role, but on the second episode we
meet a woman who was a past student of his and who also now has a
daughter that goes to the same high school and I’m like what? I
thought he was supposed to be closer to 40 but maybe he is closer to
50 than I thought. I digress. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Lala
being one of the heads of The 100 has to operate the business as he
sees fit and tries to play the big baddie of the hood. But because he
was once a student of Jefferson the kind-hearted principal thinks he
can reason with the man. See, Jefferson has actually had a deal with
the surrounding gangs for a number of years: his high school remains
off limits to and for any illegal gang activity. In return, he
doesn’t get the police involved in stuff that could be gang-related
in his area. But this deal gets broken when his daughters get into
some trouble. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">His
youngest daughter Jennifer, played by China Anne McClain of Disney
fame, is still a teenager exploring who she wants to be as she comes
of age. She does normal teen stuff like lying to her parents to sneak
out to parties. She does exactly that when she skips a stuffy
adult-laden school fundraiser in favor of a party down at Club 100
with a friend (yes, Club 100 is the favorite hang spot for The 100
gang). Well, she gets into a little trouble when a guy starts
flirting with her in the club. Young, the boy looks near her age and
is trying to get down to business, but she is not that fast. But when
members of The 100 gang come and grab the boy, they take Jennifer
too. In some crazy prostitution plan, they say that the boy has a
debt and that “his girl” can work it off down at this seedy motel
the gang runs. But Jennifer doesn’t really know this fool, and he’s
certainly not her boyfriend. Still, that doesn’t quite matter to
Lala and his brood. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvX_reTpGAW5NpHhcRcWuRzRSbRdmGr09jJu18UMFDCvTXrI7Ed9zTYtiaIYlJQnQD8dggWyi1YyYqcuLY_mYFYt0Im26FwLuzi7bKGfnflrySd6mnGw0_HOgIXTsB4NUBpGmCHeJLW9c/s1600/Anissa-Lesbian-Black-Lightning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="498" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvX_reTpGAW5NpHhcRcWuRzRSbRdmGr09jJu18UMFDCvTXrI7Ed9zTYtiaIYlJQnQD8dggWyi1YyYqcuLY_mYFYt0Im26FwLuzi7bKGfnflrySd6mnGw0_HOgIXTsB4NUBpGmCHeJLW9c/s400/Anissa-Lesbian-Black-Lightning.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At Center Focus: Jennifer played by China Anne McClain</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
as Jennifer is getting into trouble, her father is at the charity
dinner schmoozing donors, talking to one of his old friends and
current cop Inspector Henderson. Henderson is taking heat for all of
the gang violence that seems to have swept through the streets in the
last ten years. He’s trying his best, but the cops can only do so
much. Jefferson is committed to trying to choke the power of the
gang’s by choking off their membership. He feels that if he truly
invests in the youth in a meaningful and uplifting way, then they
will never be tempted to join a gang. As a partner in his vision for
the school, he has Ms. Fowdy. Let me get this outta the way right now
and say that all the women (including the daughters) on this show are
fine as hell and that you probably won’t find a better smoke show
this season. #BlackExcellence. Ms. Fowdy, from what I can surmise,
may be the assistant principal or the administrative assistant, but I
don’t think she is part of the ordinary faculty. In any case, she
seems to have a crush on Jefferson. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Though
Ms. Fowdy may have eyes for Jefferson, he only has eyes for his
ex-wife and mother of his children Lynn. The character list on IMDb
says she never reverted to her maiden name which means—in
conjunction with the heat they make on the show—that there’s a
strong possibility of them getting back together. Neither is over the
other and the only reason she left him was because she felt it was
too dangerous for her and her mental health to be married to him as
he continued in what she sees as his “addiction.” Funny enough,
the girls still lived with him. Frankly, they need to explain this
discrepancy better to me. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM5K0AO0sAStXfasmmoNde6k1_perl37ztFCVec-CVAcXSjbQnvLzSHSkJBhhT9MCcDgcyfAGePtnduWNeyBvWA6IVPN2qBBKHKB_4AHt9yR-9TrdjyvXl_SjaLNISeRulBWCuUcNz70s/s1600/b5wqcua4cxqgqgajxxd2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM5K0AO0sAStXfasmmoNde6k1_perl37ztFCVec-CVAcXSjbQnvLzSHSkJBhhT9MCcDgcyfAGePtnduWNeyBvWA6IVPN2qBBKHKB_4AHt9yR-9TrdjyvXl_SjaLNISeRulBWCuUcNz70s/s400/b5wqcua4cxqgqgajxxd2.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left to Right: Anissa, Jefferson Back Center: Ms. Fowdy</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Finally,
there is Jefferson and Lynn’s eldest daughter Anissa. She is the
Black Lives Matter, power to the people protestor that is supposed to
be the troublemaker. As said before, she seems to be a young student
teacher still in college or maybe just subbing on the side. Anyway,
she covers for Jennifer when the latter goes to Club 100. Well,
Jefferson finds out what’s going on with his daughter and goes to
the club to rescue her from whatever dubiousness she might’ve
gotten into. When he does, things get a little hectic. They won’t
let him through to see his daughter in the boss’s back room, so he
shuts the lights off and shocks a few people. Oh yeah, he’s Black
Lightning. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">See,
about 20 or so years ago Jefferson was this amazing superhero called
Black Lightning. He has electricity surging through his veins, and he
can wield it at will. The problem, though, is that Lynn who saw her
man coming home half-broken and beaten every night and wanted a
normal, safer life. So while the streets were safe, she didn’t feel
she was loved, and she left. Ever since, they’ve been co-parenting
successfully while he managed to give up his crime-fighting in favor
of time spent with his children. Still, he and Lynn didn’t quite
make it back to what they once were. He’s retired from the hero
biz. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Until
that night. The electricity going out frees up Jennifer enough for
her to escape into the crowd of the rest of the panicked patrons. The
police come to make the crowd disperse and Jefferson hits them with
some electricity too just for being idiots. The rest of the episode
plays out like your standard kidnap and rescue. Jennifer is
confronted at school by the same boy from the club who agreed to sell
her into sex slavery to pay off his debt. As it turns out, he is the
cousin of Lala and is part of The 100, and doesn’t even go to that
school. Anissa embarrasses him by flipping him to the ground and
showing that Woke Bae got some serious key-raw-tay skills. He comes
back with a few of his fellow goons and kidnaps the both of them
right out of class, whisking them away to the seedy prostitution
motel. They’re gonna repay his debt to Lala. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjpYRaOZ7PnRrfsIO8Re0b-fx_vXprD9jnwXf8YvN89qxTMlB1HuCn6n7JbpdiRIW1RP39MKl1jVElEeUmp1enxH5Cmc09EA7QZ8giK5NK_pYBtsOw2YgSsCQhhRmRN9yduTCpUPFMNHw/s1600/x240-R5S.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="427" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjpYRaOZ7PnRrfsIO8Re0b-fx_vXprD9jnwXf8YvN89qxTMlB1HuCn6n7JbpdiRIW1RP39MKl1jVElEeUmp1enxH5Cmc09EA7QZ8giK5NK_pYBtsOw2YgSsCQhhRmRN9yduTCpUPFMNHw/s400/x240-R5S.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
while that is unfolding, Jefferson goes to see an old friend, a Mr.
Peter Gambi played by veteran actor James Remar (you’ve seen him in
a helluva lotta stuff, I’m sure). Gambi is like a mix between
Batman’s Alfred and The Flash’s Harrison. A suit tailor by day,
he’s been waiting for Jefferson to come back so that he can aid him
in fighting crime again. In anticipation of this day, he helps
Jefferson get cleaned up from his most recent soiree in the club and
also makes him a cool new suit as he knows the old one probably
doesn’t fit anymore. Now, dressed in a cool black and electric blue
suit with hints of yellow on it and an eye mask similar to Batman’s
Robin, he’s ready to get down to crime-fighting, if only for one
night. He goes to the motel and beats through a gaggle of goofy goons
before reaching the boy who kidnapped his girls. Having just missed
Lala, he throws the boy off of a two-story balcony onto a car and
rescues his daughters. The cops show after the fact to start
arresting people and the day is saved for the moment. But not all is
good. Lynn, while thankful and relieved that their babies are safe,
sees his one-night-only foray back into the superhero biz as a
harbinger of more to come. She’s starting to get scared again, and
just when she was this close to caving and going back to him full
force. Even crazier, the episode ends with the eldest daughter Anissa
getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and
having some kind of super-charged red energy surge through her body
until she unwittingly breaks the porcelain sink in half like it’s
nothing. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
two focuses on the aftermath of Black Lightning’s sudden
reappearance and re-retirement. Naturally, we get the “people are
intrinsically stupid” trope here which sees parents asking why
Black Lightning came back and only saved Jefferson’s daughters but
not anyone else’s. Like, really? For real? For realsies? The dude
doesn't even wear that good of a mask. Two and two have never been
more eager to be put together but I digress. When he learns from one
of the mothers (the former student I was talking about) that the
whoring motel the cops raided after he took out all the baddies is
now back open and that she thinks her daughter was kidnapped and
taken there, he gets super angry and re-commits to his life as Black
Lightning. Lynn steadily talks about his addiction to using his
superpowers which he simply one day discovered he had, but he says
that he was doing good with them before, and he feels compelled to
start doing good with them again. Yet, he still insists that he only
has to suit up one more time. In his mind, Lala is the one who is
running things (he doesn’t seem to know about Tobias Whale yet), so
he figures that if he takes out the homicidal thug, then he’ll have
put a serious damper or end to The 100’s infestation. All he has to
do is bring Lala in with the proper evidence to convict him. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMynkeXjzbcSwG9BzkV86lmIxfnWDcmlcVHS9RqVUf0q7dZJg92StRVB8RKmVjdQXvtg6ZKhAqkqaF_K9EBZJEQKBTKt0eEeCmMPt3OW2g9cM7dYo4WEXsgRHdRiwkNyo-aSGTpVbc1WM/s1600/black-lightning-image-4-600x400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMynkeXjzbcSwG9BzkV86lmIxfnWDcmlcVHS9RqVUf0q7dZJg92StRVB8RKmVjdQXvtg6ZKhAqkqaF_K9EBZJEQKBTKt0eEeCmMPt3OW2g9cM7dYo4WEXsgRHdRiwkNyo-aSGTpVbc1WM/s400/black-lightning-image-4-600x400.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lala</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
it so happens, Lala makes it easy on Black. First he kills his own
cousin after springing him from the ambulance just after Lightning
dropped him onto the windshield of that car. Yes, they say some BS
story about how the kid hopped out of the ambulance himself but
really? Really? Dude’s back should’ve been fractured in three
places not to mention shards of glass embedded deep in it. In any
case, Lala dumps his cousin’s body in a dumpster. He then kills the
anguished mother who came to the motel looking for her daughter. Not
wanting to be bothered, he shot her a few times in the parking lot,
not knowing that she had a cameraphone set up in her car window
recording the whole mess. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
cops find the recording, now all they need is to go and get Lala. As
it happens, Lala is currently holdup in some downtown high-rise
stacked with tons of bodyguards throughout the entire building to
prevent any do-gooders from raiding. The police probably would’ve
made a valiant effort to get through and lost. But Black Lightning is
on the case because a brotha needs all the exercise he can get. He
double-handedly takes out all the bad guys up the stairs leading to
Lala’s place, electrocuting them and just outright beating them
silly as he climbs to the top. And once he finally gets close enough
to give Lala a thunder-slap beatdown, the cops burst in like they
actually did somethin’ and look at him. And for a second we get
this glimmer of recognition from Inspector Henderson but are unsure
if he knows it’s his buddy or not. Black Lightning makes a clean
escape, leaving Lala to be arrested and taken in on murder charges of
that mother. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Obviously,
Tobias Whale can’t have this. While Black Lightning might not know,
the police do know that Lala is just a small cog in the gang’s
overall dominance. It’s just a matter of time before they pressure
him into a deal where he is going to talk about ways to bring Whale
down. Who is Whale? Whale is the big boss similar to The Kingpin in
Daredevil (at least I thought he was). He is, from what I can tell, a
large albino black man who thinks he’s the coolest brotha alive and
dresses like the pimp-gangster that he is. He runs all the crime in
the city and has too many connections to count. And he wants Lala
dead. Does he get one of the many cops on his payroll to kill him?
No. In a supreme boss-level move, Whale and his right-hand woman go
down to the police station where they are escorted into the building
by a few cops and walk straight into Lala’s holding cell. Whale
then proceeds to do some short but sweet pontificating about the
idiocy of Lala for getting caught before one-hand choking the dude
clean out, killing him with an effortless palm squeeze. At that point
it is not known whether or not Whale has superpowers. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
end the episode with another glimpse of Anissa’s budding
superpowers of her own. While we don’t get the same red flashes of
lightning that we got from the first episode, we do get her being
able to throw a robber clean across a convenient store, then
shrugging it off. And it seems that using her powers makes her
headache go away. Up until this point, they’ve been super sparse
with the details on these powers for both her and her father, but
this may tell us two things: these powers are hereditary, and maybe
they actually do need to be used as some kind of stress reliever. I’m
unsure. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
three starts with the funeral of the slain mother from episode two—or
maybe it's just a wake or something because it's at night and far too
late for a funeral. Jefferson, Lynn and Jennifer all show up to sit
in the pews and listen to this pastor preach on how the mother was
standing up to the gangs and how she didn't deserve what she got. In
a feeble but exasperated attempt to do something, he calls on his
congregation to take a stand against this violence from The 100 and
march with him, something which Jefferson is hardly a fan of.
Jennifer wants to go which ropes in her mother to go as well
(chaperoning). Jefferson and Inspector Henderson try to talk the
reverend out of doing this because they know that it will simply put
good people in harm's way and escalate the violence even further. As
a viewer, you understand both sides. The cops can't seem to do their
job fast enough because they have so much corruption in the force,
but are trying. Meanwhile, though the pastor is criticized for
rocking his thousand dollar watch, he also wants to help, wants this
to stop but truly has grown so frustrated that he's run out of ideas.
In Old School Days, you wanted change you marched. Now...? But he
sees the return of Black Lightning as a harbinger of hope again. He
feels that he and the marchers will be protected by Black and that
his return was a sign from God. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
as the rest of her family sits in the church, Anissa is out in some
dark junkyard trying to train herself to use her powers. In what has
got to be one of the fastest “let's see what I can do as a
superhero” scenes I've ever seen, she beats on an older washer for
a few minutes before getting super frustrated, nearly hurting herself
and then coming to the epiphany that it all has to do with her
breathing. Funny enough, the way this is filmed, I don't actually
know if she was speeding up her breathing or what she was doing, but
it works. When she was hardly able to make a dent on the washer, she
can now kick it clear across the yard. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anissa
seems pretty jazzed about her powers for a while until she comes to a
library and finds herself lost amid the stacks, searching for
research books on mutations and powers and whatnot. There she runs
into this cute Asian chick who is into comics and shows her one of
her books. They flirt a little and I was like, “Hold up, doesn't
she have a girlfriend?” The Asian girl tells her about this costume
party they are having at what appears to be a lesbian bar (or maybe
it was just ladies' night??) where she works and invites her to come
dressed as a superhero or villain herself. Here, we also get our
first reference to one of the other DC superheroes/shows on the CW in
Supergirl. I'll withhold my judgment of that until the critique. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anissa
goes to the club and predictably grinds all over the Asian girl until
her girlfriend suddenly pops up out of nowhere, and I was like, “Huh?
What? Like... huh?” Was she tracking/stalking her? I digress, but
just know that I thought it was kinda weird for her to just show up
and find her. This leads to their break-up and Anissa having to give
back her girlfriend's key. She doesn't hook-up with the Asian chick
but she does sit at the bar and have a drink, so it seems that we
might see this girl again. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">With
the march set for the end of the week, Jefferson and his apparent
tech guru Peter Gambi (yeah, the tailor) have to figure out how to
change the protest route to keep the marchers safe. Can I just say
here that they kept saying “parade route” instead of protest
route and it bugged me and the people I watched this with. Parades
are for celebrating; protests are for when there is little <i>to</i>
celebrate. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway, Gambi also makes some improvements to the suit
which allow Jefferson to shoot a single concentrated beam of
electricity toward a person and not hit bystanders, so he can safely
take out gang members in the crowd. But while that is going on he and
Lynn have bigger fish. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1lZrbeWNLQDzH_SHS0NtIliLBkjC2zJknd1PkJLovDJZTSxrLjYEL4ilZtHP8aZZxdRIEiUMw9VEBZn_eYSbeq7rV_rBKc1j4NVAEiuk1-tkQyKt66fNja671ZC35NSR7mvc_PJRzq2M/s1600/x240-DPb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="427" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1lZrbeWNLQDzH_SHS0NtIliLBkjC2zJknd1PkJLovDJZTSxrLjYEL4ilZtHP8aZZxdRIEiUMw9VEBZn_eYSbeq7rV_rBKc1j4NVAEiuk1-tkQyKt66fNja671ZC35NSR7mvc_PJRzq2M/s400/x240-DPb.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lynn, Jefferson's Ex-Wife</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">That
bigger fish happens to be Jennifer's deflowering. In a super-modern
parent-child relationship, Jennifer tells her parents (and at family
dinner no less, sans Anissa) that she is ready to have sex. Yeah.
Black Rob circa 2000—Like, Whoa! She is very diplomatic and
straightforward with it, too. She and her boyfriend plan on losing
their virginity to each other (yes, he confessed that he was also a
virgin in a rather cute little scene of acceptance) on Saturday,
during the day, at a hotel room they'll be renting. They said she
could always come to them to talk about it when she was ready, and
she actually did that shit. Oh my god! Listen, I always thought I was
a fairly good kid, but even I don't think I would've done this if it
came up at that age. Naturally, Lynn and Jefferson are stunned by her
decision and honesty and just want to make sure that her young self
is having sex with the right person, and from what we've seen of
Khalil (her bf) in the previous episode when he chastised Jennifer
for drinking and being a bad role model for the other girls, he can't
get any more righter at this point in life. This dude first lied
about being experienced in sex, and then went back and told the truth
on his minty-fresh dingaling. Hell, I still know at least five dudes
in my life that swear up and down they made it with Beyonce and ain't
never even been in the same building, let alone the same room with
her. He is literally a younger, lighter version of her father—the
epitome of what young black boys should be. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Still,
being a father, Jefferson must interrogate the boy in as awkward of a
way as possible. While he doesn't threaten him like most dad's might,
he does ask the boy about his personal hygiene to check to make sure
the boy isn't going to infect his daughter with some kind of fungus
or something. It was a very funny but completely ridiculous scene and
will be mentioned in my critique. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">In
an episode that feels like it moves super fast, the march is upon us
in no time. Peter has put up construction signs all through the city
to direct the people into safe areas that Black Lightning keeps watch
over from the rooftop. When a thug hired by Tobias Whale jumps out
with a machine gun to try killing all of the marchers, Black jumps
down and puts up an energy force field to absorb the bullets. He then
shoots the dude down with one of his bolts, along with another gang
member that hid in the crowd. Saved, the group starts to sing Amazing
Grace as the pastor stares at Black as if he was Jesus. From down the
street, Whale and his henchwoman sit in the car talking about how
much he hates churchgoers. Henchwoman takes a shot at Black but
misses, instead hitting the pastor just above his heart. But the
bullet flies through the pastor and ends up in the spine of Khalil—no
loss virginity for Jennifer this weekend. Luckily, both the boy and
the pastor survive, but this has only stoked the lightning more.
Little does he know that he is not only battling against Tobias Whale
but also against another, even bigger boss in Jill Scott's Lady E.
Yes, the singer Jill Scott. What will the future hold? This family
can only stay together to make it through. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What's
my grade? I give it a solid <span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>B</b></span>. Being
black I definitely want to see more minorities succeed, so I try to
judge things as fairly as possible. With that being said, there are a
few flaws in this show and pet peeves of mine, but let's start with
the good. The casting is phenomenal here. I can believe that the two
girls are the daughters of Lynn and Jefferson. Everyone has good
chemistry and there's no level on which I feel that any of the people
don't know or are uncomfortable with their character. Out of all the
late-40s actors that they could've chosen, I think that Cress
Williams was actually a perfect choice for the role, considering the
budget that they have and what they would ask him to do. He fits the
role well both physically and presence-wise and seems like a high
school principal. I also like Tobias Whale, even though he is thinner
than I would expect for someone with the name Whale. I will say that
at some times his acting is a little suspect, however, knowing that
this is a comic book show and that he is supposed to be this
over-the-top gangster allows him some wiggle room. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I
also like the overall positivity of the show and how it displays a
black family (any family, really) where the parents are both
successful, and successful at co-parenting while not together. They
broke up and don't hate each other; in fact, they still love each
other but things are complicated. If you want good images of black
people, this is it. Hell, the youngest girl is the picture of what a
perfect daughter looks like. Yes, she's trying to be a little
rebellious but you even get the strong sense that it is a phase and
that she really just wants to be a good girl. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I
also like how the show confronts the inner-city's issues head-on.
It's not just about crime, it's about being socially conscious of the
community, and what you can do to help it. And finally, I also like
the costumes and the special effects are on par with every other CW
show. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Now,
for some of the bad and ugly, we have to discuss this writing, y'all.
That third episode could be indicative of the people they have in the
writer's room and if it is, God help us. The third episode was a
mess. Everything from the strange conversation between Jefferson and
Khalil, to Anissa's girlfriend randomly catching her in that bar
grinding on that Asian chick, to Anissa magically learning how to use
her powers in a snap, to Whale being able to stop and monologue about
how he hates the protesters while sitting right down the street
within their view. Almost all of it rang false and played false on
the actor's lips. There's a problem with the writing when you have
too many conveniences. They can make the writing overly melodramatic
(some melodrama is fine, but too much and it becomes kitschy) and can
make the audience put aside their disbelief in favor of asking too
many obvious questions with no answer other than “because.” Why
did Anissa's girlfriend know where she was at? Because it's
convenient to the plot. Why did the mother get out of her car and
start waving a camera in Lala's face? Because it's convenient to the
plot. Why is it that the suit tailor happens to also be the tech guy?
Because it's convenient to the plot. Too many of these will frustrate
an audience. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Also,
it feels like there's no backstory here. Other superhero shows on CW
started with some kind of “creation moment” as I call it. It's
that time when the person goes from regular guy/girl to superhero.
Yes, we get a little of that with Jefferson, however the fact that he
was a superhero before and is now returning to that somewhat cheats
the audience. Look, you can do this with other, more popular
characters like Batman or Superman or Marvel's main characters, but I
had no idea who Black Lightning was before this show and three
episodes into the series, I still have little idea of how he became
the superhero in the first place. Yes, they have a full season to
show his story, but they could've fit in a little flash back to his
very first day on the job or what turned him or how he got his
superpowers to let us know that he wasn't always this stand-up
superhero man. Viewers need a good backstory in order to identify
with the hero on a more human level before they exalt them to their
pedestal. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
finally about the writing, how many bosses are there on this damn
show? Because in episode one we see Lala, and I'm like, OK, cool.
Then at the end of that episode we learn that he's working for the
higher-up Tobias Whale. And I'm looking at this spooky,
surly-looking, mean-mugging dude and I'm like, “I like this!” But
then in episode three we see Lady E and I'm like, “Hold on. I like
Jill Scott but what the new hell is this?” Because the way she
spoke (and didn't offer him a seat) made me think she was the big
boss. For starters, do any of them have superpowers or are they
similar to Daredevil's many powerless rogues? And which one is the
biggest one, the crown jewel of the underground? And am I always
gonna meet one boss at a time, and that person is then taken out and
replaced with another bigger boss? I mean, does Lady E have someone
over her? Am I someday gonna see Jill Scott actually fighting in an
action scene against Black? It's both intriguing and exhausting to
think about. I never saw the first seasons of Arrow and because of
that I don't watch it regularly now, but on all the other superhero
shows on the CW there was always one main overarching villain for
that season, and they were helped by other smaller weekly villains.
And usually those villains were smart and/or had some kind of good
twist to them.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Here,
it's very different. There is no clearly defined main villain. He's
just battling street punks, which is fine but can get repetitive if
the stakes don't feel like they are steadily increasing on a weekly
basis. I've already seen Black take out dudes with guns three times
now. When will I see him take out dudes with something else, or truly
see him actually be challenged on a physical level? With him already
knowing his powers as opposed to bumbling through a learning process,
and with every villain he beats being some dude with an illegal gun,
there's almost no tension in his fights. He's Superman against
non-Luthor humans. Basically, all of his villains so far have been
red-shirt Trekkers (Trekkies are the fans, Trekkers are the actual
characters) that are easily thrown away. And we keep hearing about
how Whale thinks he killed Black himself a long time ago, but how? We
haven't even seen a cool weapon that would match Black's powers and
truly put him dire straits. He just wins all the time. And that can
get boring, even if we are supposed to consider him an aged superhero
who knows what he's doing.</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Then
there's the soundtrack. OK, so this is a pet peeve that will sound
rather off-putting, especially to some younger black people but I
have to be real when I say that I actually don't like all the Hip-Hop
in the show. I know, that sounds super crazy because I do like Hip-Hop and can be found listening to some Drake or Kendrick Lamar when driving. And I know that supporting rap or
R&B, which is predominantly black-created music, is exactly what
we should want from a show like this, however I don't like it for a
few reasons. First, I kinda hate when black movies and/or shows do
this: assume that all black people like or want to hear rap, R&B
or Jazz all the time. This is partially why you look at a lot of
black films either from the past or current ones and will see
soundtracks filled with the latest hot rappers that are often rapping
about nothing. Or you will get the occasional theme song filled with
weak lyrics from a black rapper that you don't know and couldn't
recognize in a sea of white people. For some reason blacks always
seem to do this, save for the times when there is extreme oversight.
We did this on an almost continual basis in the 90s with everything
from superhero movies to just about any black-made movie that came
out. Unless it had high studio hopes, it got a soundtrack filled
mostly with Hip-Hop, which, at the time, was often superior than what
we hear today. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
I've said multiple times on this blog (usually in posts about movies)
a soundtrack and overall sound of a movie or TV show can play huge
into how well it is received and can even affect it's quality, either
enhancing it or degrading it. The subtle tones followed by thumping
beat of The Dark Knight soundtrack blended so perfectly with every
scene that it helped to raise the tension throughout the entire film.
Go and re-watch that police station interrogation scene starting with
Gordon and then having Batman come in to beat on Joker. The music
adds to the conversation, ratcheting up the insanity of Joker AND the
intensity of Batman. Even in the movie Get Out which, thankfully,
doesn't suffer from this trend, we hear one really good R&B song
at the beginning (Redbone by Childish Gambino) which fits with the
overall tone of the film both philosophically and music-wise. The
song is slow-building just as is that song, both possessing a
haunting quality to them. They pair well and each one feeds well off
the other. Hip-hop often does not pair well. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">With
Rap or any form of Hip-hop, what we usually get is some form of a
dance when the music is played. Often used in fight scenes, the
repetitive nature of the beat (or just about any radio-commerical
song) doesn't lend itself well to any climax in the fight. All
cinematic fights need to steadily crescendo up but here? Eh! They
don't crescendo, making them cool but far less effective to the arc
of the hero. If it doesn't seem like the hero is ever really
overcoming something while defeating his enemies, the music is
partially to blame. The non-orchestral music makes it feel like every
fight he gets into is just a warm-up/workout and that we haven't seen
him actually challenged or tested in any capacity, which lowers the
stakes. Often, the only good times to use Hip-Hop in a fight (or any
radio-commercial songs) are to make a comical point. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
second reason why I could do with less Hip-Hop is because I want the
identifiable orchestral music. We all grew up knowing the themes to
the original Superman, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, James Bond and a
gamut of other films and TV shows. One of my gripes with the new
Dynasty was that for the first two episodes they ditched the original
music in favor of that pre-loaded synth-drum beat. Now they have a
rushed, party-like version of the original music that strips away the
grandeur of the original orchestration, which exuded wealth—the
main thrust of the show. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Here,
what do we get? There's a bevy of songs both old and new, both
secular and religious coming at you every week, but none of them
stick around for a second episode. And the theme song is barely
understandable save for the last few words, “... Black Lightning's
back!” Unlike the rest of the superhero shows on TV, it doesn't
feel heroic. When you think theme song for a superhero, you want
something that will either cause you to want to, or where you can
think of the superhero themselves, stand “Supermanning” in a
posed position of triumph. (For those unaware, the term Supermanning
means standing in a position with your fists on your hips and your
chest poked out and proud like you've just accomplished something,
like Superman was always seen doing in the early comics). This music
elicits none of that imagery. It feels like they went with what they
thought would be the coolest thing to do, but sometimes, especially
concerning superheroes, it's better to do what you think will be
legendary than it is to do what will be “cool for the moment.”
This theme song is not legendary and, in fact, feels almost like a
placeholder for something better to come in the future. I would just
like to see more orchestral music than this, but I know that there
are going to be plenty of people who like the music as is, especially
the younger crowd. But it's not like black people don't create
orchestral music, too. Still, I like the show. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? Yes. If you are looking for a family show and/or are
looking to add to the many comic-based shows you inhale, then I think
that Black Lightning is different enough for you to like it and enjoy
it as a family. I haven't seen the Luke Cage show so I can't compare
the two, though I read some reviewer say that Cage's show was darker.
Black Lightning fits perfectly with the rest of the CW shows. The one
big question is: Will this show somehow fit into the wider DC TV
universe and unite with the other superheroes on the CW? As yet, I
don't think a decision has been made about it, but that Supergirl
reference was enough to wet the appetites of CW viewers I'm sure, and
it is from the same producers. If they do decide to cross in the
future (remember, Supergirl wasn't originally part of The Flash and
Arrow's universe) then it would be interesting to see in which world
this would be set. With the other shows having established that there
is a multiverse of 52 worlds, this show could very well take place
either on Supergirl's world, Flash/Arrow/Legends world, or some other
world we have yet to explore. Ooo, what if it took place on Earth-2
(or maybe it's three now) which Cisco and Barry visited in season two
I think where their current HG is from (not Supergirl's world)? I
think the possibilities are grand. Anyway, diverse superheroes are
back in a big way. Support and we could see more. Black Lightning
airs on CW Tuesdays at 9pm EST. Catch up on the first three episodes
at CWTV.com. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of Black Lightning (not to be confused
with Black Panther the movie)? If you haven't, do you think you'll
tune in now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Did you like
it? Was I being too harsh on it or too soft? If you haven't read the
comic, how do you think Jefferson got his powers? Who is Peter
really? When will Jefferson learn of Anissa's powers? And do you
think Jennifer has powers too? Let me know in the comments below.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “We didn't land on
Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us!”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
To the people of power, stand strong. Happy Black History Month! I'll
think of a better sign-off next time.</span></span></span></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-17146666316993476942018-02-04T12:27:00.002-08:002018-02-04T12:27:27.269-08:00Is It The World Or Just Medicine That’s Apparently Filled With Assholes? #TheResident #3weekroundup #recap #review #FOX<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Is
It The World Or Just Medicine That’s Apparently Filled With
Assholes? #TheResident #3weekroundup #recap #review #FOX</b> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8ycQtCHWGYlvo-C1LkbdxCE-l4d4lU7R2ETZ-zYwiTSlSdM9v6jcIExgJ-_LgNmF1wBibPa5ForWjxJB-YDTItxw78Zvo2kVCD_DOXUT4aW-_v-mam06_iXeoKMBt9XLOH4hW2oUjQZE/s1600/DP_t5PAUIAAH-oE-2+%255Bwww.imagesplitter.net%255D.jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="726" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8ycQtCHWGYlvo-C1LkbdxCE-l4d4lU7R2ETZ-zYwiTSlSdM9v6jcIExgJ-_LgNmF1wBibPa5ForWjxJB-YDTItxw78Zvo2kVCD_DOXUT4aW-_v-mam06_iXeoKMBt9XLOH4hW2oUjQZE/s640/DP_t5PAUIAAH-oE-2+%255Bwww.imagesplitter.net%255D.jpeg.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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All pictures courtesy of FOX</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">FOX
is batting three for 1000 this mid-season with the bad shows. First
you have 9-1-1, which, while good, is far from the award-winning
material that you would expect when reading some of the names in the
cast (Connie Britton and Angela Bassett deserve better). Then you
have the dreadful The Four: Battle for Stardom, which, thankfully,
will be put out to pasture in a few short weeks—how can you make a
show about stardom-hungry performers going head-to-head in singing
battles so boring? Now you have this crap? Really? Oh crap! I’m
burying the lede. I’m sorry, uh... So, is The Resident good enough
to stay around and become a chief of some kinda... medical...
department, or is this the wrong diagnose for FOX’s viewing
schedule? God, that was terrible! I’m so pissed right now!! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">FOX’s
new mid-season show The Resident (#TheResident) follows the lives and
sufferings of the staff at Chastain Medical Center. We open with a
scene that sets the tone for the entire show and made me question why
I (or anyone) even watches a medical show in the first place. Our
opening takes place in a surgical room with a guy laying on the table
to have a simple appendectomy before it completely ruptures. Here, we
meet our first main player, Dr. Randolph Bell (note: I assume he’s
one of the main players because he’s been on every episode so far
and has had a lot of speaking and character development time, however
IMDb lists him as only appearing in 4 out of 10 episodes). Dr. Bell,
played by veteran actor Bruce Greenwood, is the aging chief of
surgery that every patient loves and the hospital dotes on. People
come from near and far to be operated on by him. Later in the episode
they literally make a Grey’s Anatomy reference about how he’s the
real-life Dr. McDreamy. As another aside, here I was reminded of what
some song critic said about an old Omarion song IceBox when he
remixed it and had Usher feature on the track. He said something to
the effect of never let someone who’s clearly far better than you
appear on your song. Dear The Resident, never reference a superior
show in your same genre unless you really think you can compete with
them. The viewers will just get pissed off and end up wondering why
they aren’t just watching re-runs of that show rather than yours. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Hella-long
aside but someone had to say it. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway,
Dr. Bell is really good, or at least he was at one point. Now, he’s
secretly suffering through what looks like an early form of
Parkinson’s. In what has got to be one of the worst, cheapest “I
totally understand Millennials and even the most well-trained
doctor-Millennials would do this” piece of garbage writing, during
surgery the rest of the young surgical team (excluding an older
nurse) stops to take a selfie because it is one surgeon's first
surgery. Yes. That actually happened. It was a real scene. In this
show. Not only was it a real scene but it was the opening scene. Of
the series. Keep this scene in mind for later because when I tell you
about all the other things that happen in these three episodes, you
can refer back to this scene and see why I make the conclusion I do. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">While
everyone else is stopped to do the selfie and hold up the peace sign
as they pose in front of a splayed stomach of a HUMAN BEING, Dr. Bell
gets the shakes and accidentally slices through an artery. The team
rushes to save him as one of the nurses yells something about
pinching the artery, and the patient dies. They all gang-up on the
doctor for killing the guy in a routine procedure, but he turns the
tables on one of the other doctors and says that he “covered” for
him on another accidental death during surgery and that if he goes
down, the whole team does. The dude blackmails the team into covering
up a medical malpractice. I was floored, and not in a good way. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigYnurwxMRdccSoijrgLBEn_XJ20aaFYhPMki4txeQ_GVSmA8T6Yc5DRF6RzIZr6eZo5VxLXD4hIVMvaMln9uU21HufNLMVuByaPzTjSIrpwmVrbRPDaRV_blueGbJ9tND8QiJuSUGGRg/s1600/The-Resident-New-Fox-TV-Series-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1286" data-original-width="1100" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigYnurwxMRdccSoijrgLBEn_XJ20aaFYhPMki4txeQ_GVSmA8T6Yc5DRF6RzIZr6eZo5VxLXD4hIVMvaMln9uU21HufNLMVuByaPzTjSIrpwmVrbRPDaRV_blueGbJ9tND8QiJuSUGGRg/s320/The-Resident-New-Fox-TV-Series-4.jpg" width="273" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">That
was the prelude surgery. We open in earnest with our two main
characters. First we have Dr. Devon Pravesh, a young, newly Harvard
Med-graduated doctor of Indian descent. Think of him as our Noah Wyle
from ER (another show that was better than this). Fresh to his
internship, he is ready to learn as much as he can and try to apply
whatever he learned at Harvard to the real world. He is paired with
who I’m assuming is our titular character in Dr. Conrad Hawkins. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Dr.
Conrad Hawkins is a dick. I was gonna give some deep description of
his look and whatnot, but eh! You know that one really annoying guy
at your work who really is quite good at his job, but has few people
skills and thinks he knows everything? Yeah, just picture him but
white (if the guy at work isn’t). Conrad is supposed to be the
semi-young Gen Xer who looks down upon everybody around him because
they have an inferior intellect, yet really has a heart of gold
because he actually saves patients and OH MY GOD! We’ve all seen
this stupid show before, except on that one Conrad was an older,
surly bloke who walked with a cane and called himself House. Anyway,
ladies (and some fellas) if you aren’t convinced that he is a dick,
after his intro scene where he is shown doing something
stick-it-to-the-man-good, we are officially introduced to him when
Pravesh meets him, and Conrad asks the very engaged Indian doctor
what color he likes, referring to women. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Look,
if you read this blog with any bit of frequency, you’ll know that I
have said some pretty sexist, pretty politically incorrect things in
my time but this bit of dialogue and character building felt
pointless. Not only that but it later half-confuses the
characterization of Conrad. In writing, they generally teach you to
try building character through action and dialogue rather than just
saying that the character is this or that. Ex: Sewn into the lining
of Carl’s jacket was his most prized possession, the Terrible
Towel. OK, that’s not a very good example, but do you see how I use
a well-known item of memorabilia to tell you something about Carl
rather than just saying it flat? Now you not only know that Carl is a
football fan but that his favorite team is the Pittsburgh Steelers.
So, it only seems natural for you to assume that this doctor who is
gawking at a grouping of women through a thin glass like they are
cuts of meat is probably a womanizer or at least a surgeon. Conrad is
not a surgeon and he apparently is or was a playboy maybe? It’s
uncertain. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">At
this point, let me stop and point out how I often only go on such
long tangents and sink into this weird “I know things about
writing” mode when I dislike something. Please bear with me. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
to the show, Conrad gives Pravesh the rundown about how he is his
boss from now on, how Pravesh may have just graduated from med
school, but he really knows nothing, about how he can end the kid’s
career if Pravesh ever talks back to him or questions his judgment
because he’s always right (he actually said those words. I couldn’t
believe it), and how he’s pretty much like god around there. At
this point I stopped to ask myself, “Self, if this hospital is
supposedly so good and Conrad is such an amazing doctor, then why
doesn’t he have a gaggle of other doctors following him around too?
Shouldn’t he have more than just Pravesh to oversee?” Myself
didn’t have the answer to that question. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Conrad
and Pravesh go to what will be Pravesh’s first patient interaction,
a guy with some kind of disease that could eventually lead to
lower-leg paralysis. After the back and forth “intern, what do we
do” exchange, and Pravesh wanting to perform some expensive test,
Conrad told him to stick a finger up the guy’s butt which will tell
him if his anus is tight enough. If not, then paralysis is already
beginning. Conrad takes the opportunity to make another crude sex
reference before leaving and finding one of the nurses. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Nurse
Nicolette Nevin (played by the lovely Emily VanCamp) is Conr</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">ad’s ex
who he still wants. While it’s not explicit on the first episode,
it’s implied through some careful spying on her Tinder-like account
that he might have cheated and/or been too afraid to fully commit,
not to mention childish. He displays his childishness by yanking her
into an on-call room and trying to Christian Grey her in the middle
of the day. I’m quite shocked that this scene wasn’t changed
considering the atmosphere currently involving sexual
assaults/harassment because it’s clearly both. However, that’s
not what pissed me off about this scene. What pissed me off was how
it so blatantly and easily fueled the fire with ammo for feminists on
men’s behavior. It felt like it was written by a woman who hates
men and who sees them all as sex-hungry monsters with no tact, which
is overall what’s wrong with the character. Conrad, so far, has
never tried to be a decent human being. A great doctor? So-so. But
just human, someone who understands the most base rules of etiquette
or decency? No. And the scene rings false, too. So even after he
tells her that he will do anything to get her back, and she leaves
him with his pants around his ankles and inside a locked (from the
outside?) room, you don’t feel that sorta, “Yeah, you go girl!
Show that ass-hat what’s what!” feeling that I think the writers
wanted you to feel. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Somehow
Conrad gets out of the room and Pravesh finds him after having
checked the guy’s butt (note: I don’t remember them talking about
the dude’s butt again after that). Right in front of them an addict
is brought in with some kind of injury and struggles against all the
doctors because she doesn’t want to be treated and is in denial
about her addiction. Conrad looks at one thing on her hand and
immediately IDs her ailment and tells her that she’ll be dead by
tomorrow if she doesn’t allow them to treat her. Time never being
on time itself, that tomorrow thing comes immediately, and she
collapses to the floor. Conrad then says that Pravesh will take lead
on this girl and that it is his call on what they should do about
her. Pravesh performs CPR for 26 minutes even after Conrad tells him
to stop. Her heartbeat finally returns but Conrad tells him that her
brain’s been starved of oxygen for too long and that she’s
brain-dead now and that Pravesh broke the first rule. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
we are introduced to another surgeon, Dr. Mina Okafor, a black woman
from Nigeria. Not only is she a pretty good surgeon she is also the
hospital’s leading surgical robotics expert. She is set to perform
the hospital’s first surgery using a machine to make every incision
and whatnot. She is shown to lack any sort of personal skills and is
solely there to perform surgeries and become the world’s top
surgeon, I guess. Frankly, little is known about her for the first
two episodes save for that she is black, tall, from Africa, rather
rude, single and is having visa problems. That last thing about her
is used by Dr. Bell to blackmail her into letting him do the surgery
that she’s been training months to do. He’s never operated the
robotics, still can’t hold his hands steady with the robotic
interface on his fingers, and can’t even cut into an apple with the
robot, let alone a person, yet he wants to do the surgery on the
hospital’s biggest donor. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Now,
ready for the kicker? Though newbie Pravesh idolizes Dr. Bell, almost
everyone in the hospital knows that the old guy is unhealthy and that
he keeps killing patients. A few other doctors know, all the nurses
do and most of the other surgical crews do as well, yet he keeps
doing surgeries. And nobody reports him for malpractice or violation
of the Hippocratic oath or violation of hospital guidelines or
something! My mind has never been more boggled. And worse, Conrad
comes face-to-face with him multiple times and asks him when he’s
going to give it up and stop trying to operate on people and the dude
is just like, “I still got it.” And it’s half-baffling because
you don’t know if these interactions were written on some kind of
artistic level or if the writers were completely unaware, because
from any outside viewer with a decent understanding of what’s going
on in the episode, you can see that Bell is basically Conrad in 20 or
30 years. They’re both the same amount of arrogant, narcissistic
and egotistic. But worst of all is that near the end of the episode
you learn that they’re also the same amount of corrupt. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM80TYwPPcrWRnmKclmI3GeYrZc5j1vE5fk39PiJE_ptENc32hRAbH8uKKLkOVozFAG94GrrRGVEkMR-lktbC_iEhgB0lJ55qZKiCgIgblCOoX_7evGr-qjS3PQUIUHEkGmZvgpKMnZNM/s1600/180122-the-resident-bruce-greenwood-matt-czuchry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="262" data-original-width="350" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM80TYwPPcrWRnmKclmI3GeYrZc5j1vE5fk39PiJE_ptENc32hRAbH8uKKLkOVozFAG94GrrRGVEkMR-lktbC_iEhgB0lJ55qZKiCgIgblCOoX_7evGr-qjS3PQUIUHEkGmZvgpKMnZNM/s320/180122-the-resident-bruce-greenwood-matt-czuchry.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left to right: Dr. Bell, Dr. Conrad</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">After
Bell blackmails Dr. Okafor into a genius plan of operating the robot
during the surgery while he sits up front (the surgery is recorded
and broadcast worldwide) and mimes the movements to take credit for
her work, Conrad sneaks off to the brain-dead girl’s room, closes
the door and the blinds and turns off her machine on the sneak.
Luckily, Nurse Nevin comes in and catches him, guilt-staring him into
turning the machine back on and quietly leaving. Dude was about to
<i>Million Dollar Baby</i> the girl without any forethought to organ
donation or something like that. And I really sat there like, “What?”
He seems more like an idiot than a compassionate person trying to
save the family weeks, months or years of agony thinking she might
wake up. You wanna take a guess at what the next episode involves? </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
two starts with three people all going down in a medical emergency
that will unite them all with the brain-dead girl. While at career
day for a local high school speaking to the class of one of his
patients, Conrad helps to save the life of his teacher-patient by
recognizing the signs of heart failure. Across town, Dr. Bell and
another lead doctor in the hospital Dr. Lane Hunter are out on a
hunting excursion with a congressman and a lobbyist. The Congressman
has a heart attack and errantly fires his gun, filling the lobbyist’s
ass with buckshot. You know what happens next? </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Yep,
you guessed it: both the congressman and the young teacher need a
heart transplant. At first they only have one new heart that is on
the way from another donor and because the teacher is on the top of
the list, it’s scheduled to go to him. However, because the
congressman is a VIP, Dr. Bell does some shady stuff and un-allocates
the heart for the teacher (he’s black, by the way) in order to give
it to the old, white congressman. Antoine Fuqua is one of the
producers of this show. I can’t believe that he or somebody didn’t
see this or read the script, or stop to think about the casting and
say, “Wait a minute, something’s not right about this.” But
nope! Nobody saw the blatant racism in episode one; nobody saw the
blatant racism in episode two. And no I’m not talking about the Dr.
Okafor thing from episode one. I’m trying to save my critiques
for... you know, the critique, but it’s just so stupid to set up
these kinds of easily identifiable racial plot-points and not
actually make a statement about race that I have to call it out a
little right now. I digress. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">After
a ton of back and forth about whom the heart belongs to, Conrad
tampers with the DNA/viability tests that determine if the heart
would <i>take</i> in the old congressman. This forces the head of
surgery to finally concede and go talk to the mom of the brain-dead
girl and convince her to donate her daughter’s organs. Both men get
saved. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
Conrad sends Pravesh out on his own on what he’s deemed
“Independence Day.” He will have no other doctor to help him with
anything but can turn to nurses for stuff. Now, I don’t want to
compare this to Grey’s Anatomy but since this show did bring that
show up, isn’t it customary for the new interns to follow their
lead resident for at least a couple weeks before going out on their
own even for basic chart work-ups? There is literally nothing in this
episode that makes us think this is even two days after episode one.
I swear it’s the next day. In any case, Pravesh has to do all the
charting and sign-out work for the other doctors. He also has to
visit a few patients and deal with the pesky task of learning.
There’s a scene where he is in the room with Dr. Bell and a patient
can't breathe so Conrad comes and dumps a bucket of ice on her to
stop her from crashing, and Pravesh also fonds over the female doctor
that was on the hunting excursion. He then notices that something is
happening with the lobbyist who took the buckshot and runs the guy up
to surgery when the nurses and another doctor told him that he
should've paged Conrad and that they could’ve taken care of
whatever was happening with a much more simple procedure. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">In
the end, Pravesh and the rest of the doctors (not Bell) end up in a
bar like Grey’s Anatomy, where he stands up to Conrad and tells him
that this spoiled white boy really doesn’t know everything and that
he made the right call about the lobbyist and that if Conrad wants to
end his career he can, but he was right. Conrad, in turn,
congratulates him on passing Independence Day because he wanted him
to realize that no doctor is always right, which felt kind of like a
false-flag victory because the dude is Harvard trained. I think he
has the sense enough to figure out that no human is ever always right
about something. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoGIcNSSw4G_Fc7nGj6kpyRzBUqt4aHFYrDmfmI_kh_T0ruoUHq9QQng_6vkVbgGgqXCMGkEof784j8d9Nbv9D_t5RBJsPfCoAdzjENAFJ_ajZIhnTWu5gtGVJfWy_QYpITK4uDdKJCnY/s1600/JKGVPYRNDRHVJJQRUKA7SHY4QE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="1400" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoGIcNSSw4G_Fc7nGj6kpyRzBUqt4aHFYrDmfmI_kh_T0ruoUHq9QQng_6vkVbgGgqXCMGkEof784j8d9Nbv9D_t5RBJsPfCoAdzjENAFJ_ajZIhnTWu5gtGVJfWy_QYpITK4uDdKJCnY/s320/JKGVPYRNDRHVJJQRUKA7SHY4QE.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Okafor</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Oh
and there’s also this completely perfunctory scene that,
unfortunately, cemented my original idea that this series was written
by a male-hating woman who clearly doesn’t even care to entertain
notions that the male mind or social norms could both be slightly
different than she expects. Case in point: The male nurse who works
to remove the buckshot from the lobbyist sits at the bar and tells a
woman that he is on-call and that he works at the hospital across the
street, and she assumes he’s a doctor and moves closer to him.
Meanwhile, Dr. Okafor, the tall, short-haired Nigerian woman sits at
the same bar and is approached by a black man who sits and smiles and
asks her what she does. When she says she works at the hospital, he
assumes she’s a nurse. She corrects him and says that she’s a
doctor actually. He then, in the most ludicrous way possible, stares
at her and quietly slips off the seat and away into the crowd.
A-tee-hee! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I’m
sorry but this was the funniest thing. First off, I get that they are
ever-so briefly touching on social attitudes about gender and what’s
assumed here. It’s not that the guy is mistaken for a doctor and
the girl for a nurse that is funny. What’s funny is both how this
scene is acted and this recurring notion among professional women of
all races (black women especially) that men are too afraid or
intimidated by their success, which is why they are single. It’s
not that serious. And if you are going to keep thinking this then you
will remain single. The gender love gap is far more complex than
that. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">First off, they’re in a bar. You seriously think this dude is
looking for a wife or even a relationship in a bar? No. Most men are
looking to pick up some woman, so they can get laid. This is how you
can tell that the scene was most likely written by a woman, just like
you can often tell when female sex scenes are written by men, because
they think differently about the situation. A woman is already
thinking long-term about how her success will intimidate a man away
when you just met. The guy is not. The guy is just thinking about how
hot she is and how quickly he can get her to put out. Might be a sad
commentary on things but it’s true. There’s no way he’s gonna
care about your career or what you do the first time he meets you,
especially if it’s not an ACTUAL date. Most men are like those four
kids from Stand By Me, they only care about DAT BODY! So thinking
that a man is gonna slip away just because you’re a successful
doctor (actually, he doesn't even know if she's a successful doctor
or not and doesn't even know she's a surgeon), and not because he
maybe saw some other more attractive woman down the bar, is slightly
self-fulfilling-prophecy-ish. But I digress. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
three starts with Conrad in a bike race with another doctor. He does
some nice BMX jump to show how cool and fearless he is and wins by a
hair over the other doctor. As soon as the race ends, some drunk guy
(horrible acting) steps into the spokes of a bike on the ground and
snaps his leg. They take him to Chastain where Conrad and Pravesh,
along with all the other doctors must sit through a presentation on
the billing practices. Basically, they're showing more corruption
because they are trying to figure out ways to charge patients more
for simple things like irrigating ear infections. Naturally, Conrad
bails. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">While
the pay thing is going on, one of the women who subcontracts with
Chastain and helps to exercise long-term patients experiences some
back pain that turns into something serious when she drops to the
floor. The billing specialist doesn't want to treat her because she
doesn't have insurance and can't pay for the expense that the
hospital will incur. It turns out she's an illegal immigrant with a
huge tumor that's killing her, but the billing specialist doesn't
care. Even worse, she was brought here as a child and has no more
family here, so she can't be released into her own care by law. She
is, essentially, a ward of the hospital, and, regardless of what they
do, they aren't getting out of the situation without an expense of at
least half a million. So the CEO of the hospital then engages in a
bidding sale to try to pawn the girl off onto some other hospital for
a fee. They're trading the girl for cash considerations. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx1jU6QlK4JvOrk1Mi2hrvQ6IdbfoG9JkHtzxDbvUxllUtfYWbLf-b8HRw11I7ZfFcYWPP-msymyDeEMxp8D8M3Y7JcOgJjTwiFEBn8UrzFT8azrC501zn5YGwWa3P3CaUmC_CQzF8VUM/s1600/TheResident-Fox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="1100" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx1jU6QlK4JvOrk1Mi2hrvQ6IdbfoG9JkHtzxDbvUxllUtfYWbLf-b8HRw11I7ZfFcYWPP-msymyDeEMxp8D8M3Y7JcOgJjTwiFEBn8UrzFT8azrC501zn5YGwWa3P3CaUmC_CQzF8VUM/s320/TheResident-Fox.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left to Right: Dr. Pravesh, Immigrant, Nurse Nevin</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
then somebody calls immigration. Before the men in ICE jackets get to
her Conrad the black doctor and their minions send her into surgery
with Conrad's other doctor surgeon buddy. And the operation goes
well, which means that she will be their patient for a little while
longer but as soon as she can walk they will kick her out because she
becomes someone else's problem then. Dr. Bell even tries to make her
walk the moment she gets out of surgery and I sat there wondering how
ridiculous this show could get. Nurse Nevin even has to stick it to
the billing specialist when she discovers that the woman has ordered
an expensive MRI for a patient who doesn't need it without checking
his history. MRI's are magnetic and will rip out anything metallic.
He happens to have a metal penis implant. Yet another bit of
close-call malpractice in a hospital rife with it. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
far as the broken leg guy, his liver is failing, and he needs to stop
drinking but can't. Oh, and Conrad was in the Marines at one point
making him a poor man's TC from <i>The Night Shift</i>. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What’s
my grade? I give it a <span style="color: #cc0000;">D+</span>. Yes, the plus
is for the diverse cast. Other than that, you would be hard-pressed
to find something worth a single damn in this show. It’s funny
because it’s actually rare that I give not one but two super-low
ratings to new shows in a single season, let alone in a single week,
yet here we are. And for them to both be on the same network is
astounding. It’s funny how I started this 2017-18 viewing season
back in September/October thinking/writing, “Gosh, there are really
not that many new shows premiering this year for the networks, at
least not full-season orders.” If this show is an example of what
they were offered, I can see why. And it’s also crazy how everyone
calls out either ABC or NBC for constantly having new shows because
they have to cancel so much stuff. At least they actually try to make
good and/or innovative and creative programming. FOX decided not to
do something creative this year, but instead went with watered-down
carbon copies of other things that are hits. Between this show, The
Orville and The Gifted (which started good but became like every
other X-men film you’ve ever seen, save for <i>Logan</i> and
<i>Deadpool</i>), we’ve gotten stuff that reminds us of other, much
better stuff. Where do I thoroughly begin? </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Before
I rip into this show, I cannot stop and stress enough how much I hate
critiquing other people’s work even when it’s good. As a creative
myself it always makes me queasy. And distance-critiquing is the
worst because you know that you are too far away to effect anything
which makes it feel like you’re old-man-shouting obscenities at the
kids on your neighbor’s lawn. “Like, Old Man, we’re not even on
your lawn. Chill!” Just know that this is going to be very painful
for all parties involved. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWsZqTX7l2rzpqOt2_A_ZrwrOkzojT8iiqb3fsA_2yjOwHBJrdwjWyyKWycDiIyFD2b-QWkZp8xYuJQQELtlwZxZ1hI0uetawZMB_Twxd_3ve_6YxhxQFNv-jFSqm1AUuC5m9Urgp-VBs/s1600/the-resident-vancamp-czuchry-dayal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWsZqTX7l2rzpqOt2_A_ZrwrOkzojT8iiqb3fsA_2yjOwHBJrdwjWyyKWycDiIyFD2b-QWkZp8xYuJQQELtlwZxZ1hI0uetawZMB_Twxd_3ve_6YxhxQFNv-jFSqm1AUuC5m9Urgp-VBs/s320/the-resident-vancamp-czuchry-dayal.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Like House But Without House And Kal Penn's Character Alive</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">To
say that The Resident is a ripoff of House, MD does a disservice to
all the other medical shows it rips off. Now, before you start
jumping on me about how medical shows are a genre to themselves and
how there will of course be overlap and similarities, let me take you
through the odyssey of good/decent versus lazy shows. For those
people who were there in the beginning, Grey’s Anatomy, when it
first came out, was so good, so new, so different from the reigning
medical show at the time (ER), that it literally (in concert with
Desperate Housewives) helped to change the language and flow of all
of ABC’s shows going forward. It became somewhat of a cultural
phenomenon, so much so that to this day people are still referencing
the McDreamy, McSteamy thing. Hell, this very show did it! Not only
that but it melded music from up-and-coming artists into what often
became the most heartfelt moments of the show. Would The Fray have
been as big without Grey’s Anatomy pumping their single “How To
Save A Life?” Maybe. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
can jump off Grey’s and over to other medical shows in recent
years. To try to be different from Grey’s, they all went with some
kind of hook that either drew us in on an emotional level or made us
sit at the edge of our seats. Private Practice had a different feel
than Grey’s while still fitting into that universe. The Night Shift
was a hospital populated by soldier-doctors dealing with all sorts of
PTSD, US disillusionment, etc. Code Black followed a hospital under
severe stress from running out of supplies. Pure Genius tried to
bring super-tech into medicine. Red Band Society tried to show what
it was like to be a sick kid living in a hospital. Even The Good
Doctor has a unique twist with our main character having autism. The
only one that didn’t have a huge twist was Chicago Med, which
survives because it is part of a much larger shared universe with the
entire Chicago franchise on NBC. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
Resident does not have a draw or catch, at least not a good one. From
what I can see, and this will take us back to the beginning of this
post about how I had to think about why we watch medical dramas, this
show is about corruption in the field of medicine. Our main character
has a surgeon’s-like god complex and so does the actual surgeon.
Both of them have already proven in the first three episodes that
they will stop at almost nothing not to do what’s right but to do
what best feeds their ego. If that means breaking the law,
blackmailing someone, or just flat-out committing malpractices, so be
it. What’s worse is that there is an emotional dissonance about
this whole thing. Whereas House seemed like he really did care and
was an overworked, beleaguered genius who was essentially always mad
because he could never master the art of being human, Conrad doesn’t
seem to show any of that. For House his gift was his curse. Conrad
doesn't seem compelled to help people. Yes, the hot nurse he used to
sleep with tells Pravesh that he totally has a heart of gold and is
the guy you go to if you “want your engine fixed” but there’s
something so intrinsically oily about him that it’s hard to see
past his bad behavior. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmsX1Gc1wNaSrRE6ITiTZnwOPaGqAfMj-uYmQnkoaXSY7EM0wLrsZex6rGktFUzCT7RMsTC0i7IdgEkCniQoaQRIb7x7w0L_Rz60jIEG7o17h0XUhanSMgv_82sSvZEiowX3o2xhFOCTE/s1600/https___blogs-images.forbes.com_merrillbarr_files_2018_01_TR-S1_pilot-sc11-ED_0114_hires1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="868" data-original-width="1280" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmsX1Gc1wNaSrRE6ITiTZnwOPaGqAfMj-uYmQnkoaXSY7EM0wLrsZex6rGktFUzCT7RMsTC0i7IdgEkCniQoaQRIb7x7w0L_Rz60jIEG7o17h0XUhanSMgv_82sSvZEiowX3o2xhFOCTE/s320/https___blogs-images.forbes.com_merrillbarr_files_2018_01_TR-S1_pilot-sc11-ED_0114_hires1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yeah, I used this pic twice, in ode to this recycled show </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Also,
the supposed genius of him feels lost when, on Pravesh’s first
case, the girl goes brain-dead and he just seems completely pissed
about it. Yes, Conrad told Pravesh to stop and he wouldn’t, but he
also told him that the case was his. And in the end, when the girl’s
organs were needed for harvesting, I kinda felt, “Well, wait a
minute so Pravesh technically did the right thing twice and both
times Conrad told him he was doing wrong? What?” I know every
single thing doesn’t have to be written in one episode and you need
to give the characters time to build and whatnot, but it truly felt
like Conrad didn’t even conceive of the possibility that the girl’s
organs could be harvested. He was willing to turn off the machine and
let her die and risk having some of her organs sour in a corpse. Who
knows how often they would come in to check on the girl? Whatever. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
the third episode, to me, was morally washed out by the actions taken
by nearly everyone on the first two episodes. They try to build this
narrative that our titular character and his minions are the rebels
against the corporate health machine, yet took no time to truly build
the ground on which their moral superiority could stand. Between Bell
willfully killing patients, Okafor being just as robotic as the tools
she uses in surgery, and Conrad also being willing to kill, lie or
cheat to get his way, why should I root for any of them to get their
way over the wishes of the hospital? Do they really care or are they
all just on a spiraling ego trip to the bottom? Right now I'd vote
for the latter. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Then
there is the overt racism, sexism, misogyny and misandry that has
been written into the DNA of each character. Both Conrad and Dr. Bell
are the literal epitome of white boy privilege. White male Trump
voters, if you’re still wondering why or can’t see why so many
minority groups dislike you and think that things are unfairly
advantaged toward you, watch the first three episodes of this show,
because this is why. The older, white male Dr. Bell who is known to
be killing patients because he’s unfit to be a surgeon, gets to
keep doing it for however long he’s been doing it because... well,
because he’s white and has a good reputation. A reputation, mind
you, which is filled with lies manufactured by him. There’s no
oversight for this dude, nobody checking behind him, except for
people that rank beneath him in the hospital. Meanwhile, Conrad gets
to be as mean, conniving, sexist and racist as he wants and nobody
says a thing. Can he sexually harass his ex-gf by pulling her into a
room and forcibly kissing her? Sure. It’s just a cool joke and oh
he will do anything to get her back. And seeing as how he was willing
to kill a patient without consent (at least Bell attempts to save his
patients every time), I’m not unsure that he’d do more devious
things for Nevin if she asked. Do they have terrible personalities
and could easily cause the hospital dozens of lawsuits if either of
them were found out? Of course, but they’re really good at their
jobs sorta (even that’s questionable) and they’re white males, so
they get to stay. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">This
view of them and how their characters are built wouldn't be so bad if
they tried to make an actual statement on social justice, or at least
one that was less muddled. Right now it feels like they're saying
that yes white men disproportionately have advantages in this society
and that many of them can act like a-holes but it's OK so long as
they do good with that. It is the Trump syndrome personified. Yes,
House had some of this same shtick, however, he also had a certain
bit of quirky, comical charm to both the character and the actor's
performance. Here, unfortunately, Conrad looks like a d-bag. There's
almost zero real charm here. Instead of a rye smile, you get a smug
grin that doesn't feel like it's been earned either by age or
experience. Oily. Super oily! I think what it is, is that almost all
of the heroes here lack any kind of nobility. Again, I will keep
going back to Conrad trying to kill the one patient, yet this
military guy has Death Before Dishonor tatted on his back. Give me a
break! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Frankly,
their behavior is partially indicative of a much larger problem in
dramas (med dramas specifically) these days. They’re filled with
assholes. We get it, hospital drama is life and death, so you need
people who are at the top of their game to be the ones calling the
shots, but where Grey’s Anatomy excelled at giving us more love and
coaching-up of talent, most of these new dramas are corner-stoned in
the chew out. There’s a sense that the teaching doctors have to be
asses to you because that’s what the job requires. Uh, no. The job
requires that you be on point and come ready. But you don’t have to
challenge someone’s personality and try to make them in your own
image in order to do that. On the flip, people are not as stupid as
they are made out to be. They don’t come in thinking they know
everything (and yes, that even goes for Millennials). Yes, they will
come in thinking they know a lot but that doesn’t mean that they
are so stupid that they have no idea what they signed up for. Again,
I think this is a superficial generational thing to treat anyone
under 37 as a complete moron because their brains are wired
differently. I even noticed this in Grey’s Anatomy this season with
the new interns. If you go back and watch the first season and
compare how they were treated and reacted to things then as opposed
to now, you can see that this new round of interns is, for some
reason, written as intrinsically more stupid. It baffles me. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5NY2F0O3HdeRg6yjS5UBTqwtxK59Rw9ei84j8c6b6C5qgMi_6IBteV3mdF0rJ-yVWRQ6MsHskbIpN2X2sOUH3Ubc11C1bGQKgzUUyprW-zpXNOKMYE9KkPiejG5b_GzJ7__kcO7UVtns/s1600/636517853396318379-TR-102-SCN43-GD0021-hires2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="540" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5NY2F0O3HdeRg6yjS5UBTqwtxK59Rw9ei84j8c6b6C5qgMi_6IBteV3mdF0rJ-yVWRQ6MsHskbIpN2X2sOUH3Ubc11C1bGQKgzUUyprW-zpXNOKMYE9KkPiejG5b_GzJ7__kcO7UVtns/s320/636517853396318379-TR-102-SCN43-GD0021-hires2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dear Emily VanCamp, you are wasted on this show</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Again,
circling back to my idea that this show is about corruption in the
medical field, I had to sit down in silence for a while and have a
good think about why people even tune in to any kind of
case-of-the-week procedural or medical drama. If we tune in to cop
shows to see bad guys perform slick and ingenious crimes but
ultimately getting caught, do we not tune into medical dramas to see
people’s lives saved? Sure, there is always the one or two
criminals that outsmart the cop or patients that die, which we
ourselves learn from just as much as the characters, but we watch
more for a good feeling, right? So then why the hell would I want to
watch a medical show that has a malpractice seam running through its
very fabric? Dr. Bell is almost every person’s worst nightmare
whenever they think about going to the doctor’s even for a routine
checkup. This man will kill you while removing a mole for god’s
sake. He is definitely the one to leave a pair of scissors inside of
you or accidentally make you blind when you had 20/20 vision. What’s
worse is that Conrad doesn’t seem much better. They both operate
with a mindset that rules don’t apply to them. Amidst the show’s
light, sunny cinematographic composition lies a fairly dark show that
both covers some of the same storylines as Grey’s and other medical
dramas, yet has little to no gravitas underneath to support its
weighty inquisitions. It’s a wonder to me that they chose Sam
Smith’s “Stay With Me” as the song to promote this show because
it doesn’t fit the tone of the show in anyway. Same can be said for
the title of the show because it really isn't about The Resident. In
fact, I would have appreciated this show more if they just named it
Malpractice and explored the dark side of medicine. For now, however,
it seems to have taken on a mixed tone where it doesn't know what it
wants to be and both the viewer and the characters are lost in this
murky mess. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Therefore,
I’ve come to what, to me, feels like the only logical conclusion I
could produce: this show is a satire of other, much better medical
shows. It has to be. Whereas Grey’s is a serious show and Scrubs
was a parody, this lies somewhere in the middle with worse writing
than both. Taking the storyline of McDreamy’s hand problems after
the accident and turning it into a head-shaking killfest with Dr.
Bell has to be the writers and producers critique of how terrible
they thought <i>that</i> Grey’s Anatomy storyline was. Just like
the annoyed, egotistical Conrad, who thinks he’s some kind of drill
sergeant and/or father figure to the younger doctor who he sees
potential in has to be a nod to Scrubs’ Dr. Cox. Because if this is
supposed to be taken seriously, then yikes! What's worse is that I
know at least two of the writers on the show have done far better
work on shows that have gotten cancelled. One of the male writers and
past doctor (currently under investigation for sexual harassment) worked on The
Night Shift which most likely influenced the bits and pieces of
military protocol on this show. The creator of the show also worked
on Black Box which handled the business side of medicine in a much
better, more interesting light and, because it was an ABC show, had
far more heart and emotional weight to it than this show does. It's
rather sad that both of those shows were cancelled when they explored
some of the same territory that this show has but with greater
writing. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? I would say no, but it seems like I don’t know
what people like because people seem to watch the shows that I
vehemently dislike. So maybe people are looking for something new or
are looking for villains in a medical drama because if so, this will
fulfill that need. But I’d say that there have been far better
medical shows within the last three years and I named some of them
here. Hell, I liked Pure Genius better than this. Sadly, I can see
this getting renewed, but I doubt that it would make it past season
three. The Resident airs on FOX Mondays at 9pm. Catch it on
FOXonDemand or at FOX.com. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of FOX’s The Resident? If you haven’t,
do you think you’ll check it out now? If you have heard of it, have
you seen it? What did you think of it? Was I too hard on it and it’s
your new favorite show? What do you think will happen to Dr. Bell
when the hospital board finds out about his sickness? And do you
think Conrad will get back with his nurse ex-girlfriend? Let me know
in the comments below. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coming Soon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<br />
Until next time, “You got into
Harvard Med?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'What? Like it's hard?'
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Uh... Yes. It's really, like super
hard. Super duper hard.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
There were some things that I wanted to say in this review/recap but
I just got so frustrated with even reviewing this show that I
couldn't spend another couple of minutes on it. I think of a better
sign-off next time.</span></span></span></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-35320956725186719262018-02-03T16:33:00.000-08:002018-02-03T16:33:34.300-08:00OK Talent But No Magic #TheFourBattleForStardom #3weekroundup #recap #review #FOX <div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>OK
Talent But No Magic #TheFourBattleForStardom #3weekroundup #recap
#review #FOX </b></span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgBjVpFAoDDYum6qJvpKuZVf-zqshzqsJkEcLEiFE5N_GY-EWFtLG5L6OWnlsXTSLKU4_3Xc8seGZlxh50Vemi_v4IXbFf6Cg8DktbEcSURT_01ATnK6H6vX9GmyrqhO70CvOd4YJFjsQ/s1600/Four_S1_horizontal_F751.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="803" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgBjVpFAoDDYum6qJvpKuZVf-zqshzqsJkEcLEiFE5N_GY-EWFtLG5L6OWnlsXTSLKU4_3Xc8seGZlxh50Vemi_v4IXbFf6Cg8DktbEcSURT_01ATnK6H6vX9GmyrqhO70CvOd4YJFjsQ/s640/Four_S1_horizontal_F751.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of FOX</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I’m
going to try to keep this three-week roundup as short as I can
because it is a reality show and I’m more judging it on the
concept, but by this time you should know how well I do with keeping
things short, especially because this sentence is running on longer
than most Oscars broadcasts. At the same time, I have a lot to say
about this show <i>and</i> very little to say about the show. Over
the course of the next few months we are going to be bombarded with
singing/talent competitions all vying to be the next new [insert your
favorite competition show]. The question is: Will any of them be
good, and how many of them will have the opportunity to stay around
for longer than one of my run-on sentences? With some of them old
(The Voice), some of them returning (American Idol) and some of them
revamped from what they used to be (Showtime at the Apollo), who, in
this competition of competitions, will win? Does The Four: Battle for
Stardom (totally thought it was fame and not stardom) start the year
off shining bright or will it last for but a flicker of time like
that dreadful Boy Band singing competition from summer 2017? Let’s
find out together. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
Four: Battle for Stardom is FOX’s regret over losing the bid for a
revamped American Idol manifested into a semi-creative idea. (Note:
At the time of writing this review, I was unaware that The Four was
actually a foreign show brought to the US. How foolish of me. I
should've known). So, the concept goes that FOX, in their all-knowing
wisdom, searched the nation for a few weeks or months looking for the
hottest, most market-ready, undiscovered singing talent this country
has to offer. This search produced four “finalists” that they
believe could be the next big thing. Ideally these four finalists
would be the top four in any other singing competition. You follow? </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Now
that they have their four they are challenging viewers of the show to
come and see if they can beat the Four by out-singing or out-rapping
them on stage on TV (not live TV which I originally thought it would
be). If they can outperform any of the Four, then they get to become
part of the Four and will seemingly be in contention at the end of
this season when the Four is narrowed down to just one, you follow? </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdTX-1KqwRK6KRoECSG3MFmoW0nIpBbxpUupMbCtW71pmVRn5NAe741XqUQ7LCQ6BrpiM3KyBkfqllAn7LKOAZVTTd85N_uwtLwHeu4F2SAzmv1WZ7KMXpg5jR1-XN7PlqxVv1t2onspI/s1600/maxresdefault12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdTX-1KqwRK6KRoECSG3MFmoW0nIpBbxpUupMbCtW71pmVRn5NAe741XqUQ7LCQ6BrpiM3KyBkfqllAn7LKOAZVTTd85N_uwtLwHeu4F2SAzmv1WZ7KMXpg5jR1-XN7PlqxVv1t2onspI/s400/maxresdefault12.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">That's
the simple part. It gets a little convoluted and starts to lose me as
a viewer when they set up the way that these challenges or “battles”
between performers come about and are judged. Once you’re on the
show, which I can only assume happens by you submitting a video to
the contest, you are called to perform on a small stage in front of a
live studio audience and four judges. The judging is where the show
loses me. You have DJ Khaled, Meghan Trainor, Charlie Walk (a record
label exec), and Diddy. Now, I’ll withhold talking about the judges
for now and continue explaining the setup, but just know that the
judges are not ideal. Oh, and the show is hosted by Fergie. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
the judges are there because they are the ones who get to decide
whether the new singers can challenge the Four or not. They do this
by giving a simple yes or no vote that is translated into blue or red
circles. The stage lights up and the new singer stands in the middle.
The stage then forms one blue circle for each yes vote and a red
circle for a no. My problem here is that there are no ties or debates
that can affect the vote. For instance, you know how on <i>American
Idol</i> you always needed a majority to go to Hollywood but not
necessarily every judge? Here, it’s either all or nothing. They
either all think you’re good enough or you don’t get to
challenge. So if even one of the judges acts like a diva and doesn’t
see what three others do, then it’s over for you. Now, to me that
defeats the purpose of even having four judges. Frankly, why even
have more than one? Or any at all? I fail to see what use, other than
star power, the judges really serve here if their individual
knowledge base and experience is not wholly appreciated and the
singers fates are dictated solely by the one. It bugs me. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDA1uix6j30WnwWKtaceidxYrd1VtJFIWCF4cSjmpVAVQXVrTXsNsTsPGrAgU48u_9qb69qv3qA7tluHa9K8JvvQ8BkB5i-1nEdHoSG-75y9Pt-gsuFh8B9WiGp3Q8lfQ-KiJcp16jkYI/s1600/VILSKIEZSRGGTHDVGNKZWSHW4E.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="1400" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDA1uix6j30WnwWKtaceidxYrd1VtJFIWCF4cSjmpVAVQXVrTXsNsTsPGrAgU48u_9qb69qv3qA7tluHa9K8JvvQ8BkB5i-1nEdHoSG-75y9Pt-gsuFh8B9WiGp3Q8lfQ-KiJcp16jkYI/s320/VILSKIEZSRGGTHDVGNKZWSHW4E.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fergie Is The Host, Y'all</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Once
a person makes it to the challenge round, they then can choose which
of the four performers they want to challenge that night. No, it is
not a free-for-all where you can challenge all of them and the best
person wins. You choose ONE and perform against them. Do you have to
perform the same song or at the same time as on <i>The Voice</i>? No.
You perform your prepared song, they do the same and then it’s in
the studio audiences’ hands. They vote and decide which of you will
go into the Four. Here, I see yet another wasted opportunity,
especially because the show is not shown live. When the audience
votes the show doesn’t give you an on-screen tabulation of who is
in the lead with the vote like you would see during a political vote.
There are no percentages that you can watch and turn to your family
to say, “Oooo, it’s close.” No. There’s a counter that says
when the full vote has come in and then the screen lights up which
person won. It’s just not dramatic enough, but I digress. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Sometimes
the person from The Four stays, sometimes they go and a new Four is
formed. Actually, a new Four is formed literally every episode thus
far. And here’s the kicker, none of the original Four are still
around, which really only makes you wonder how exhaustive this
original search was. But even worse, once you are in a challenge that
night, if you are part of the Four or become part of it, you cannot
be challenged again that night. I repeat, you CANNOT be challenged
again that night! </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Now, I know that there are plenty of people who are
currently shrugging and saying, “So what,” about that idea, but
think of it this way: say that they have an absolutely fire show one
night and there are about four really good people on there that get
to challenge. If there’s a fifth one that comes along, what do they
do? More importantly, what if two really good singers have to go
against each other because there is no one else left to challenge,
even though one of the people currently sitting in the Four and who
can’t be challenged would get absolutely smoked by this new
challenger if they had to go against them? Basically, you are forced
to keep weak talent while a much stronger talent gets sent home just
because. The whole time I was watching it I thought, “Hmm? Is this
really a good format?” The answer is no, not really, but it is made
even worse by a few more things. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">First,
there is the audience bias. Every time we get a new one of these
singing/talent competitions the question is always: How do we make it
different enough from American Idol that it feels like our own thing,
yet similar enough for it to draw viewers like AI’s early days?
That question is always followed up closely with the “How do we do
this Live” question. Because something that American Idol did
perfectly, and that changed the entire landscape of TV, is that they
managed to fit in a Live-performance component that also allowed for
viewer interaction. You, as the couch potato you are, got to not just
watch but help to decide the fate of the talent you saw. Granted,
this was partially sullied by the whole Sanjaya debacle in which a
large group of extremist ne’er-do-wells decided to vote through
someone who clearly didn’t deserve to get as far as he did, but the
system usually worked well. And people could debate all day but
winners got chosen and were, for the most part, really good. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Here,
on The Four, however, the judges have first choice as usual, but
there is no development process here, meaning that this isn’t the
third, fourth or fifth time the judges have heard this person.
They’re experiencing these performers for the first time just as we
are. That’s nice and all but when you are sitting at home and see
these idiots choose someone to even challenge one of The Four that
clearly doesn’t deserve it, you no longer feel you can trust the
judges. For me, this show lost all credibility when Diddy not only
chose, but argued vehemently for a rapper named Illakriss to do a
challenge, even convincing the much more level-headed Charlie Walk to
change his vote in favor of this dude. He was so terrible that he
would’ve been one of the many laughed-at people that made it into
the American Idol montage from the early days. It was clear that he
was bad. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ93fF7f7DECeOQKV4DcdCMDODIk5pGcRY2CdkniVIJPUu7QbQcbjcUoMXXQGyeKzu04f88N3RjKAOdV3YvY1uHf1oq0Eff01zDE7QsFJ7br3wprXM_Npjxl9_9MrS98YmGh-S-Y-jo3s/s1600/Four101.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="297" data-original-width="528" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ93fF7f7DECeOQKV4DcdCMDODIk5pGcRY2CdkniVIJPUu7QbQcbjcUoMXXQGyeKzu04f88N3RjKAOdV3YvY1uHf1oq0Eff01zDE7QsFJ7br3wprXM_Npjxl9_9MrS98YmGh-S-Y-jo3s/s400/Four101.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">But
this bias extends to the entire in-studio audience. If American Idol
taught us one thing it is that there are not only a swath of people
in America who cannot actually sing but think they can, but that
there are also just as many equally tone-deaf people who really do
think these people can sing. I will never forget when Simon Cowell
told someone they couldn’t sing and told them to go out onto the
beach and find a handful of people who think he can sing and maybe
Simon would change his no-vote, and the dude did. Those people really
enjoyed the man's shrill singing voice. It astonished me. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">On The Four,
yes, the audience has been good about picking people who sound
impressive... so far. But if that Illakriss crap happens again, can
we trust the small studio audience to pick the better
singer/performer? We have no idea how homogeneous or heterogeneous
these people’s choices in music are and America, so far, gets no
say, save for those artists brave enough to come to challenge the
performers on the show. Simply put, there’s not enough TV-audience
engagement so far and there really isn’t enough of... </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Drama.
Yes, that is the crux of the next point. The next most important
component of this show is the judges’ panel. I cannot stress this
enough, <i>American Idol</i> was successful in its early incarnation
because of four things: great singers, a jovial side that looked at
terrible singers, the ability of the audience to interact with the
show and the chemistry among the judges. Tons of shows have tried to
duplicate these lightning-in-a-bottle ingredients and many have
nearly succeeded but almost always fail on the judges’ chemistry.
AI worked so well because, for one, while they were all big
personalities, they fit each other. Paula was the biggest star
pre-show. You could tell that they knew what they were talking about
and had good experience. But here’s the kicker, you could also tell
that they weren’t trying to be anything or anyone other than who
they were. They felt authentic and because of that they also felt
like even when they offended each other, they could apologize,
forgive, and have a good laugh about it over a meal later that week.
This authenticity to both themselves, the viewers and their fellow
judges created real drama and empathy. But as soon as they started
bringing in other judges to try playing a role of “the mean one”
or “the nice one,” or tried to supplement people who knew what
they were talking about from an executive perspective with big-name,
current stars, the show started to flounder. And sink. And became
more about the judges than the talent (let's not revisit that Nicki
Minaj and Mariah Carey year). And eventually ended. Granted, they’re
coming back this spring, but so far all I'm hearing about this reboot
is that they are trying the same things that were mistakes the last
time they were on air.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
Four skipped right past the successful years in favor of <i>The Voice</i>
route and went with stars. Meghan Trainor does not feel like she is
on equal footing with the guys even though she is the current
singer/star. Yes, DJ Khaled is a star, but he is still more in the
background, behind the mixing board. And some people don’t even
know that he produces music. The Walk guy is OK, but he doesn’t
seem ready for TV, at least not with this group. The worst, though,
is Diddy. I suspected this would be the case based on the adverts and
yep, it’s the case. Diddy is too big of a personality. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Yes,
Diddy. The D, the I, the D, the D, the Y, the D, the I, the D. It’s
Diddy. Every time I watch this show I am reminded of two things: the
fact that Diddy was a big enough personality to have his own reality
show in the early 2000s which, if any of you remember, literally went
into the comedy lexicon as an aughts-era-defining show. Making The
Band is still talked about to this day in certain circles and it’s
now-defunct groups each had their moments, however brief they may
have been. But oddly enough, the show was never known for its amazing
talent, but rather its over-the-top antics from its main producer,
the music mogul himself, and the drama between group members. It
showed a side of Diddy that, frankly, pissed a lot of people off. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLz4cueFjjMyNjKCbBssMg6vw4VOAscLwEez8OLvLV3IW6N4gZMTExk3Hp4HqpXJ63PK0qzjMKIjTd0hiuzHg_EUKpr3umltIMtQmrUa75bqQJScBs1vrGHFiC4cPS0HF54aYkT9OtF8I/s1600/_DSC8114_hires2_1515628900684_4792178_ver1.0_640_360.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLz4cueFjjMyNjKCbBssMg6vw4VOAscLwEez8OLvLV3IW6N4gZMTExk3Hp4HqpXJ63PK0qzjMKIjTd0hiuzHg_EUKpr3umltIMtQmrUa75bqQJScBs1vrGHFiC4cPS0HF54aYkT9OtF8I/s320/_DSC8114_hires2_1515628900684_4792178_ver1.0_640_360.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Which
leads me to the second thing I’m reminded of every time I see this
show, an antecdote from behind the scenes of the 90s hit football
movie <i>Any Given Sunday</i>, starring Al Pacino as a beleaguered
NFL coach. At the time, Diddy (then known as Puff Daddy or Puffy) had
been cast in the other lead role as the rising-star football player.
It was going to be his first big foray into acting, and he was going
to make one helluva splash with such a big role, and it was supposed
to mint a new career for him. But, while still in pre-production,
Diddy apparently felt that he knew more about how the film should go
than the director, writers, and a few of the producers and was
already acting like a diva who had been nominated for multiple
Oscars. He was a star and wanted to be treated as such. But he was
far from having the kind of star-actor clout that the film’s
star-director <i>did</i> have. That director, Mr. Oliver Stone, after
a few weeks of pre-production and going back and forth with Diddy
came into the office with just a few weeks to go before principal
shooting started and told the producers, “I just gave myself an
early gift. I fired Puff Daddy!” </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
role would eventually go to Jamie Foxx who would use that role as
leverage to show that he could do dramatic roles different from his
comedic roots, and we know how the rest of the story goes for him.
What’s important, however, is that I, along with that particular
production crew and many other fans of the film, am convinced that
firing Diddy was the best thing they could've done. I don’t think
that movie is even half as good with him in it. You see where I’m
going with this? </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Don’t
get me wrong, I actually really loved the 90s-era Diddy. But as the
years have gone on, it seems like Diddy turned from hopeful music
exec who really just wants to make good music and inspire people, to
some form of buffoonish caricature of the music industry's worst
ills. You think a music executive is an abusive ass? Guess what? You
think a music executive thinks they’re god? Guess what? You think a
music executive is spiteful and vengeful and will destroy you if you
don’t cater to their every whim? Guess what? He feels like Trump in
blackface or Harvey Weinstein without all the allegations. But worst
of all is that none of it seems genuine, which is actually kinda
depressing seeing as how New Yorkers pride themselves on being
authentic and being able to sniff out authenticity. Yet, Trump and
Diddy not only existed but thrived in that environment. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Again,
I say all of this because if Diddy felt more genuine, felt like he
wasn’t playing a role for everyone, maybe this show would work or
the overbearing nature of his personality would allow the other
judges to breathe. But as it is, the other judges almost seem too
timid around him to even share their real critiques of the artists.
Again, going back to Illakriss, the dude’s two chosen songs were so
whack that it’s amazing he even got on the show. And you can’t
tell me that the other three judges, being in the industry for some
years now, didn’t all want to give this young man a
Sandman-at-the-Apollo/Beyonce’s-To-The-Left boot in the butt upon
hearing him the first time. But they all gave him a chance under the
instruction of Diddy. Yet, they didn’t give a chance to some other
artists that actually could sing or rap but maybe didn’t have the
stage presence that could be worked on. At least give them the chance
to challenge if you’re doing it for weak talent. Granted, Diddy did
apologize and say that in hindsight it was probably a bad idea to go
with Illakriss, and I respect him for that, but the fact that it
seems like they’ll be too afraid to actually make a firm stance and
vote their conscience tells me that this show will never survive with
Diddy on the panel. Worst of all, Meghan and Walk feel like his
underlings, leaving DJ Khaled as the only one who is even close to
Diddy’s equal. And I love Khaled, but he is far from assertive in
this forum. I think he still wants to be liked too much for him to be
effective as a judge in the spotlight. And that’s OK for him, but
it won’t work for the show.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizSZWA1Dmx5WhjuHZvl6FLSlikqkXwkUHQEJGSnNKxwhaptsX9Ukanr-2mtIWD5DIhijYM6TGkwMU5hGl-8r-2xQNcDpkuHy9ed-qRy8zp3kiKxElJQgZxPLXJnkEFTzs4bH8VFAPOlHk/s1600/23325-a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="718" data-original-width="1080" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizSZWA1Dmx5WhjuHZvl6FLSlikqkXwkUHQEJGSnNKxwhaptsX9Ukanr-2mtIWD5DIhijYM6TGkwMU5hGl-8r-2xQNcDpkuHy9ed-qRy8zp3kiKxElJQgZxPLXJnkEFTzs4bH8VFAPOlHk/s400/23325-a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Honestly,
I think that if the producers want this show to succeed, then the
best thing for them would be to follow Oliver Stone’s example and
have Diddy step down. Limit it to just the remaining three judges,
get rid of the all-or-nothing judge vote, but keep the yay or nay
circles so that people who do get one red circle know what the judge
will be looking for going forward. Do this all live and incorporate
an at-home voting component somehow. That may be having to have the
contestants fly out a second time the next week to see if audiences
thought they should be part of the new four or not. Something to get
people more involved. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I
don’t know what the ratings on this show are, maybe they’re
actually really good, a</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">nd they don’t need to make a single change.
But from my perspective, this show will hardly last the tough
competition that’s out there. I give this show a <span style="color: #cc0000;">C-</span>.
I’d tell you to watch if you want to, but there are simply too many
other good music competitions coming down the pike. The Four: Battle
for Stardom airs on FOX Thursdays at 8/9c pm (two hour show). Catch
it on FOXonDemand or Fox.com</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of The Four? If not, do you think you’ll
tune in for an episode? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Do
you like it? Was I too hard on it? Who has been your favorite
contestant so far and why? The judges and audience keep going for
Zhavia but I’m just not hearing it. Her look is different but her
voice just seems OK to me. Let me know what you think in the comments
below. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “Some stars are
meant to burn bright and fast. Others shoot, staying but for a eye's
brief flicker.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
Ooo, that's good. I like it. But is it the right quote for all post?
Hmm? Two and a half years of blogging and I've finally written a
quote I might like as my sign-off. I'll have to consider this more
thoroughly. Until then, I'll come up with a better sign-off next
time.</span></span></span></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-21807615805717155492018-02-02T14:48:00.000-08:002018-02-02T14:48:29.526-08:00Is There Another Flight I Can Catch? No? You Sure? #LAtoVegas #3weekroundup #recap #review #FOX<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Is
There Another Flight I Can Catch? No? You Sure? #LAtoVegas
#3weekroundup #recap #review #FOX</b> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3hhS9nS4Fw1emspQLfXFwM5GZLtkS73QFb0YyYZUatsHsLMcSdZ6ynbzuzdBm7Xx7JTfao9hrtb_lTw3j5LJsGgA4nKREPr3RCf2scT9l8u9hxnGoA1o7mTyiW5rV91Qas4xUfGovqQ8/s1600/DP2EYJ9UMAAtcZW+%255Bwww.imagesplitter.net%255D.jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="726" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3hhS9nS4Fw1emspQLfXFwM5GZLtkS73QFb0YyYZUatsHsLMcSdZ6ynbzuzdBm7Xx7JTfao9hrtb_lTw3j5LJsGgA4nKREPr3RCf2scT9l8u9hxnGoA1o7mTyiW5rV91Qas4xUfGovqQ8/s640/DP2EYJ9UMAAtcZW+%255Bwww.imagesplitter.net%255D.jpeg.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of FOX</span> </div>
<br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Boy,
I guess my brain is just taking its dear, sweet time with getting
back into the groove of things after such a long layoff. There are
literally only, like, four or five new mid-season shows I’ll be
reviewing and this is the second, yet it feels like the 20<sup>th</sup>.
I’m already tired of watching new stuff, though that may be because
I haven’t found a diamond in the rough yet. Still, my sluggish
start to 2018 does not bode well for my upcoming projects this year,
including season two of Extraordinary and the release of my mystery
novel The Man On The Roof—look for those soon on Amazon Kindle.
Anyway, we’re back with another new show (almost all the new shows
are on FOX. Hmm? Interesting...) on FOX. Will this new half-hour
comedy make a smooth landing into your heart or will it pull a Sully
and have to crash-land in the Hudson before slowly sinking into the
deep fridgid waters? Let’s find out together! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">FOX’s
LA to Vegas is an airplane workplace comedy about the pseudo-famous
weekly flight from LA to Vegas. For those not in <i>the know</i>,
there really are groups of people that hop onto a plane every weekend
in LA and fly to Vegas, returning Sunday night. A respite for some,
business for others. I guess an East Coast equivalent would be those
yuppies and hipsters that drive from Manhattan to the Hamptons every
weekend during the summer—hey, Bravo’s Summer House, you equally
trashy Guido-less version of Jersey Shore. Because it’s a constant
flight that happens every weekend and it’s very cheap and easier
than driving, you get a lot of the same people on the flight every
single week, so we will have both crew and passengers as regulars on
the show. This is a fictionalized depiction of the drama that could
happen amongst them all!</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">First,
let me start by saying that ye should be not fooled ye weary viewer.
Though the always classy and talented Dylan McDermott is put front
and center in most of the advertising for this show, he is not
exactly the star of the show. It doesn’t center around him, but
rather the lead stewardess Ronnie, played by former soap star Kim
Matula. I’ll talk more about this discrepancy later, just know that
I had to get used to it. We open episode one with Ronnie fumbling out
of an Uber while leaving a message for a DELTA HR person about a
recently vacated flight attendant position on their LA to JFK flight,
all while she sprints through the airport getting dressed into her
current stewardess uniform. (Note: This is a single-cam, no laugh
track, no studio audience kinda comedy for those who didn’t know).
She manages to get fully dressed, get on the plane and start
welcoming passengers while explaining to her co-worker her dreams of
grand travels around the world. LA to JFK can eventually lead to JFK
to London which can eventually lead to London to somewhere Asian, and
before you know it she’ll have trotted more globe than those B-ball
players from Harlem. If she can just get that Delta job and ditch
this rinky-dink unnamed airline she works for now. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXyu46UQBT1PmR05k9KA07z4bc-B4SBC1i-5yEfhMrTw1zVqPi83fOUynd9VFtA2Nh_Ioe3PUFbL2w_9Gw7SP_X2umK28fg2QcVMas7vFIw81IeTuvgNxkbMpxYw5mAqc-TzUhyDeHBEQ/s1600/9886380_web1_la-to-vegas-scene-320171227212921935.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #0066cc; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="701" data-original-width="1050" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXyu46UQBT1PmR05k9KA07z4bc-B4SBC1i-5yEfhMrTw1zVqPi83fOUynd9VFtA2Nh_Ioe3PUFbL2w_9Gw7SP_X2umK28fg2QcVMas7vFIw81IeTuvgNxkbMpxYw5mAqc-TzUhyDeHBEQ/s400/9886380_web1_la-to-vegas-scene-320171227212921935.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ronnie at left, Bernard at right </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Her
coworker is Bernard, played by Nathan Lee Graham. He is the fiery,
sassy black gay dude that embodies the thick card-stock 90s-version
of a gay man. He’s supposed to be funny and we all know it, but
somehow the shtick feels dated. Again, I’ll address this more later
but just know there’s something off about him. Anyway, he both
commiserates with her while also giving her a “girl, bye,” about
her seriously thinking she’s going to get her grubby paws on that
Delta job—not that he wants it for himself, but no way she’s on
the radar. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">They
break from their coworker powwow so that we can meet our first
main-player passengers beginning with Artem. Played by the familiar
character actor Peter Stormare (Armageddon, Bad Boys 2, Minority
Report), Artem is supposed to be some West European (maybe Russian)
sleazy gambler who will take a bet on anything and is superstitious
like all gamblers. His gripe: some grown baby-man is sitting in his
lucky seat on the plane. The baby-man is sitting with his fiance as
they are flying to elope in order to piss off her parents (Artem won
that bet. It was either piss off parents or she’s knocked-up).
Ronnie gets them to move by offering free beer to someone else who
will give up their seat and at first a pregnant woman stands up and
it’s supposed to be super funny but... Eh! </span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMWmx0yr2FQgeBWsX9zDQIb7wKrSssof9RqiH2r21ma6us93wG33AQO21UwqupBurcXUYaOljfxFgBAaAbFGsHHTGoJd0Vj7aO37CMVFETITLz5vpfBVn73tWq4tCPuR4RLwNkl4B1WRw/s1600/la2vegas-ep104_sc15-ray_1255_f_hires1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="763" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMWmx0yr2FQgeBWsX9zDQIb7wKrSssof9RqiH2r21ma6us93wG33AQO21UwqupBurcXUYaOljfxFgBAaAbFGsHHTGoJd0Vj7aO37CMVFETITLz5vpfBVn73tWq4tCPuR4RLwNkl4B1WRw/s320/la2vegas-ep104_sc15-ray_1255_f_hires1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nichole</td></tr>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Through
the pregnant woman and the couple we meet another one of our
main-player passengers in Nichole (with a damn H!). Nichole is a
scripper. She scrips. For a living. That’s some southern accent
humor for you. If you don't get it, fine! Anyway, she works at the
strip club Grapefroots where she earns a helluva lot of money over
the weekends making it bounce and wobble from dem dollas. The
pregnant girl works with her, though she doesn’t become a series
regular. Nichole (with a damn H!) tells the bride-to-be that she can
also make it drop and wiggle for green stacks because a girl that
looks like her is built for the pole... or the lap, whichever.
Nichole also makes a commission off of each girl she brings in, kinda
like a stripper-recruitment pyramid scheme. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Before
Ronnie completed her quest to get the couple to move to new seats in
order to satisfy Artem (the couple doesn’t care where they sit, so
long as they stay together—awww! Young love is so sweet and
stupid), she also ran into our third main-player passenger, the very
British Colin. Colin is played by actor Ed Weeks who I guess may be
new to the US market. I’m sure he’s been being British in other
things but I haven’t seen him in anything I can remember, and I’ve
clearly seen a lot of crap. Colin is both irritatingly proper and
charmingly sarcastic, making it a very odd but mildly satisfying love
interest for our long-suffering Ronnie to get internationally dirty
on a domestic flight with. Ronnie and Bernard at first stand at front
and wonder about who he is and why he’s traveling back and forth to
Vegas every weekend because he doesn’t seem like the gambling or
stripping type. His fictional, fantasized options: a failing spy,
somebody in WITSEC or something else. In reality, he’s a professor
at some college, but that still doesn’t explain why he’s flying
back and forth which is later revealed. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Moving
on, we finally round out the main cast with our cockpit heroes (Boom!
Just gave you a perfect name for another comedy show and/or movie.
You’re welcome, Hollywood) Alan, the co-pilot played by Amir Talai,
and Captain Dave played by McDermott, finally! Alan is given little
to nothing to do on the first couple of episodes and may never be
given more than 10 lines on each episode. He exists almost solely to
sit next to Captain Dave, look like a doofus, act like a dingus, and
play beta-male to Captain Dave’s clear alpha sensibilities. He and
Captain Dave have been going number one and two together for some
time now, as evidenced by his lack of laughter at Dave’s overplayed
joke about the flight from LA to Lost Wages! Yeah, it’s that bad.
The stick belongs to Dave. The yoke belongs to Dave. Alan does not
get to touch either and that is how it will always be. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPR3eWffNanG9-QqYxUAkflZSXWOMO7hooiyf_lsgAYbwu7qbOMs9ZEGK75a6BXKlveClkovorfycfJYmM_eAcUeq3fp73DcaPhIXTg5zm0eF9KVxLbbVCzxT76DdAl69S_n-GXCVafdE/s1600/la-to-vegas-3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="825" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPR3eWffNanG9-QqYxUAkflZSXWOMO7hooiyf_lsgAYbwu7qbOMs9ZEGK75a6BXKlveClkovorfycfJYmM_eAcUeq3fp73DcaPhIXTg5zm0eF9KVxLbbVCzxT76DdAl69S_n-GXCVafdE/s320/la-to-vegas-3.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alan at left, Captain Dave at right</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Captain
Dave is a four-time divorced non-ladies-man ladies’ man that all
the women want to be with simply so that they get experience in
knowing the type of guy that they <i>don’t</i> want to be with.
Almost every one of his ex-wives cheated on him, seemingly because he
couldn’t get them to climactic heights on a frequent enough
occasion, or because his ego was too big and other things not big
enough. Still, does that stop him? Well, yeah, it probably stops him
from doing a lot of things, but not from flying the pond-hopper that
is LA to Vegas on a weekend-ly basis. Granted, he has to have a few
drinks to fly or to do just about anything in his life, but he’s
always good to go and always sorta-professional. A bevy of bad jokes,
filled to the brim with alcohol, and a sweat of jubilant desperation
always filming his body, Captain Dave is everybody’s bad uncle but
in a plane captain’s uniform. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
flight filled with potential syphilis carriers finally takes off
toward Vegas. It isn’t long into the flight before Ronnie learns
that a fellow stewardess—some Asian chick—has already landed the
Delta job behind her back. With her dreams crushed, Ronnie quits
mid-flight and goes to sit down in the seat next to the professor who
not only heard her and Bernard’s theorizing about who he is and
what he does, but also logically explains how he thinks she made a
terrible mistake because now she will have to pay for her flight back
to LA and is in no better possession for a national flight than
before. His logic infuriates her. So much so that they hurriedly
scamper to the bathroom to make things super awkward and get a little
strange and wet, which they do in a PG-13 sorta way. After there
mile-high make out, they de-board never to see each other again...
until the return flight on Sunday night. It’s only then revealed
why he goes back and forth from LA to Vegas: he is married and has a
young son. And Ronnie feels like an absolute peach about the
situation. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">While
Ronnie is losing her shiznit on the Brit, Captain Dave is trying to
find a bit of weekend glory as his life has dive-bombed in a most
miserable way. He had hoped to flaunt his captain-of-the-air power by
officiating an on-board wedding for that eloping couple in the same
way a boat captain can marry off anyone at sea, but Ronnie informs
him he has no such power. Then, on the return flight he manages to
leg-lock that very same young, dumb baby-man when the guy comes back
complaining about the flight and the passengers on it who convinced
his girl that she wasn’t actually in love with him anymore—Nichole
(with a damn H!) totally got that pyramid-scheme bonus. Captain Dave
sneaks up from behind and subdues the kid who has threatened to do
something really mean to the plane. Ronnie un-quits her job (never
made it official) and commits to suffering in hopes of <i>that</i>
one day. One day! And the Brit confesses that he has been separated
from his wife because they went through a quickie Vegas wedding after
a few <i>Hangover</i>-esque nights of wild times that accidentally
produced a baby. He is in no way in love with that woman. Ronnie
feels a little better about their in-air slobfest. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIKsZHvbvYSnaWczSenM2Ohq3Ay9cAmUueMA0-5p7-tiHqtTVY2Fieku_-z8-bj17XUNgfPqY3iu8Vm-00EML7w9_NvqRG1p6XKkZvOmSyTu7EOS12V68he1mtifzK6qfTIEpf3lbcUvY/s1600/LA-to-Vegas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="618" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIKsZHvbvYSnaWczSenM2Ohq3Ay9cAmUueMA0-5p7-tiHqtTVY2Fieku_-z8-bj17XUNgfPqY3iu8Vm-00EML7w9_NvqRG1p6XKkZvOmSyTu7EOS12V68he1mtifzK6qfTIEpf3lbcUvY/s320/LA-to-Vegas.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
two is about Captain Dave being chosen as one of the top 10 pilots to
watch out for by some flyboy magazine, which he hopes really sticks
it to his rival. But as the time draws near for him to do the photo
shoot for the zine, he comes down with a severe case of the yips and,
assumingly like in all of his past four failed marriages, can’t
quite perform. The plane is up in the air and cruising on autopilot
but no way in hell is he gonna be able to land this bird. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
Ronnie and Bernard are suffering through their own crisis. After
handing out a coupon for Grapefroots to her seatmate, Nichole
discovers that the old man has died on her shoulder. Per airline and
FAA rules and regulations, a person cannot be legally pronounced dead
until on the ground. Ronnie and Bernard don’t want to freak-out the
passengers, so they (Nichole helps) try to pretend the man is just
sleeping until doofus Alan comes out from the cockpit and mistakes
the old white dead guy for another old white alive guy and announces
that there is a dead guy onboard. And who wants to ride around with a
dead guy? So Nichole has to enlist the help of British bloke Colin to
help her carry the body to the front for no apparent reason other
than to set up the pratfall of Alan when he is summoned to the front
to land the plan. Alan trips over the dead guy and smacks into the
cockpit door, knocking himself out. So Ronnie has to go into the
cockpit and convince Captain Dave that he can land the plane, and
simultaneously she has to explain why she failed to show up for a
date with Colin after their misunderstanding got understood. Her
explanation: She just couldn’t because he scared her with all of
his overbearing, polite Britishness. But carrying a dead body
together changed things and once the captain does land the plane, she
is totally ready for a real relationship. And now Colin agrees with
her that they shouldn’t be in a relationship, and she’s lost her
chance. It’s DELTA’s LA to JFK all over again! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
three finally introduces us to Captain Dave’s nemesis. Upon coming
into work with an injured wrist that he claimed he hurt while trying
to lift an armoire off of someone, Dave suffers through Bernard
calling it into the airline. They quickly send a replacement in
Captain Steve, a man who flies international (LA to Canada) and who
is married to a model (<strike>a catalogue model</strike> an internet
catalogue model). Dave hates him because he finished at the top of
their flight school and beat him out for multiple routes in their
time as professional pilots. So the last thing he wants to see is
this man take another win by doing a better job than he ever could.
At first the crew are enamored by him. Ronnie thinks he’s a hunk of
a man, ditto Bernard and even Alan thinks he’s cool. In fact, they
could get used to flying with him, and Steve brags about maybe taking
over LA to Vegas for an easier workload. They’d at least never have
to check Dave’s hair for grays anymore or baby him about his
terrible jokes and drinking. But when Steve cracks the whip and
insists that they are terrible at their jobs. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Bernard
and Ronnie then unite with Dave in operation: Get Steve Off LA to
Vegas. Riding as a passenger, Dave tells Steve to ease up on his crew
but Steve ain’t hearin’ it and says that he’ll have them fired
if he takes over. Dave then turns on the plan when he learns that he
can take over Steve’s international flights if Steve takes his LA
to Vegas. Still, Ronnie and Bernard are like family, so he sticks up
for them again only for Steve to reveal that he was never serious
about taking over LA to Vegas. Hell, the dude flies international.
International! So, all is saved as far as flights go. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkS768bA9n0rTthL_zF4HvS8F_6xdrKJUuqz5gifpisEd7QfX5kmaqLpL3SbclikV0fFHY8QISquRa5IfJKog1Bhwynk4JrNY_jEnmE8hqtjktkj4PzaFui6cC8KDi2sXnzcwXrp54KtY/s1600/la-to-vegas-renew-cancel-wk-16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1400" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkS768bA9n0rTthL_zF4HvS8F_6xdrKJUuqz5gifpisEd7QfX5kmaqLpL3SbclikV0fFHY8QISquRa5IfJKog1Bhwynk4JrNY_jEnmE8hqtjktkj4PzaFui6cC8KDi2sXnzcwXrp54KtY/s320/la-to-vegas-renew-cancel-wk-16.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left to Right: Captain Dave, Ronnie, Colin</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">On
the ground, Colin struggles to throw his son a really cool Vegas
birthday party but is thwarted when the place he booked was
previously used by an anti-vaccine parent and now has a super-virus
or something. Ronnie hooks him up with Artem who knows people in
Vegas. Artem takes him to a nice indoor playhouse of sorts only for
the budget to balloon to a few thousand dollars. So Colin and Artem
end up at Grapefroots where Nichole (with a damn H!) welcomes them to
throw the party on Sunday because it is a dead day anyway. The kids
have fun sliding down the pole, have condom-balloon animals and even
get to pet a man dressed as a dog who is the slave to his dominatrix
mistress. It’s the best b-day party ever! </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What’s
my score? I give this a <span style="color: #cc0000;">C</span>. This show is
dumb, OK? Like, seriously dumb. It reminds me of a defunct show from
about ten or 15 years ago called The Loop where the comedy elicits
more head shakes and “this is stupid” comments than actual
laughs, yet I liked The Loop. This? Eh! Take it or leave it. I don’t
think it’s as smart as Brooklyn-9-9 but I don’t watch that
either. And it’s definitely no New Girl. The funny thing is that
every situation, so far, has been pretty realistic. Can I believe
that a pilot would get the yips, a guy would die in flight, an
eloping couple would break up and the girl would run off to be a
stripper? Yes. It’s all happened before. Yet, there is something so
very inauthentic/unfunny about the show. I think that it fails to
properly balance or even have some kind of emotional weight to any of
the episodes. One of the reasons why most comedies in the past were
successful was because they had at least one “aww” moment either
per episode or per every two episodes. That moment when the audience
stops, the plot slows and a real connection is made between the
characters and the viewers, either exploring some kind of meaningful
topic or hitting on something revealing about the characters. But
with most single-cam shows of the last decade, they fail to do this
unless they are strictly about families. Even then it’s difficult.
With the exception of Seinfeld which never had to have an <i>aww</i>
moment, many of today’s comedies go strictly for the laughs without
establishing any personal connection. Such is the problem with this
show. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Have
you ever been watching a comedy or any kind of movie and thought,
“Wow! This seems like it should be good and I should be more into
it but I’m just not.” The jokes could even be funny or the action
pretty good but you just don’t feel a thing? That’s sorta this
show. And it’s really no more epitomized than by the character of
Bernard. It’s rare that after spending a few weeks/episodes with a
show (or a movie) that I can’t figure out what it is that either I
or some other viewers won’t/don’t like about something, yet here
I am with Bernard. I can’t figure out if I don’t like the actor,
don’t like the way he’s playing the character, don’t like the
way the character is written or just don’t like the dialogue for
the character but something is painfully off about him to me. This is
not a Seth MacFarlane/Orville problem where if you get rid of him the
entire show becomes exponentially better, but Bernard currently
doesn’t feel like he fits with the rest of the cast. Don’t get me
wrong, some of the lines they’ve written for him are quite funny if
not new, but they don’t make me want to laugh. It’s almost as if
every line he says he knows is funny, but he doesn’t want you to
laugh because he’ll then feel laughed at. I don’t know, it just
feels strange. It doesn’t fit with everyone else. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Speaking
of casting, I have to say that I was a little disappointed when I
realized that McDermott really wasn’t the full-on lead. Again, you
can usually tell who the star of a show is by who they open up on and
whose private life is explored more. Ronnie gets both the opening
shot and gets all the questions about her private life explored on a
continual loop for the first three episodes. You have all the answers
to her major questions by the end of episode four (yes, I watched
four eps instead of just three but only covered three per my usual):
she’s single, she wants to travel the world, she’s socially open
to dating but kinda has a crush on British guy which is really
complicated, she is nosy and thinks she’s a do-gooder, she once had
an affair with a married man and et cetera. McDermott you hardly know
anything about except that he is a lush with ex-wives who thinks he’s
better than he is. Does he have kids? Why did he move to LA? What
does he do when in Vegas? Who knows. Again, not hating because the
woman who plays Ronnie is quite charming and good, but for those
tuning in solely for McDermott (me at first), temper your
expectations. You get him, but he’s more of a co-lead. Funny
enough, this is a real tricky way to get women to top-line network
shows. I digress. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? Eh! Probably not. It’s certainly not a family
comedy and chances are good that if you’re single, you’re
probably too busy with work or other shows that you feel a lot more
comfortable with on Tuesday nights—a night with a glut of comedy
already, with NBC’s reality game shows and ABC’s two-hour laugh
block. It’s ultimately a forgettable show that tries but doesn’t
try hard enough to exploit its novel idea. I’ve called many a show
and movie forgettable before and some have turned out to be good or
stick around longer than I hypothesized they would, but I would say
that this one does not supply you with any joke or comedic setup that
you’ll be talking about the next day at work or tweeting about with
your buddies that aren’t currently already watching the show.
Sorry, but I’d expect a lot more from producers Adam McKay and Will
Ferrell. Oh, did I bury the lede there? Oh well! LA to Vegas airs on
FOX Tuesdays at 9:00pm, right before The Mick. You can catch up with
the first four episodes on FOXonDemand or at FOX.com now. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of LA to Vegas? If not, do you think
you’ll tune in for an episode or two now? If you have heard of it,
have you seen it? Do you like it? Was I too harsh on it? Is it your
new favorite show? And what crazy shenanigans do you want to see
happen to the crew and passengers of the flights? And when will Colin
and Ronnie hook up again? Let me know in the comments below. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “Do you fly often?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'No, I... don't have wings.'
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
That's a little Airplane humor for you. See, the sneaky part about it
is that it's not an actual quote from the Airplane films. Sure, I
could've used the most quoted quote from the overly quotable film,
but I didn't. So... yeah. I'll think of a better sign-off next time. </span></span></span>
</div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-59749774761025718042018-02-02T11:43:00.000-08:002018-02-02T11:43:12.611-08:00A Joke About Not Knowing The Number Is Too Easy #911 #3weekroundup #review #recap #FOX <div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>A
Joke About Not Knowing The Number Is Too Easy <a href="https://twitter.com/911onFOX">#911</a> #3weekroundup
#review #recap #FOX </b></span></span></span>
</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of FOX </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">It’s
unbelievable how time flies. Just a few minutes ago I was on vacation
and now I’m here, writing this stupid post about one of FOX’s new
shows and debating whether I’m going to do a post on their new
reality competition The Four (not all that great of a show; Diddy’s
too overbearing). You’ll have to excuse me as I haven’t written
(read: typed) a single word since a week before Christmas, save for
the occasional Twitter post. I’ve taken notes about some of my
upcoming projects on pieces of scratch paper and bills that God knows
I’m never even gonna open (the problem goes away if you ignore it
long enough, I swear), so I have been keeping up with pseudo-writing,
but nothing substantial. Frankly, I’ve got a lot of writing to do
this year and hardly enough time to do it. And because I decided to
take an extra week of vacation due to an illness (first time I’ve
been really, truly, ultra-sick in eight years), I am trying to shake
off the brain fog and yips that come from being out of practice. OK,
so what the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah, FOX’s new show
9-1-1. So, is this new show about first responders a heartbeat away
from brilliance or is it ready for the cancellation body bag? Let’s
find out together! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">FOX’s
9-1-1 is the latest production from the studio’s beloved producer
Ryan Murphy (and cohorts) that takes a look at all the dramatic and
emotional goings-on that all first responders must go through on a
daily basis. A show packed with a few heavyweight TV stars, it
focuses not just on cops or firefighters but on the full gamut of
individuals tasked with the job of saving our lives and keeping the
peace. The first episode opens with a voice-over from TV and
Murphy-productions veteran Connie Britton (Nashville, American Horror
Story season 1, Friday Night Lights) who gives a rundown on what she
sees as the two emergencies that people must deal with on a daily
basis. The first is the emergency (read: immediacy) of everyday life.
Connie’s character Abby Clark is a 40-something recently dumped
single woman who has to take care of her Alzheimer's-stricken mother
in her medium-sized apartment. No kids, hardly any prospects for the
future and still crushing for her ex-boyfriend, she has to somehow
find a way to make it through each day without losing her shiznit. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRCZaMYpyInTA_EHAPfoMSKOWQJr236NJjswbnDkQvfGN0W1WMpzaCtvGVpDyp62wme3fmZ1DKJPOHgDIj1uGL9hv0rfGzqeSkIT5_67B0Ergin7DQXaMftQJ3wDWvLiSIWJMYuxG11Ng/s1600/9-1-1_s01e01_still_connie_britton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="768" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRCZaMYpyInTA_EHAPfoMSKOWQJr236NJjswbnDkQvfGN0W1WMpzaCtvGVpDyp62wme3fmZ1DKJPOHgDIj1uGL9hv0rfGzqeSkIT5_67B0Ergin7DQXaMftQJ3wDWvLiSIWJMYuxG11Ng/s320/9-1-1_s01e01_still_connie_britton.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abby; Connie Britton Is Looking Really Good These Days</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
second emergency is an actual emergency and “is the kind you call
[her] about.” Things like car crashes, fires, etc. She is a 911
operator (for the remainder of this, I will only use the hyphens when
referring to the show as a whole) for LA county. We take her first
call—a young boy who hit his head in the pool and currently isn’t
breathing—and meet our main team of firefighters. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Our
firefighters/EMTs are led by Peter Krause (most recently of ABC’s
The Catch; also Six Feet Under) who plays Bobby Nash, a middle-aged
recovering alcoholic who had dropped so low at one point that he lost
his family and his job as a firefighter, but who now goes to weekly
confessions at his preferred Catholic church. The job, which he
loves, drove him to drink but it also drove him to stop drinking
because of said love. He’s an all-or-nothing guy with a good head
and an understanding heart, and he is the captain of his squad. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Next
we have Hen played by Aisha Hinds who has appeared in a ton of stuff
and is usually the bald black chick. Here she plays the bald black
chick firefighter. In the first three episodes little about her is
really explored save for the fact that she feels comfortable enough
to give men around her unsolicited advice while not playing into the
stereotype of the bossy black woman. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6_rLvHVTG_mR-oTHv9FbocH9fsg7fDdXRhtzIFduTzFKvSApoLUoqRtV-onHKpgNH6XxOT9FxRJaoibLHQ92lbq3jPgUYrTE4kw23kdii6hopD-vvbOWusCJxYlPciwyb-r5sITxc0_g/s1600/920x1240.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="920" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6_rLvHVTG_mR-oTHv9FbocH9fsg7fDdXRhtzIFduTzFKvSApoLUoqRtV-onHKpgNH6XxOT9FxRJaoibLHQ92lbq3jPgUYrTE4kw23kdii6hopD-vvbOWusCJxYlPciwyb-r5sITxc0_g/s320/920x1240.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
also have Howie “Chimney” Han played by Kenneth Choi who we later
learn is playing into the exact love-archetype laid out for
Asian-American men. While he is trusted by his captain, there are
limitations to what he can. He is set-up as a possible joke-sponge
for future episodes. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
finally we have Evan “Buck” Buckley played by Oliver Stark, <strike>king
of Winterfell—the north remembers</strike>. He is literally the
young buck of the team and, yes, you guessed it, is written as the
overly rambunctious know-it-all millennial who just wants to use his
status as an LA firefighter to get laid often! Awash in a severe hero
complex, he wants to one day be the old guy with all the coolest
stories that the young women and the kids love to hear. And yes, that
means that Captain Bobby both sees a little of himself in Buck and
sets up a father-figure dynamic between them that the show will
profitably plunge for the duration of its existence. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
to their first rescue, we see the team respond to the downed swimmer
and work to save his life as the boy continues to turn blue. It is
here where Abby reminds us that as soon as help arrives in-person,
usually the callers hang up the phone before the 911 operator knows
the outcome of the call. To her, it’s like reading a really good
story and then having the last few pages ripped out. Unfortunately
for her, on the calls where they do stay on the line the outcome is
not so hot. Where Bobby and his team are able to save the swimmer,
Bobby’s attempts to stop a suicidal young woman/junkie from jumping
to her death prove meaningless as he watches the girl plummet through
the sky. Abby heard that. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8SjXYcmP7GQozt3_tHTDpQF1qIgIVYkn1jlTdhxTHWGhN2_OJPM56-bU6OtqushvBWQ8S6te7lxJ3S0rl1xWIErvAHrW2FtVygsuYYmEfR83ZD9LKPDeXRbZj535mvsvD8xhu9bErIKg/s1600/c3078e1b98c09917a8bd450a832482e5d66e0ad0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8SjXYcmP7GQozt3_tHTDpQF1qIgIVYkn1jlTdhxTHWGhN2_OJPM56-bU6OtqushvBWQ8S6te7lxJ3S0rl1xWIErvAHrW2FtVygsuYYmEfR83ZD9LKPDeXRbZj535mvsvD8xhu9bErIKg/s400/c3078e1b98c09917a8bd450a832482e5d66e0ad0.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hey, yo, Bobby!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Losses
are a possible everyday occurrence for Bobby, but ones with such a
visceral connection cause him to go to the church where he talks
about the drinking history. That was his coping mechanism. Now he
journals all the deaths. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Buck’s
“coping” mech is getting laid. He takes the firetruck for a
breezy spin around the city before sinking into something young and
brunette and spinning back to the firehouse where he must hear about
Chimney’s girl problems. Chimney is an embellisher who tells his
girlfriend fanciful stories about his job that aren’t always true,
to make himself sound more heroic. We later learn that she does seem
to have some sort of hero fetish. Anyway, we see Buck get a warning
about using the truck for extracurriculars. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Abby
takes a call from a guy who sounds like a stoner, who tells her that
he thinks someone flushed a baby down the toilet because he can hear
it crying in the wall. The team goes to the apartment complex only to
confirm the insane hypothesis and introduce us to our final main
character Police Officer Athena Grant, played by Angela Bassett.
Working the beat, Athena is there to do preliminary investigative
work on how a baby could’ve gotten into a toilet pipe and prevent
higher levels from flushing. While the team saws the baby out, Athena
discovers an immigrant father and his young daughter trying to hide
her afterbirth bleeding. It turns out that the girl gave birth to an
unwanted baby and threw it down the open toilet pipe of an unfinished
apartment upstairs. They rescue the preemie who comes out elongated
and in need of NICU care immediately. The mother also needs care
which leads to Buck getting angry that the girl could treat her child
like that and refusing to let the girl ride in the same ambulance as
the baby. He and Athena get into it about age and rank and cops vs.
firefighters and, frankly, I thought it was a rather stupid argument,
but they wrote it, so... </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJVFYvUO_7HjTH-4FRmFYF5FS0r2xnvTl3MxP7327I6dYRosMrcApxU_GlXbKUroEITicx1Oc9JuiSNDNAwRnh9VfcX-_UkKcINOOtFB07dJ651S4xgkw4WqVZ0_VrCpSiwLtlpOlHbak/s1600/911-s1_ep101-pilot-sc21-23-36_0113_hires2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJVFYvUO_7HjTH-4FRmFYF5FS0r2xnvTl3MxP7327I6dYRosMrcApxU_GlXbKUroEITicx1Oc9JuiSNDNAwRnh9VfcX-_UkKcINOOtFB07dJ651S4xgkw4WqVZ0_VrCpSiwLtlpOlHbak/s400/911-s1_ep101-pilot-sc21-23-36_0113_hires2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">With
our journey ended at the hospital, we follow Officer Athena home
where we learn that she and her husband are going through drama on
account of him finally admitting he's gay. He tells the kids,
precipitating an argument about the proper time to tell them. She
thought it was too soon for them to handle that, and that he lied to
her. Her husband counters with something about how she knew the truth
the whole time but didn’t want to admit it. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
we dig farther into the personal lives of our mains, we see Abby’s
mother is so unwell that she has an at-home nurse that ain’t worth
a hill of beans and who is quickly replaced. Abby goes back to work
and takes a call about a huge snake being wrapped around some woman’s
neck and the team goes to the girl’s place to find it filled with
uncaged snakes—some illegal—that look dangerous. Unable to pry
the snake from around the woman’s neck, Buck cuts the snake’s
head off and receives a lecture from his older superiors. But at
least he’ll get to bang snake lady. In fact, he does bang her on a
rooftop after taking the firetruck on a spin once again. That
three-strikes system goes out the window when Bobby finds him up
there midday and fires him for being an idiot. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
while Buck brainstorms with Hen on how to get his job back, a give-me
lands in his lap when a little girl calls 911 about a break-in. The
girl tells Abby that the house is new, and she doesn’t know her
address yet but that she can hear two men rummaging around
downstairs. They call mom but she left her cell at home. So Abby
makes a dispatch call to the nearest cop (Officer Athena) and tells
her to look for a house with a young girl’s bike in the driveway.
But even knowing the neighborhood that could take too long, so Athena
gets an idea. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">She
calls her girl Hen who is busy on a car crash call and asks for help.
Hen shoots that call to Buck who drives the firetruck to Athena’s
rescue. The plan: drive around with sirens blaring in the firetruck
to see if they can sonar the girl’s specific location. Yes, I used
sonar as a verb. This way, the burglars won’t suspect the cops and
won’t elevate the danger. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Well,
the plan works until the girl goes downstairs and tries to sneak
away. The burglars get her and grab the phone from her. Abby talks
them down from killing the girl and tells them that the cops are on
their way, but she’ll help them escape if they leave the girl
unharmed. They fall for that and end up wandering out into the arms
of Athena. But the “mastermind” burglar won’t give up easily
and escapes onto his motorcycle. He is about to run over and gun down
Athena when Buck shoots him with the fire hose. The kid is reunited
with her mother, the day is saved and Buck keeps his job... for now. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsR8OK07fZxvX9s8IcWkdLJdjXDChGl8ErqFt62TpANvf4P47PfFKOag-k96LKhta288HlWXVrP_Z7LHrwBtuCxP7iVzkjUFkQWPY8AySN2ALVtGkGs3BJCvyHjy2QvGnR2wMiyFweBQ4/s1600/91101-590x332.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="590" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsR8OK07fZxvX9s8IcWkdLJdjXDChGl8ErqFt62TpANvf4P47PfFKOag-k96LKhta288HlWXVrP_Z7LHrwBtuCxP7iVzkjUFkQWPY8AySN2ALVtGkGs3BJCvyHjy2QvGnR2wMiyFweBQ4/s320/91101-590x332.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left to Right: Bobby, Buck, Hen, Officer Grant</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
t</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">wo sees Buck realizing the weightiness of both Bobby’s words and
of his job as he suffers through his first lost save-e. A roller
coaster malfunction sees a black guy treated like every black guy in
a horror film pre-<i>Get Out</i>. His overweight surviving buddy is
left to dangle in the upside-down roller coaster while Buck tries to
strap a harness onto him, so that he and the other passengers can be
safely lowered off the stalled ride. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Unfortunately the big fella
freaks and says that he can’t extend his hand out to the safety
harness, then plummets to his death. While Buck deals with that, we
learn throughout the episode that the guy previously had suicidal
tendencies and that his black friend had convinced him to get out and
start living again only after the big man had been locked away in his
apartment for a few months. So even though it was Buck’s job to
save the dude regardless, it wasn’t fully his fault. Still, he gets
told by Bobby and Chimney that he’ll never forget the look on the
man’s face as he fell those few stories. Even Officer Athena comes
by to give her two cents about the badges and the uniforms they wear
and how taking them off at the end of the day is supposed to be
symbolic for letting go of the day’s drama. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
Abby is still suffering through her mother’s suffering. Luckily,
things start to look up when she gets a new nurse who is patient and
much more caring than the previous lady. This woman’s caring
reminds her of how loving people can be and causes her feelings for
Buck to surface. On episode one she talked to Buck during that home
invasion and he told her that the kid was safe, the burglars caught
and the cop unharmed. She made an instant connection with him because
she finally got the end of a good story. Seeing him on TV after the
roller coaster thing makes her want to reach out to him even though
he looks a little too young for her. She risks her job by calling him
later in the episode on his private line and chatting with him about
how tough the job is and it seems like they’re making a true
connection. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj0VlAjH-iilIiX-VgofwCwAEDNmnX7UwsVNJWMzBmlUUfGIHXZER7JKDmYuDm9cPFWiOlF7zlT5ze7OVSnUAakmpC2Nj6Y2YQipZm2hwuEz4lAqa3BW4lFnsieCUVis5YmkTt1JsO-0Q/s1600/untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj0VlAjH-iilIiX-VgofwCwAEDNmnX7UwsVNJWMzBmlUUfGIHXZER7JKDmYuDm9cPFWiOlF7zlT5ze7OVSnUAakmpC2Nj6Y2YQipZm2hwuEz4lAqa3BW4lFnsieCUVis5YmkTt1JsO-0Q/s1600/untitled.png" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
Officer Athena and her husband are still arguing but try not to let
their frustrations play out in front of the kids. They continue to
attend couples counseling where she finally admits that she did know
something but ignored the signs because she wanted children so badly
and was aging quickly. She says she is willing to live a celibate
life if he is, and then he drops the bomb that he met someone.
Interestingly enough, earlier in the day she, Hen and Chimney got a
call about some dangerous devil-dogs that attacked this man in a
house. She gets the dogs some food and distracts them with that while
the man climbs off the counter and flirts with Athena. Hen plays like
her sista and asks why she gave no response to the man’s overtures.
She wasn't into it. But as it turns out the man was actually a
burglar and the dogs were trying to guard against him. They just let
a burglar go. She eventually finds him later in the episode and
brings him down. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
to the EMTs and we learn two things: the kid (Buck) is suffering
through a bout of the yips, and they deal with a lot of suicides in
LA. After some therapy where he sexes up his therapist, and a refusal
to climb the ladder to save a precariously hung scaffold worker, Buck
has to rappel out of an apartment window and thrust-kick a guy back
into his apartment and off of the ledge from which he’s about to
jump due to his cheating girlfriend. The day saved, everything is
right and everyone goes home. But only upon returning home does
Officer Athena realize that her sick daughter (the eldest) has
actually OD’d on something. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
pick up episode three with a bounce-house emergency. An idiot dad
goes to play in one of those dangerous outdoor bouncy houses at his
child’s B-day party. As it so happens, the house is right above a
cliff on a windy day. Yeah, <i>that</i> happens. And yes, the dad is
thrown out of the house. Chimney complains that he never gets to do
anything cool because he must stay on-ground to work the wench while
the others rappel down the side of the cliff to secure the kids and
dad. There’ a bunch of cut-scenes back and forth to the wench to
make it seem like Chimney’s job is so dramatic but it definitely
isn’t.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
we pick back up with Athena’s 911 call. She and her husband go to
the hospital where it’s revealed that the girl took some of
Athena’s leftover pain meds from her dental work last year. She
survives, but two big things come from this: Athena’s husband’s
boyfriend/date arrives at the hospital with her husband, letting her
know just how over her sham-marriage is, and the girl admits that she
was being bullied at school which is why she took the pills. BUT she
did NOT want to die... supposedly. In any case, Child Protective
Services comes to talk to her about what happened and why she’s in
the hospital because they have to by law. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
remember that stereotypical Asian male thing I referenced earlier?
Well, Chimney is playing that to a tee. See, he tries impressing this
white or Latina(?) woman by cooking and telling her the heroic
embellishments about him rappelling down the cliff. Frankly, she is
as regular looking as Wonder bread, especially knowing the kind of
women they have in LA. There are models and wannabe-models on every
corner. But he likes this girl. So much, in fact, that he proposes to
her and she turns him down flat. Yep, Asian dudes never get the girl
and that’s both in movies as well as in real-life statistics, which
biasly show that black women and Asian men are the least
sexually-desired groups worldwide. He gets so pissed that he goes out
on a late-night drive to zoom away his frustrations. Some idiot
drives in front of him, and he sees something in the middle of a busy
highway and bam! He crashes and has to make a 911 call. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg08CaxC8_Uso7Jp-jlLigWMWBAyFIeeleDYDBDIZJkxMYrsz-L7eLqsZkpXcWr7o1Dt3xwNm8zmPD1Xk8xqLRwISFO3RIliMnfbYpg0OX7vpsqesDIwZkeuDHRhNK72GqcJLrYjOsD87c/s1600/911-rebar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="650" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg08CaxC8_Uso7Jp-jlLigWMWBAyFIeeleDYDBDIZJkxMYrsz-L7eLqsZkpXcWr7o1Dt3xwNm8zmPD1Xk8xqLRwISFO3RIliMnfbYpg0OX7vpsqesDIwZkeuDHRhNK72GqcJLrYjOsD87c/s400/911-rebar.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Is It Racist That This Is The Only Good Picture I Could Find Of Chimney?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Another
crew comes, but he only wants Bobby and his crew to touch him. What’s
wrong? A long pipe of rebar has speared through his skull making him
into a human unicorn. They manage to cut it down far enough to pry
him out of the car and get him to the hospital where they slide it
out in surgery, but they then put him in a coma to see if his brain
has been thoroughly damaged or not. Bobby tries to get his girlfriend
to at least go to the hospital to see him but that skank even refuses
that because she doesn’t want to be saddled with a possible cripple
for the next few months or years. The episode ends with Chimney sorta
waking or at least conscious enough to react to what his visiting
team is talking about. All is well. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What’s
my grade? I give it a solid <span style="color: red;">B</span>. OK, so this is not as genre-defining
as many of Ryan Murphy’s other works. In fact, when I’m
considering everything else that he’s had a hand in developing for
the last 15 or so years—Nip/Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story,
American Crime Story, Feud, Scream Queens—this is undeniably the
most pedestrian, bland show of all of them. You’re not going to
find potentially award-winning writing like on ACS, Feud or Nip/Tuck.
You will not find biting or over-the-top satirical plotting and
characters like in Scream Queens, AHS or Glee. And you definitely
won’t find film-quality cinematography or artistic compositions
like in ACS or Feud. But what you will find is an interesting look
into a part of the first responder's jobs that you rarely see. With
FX’s past show Rescue Me or NBC’s current Chicago Fire you mostly
get firefighters being... well, firefighters. They either hung in the
clubhouse or had the heavy gear on. Same with most cop shows which
are about detectives and not beat cops which are two very different
positions. And even medical shows tend to only show you the aftermath
of a much crazier scene in the field. This, however, is like the
before and in-between of all of those shows. I almost wish that they
did something like what NBC has with its “Chicago” franchise and
had multiple shows that rounded out the entire story of people. But I
can accept this show for what it is. Even still, I see potential for
a great many fissures going forward. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">First
off, as I was trying to say, this show is basically the legwork for
those other traditional servicemen shows. So most of the stories will
stop at the hospital doors if they ever get that far. Also, you’re
not going to see some hard-hitting police work like you would on SWAT
or Law and Order. This’ll be CIP stuff: drug-dealing on corners,
people actively getting robbed, etc. So where most crime procedurals
focus on the mystery of what happened and if justice will be served,
this show is all adrenaline rush, baby! That can be good, but it can
also get repetitive fast! Again, only three episodes have aired so
far, and we’ve already seen a suicidal girl jump off a crane, a
suicidal big man willingly fall to his death off of a roller coaster
and a pissed-off pseudo-suicidal boyfriend threaten to jump off of a
balcony. And that’s not even counting the faux-suicide overdose of
Athena’s daughter. I most certainly get that it’s a huge issue
from personal experience, but if the main emergency is always going
to deal with someone threatening/wanting to kill themselves then it
could get old and predictable. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Also,
so far, the characters do not <i>pop</i> off the screen. They’re
not wholly memorable nor offending. While I give a lot of positive
points for their stories being highly relatable, they also haven’t
trod any new ground like, say, <i>Rescue Me</i> did when it first
came out so many years ago. The depiction of firefighters post-911 as
not only being pissed about all the hero worship they received after
the World Trade Center but almost showing them in an anti-hero light
was jarring and riveting and kept the show going for a number of
seasons. Here, there is no bite. It almost feels like while the
adrenaline rush is good for that hour, there’s nothing to look
forward to as soon as the credits roll. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">It’s
rather hard for me to critique this kind of work because, unlike
Scream Queens or AHS or ACS or almost any of the other Ryan
Murphy-produced shows that have come, this one is so inoffensive in
every way. Ultimately it may suffer from its lack of forceful... je
ne sais quoi. It’s a feel-good show that challenges nothing, makes
a statement about nothing, wastes the talents of its considerably
talented cast, has a point-and-shoot kind of film style and tastes
like a lick of vanilla in a sea of nothing but vanilla ice cream. </span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? This ain’t a hard question for you to answer. If
you aren’t pretentious about what you watch and want the jolt of
OMG every week, then tune in. If you want a peek into the lives of
first responders, then tune in. If you like easy characters that are
going to give you a good chuckle now and then, or if you like seeing
servicemen and women in some kind of uniform, then check it out.
Again, I gave it a B, FOX has already renewed it, and I have enjoyed
watching it every week and will continue doing so for the remainder
of the season, so take that for what it is. But this’ll probably
never get anywhere close to any awards and I doubt if it’ll be the
talk-of-the-town come May. Check out 9-1-1 on FOX or FOXonDemand. New
episodes air every Wednesday at 9/8c pm. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of FOX’s 9-1-1? If not, do you think
you’ll check it out now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it?
What did you think? Am I being too hard on it and it’s your new
favorite show? Do you think that Abby and Buck will hook up at some
point during the season? And what kind of private life do you really
think Bobby has? Let me know in the comments below. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coming Soon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “Do you know the
number for 9-1-1?” </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'Dude, really?”
</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
“Michael, nooooo! You promised not to use that joke in then title
of this post.” I know but it was so easy and I couldn't think of a
good sign-off. I'm so ashamed (weeps bitterly into his barbecue
Pringles). I'll think of a better sign-off next time.</span></span></span></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a></div>
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-40245894957915424122017-12-05T19:35:00.000-08:002017-12-05T19:35:54.146-08:00And Now The End Is Here. #NaNoWriMo<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>And
Now The End Is Here. #NaNoWriMo</b> </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimlM4oq1_6WGM9oj0yMus_ZxaWpe1hxABBOTMIOFqicH70Vj7fsa0dbWrdK4OP-rqT8dSR85RXmN-dtkRv1f2f9CfJlW-ZeXBjrmGQMy8mGdqL_yvjyVMVknuLvWVx4l6PsICAXzzpuc8/s1600/Header2-3-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="1170" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimlM4oq1_6WGM9oj0yMus_ZxaWpe1hxABBOTMIOFqicH70Vj7fsa0dbWrdK4OP-rqT8dSR85RXmN-dtkRv1f2f9CfJlW-ZeXBjrmGQMy8mGdqL_yvjyVMVknuLvWVx4l6PsICAXzzpuc8/s640/Header2-3-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Picture courtesy of the NaNoEdMo website </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">It’s
official! Another #NaNoWriMo is over and in the books. If you
participated, I hope that you enjoyed the crazy, hectic, stressful
but satisfying experience and accomplished every goal you set for
yourself and your novel. If you didn’t participate this year (like
me), then I hope that you at least cheered for the participants. Some
of these writers were doing this for the first time and giving it
their all and that should always be commended. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
idea of finishing a novel in under a month is, hopefully, not as
daunting now that many of you have done it. You are now part of the
small group of people that have gone from saying, “One uh dees
dayz, I’mma write me a novel,” to, “Holy crap! Dude, I wrote a
novel.” (side note: Quotes may not be direct). So feel proud that
you are no longer one of those if-I-only-had-timers and that you are
officially a doer. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZe16PKtfwnVo8oA63jVIHqtgBqmE34nn0MaHvIUt8ovm8StkfvG6977lr_icFty5huJ9BAtPtS9kTdGqHDMTjocsvyyy2AQBcc1m0-GtmWHY-5GJ0xoF3DV6QVGHQy_KQ5D6HGzotuZg/s1600/AFuriousWind.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZe16PKtfwnVo8oA63jVIHqtgBqmE34nn0MaHvIUt8ovm8StkfvG6977lr_icFty5huJ9BAtPtS9kTdGqHDMTjocsvyyy2AQBcc1m0-GtmWHY-5GJ0xoF3DV6QVGHQy_KQ5D6HGzotuZg/s320/AFuriousWind.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So
what next? Well, unfortunately, now comes the hard part. I know, some
of you are like, “What? The hard part comes now?” Trust me, if
you weren’t having some real fun while writing, then you’re never
gonna get through this next part: editing and revisions. Remember
what I said in my previous #NaNoWriMo post: “Stray far away from
attempting to do any editing and revising during the primary writing
process during the month, even if you finished your goal early.”
People will always try to argue for stopping and going back to fix
things but I’m telling you that it can mess you up more than help
you. With December being a month full of cheerful holiday greetings,
sweet stuff, family and all-over holiday busyness, this month happens
to be the month of nothing. Sit back, relax and enjoy yourself, your
family or whatever other work that you do. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">But
even while relaxing, always be open to any little details, facts,
factoids, or just cool twists that can impact the story you’ve just
written, whether those things come to you on the back of mythical
muse’s wings or if you overhear them at a party or wherever. Sponge
them in, because January happens to be National Novel Editing Month
(or something like that). That month will challenge you to edit,
revise and re-edit the book that you wrote in November. You will have
had a month to sit on the book and either think incessantly about it
or not worry yourself with it at all. And when you come back and read
what you wrote, and read all of your notes and whatnot, you might
have a new perspective on what you wrote that could completely change
your vision of the book or strengthen the vision you already had. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Editing
a book that you’ve finished and getting it ready for people to read
is the most trying, pressing, stressful work that you can do in this
industry, so it is important to make sure that you give yourself
every advantage you can. Indulge in your favorite activities and
desserts this month, be around people that you love and care about,
but also make sure that your mental acuity stays precise and razor
sharp, and that your wit is not lost in the mire of sugar-sweet
holiday sentiment because the real work, the not-so-fun part of
writing a novel, the month where everybody who knows about National
Novel Editing Month is a little on edge because half of them are
realizing that maybe they need to toss a quarter of their book—that
starts in January. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7AyZQZ0rIXoDIyseFIv5QgvZM5oWoewLADgAVZiJVOYL479OgwO6_03YUN4OTfyUrOpiub4D7Tq46CSsDVgN99sfgqY9gRcei9udjEiIRmW7YrZQE8ykR0DHun1Z_NNnihtRKbACdEI/s1600/AhStalking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="986" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7AyZQZ0rIXoDIyseFIv5QgvZM5oWoewLADgAVZiJVOYL479OgwO6_03YUN4OTfyUrOpiub4D7Tq46CSsDVgN99sfgqY9gRcei9udjEiIRmW7YrZQE8ykR0DHun1Z_NNnihtRKbACdEI/s320/AhStalking.jpg" width="197" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">But
again, don’t worry. If you are unable to finish the challenge, it’s
OK. Many people are never quite able to finish said challenge because
as long as it takes to write the book, it oftentimes takes twice as
long to edit it on average (my observation). But this is the point
where you can really shine, because as great as all of those
cheerful, positive quotes about how “if you want to be a writer,
then write. Now you’re a writer,” are, the truth is that anybody
can write something, but that doesn’t mean they should be
considered writers. Real writers take the time to try to polish their
work to as pristine of a shine as possible. Here is where we will see
if you will be one of those, “Oh, I wrote a book once,” people
and that’s where the conversation ends, or if you’ll be a “I
wrote a novel and edited it and sent out letters about it and tried
to get it published and/or self-published and...” and the
conversation gets interesting. Don’t just be a writer, don’t just
be an editor, be interesting! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
how was your #NaNoWriMo experience if you participated? Was it fun or
a slog? Was this your first time or are you a veteran? Actually, I’m
quite intrigued by that third question because it seems like most of
the people I ran into out here on these internet streets were
first-timers and I was wondering if people ever really sign up to do
it a second time after either succeeding or failing at the challenge.
I succeeded but didn’t do it again this November because I had
other projects that needed tending to first, but I’m curious about
others’ experiences. Anyway, leave a comment below about your
experience. If you didn’t participate, then tell me why. Oh, and
I’m still looking for people willing to review my new psychological
thriller/mystery in the vein of <i>Gone Girl</i>, <i>The Girl on the
Train</i> and <i>In a Dark, Dark Wood,</i> so please leave a comment
below if you are interested because I would love to have 50 reviews
for this book by the time I release it. Thank you. In any case,
whether you just want to comment on NaNo or if you are interested in
reviewing my book, I would love to hear from you.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhiTAUxt8354ZaBnXBJYM89dyuP2koaE1ci7zgPKQNdS_AWVJ2W-XknoMesTLHsOawQRyER4dyt01uDHZF0Hv6vmmaV7Esi7lOEjuCoydDg12gbwCbVRKeKdbLFw3IdjhnSpA7FoM4mk/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “Hey, Mom, Dad, I
was readin’ in a book that—”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘Holy crap! You read a book, son?’
(dad)
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Yes, I read a book and—”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘He said it again. He admitted to
reading a book. Like, a full book?” (mom)
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Gah! Yes, a full book.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘Hmph! Probably had pictures.’
(sister)
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“No... OK, well, yes. It had three
pictures, but it was really long. Like, 300 pages.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘Well, what was it about?’ (mom)
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I don’t know. It was a mystery.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
Just admit it, you liked that joke. You liked the whole thing. You
liked the setup and lame payoff. You snickered. Admit it. Admit it!
I’ll try to come up with a much better, much shorter sign-off next
time. </span></span></span><br />
</div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-51852784784727550872017-11-22T22:09:00.001-08:002017-11-22T22:09:32.830-08:00My Predictions Hold True, Unfortunately #JusticeLeague #recap #review #comicbookmovie #DC #WarnerBrothers <div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>My
Predictions Hold True, Unfortunately #JusticeLeague #recap #review
#comicbookmovie #DC #WarnerBrothers </b></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTgnYsXWlvR-I7ru9XuvHltxM49ggIGqHEoQMDy8KD0lYW-WfAUHF8XCvWLBW0GxhMEiXatJhOaswE8jjmj0vx1E8fVTpjkHI3M2Khfmk92OEoFwyKVcX_8HlgDIWKUuSIIsABjnITT40/s1600/justice_league_final_poster_1039055.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="350" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTgnYsXWlvR-I7ru9XuvHltxM49ggIGqHEoQMDy8KD0lYW-WfAUHF8XCvWLBW0GxhMEiXatJhOaswE8jjmj0vx1E8fVTpjkHI3M2Khfmk92OEoFwyKVcX_8HlgDIWKUuSIIsABjnITT40/s640/justice_league_final_poster_1039055.jpg" width="416" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<u><span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of Warner Brothers and DC studios</span></u></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Sigh!
Head shake. What to say about this movie? See, this is one of those
times where I really wish I actually had a good camera to film myself
or at least a good microphone on my computer so that I could record
myself and post a long 20-minute rant to Youtube about this movie.
But I don’t, so I can’t. Knowing the circumstances surrounding
the making of this film, I don’t want to go all the way <i>in</i>
on the film because I want to at least have some respect for the
people behind the scenes and in front of the camera. At the end of
the day, they are all just people. And they all have passion for
something (though I, having some connections at WB, could make the
argument that they don’t all have passion for comic book movies)
and they all have their own ideas about what and how things should
go, what they should be, how to create magic. And there was some
sorrow and some loss on the way—RIP, and my sincerest condolences
to the Snyders and their family. I know it couldn’t possibly have
been anything other than difficult dealing with the death of their
daughter and then having to try working on a film that deals with
fear, death and resurrection and trying to be the hope and light in
people’s lives. So, as a fan of these characters I would (and I
know I’ll get flack for it) ask that other fans be more considerate
in their criticism of Zack Snyder about this film. I am not saying he
is above reproach here. Far from it. But just remember that the
personal stuff coupled with the fan hate may have helped in
demolishing what little vision he had for this project even before
the Whedon reshoots. OK? So, with all of that said, is Justice League
better than the critics are making out, or was it another surefire
miss on DC/WB’s part? Read on through this spoiler-filled review to
find out (I’ll warn you when we start getting into spoiler
territory). </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYOl3YqPpY2aKbpCgXB_-pNBzchh2oWeZ72_FmgHOtU4kzl66Qw7jKIQ8jC7bc8NVOr_uImo3wfED8JM7RdcLPLKfcjH2k-unHUSDGpPv-ZWYSHXTkJ5Ehdldhi_XGdwE-QAfN-krNKhk/s1600/MV5BMTY5MDA1OTY4OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwODI5MzI1OTE%2540._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYOl3YqPpY2aKbpCgXB_-pNBzchh2oWeZ72_FmgHOtU4kzl66Qw7jKIQ8jC7bc8NVOr_uImo3wfED8JM7RdcLPLKfcjH2k-unHUSDGpPv-ZWYSHXTkJ5Ehdldhi_XGdwE-QAfN-krNKhk/s400/MV5BMTY5MDA1OTY4OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwODI5MzI1OTE%2540._V1_.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wanna Join My Band? Let's Talk Over Brunch</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">OK,
so let’s get to the setup and know that this movie is more of a
direct sequel to Batman v. Superman than it is to Wonder Woman or
Suicide Squad for that matter. That means that I will be speaking
about spoilers from Batman v. Superman in this section before
spoilers kick in, OK? Good. So, as I say, Justice League takes off
nearly right after Batman v. Superman. There is some reference to
before Superman died and we get some kids trying to interview him
which is really just a sad attempt on Warner Brothers’ behalf to
try to soften Superman or even give him more dimensions to his
character. Then we also see a little bit of Superman’s burial and
of Clark Kent’s gravesite, which has also been changed, so it
seems, from the Batman v. Superman location, but I digress. And while
I did say that you didn’t need to see Suicide Squad to watch this
film, if you did see it, you might be slightly confused because there
is a time discrepancy that isn’t really addressed in the film. You
don’t really know if this film takes place in the months between SS
and BvS or if it comes after SS (Note: from this point on, I will be
referring to the other movies usually by initials only). And granted,
that is even after SS said that Superman was dead in that film but
it’s hard to tell. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
from here we move to some trailer stuff without revealing the entire
plot. This villain Steppenwolf is from a different planet and comes
to the world to, um... I don’t really know what his motivation was.
I guess it was to rule the world and/or make this world into his own
world, but in both cases neither reason was given that much weight.
But what you do need to know is that to do his plan he has these
helpers called parademons, which you saw in BvS during the Batman
nightmare. Anyway, he also needs these three boxes they call the
Mother Boxes which didn’t appear in the original theatrical release
of BvS but apparently did make an appearance in the extended R-rated
three-hour version. These boxes are a conundrum as well, but they are
essentially cubes of energy that can bond together to form the
tesseract. I’m sorry, not the tesseract—that’s Marvel. I was
trying to say the tesseract. The tesseract? Damn it, I keep trying
not to say the tesseract but all my fingers will allow me to type is
the tesseract. Basically, it’s a big cube of power that is able to
destroy and create at the same time, ie. God in a box. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3bKYyuHEOP1ImH_jElGmB8P3fgK3hrij58brH2Zj-igDfIM-i92iXKKJZHCFw68fwcIEVCkUVmTeOUrm_n1Ww6aJUewWWtHZH3INNiNusKi0MQ_scZmqRySEXDZrJrYS-y4xPnFsUOaw/s1600/mid_2870665_01_201612231052344834.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="576" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3bKYyuHEOP1ImH_jElGmB8P3fgK3hrij58brH2Zj-igDfIM-i92iXKKJZHCFw68fwcIEVCkUVmTeOUrm_n1Ww6aJUewWWtHZH3INNiNusKi0MQ_scZmqRySEXDZrJrYS-y4xPnFsUOaw/s320/mid_2870665_01_201612231052344834.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
to stop Stepps, Batman and Diana, who both know about the impending
doom, must cobble together a team because... reasons. Where do they
start? The list of curiosities left by Lex Luthor in the first one.
So they gather up Cyborg, Aquaman and the Flash, and go to battle.
And that’s about where the movie non-spoilers end. The interesting
part, however, is that that is almost the entirety of the movie. You
can guess how the movie ends because it’s a superhero movie and it
ends pretty much the same way all superhero movies end, with the
exception of Captain America: Civil War. Yes, the bad guy fails.
Outside of that, there’s one other surprise, but even that is not
all that surprising because if you know about Justice League, then
you know what I’m talking about. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
W<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">hat’s my grade? I give it a <span style="color: #cc0000;">D</span>.
I know, this is far different than how I usually recap/review movies
but I’m trying to cut down on spoilers for all you 21 subscribers I
have. Hi! So, now we are going to go into spoilers, so you are
forewarned. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">SPOILERS
</span></span></span><br />
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">AHEAD!
</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">This
film was forgettable. The worst thing about this film is that it was
not only forgettable, but it was bad and forgettable. OK, I said a
week ago that I thought Thor: Ragnarok was forgettable, but now that
a week has gone by, I can still remember some stuff from that film.
In fact, I can still remember the entirety of the film. And it was
good. Here, I can’t even remember the actual ending of this movie
before the two credit scenes. I remember the boss battle but the
denouement after that? I don’t know. I don’t know what Aquaman
did or where he went, what happened to the mother boxes, what
happened to the Flash or any of that stuff. I do remember a Knights
of the Round Table reference with Batman and Wonder Woman in Wayne
Manor but that was about it. Oh, and Cyborg developed some more
armor. But what was Superman doing after the Kent farm move? I don’t
know. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
here’s the deal, this movie was bad. Not as bad as Suicide Squad
but near close, and it troubles me that this actually got a higher
rating than BvS because if I’m comparing the two, this was much
worse. Yes, fans complained about the darkness in both tone and
picture quality of BvS but when looking back on that film, at least
the tone stayed consistent and felt OK for what the film ultimately
turned out to be. Here, the mixture of tones with comedy and darkness
and grounded and comic bookish felt like they were trying to
constantly add more and more salt and pepper. When it got too salty,
they’d add water to cut down on the salt. When it got too peppery?
They’d add water to cut down on the pepper. And they just kept
adding and adding until it made the whole tone bland on all sides.
Some people will say that this was funny. Eh! Not really. It had a
few good jokes but a lot of them were misfires to me in the same vein
as this year’s earlier Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-man:
Homecoming. It just felt bland and generic and, interestingly enough,
like something we’ve already seen. Some people might say that it’s
hard to hate, but no it isn’t. In an era in which we are so
niche-oriented, so choose-a-side-oriented, a film that rides the
fence is so aggravating that I can totally hate this film. But I’m
actively trying not to hate it. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT40H76CX3jpthOulzyveIJ-Cq6Jif3WIs7S89BTHmqDuSW74_sDJ-sTf8kVUqAVOJQ75aqfangMyaCrxzRqL2gD9gZjwQwKTJSNRhIMu5bLqg-9gXyCsUQgLgWaK4oUbYFptDABOfBJ0/s1600/88244.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="640" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT40H76CX3jpthOulzyveIJ-Cq6Jif3WIs7S89BTHmqDuSW74_sDJ-sTf8kVUqAVOJQ75aqfangMyaCrxzRqL2gD9gZjwQwKTJSNRhIMu5bLqg-9gXyCsUQgLgWaK4oUbYFptDABOfBJ0/s320/88244.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Where
do I actually start with this film? OK, the first thing we should
look at are some of the same problems that BvS, SS and Wonder Woman
all had in common, and complaints from the entirety of the DCEU. We
first start with the editing. Jumpy editing and quick-cuts from one
scene to the next were the exact thing that sunk BvS and SS. We
started BvS with about six scenes that you only stayed with for two
minutes tops, after the opening of the Wayne’s deaths. We cut to
Bruce driving around the city, then to people digging up kryptonite
in the ocean, then Lois in the desert with Jimmy Olson, then Batman
doing something, then Superman and on and on. Suicide Squad did some
of the same stuff, and guess what? Justice League does it too. We
started with the kids interview, then the burial, then Batman
fighting, then Wonder Woman fighting, then they’re doing something
else and something else and it just seems to never pack any sort of
emotional connectivity into the scenes at all. You don’t get
character development, you barely get character introductions, and
you really don’t get much story development here. There’s a lot
of stuff going on and flashs and bangs and stuff but that doesn’t
really give us anything. It comes off again as nothing more than a
collection of scenes. This is the third time that they’ve given us
an opening which is really a collection of scenes rather than
something that develops and seems like it will lead to something. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
editing leads directly into pacing. To me, all of the DCEU films have
had a problem with pacing, with SS being the biggest offender,
followed by a tie between WW and BvS. In my WW review/recap, I said
that they could’ve easily taken out about an hour or so of the film
and would’ve lost nothing. Same goes for BvS. But in JL, they
commit the same crime as SS where it felt like they were rushing.
This movie is less than two hours, making it the shortest runtime of
all five DCEU films which is the strangest, stupidest thing probably
ever. So you’re saying that individual films for superheroes are
long as hell but when they all team up, they can get everything done
in less than two hours? Really? And the strange time constraints set
within the film made the final battle bizarre to me because of the
family. I’ll get to the family later, but just know that the pacing
here was too fast at some points and too slow at other parts. And the
worst thing is that it feels like, even though there is a ton of
stuff going on, it never really feels like anything actually happens
in the film, except a few fights. There is no tension which I will
talk about later during the plotting section. </span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This WW Is Not The One You Get In JL</td></tr>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Next
we have the characters. OK, so we get the main characters of the JL
but they are hardly developed. WW, coming from her own film, is once
again watered down in my opinion. Yes, she is like the mother hen of
the team, but her character seems all over the place for an Amazon
that has been living in the world of men for a century. The tension
between her and Batman is good but outside of that I didn’t really
feel anything for her. It’s strange but as much as I disliked WW I
would’ve preferred seeing that version of the character over this.
And yes, she was oversexualized which I will talk about later. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Batman,
even though he was the father of the team, felt bland. Where as in
BvS he actually felt like a jaded superhero, someone who’s been
doing this for a long while, someone who has seen some really crazy
stuff, here he doesn’t come off as that at all. I’m not sure if
Ben had already checked out after fans and critics didn’t like BvS
(I will totally pull out that sad Batfleck meme again) or if this is
just how the character was written but he felt more like he didn’t
care about what they were doing than anything. Now that I think about
it, the film comes off as so bland because there is no conviction
about anything from anybody, including the villain. Yes, he wants to
rule the world or whatever but the guy had a chance to do that the
last time and wimped out and fled. So, it’s like, eh! He’ll
probably flee again if he’s given the chance. And you know what? He
sorta does. They didn’t even kill the villain. They let him be
taken up in a tractor beam expecting for the parademons to have
killed him. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I’m
getting off on a tangent. Just know that if you liked Affleck’s
portrayal of Bats in BvS (which was one of the things I actually did
enjoy), you aren’t getting the same one here. He looks good in the
suit but he’s not given much of anything to do in any of the
fights. In fact, he isn’t even given a cool parademon fight like
how he was beating up the guards and shooting them in BvS during that
nightmare sequence. He doesn’t use the same armor that he had on
when fighting Superman and just stands around, once again, with a gun
in his hand shooting down these insect-like creatures. What the
frick! Didn’t we complain about Batman using a gun? In the film,
they even make it a point to mention a few times that there is this
particular chime or frequency that drives the parademons crazy and
can kill them, so Alfred will have it installed into the suit. But
does Batman ever use it in the final battle? If he did, I don’t
remember that. </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM6kG1C8TP-uEzSclmwwJVlDl90hAzZwVx9B79v_FLmEkgWPLIQb_M7sF4ztxP5TDCxXwbhltxGJWF5j_7C-lAC2iPo5_SQ3Mi5eDDG1aBiV0qNvWTTjVq6nGZ3wMmGRGTa1qL7Bn3w8U/s1600/3d3fac73c1aeca4b6304e05554f2befd7b4e3cb9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM6kG1C8TP-uEzSclmwwJVlDl90hAzZwVx9B79v_FLmEkgWPLIQb_M7sF4ztxP5TDCxXwbhltxGJWF5j_7C-lAC2iPo5_SQ3Mi5eDDG1aBiV0qNvWTTjVq6nGZ3wMmGRGTa1qL7Bn3w8U/s400/3d3fac73c1aeca4b6304e05554f2befd7b4e3cb9.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Then
we have the new characters: Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman. I remember
back when Superman Returns came out and I went to see that with my
mother (she likes superheroes) and she asked me the same thing that a
lot of fans were wondering at the time: is the boy from the
Smallville show going to play Superman? And I said no. And she asked
me why not and I said because that’s its own thing. I never really
thought that the TV versions of a character should rightfully play
the film versions. Until I saw the Flash in this movie. I hated
everything about the Flash. I really did. I don’t think I like Ezra
Miller, frankly. I thought his voice was annoying—it sounded
needlessly geeky and insincere. I thought his wide-eyed
everything-is-awesome look was unnecessary (one of the things that
annoyed me about Spider-man in CA: Civil War). I didn’t like the
costume and I thought that a lot of his jokes were OK but could’ve
been delivered much better by a different actor. Where TV’s Grant
Gustin brings just enough gravitas and comedic charm to the
character, Ezra felt like he was in a superhero spoof movie, like
something from the Wayans brothers but even cheesier than that. And
did anybody notice the goofy running at the end of the film? What the
hell was that? Was he running like that the whole time and I missed
it or just auditioning for a position in the Ministry of Silly Walks:
Running Bureau (it’s an offshoot of the original)? Or is that how
he really runs? I don’t know. It drew needless attention to the
character in a very unflattering way. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Aquaman
was rather a waste. Was he cool? I guess. He had some pretty nice
poster shots, but outside of that he was just another punching bag
for the other supers. Steppenwolf throws him around, he’s no match
for Superman and even his underwater fight didn’t get me that
jazzed for his solo movie coming out in 11 months. Wait, 11 months?
Holy crap! That is a hella-long time. I just looked it up. Hm? Maybe
it’s good that DC doesn’t have another film coming out next year
because... Well, just wait for my predictions at the end of the
article. </span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOEm-tx6V3CIbRLh9X90ms0yVx7Hj4zUrklen3W4hw-KX1bs-5vLf6baFifmNNntOcqxc2f9b0lBHjnHUyxeUhMFgJF8d6rpaUVSUMckJ4Q-dmixSiZI5hHVpXbAoWufcE8qwyQK-LpT4/s1600/justice-league-2017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="862" data-original-width="1600" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOEm-tx6V3CIbRLh9X90ms0yVx7Hj4zUrklen3W4hw-KX1bs-5vLf6baFifmNNntOcqxc2f9b0lBHjnHUyxeUhMFgJF8d6rpaUVSUMckJ4Q-dmixSiZI5hHVpXbAoWufcE8qwyQK-LpT4/s400/justice-league-2017.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aquaman. Sorry It Is So Dark</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway,
at one point Aquaman reveals Batman’s secret identity and Bruce
doesn’t even react. Granted, the people around don’t seem to
speak English but who the hell knows if they do or not. Then there’s
another scene in which he’s drinking from the bottle (this was in
the trailers) and he slams the bottle onto the dock as the waves
cascade over his body and I couldn’t help but let my
environmentalist mind kick in and be like, “He does realize that
all that broken glass is gonna wash right into the sea and probably
end up hurting one of the sea creatures, right?” It’s a nitpick,
but it really bothered me, especially because isn’t man’s
pollution of the sea part of the reason why he exists? Isn’t his
job to protect the sea and all of its living creatures? Wasn’t he
supposed to be the eco-predecessor to Captain Planet? Even better and
totally unrelated question, how old is he supposed to be? We know
that Diana is hundreds of years old, at least. And we knew that back
in BvS. Meanwhile this guy’s been comin’ in on the tide for how
long? I digress. Aquaman was fine and for the first big-screen
adaptation of him, he did his job. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Cyborg
was just OK. I get the reason why they used him and not, say, the
black Green Lantern but even with the mother boxes being part of him,
I still didn’t quite get why he was so willing to become a
superhero after one good talking to by Diana. Was he really motivated
by his father being taken or was that just a thing that happened?
This is never really made all that clear. And he had the lamest
introduction of his powers probably ever. He just turned on his heel
blasters to fly and was like, “I couldn’t do that last night.”
Really? Hm. They wasted Joe Morton who is brilliant on Scandal. There
isn’t really a big reveal of Cyborg either. Yes, he’s wearing a
hoodie and whatnot during the first half of the movie, but when we
see the rest of his body it isn’t during some amazing reveal, it’s
just, “Oh, there’s Cyborg being all metallic and stuff.” And
the weirdest part was about his interaction with the mother boxes,
specifically where the hell it came from. I know he and his father
had it in BvS but how’d they find it? Never explained. There’s
not really much I could say about him even though he’s supposed to
be somewhat of the heart of the team before Superman comes back. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Which
brings us to the only plot twist in this film, which isn’t really a
twist at all. Yes, Superman is back. And by back I mean he’s back
to Man of Steel levels. Look, I’ll admit that it’s been a few
years since MoS came out and most people were so disgusted with that
movie that they actively tried to forget it, and that BvS is the
freshest in people’s minds so they naturally go to the joylessness
of the character in that movie. But with that said, if you go back
and watch MoS again, you will see that there was some joy in the
character, just not a lot. He did smile and he did make a few jokes
here and there, and we even got that promising smile at the end of
the film between him and Lois. But with the destruction porn
overshadowing much of the takeaway from that film, most critics don’t
remember those parts of the film and are inclined to say that this
new Superman, the resurrected one, is much better. He is not. He’s
about the same, honestly. But he’s not even in the movie long
enough to be of any consequence character-wise. We spend, on my
count, four scenes with him, with the third scene being the
climax/final battle. And there, his quips seem more arrogant than
funny. The fact that he’s talking about how they’re still having
such a tough time dealing with Steppenwolf when he comes in
repeatedly to punch the guy drunk like it ain’t nothin’ feels
more diminishing to the other characters than uplifting to his
character. It became another one of those comic book debate
quandaries that fans have had for years: if superman is really
“super” then why would he need anybody else helping him? It’s
literally the same debate had between Jerry and George on an episode
of Seinfeld. It negates the entirety of the team coming together, and
if he wasn’t dead, this movie wouldn’t actually exist. Instead,
it’d be MoS 2. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steppenwolf</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
final character is Steppenwolf who leads us more into the plot
because they tie so closely together. Steppenwolf is the villain who
seems to have little to no purpose. Again his motivations are vague.
I guess he wants to take over the world but I can’t quite figure
out why. Unlike, say General Zod in MoS or even Ares (to some extent)
in WW, we don’t get the same feel that this guy has a true purpose
behind what he is doing and thus makes the entirety of pursuing him
and trying to stop him as bland and pointless as this very review has
been so far. As a side note, has anyone else noticed that every
villain that has been featured in the mainstream of the DCEU (that
means not including SS) has been a general of some sort? I would even
make the case that Doomsday is really just a cobbling together of Zod
and Luthor’s DNA, so he’s technically still a general. But Ares,
Zod and now Steppenwolf are all generals. This is what I mean when I
say that we most likely have reached comic book oversaturaion. It’s
similar to how when we enter a recession in the economy but no one
really knows it’s a recession until a few months in when the
government economists gather all of the info from the last few months
and can finally announce, “Yeah, we are actually in a recession.”
The announcement always comes months into the actual recession. I am
announcing it now that we are in a comic-book-movie market
oversaturation. You all can doubt me if you want to, but when films
keep recycling the same exact plot points, they either need a
disruptor or they are going to dramatically decline. Granted, a few
female-led superheroes will disrupt the industry and keep it bumping
along for a little while, but it’s still on the decline. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway,
back to Steppenwolf. Steppenwolf’s motivations are so vague and
bland—we’re talkin’ Marvel-villain bland—that they can be
easily explained in a rather clumsy Diana storytelling sequence. If
you recall the opening storytime in WW where Hippolyta tells little
Diana the story about man and the island and why the Amazons are
there now, they did a fine job of going all the way from one point to
the next and giving us a coherent backstory. But in JL we have Diana
and Bruce strolling down the side of Wayne’s little pond as she
sorta jumps around in the story and gives us this strange Lord of the
Rings-esque tale of how, apparently, Stepps has been on earth before
and the Atlantians, the Amazons and the regular humans all fought
together to defeat him. Even the gods joined and he was defeated and
embarrassed because his soldiers forced him to retreat to live
another day rather than die on the battlefield. In this story we also
get a quick glaze-over of who and what the parademons are by seeing
people turn into these insect-like things. And it’s basically like,
“OK, you’re all set audience.” That’s it. There’s no
build-up of his evil, there’s little explanation of why he wants to
conquer these planets, it just tells us that this guy is bad, the
whole world came together to defeat him and that the three mother
boxes were all separated amongst the three main groups in order to
keep Steppenwolf from getting them. And therein lies one of the
problems. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
we had that little intro which, if they had better writers/editors,
they would’ve known that that story should’ve gone at the
beginning of the film instead of the Superman death thing. We’ve
already seen BvS and SS which both show us that Supes is dead, so we
don’t need a third reminder that, “Holy crap! Superman is dead.”
Start the film with the battle against Steppenwolf and have him make
this grand declaration about how he will be back and about how he
will come back stronger and better and the world will be powerless to
stop him and all of that. Do it that way and you don’t need the
narration. Have one grand 300-esque battle without explanation, then
have Diana tell the story later and it all makes much more sense and
has a better flow. But no. Instead they fit his story in with a tiny
slip-in of everything that needs to be known about him, which really
is nothing. But even worse, the entirety of the importance of all of
the three big groups getting together is negated by how easily
Steppenwolf finds the boxes. Dude literally has the first box within
five minutes of getting back to earth, the second box about five
runtime-minutes later and has the third one about an hour into the
film (he arrives in the film at maybe 30 minutes in. And the taking
of the boxes, outside of the one guarded by the Amazons, is so
incredibly easy that it’s frustrating. For god’s sake, he takes
the third box while the entire group is outside dealing with the
resurrected Superman. They basically just let him have that. Like,
Batman or the Flash or someone couldn’t have grabbed it before
leaving? Let’s just leave this giant delicious cookie in the middle
of the Cookie Monster’s table and expect him not to eat it. Dumb!
And let’s not even get into the fact that Zod’s spaceship (even
though I could’ve sworn the entirety of that crap got sucked into
the phantom zone in MoS) is still sitting in the middle of downtown
Metropolis. Sigh. God, there’s just so much here. There’s always
too much to talk about in these DC films. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">They
couldn’t be bothered to give Stepps a real personality, save but to
make him a huge monster. And even more to the point, if you saw the
extended version of BvS or the deleted scenes, then you probably saw
a Steppenwolf that looked nothing like the one that they ultimtely
used in the film. In that sense, I guess I can see why they deleted
him from BvS. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So
the plot is to resurrect Superman (the pure “god” that will fight
with the others), and stop Steppenwolf. That’s it. That’s the
movie. Granted, I know all superhero films can essentially be reduced
to that but here that is literally all that happens. There’s barely
any chemistry built between the team members and even the stuff
between Batman and Wonder Woman is good but feels hollow and I don’t
know if that’s because both Affleck and Gadot aren’t very great
actors or if they weren’t given enough direction or leeway with
their performances. It’s garbage. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">There’s
so little to the plot that it’s hard to talk about it. There’s
things that get mentioned and sorta are interesting like Martha
having to leave the Kent farm after foreclosure and Lois not being
able to really write after Clark died, but this stuff is so glazed
and glossed that you never really care. The film doesn’t spend
enough time to build any emotional gravitas to anything. And some of
that is editing and pacing, and some of it is the actual plotting.
While this has a better plot than SS, I would contend that BvS, while
convoluted, has a better plot than this. And of course WW has a
better plot. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEB0E4eObb_6bJux70rwq50OFtZqDct43tQouKyVS6VR1H6MpwTRnHjl_AGPxAYdEy5YGglk5RhBrLB2j7dZfZNmUh2CVJC2E9oO0djuml3_dguyoeAp6W_iuRqoshOeCptas6BaQHzIY/s1600/Justice-League-Aquaman-Jason-Momoa-Shirtless-Photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="600" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEB0E4eObb_6bJux70rwq50OFtZqDct43tQouKyVS6VR1H6MpwTRnHjl_AGPxAYdEy5YGglk5RhBrLB2j7dZfZNmUh2CVJC2E9oO0djuml3_dguyoeAp6W_iuRqoshOeCptas6BaQHzIY/s320/Justice-League-Aquaman-Jason-Momoa-Shirtless-Photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Even more, there’s stuff in here that, even though you
know it’s coming, it feels like it doesn’t need to be in there.
For instance, the entirety of Atlantis and Atlantians does nothing
for the story. The battle to take the cube lasts a third of the time
that it did for the Amazons and shows an even smaller contingent of
mer-peoples. They don’t show Aquaman talking in the water, but
rather in a bubble which is fine but the conversation has nothing to
do with anything. It’s almost as if we were already supposed to
know everything about his character or a lot of backstory and you’re
pretty lost. They fit Mera in but there’s no point. As much as I
would’ve liked to get excited for Aquaman and maybe see a little
more of Atlantis before having seen this film, I now wish they
would’ve completely cut these water scenes and just had Aquaman
mention that the box was stolen from Atlantis, or even have him about
to dive off a boat to swim down to Atlantis only to see the beam of
light and Steppenwolf making away with the box. It felt needless. And
it felt even worse with the Flash’s character-build being chopped
down to one meeting with Batman that you already saw in the trailers.
You don’t get to meet Iris West nor do you see that glass
shattering scene from one of the earlier trailers. Oh, and if the
fact that Aquaman seems unable to talk underwater is freaking you out
about his movie, I’m sure they’ll figure out a way to make it
happen. Or they won’t and it’ll be a disaster. Whichever. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I
know I’m jumping all over the place here but, again, there’s lots
of stuff wrong in this film that also jumps all over the place. Let’s
next talk about the comedy. Hannn! Sigh. Shaking my head again. OK,
so lately I have been trying to train myself to be more instinctive.
In writing and creating stuff, I always go with my instincts and act
upon a decision immediately when it comes to narrative and character
building or going with a particular story or plot. But when not
writing, in business and in life in general, I have been very off on
my instincts for about 13 years now when I used to have very good
instincts. I mention this because I think that DC has the same
instincts problem. Their problem—and this includes everybody behind
and in front of the scenes (Geoff Johns, Snyder, Whedon, whoever)—is
that they all have terrible instincts when it comes to DC properties.
And before you defend Whedon, just remember his WW script that came
out earlier this year. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">DC’s
lack of instincts can’t really be blamed wholly on them. This stems
mostly from the fans. Fans complained that BvS, MoS and even SS were
all too dark and weren’t light-hearted. Honestly, this complaint,
while partially legit, was also full of shiznit because these films
didn’t need to be funny or full of humor and camera-winks to be
good. The Dark Knight was great and it wasn’t always funny.
Something I’ve learned from watching and reading so many reviews
and recaps of entertainment stuff is that when fans can’t properly
identify what they dislike about something they will always fall back
on one big thing. For books, it is always, “The characters were so
unlikable,” as if all characters must be likable. No, you don’t
need to want to sit down and have a cup of tea with the characters to
enjoy the book, you need to understand the character and their
motivations. Characters need to be interesting. In movies, especially
in comic book movies, the line is always about how “dark and
gritty” the tone is. No, these movies don’t need to be filled to
the brim with gags and jokes to be good, they need to properly
accomplish what they are set out to do, which is show heroes
overcoming things and becoming heroes. DC’s films have yet to do
that in any good fashion. For me, even Wonder Woman failed at this,
but again, it shines because of the dreck it is associated with. For
Wonder Woman there is never a real struggle for her to overcome. For
MoS there is never really an acknowledgement of his heroism as
something he chose and not something thrust upon him. Same goes for
BvS. SS is a different creature because that movie would’ve been
good had it been longer, and unchopped by savages in suits, and if
Leto was given better direction.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxsyJ8WncsSPqhMBkjHTuaWTeqP5WtKFB-P9prrvN1TM_HBINmRsyfxQDi0Wq0-72w59gSVsy940Pdb4n5ZRBI2d6-7T8zruBRzLQqqOjfgl3HCJHRB1GlAFSIcBQazgIFdJ1bk3UP6sw/s1600/justice-league-clark-kent-superman-henry-cavill-mustache.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="618" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxsyJ8WncsSPqhMBkjHTuaWTeqP5WtKFB-P9prrvN1TM_HBINmRsyfxQDi0Wq0-72w59gSVsy940Pdb4n5ZRBI2d6-7T8zruBRzLQqqOjfgl3HCJHRB1GlAFSIcBQazgIFdJ1bk3UP6sw/s400/justice-league-clark-kent-superman-henry-cavill-mustache.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Get Your Superman-scented Candle For Christmas Now!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">With
all that preface, I say that DC tried to overdo it with the comedy.
This was so evident just by the line, “You smell good.” ‘I
didn’t before?’ If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m
talking about. It’s more cringey than funny. There are plenty of
Flash one-liners that, instead of making the character seem
smart-quirky, made the character seem young-stupid. Again, it feels
like someone who doesn’t like Millennials trying to write what a
Millennial would say and how they’d act. It’s dumb. Even Batman
played as a comic relief, which would’ve been OK had he not also
been useless in the fights against Stepps and the insects. Then
Wonder Woman is not really given any humorous lines, but rather is
stuffed into the stereotypically sexist box of her sexiness being the
butt of jokes, which is what feminists so promptly complain about.
The Flash pushes her out of the way to save her from being crushed
and falls flat on her, face to breasts, then pops up and looks like
the awkward nerd who has never touched a woman’s breasts before.
And she gives him this wink-wink smile and we’re supposed to sorta
chuckle at his Sheldon-like social miscue but it’s not funny. I
half expected her to get up grab the back of his head and smash his
face back into her breasts and yell, “Motorboat for your life!”
in that accent of hers. Gasp! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Trying
to bring levity to things during battles should be banned from now
on. I can see maybe at the very beginning of a battle, but once
you’re fist to face with the villian, you shouldn’t be joking
about how hard you can hit and how great you are at saving people, or
any of that stuff. It’s stupid and it feels dumb. We honestly think
that soldiers or firemen (you know, real heroes) are doing this
during tense action? Probably not. Some said that they didn’t feel
Whedon in this. I felt him too much. I think most of the one-liners
came from him because they felt like rejected lines straight out of
the Avengers. For instance, that thirsty Lois line? Come on. You
can’t tell me that wasn’t a Whedon request. “Quick, try to put
some current young-people slang in there to make it funnier.” </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS4rnxA513ajt12Xce3f5gOH11YAJh34L6XJetsL4LvNM0jkf1QKsaxXcv_4FPpCR-0_cFkA1qPVuoBugigWUrDVXtGmVHO9vun2OAzvd_rB3lu1EJ2hzr9ScQZEbi7mouEYlt17Gd1cI/s1600/justiceleague-trailerbreakdown-parademons-batmobile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="761" data-original-width="1426" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS4rnxA513ajt12Xce3f5gOH11YAJh34L6XJetsL4LvNM0jkf1QKsaxXcv_4FPpCR-0_cFkA1qPVuoBugigWUrDVXtGmVHO9vun2OAzvd_rB3lu1EJ2hzr9ScQZEbi7mouEYlt17Gd1cI/s320/justiceleague-trailerbreakdown-parademons-batmobile.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">DC
doesn’t seem to know the difference between situational comedy and
one-liner comedy. Situational comedy is always much better than
one-liner comedy when it comes to films, especially in comic book
films. The exception is for characters that are completely far
left-field comedic and over-the-top ridiculous like Deadpool or
Guardians of the Galaxy. I don’t take either of those films or
superheroes seriously and wouldn’t care if those characters died or
got rebooted or anything. Here, I’m supposed to care about the
people in the Justice League. I’m supposed to care about Superman,
Batman and Wonder Woman and they’re really pushing me to care about
Aquaman. But I don’t give a single damn about The Flash. I don’t
want to see his movie, especially if it’s going to be full of
in-your-face comedy. He’s the most, “Go home, Roger” character
of 2017. When you have superheroes constantly risking their life it’s
better to have situational humor like when in the Avengers Thor hits
Iron Man with some lightning and instead of shorting him, he actually
gets more power and Stark is like, “Oh, well, look at that.” And
then he delivers a nice blow. That is situationally funny and not
kitschy. Here, it’s just terrible humor and The Flash gets most of
it. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Then
there’s just some stuff that’s plain ol’ stupid. Wonder Woman
does her bracelet smacks a few too many times. It’s like, is that
all that you have? I loved the entrance of her where she’s blocking
all the bullets and stuff, but then the rest of the film she just
keeps smacking her bracelets, smacking her bracelets, smacking her
bracelets—enough already. Do something else. And that’s not even
considering the film anomalies of her sword and stuff. So, she
destroyed the “god killer” in WW, so that sword she has in this
film is probably not the same one. Fine. But did anybody notice how
the blade lit up gold in some scenes? Or how she was able to sharpen
it with a plain rock? I don’t get it, is it a special sword or not?
And if it is special then how are you sharpening it with the rock
from Charlie Brown? OK, that was really just a pet peeve but still. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Another
stupid thing: where the hell were all the other people that aren’t
stupid? Did anyone notice how, outside of the main cast, you didn’t
get to see hardly any other real people in this film save for at the
very end? The only people we really had—outside of the main cast
including Jim Gordon and Martha Kent—were a reporter whose dialogue
could’ve been cut and the scene retooled, and this idiotic family
in Russia. I have no idea what the hell that family was doing there.
They literally only existed so that the heroes could actually have
one heroic moment in the film. Again, DC listened to the fans too
much about all of the destruction and decided, “OK, they don’t
like when superheroes fight in the middle of crowded cities with
people running everywhere, so let’s take them to a town where you
literally don’t see any other people, save for one dumbass family
that should’ve left the city days ago when they saw some crazy
alien race land in the middle of town and start setting up shop. It’s
the same stupidity as was in SS where Amanda Waller just stays in the
middle of the city along with a bunch of other people. They just stay
even though the city is being taken over by a superpowered being
because... reasons. Yes, everything shouldn’t be all about
destruction and huge buildngs falling on people, but my god make it
seem like there is some peril in this thing. Hell, did the world even
know they were in danger in this film? Or that another alien invasion
was on the way? During MoS you at least got that gripping sense of
dread and fear at, “Oh my god, we are not alone in this universe...
And some of the other inhabitants are just as evil as we are.” </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">DC
on humor, tone and this lack of people didn’t follow their
instincts and trust in whatever it was they previously had, and
instead tried to make all the changes that fans asked for, but went
overboard in the wrong direction with said changes. This was one of
the things that ruined the film. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt0ikl5rPhTQVhm5O2i-XRGnX5u4-vCdnJTxQV6su0WGdhrRJUogCLsDFgD_wv_0rPGt9WnLVtVyhqhQZfQi-PzrELdBaEpskKWm1P1w3INim7XchdiFb_EL7BI28NLA9QBBPJbBDhz5E/s1600/JL-FP-0132_master_gallery_5a04bbdfdbe525.77101583.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt0ikl5rPhTQVhm5O2i-XRGnX5u4-vCdnJTxQV6su0WGdhrRJUogCLsDFgD_wv_0rPGt9WnLVtVyhqhQZfQi-PzrELdBaEpskKWm1P1w3INim7XchdiFb_EL7BI28NLA9QBBPJbBDhz5E/s320/JL-FP-0132_master_gallery_5a04bbdfdbe525.77101583.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Speaking
of the family, I hated how this film was shot. I know a lot of people
will love the comic-booky nature of the visuals but I don’t. The
skies in this film are never real but always some deep red or strange
green or gray color. That, coupled with the bad CGI and the lack of
people made this film feel to unrealistic. And this is what should be
one of the biggest complaints for fans. In almost none of the films,
save for WW, have they actually created environments/worlds that felt
like they could be populated by real people. JL doesn’t have the
feel of an actual world. It feels like a moving comic book or an
unfinished video game. Maybe that’s cool for some, but not for most
people. Nearly every scene looks unreal or out of place. You can’t
lose yourself in the film, in this environment because it’s too
flat in some ways and over-popped in other ways. It’s one thing to
use a lot of green screen but another for it to be clear to people
that you used a lot of green screen. Everything feels staged. It
feels like they’re on a set. For instance, one of the biggest
things I hated was the batcave in this. In BvS, it looked like an
actual cave fitted with a tech lab inside. Here, it has windows going
across the entirety of the side. It looks more like a hangar than
anything and I’m like where the hell did they film this? Nothing
about Bruce’s place felt like something Bruce Wayne would actually live in. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I
also didn’t like the fight scene with the Amazons. Let me talk
about the battle first, then we’ll hit the costumes. For me, that
battle with the Amazons epitomized the reason why I didn’t like
Wonder Woman: it had too many questionable plot holes that are big to
the overall DCEU and it did nothing to make me care about anybody but
WW. Again, what the hell are the Amazons powers? I ask because
remember, one of them got shot to death by some human’s bullets.
And I’m like, if you can get shot and die from it, or if Wonder
Woman can actually get a scrape on her skin, even if it does heel,
then what are they immune to? What really makes them better than
normal humans? And on top of that, I really didn’t get to know the
Amazons at all. Think about a few of these questions for me: Outside
of the fight training, what were two key differences between
Themyscira and the world of man culturally? Were there any love
relationships there? Did Diana have any really close friends she
agonized over leaving behind? Can you name one of he characters
outside of Hippolyta, Diana and the woman who died (strictly talking
about the film, not the comics). Were there others who dissented
againsted Hippolyta? Outside of Hippolyta, who would miss Diana the
most? Bet you can’t answer a single one of those questions. That’s
why I didn’t get when fans and critics said they did a great job of
introducig the island. No, they did a great job of shooting the
island and making it look picturesque. They introduce Themyscira the
place and Themyscira the people.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5_wHXy8-b29iWRToy2hOn86sy17lCYLAqXwvjoVkXm0MgzjtfGS7AGF1AnXvpwBalUX4hh7_dSc4jEQhyphenhyphenTxCH3DVLXXOPOiDo3K2JEyE0oujsyI-3OhPhTh0QQbL_ZH9_kTYqt4Oe65E/s1600/justice-league-movie-trailer-amazons-vs-parademons.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1371" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5_wHXy8-b29iWRToy2hOn86sy17lCYLAqXwvjoVkXm0MgzjtfGS7AGF1AnXvpwBalUX4hh7_dSc4jEQhyphenhyphenTxCH3DVLXXOPOiDo3K2JEyE0oujsyI-3OhPhTh0QQbL_ZH9_kTYqt4Oe65E/s320/justice-league-movie-trailer-amazons-vs-parademons.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So
when the Amazons fought Stepps in JL, I felt not a single bit of
willingness to root for them because I knew they were going to all be
slaughtered by his axe. In fact, I am baffled as to why the fight
went on for so long. They should’ve been dead on the outset. And
even the ones that didn’t die or were struggling, I couldn’t care
less for. That woman who was pinned beneath the horse and Hippolyta
stopped to help and weep over, who was she? What was her importance?
Was I supposed to care more for her death than all the dozens of
soldiers that died before her? Eh!</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Now
we finally get to the complaint of sexism and the costumes. This talk
is twofold because I both disagree and agree here. OK, first I will
say that the complaints about the costumes for the Amazons minus
Diana, to me, was unwarranted. First off, we saw most of the warriors
showing tons of skin in the flashback story of Steppenwolf’s first
invasion. In fact, I swear to god Snyder snuck in a Gerard Butler
cameo when the god is fighting against Stepps and the parademons. The
guy is on the field of battle with his chest all out, a red cape on
and little armor. Zoom forward to today’s Amazons and how they’ve
matured. From what I can see, the armor is more akin to a clothing
option and/or by rank, both of which make more since when judging
warriors and medieval armor and stuff. For instance, when Hippolyta
first enters that secret box chamber, she has on a full armor plate
from shoulder to knees and armored boots. The girl on her left has
quite a bit of armor on too, but not the same kind and not as much,
and the girl on her right has a bare midriff with some breast armor
but that’s all. But the thing is that we see various forms of armor
on all of the women. Many of them inside the chamber don’t have the
best of armor. But as you get farther down the hall and past the
various drop stones, the women gradually have more armor and then
when on the horses, you have some of the most armored women. This
makes since not just from a fashion preference for some of the women
(some women want to dress sexy to feel it, as Cate Blanchett said.
And before you jump on me for that, it’s a known fact that most
women dress for other women, not men, so a society devoid of men
might also have some of the same patterns of though but of course we
don’t know that because WW didn’t define the culture, as
previously stated), but by rank. In olden times and still today, the
highest-ranking and/or the best soldiers often got the best armor and
technology. This was the difference between a true knight and a
common soldier. It was expected for the knight to slay more enemies,
so you wanted to protect them longer with better stuff. So it makes
sense for the guards on the horses to have the most armor because
they are expected to be the best warriors and the last line of
defense against Stepps before the rest of the Amazonian army comes.
So no, it wasn’t sexist and get out of here with that male gaze BS
on the island. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeNxLFZ7KgwApkewq4atpuXq2OVdlZeMccUDTbwRbWqdbzaEOVSgrx0sWk3G0zTqdPv3rb2v10G1rnLXF4mUrIZmvNxU-j0INgZFUe_A0qbZOW0EyuUsmJWfHXudB2OHG7h-uNM3hMY0k/s1600/gal_gadot_wonder_woman_movie_2017-wide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeNxLFZ7KgwApkewq4atpuXq2OVdlZeMccUDTbwRbWqdbzaEOVSgrx0sWk3G0zTqdPv3rb2v10G1rnLXF4mUrIZmvNxU-j0INgZFUe_A0qbZOW0EyuUsmJWfHXudB2OHG7h-uNM3hMY0k/s320/gal_gadot_wonder_woman_movie_2017-wide.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gold Leathery Bossoms</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Off
the island is a different story. While the rest of the Amazons aren’t
sexualized, as I said before, Wonder Woman herself definitely is
sexualized. Not only do we see pretty much everybody’s butt in this
when they jump out of Batman’s tank-vehicle (save for Batman’s,
who has his butt well-caped), but we see a literal chunk of Gadot’s
ass. I literally sat in the theater and said outloud much to the
dismay of the other patrons, “Oh my god! Dem is some booty cheeks.
Dem is really some booty cheeks. Aw damn!” I don’t know how or
why her skirt got so short or how her panties apparently got so
non-covery, but they led to her ass being shown. I hadn’t seen that
much of her butt since the Fast and Furious films and I was put off
by it, honestly. Again, ladies, the male gaze thing is not something
that always applies the way you think it does. Most men are not
always just looking to see ass and titties in every movie. Sometimes
it is distracting from the rest of the film. And guys aren’t just
one-tracked. We do want a good overall movie with plot and story and
character development. So don’t blame this on us. This is totally
WB’s fault and I personally know that women and men made these
costume designs and were proud of them together, so I’m not
tripping off of it. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Let’s
see, the CGI was bad and often not fully rendered. Again, the
entirety of the environment in the film doesn’t look real. That
should’ve been a good thing when considering Stepps’ rendering
but it isn’t. Even in an unrealistic-looking world, Stepps still
stands out as a poorly rendered video game mess. I didn’t know
whether I was watching a finished movie or the renderings for a
Disney cartoon in it’s second stage of animation development. It
was very bad. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Finally,
we get to the all-important score of the movie, and by that I mean
the music, specifically the soundtrack. (deep breath in)
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? I saw another reviewer share my same sentiment and
I should try to embed the video of the guy on youtube talking about
musical scores in current films to give you a better understanding of
just how important music is in a film. When there’s no music, you
notice it. When there’s too much music, you notice it. When there’s
generic music, guess what? You notice it. Well, this film committed
two of those horrendous OST sins. For one, the film had far too much
music. It was overscored and highly noticeable in it’s overscoring.
For instance, MoS was also overscored, but you really didn’t notice
it that much because Hans Zimmer effectively used the music to help
build into the tone of the film. I don’t know what it was but I
think it was a tuba or something that provides that little, dun
dunnn, that you hear a lot in MoS usually when little to nothing is
happening. You hear it most when he’s on the ship and talking to
Jor-el’s image and learning about his past. Oh, and the film’s
opening company logos play underneath that score. It’s subtle and
it helps to build the narration beneath the dialogue. Here, in JL,
the music doesn’t play beneath the narrative but sometimes battles
with it, and I’m not talking about volume. It’s too busy and
overpowering, trying to inject grandeur into places that didn’t
need it. Scores like that, unfortunately, make you hear and listen to
the music as its own intent rather than enhancing the scene. You
couldn’t avoid hearing it which often alienates the audience more
than it draws them in, because it makes them remember that they are
watching a movie, rather than participating in an experience. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP93rgBM5dBX58ZIO7HKtpsLn89bUBpO_O1wDsCSRWsJBQm_tYs5Z4b-367MW_rnj4mD4yVbVuB0-VdSWHpCcigxSu6oKeYSnO5jkrGDcGDFDfYAMF38vVId3svCMugcuP3h93vGl7jhU/s1600/871570.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="750" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP93rgBM5dBX58ZIO7HKtpsLn89bUBpO_O1wDsCSRWsJBQm_tYs5Z4b-367MW_rnj4mD4yVbVuB0-VdSWHpCcigxSu6oKeYSnO5jkrGDcGDFDfYAMF38vVId3svCMugcuP3h93vGl7jhU/s400/871570.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steppenwolf About To Punch <strike>The Composer</strike> Some Janitor Guy</td></tr>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
overpowering music being far too much throughout the film would be
forgiveable to some extent had it not been for the genericness of the
music. This... SHIT was so generic, so overused that it made no
impression in the film. Yes, I heard the few references back to the
original Superman music and the Batman music from the 80s and 90s,
but they didn’t bother to make something unique, new and intriguing
for the listener. You take out those few callbacks to the earlier
eras and you essentially get a soundtrack for an awards show. It’s
cheap and makes no impression in the mind of the consumer. For those
who have seen the movie, can you even remember the music from one of
the action scenes that didn’t use the callbacks to Supes or Bats
previous themes? Just a few chords like that dun dunnn from the
opening of MoS? I bet you can’t. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I
don’t know why they got rid of Hans and Junkie XL’s score and
tossed Junkie out of the composer’s seat because Danny Elfman has
rested on the good scores that he did in the 90s for years. He hasn’t
done anything good and worth listening to since before the modern age
of comic books that started with Tobey McGuire’s Spider-man 2. Hans
and Junkie delivered something inspired, something different,
something that you can’t lift from MoS and BvS and slap into a
completely different film without immensely changing that film. Where
as this JL music could easily work in the next or previous Avengers
films, try ripping MoS’s musical score and putting it on the last
Thor movie. It completely changes the tone and texture of the film.
Danny Elfman’s score was probably one of the absolute worst parts
of a film that had a ton of bad parts. It reeked of a composer that
doesn’t really care and isn’t pushing himself to create anymore,
and it reeked of a studio that panicked. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">EDIT:
OK, so I was finished with this recap/review of the film and then I
read the stupid comments by Danny Elfman when discussing this film.
Know, for one, that his comments about the score epitomizes not only
the cruddy mess that he created but the film industry as a whole
right now, and is the main reason why he shouldn’t have been chosen
for this job. For him to basically say that it was stupid for the
filmmakers to throw out the original soundtracks to Batman and
Superman, and that this was all just to feed the ego of the director
and composer, and to cite Star Wars and Bond as examples is naive to
say the least. First off, the new Star Wars are, arguably, not new.
The Force Awakens was literally the same exact film as A New Hope. In
fact, Disney, before JJ boarded the thing, was planning a full-on
reboot of the franchise and then decided to make it a sequel. Some of
the elements they had already constructed of the franchise remained
in the film which is why some fans, even though they enjoyed it, felt
that it wasn’t anything new. Bond is a better example, however,
neither of these franchises take into account the fact that
superheroes are not a continuing story from one reboot to the next.
They can oftentimes be a completely different and wild take on a
character that audiences may originally think they know but must take
the time to get to reknow in a new and more compelling light. Some
fans may see that as a scab against comic books but I see it more as
a positive. I know, I have talked harshly about reboots in the past
but in many cases it is good to reboot some of this stuff if the
people still crave it because, with the timelines and stories you’ve
already established and told, it is hard to do some cool stories from
the comics that fans may want to see. For instance, we couldn’t do
a young batman story in this current universe because Ben Affleck is
already grown and we already know the outcome of that movie (Batman
would survive). You can’t do another resurrection story in this
current universe with Superman because Superman has already died and
come back. Rebooting gives a clean slate to the new creators coming
in and yes, that includes music. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Mr.
Elfman has been in the game for a very long time. He knows the
importance of music in a film. Music often sets tone and allows the
director to fully realize his vision. By caging that director into
using the same one theme, you could very well change the entire tone
of a film, which is what I think happened to JL. As I said, the movie
didn’t have much gravitas to it and that was mainly because the
music was such terrible crap. It wasn’t sad enough when it
should’ve been sad, not hopeful enough when it should’ve been
hopeful. It was recycled garbage and clearly uninspired. A true
artist is always brave enough to at least try to do something new and
different and if you can’t do that or feel as if the new generation
is stomping on what you did in your heyday, then you shouldn’t be
working on a project that will require you to set the musical tone
for the first time a massive fan event will be seen in theaters. You
should politely decline the offer instead of giving us junk and then
citing the fact that you had little to no time to compose something
good for the film. Yes, people in the industry know that this happens
a lot especially with music because it is often the last thing to go
into a finished film. But don’t give me this crap about how we
should have “done what works” because you didn’t want to give
this project your absolute best. You let Junkie XL do it and I
guarantee you it’ll feel like a completely different film. Hell, if
you didn’t want him, then at least bring in a composer who is
familiar with this new DCEU franchise and did a decent (albeit
lacking compared to his other work) job on the WW soundtrack in Harry
Gregson-Williams. The problem with this industry right now is that we
have way too many people just trying to play it safe instead of
taking decisive risks that could pay off. Don’t continue to
encourage the snuffing out of artistry. Unbelievable! </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Speaking
of tonal changes and bad fourth-quarter decisions, the decision to
bring Joss Whedon in was a bad one. And I say this knowing how much I
have enjoyed his work in the past, knowing that comic book fans will
forever defend him because he did The Avengers, and knowing that some
fans think that he was the one who was able to effectively salvage
the trash that was the original footage. (side note: there is no
director’s cut of this film, but there is a rough cut that had a
lot of the effects either fully or partially rendered. And from what
I understand the majority of what Zack shot did make it into the
film, and yes, that includes some of the jokes). To speak more on
that side note, my contact at WB told me that it wasn’t Whedon who
put in most of the jokes but that a lot of that stuff was in there
long before he boarded for reshoots. Some of the stuff like Superman
fighting the team, nearly all of the crap with Steppenwolf, the fight
with the Amazons—was all in the original script. You want a scene
that was added by Whedon and you could clearly tell it was? That damn
news report. You know the one. The one where the foul-mouthed country
bumpkin-looking woman claimed the aliens abducted her husband. Yeah,
that was added. So was the other reporter coming to talk to Lois. And
apparently the footage that constantly went back to the family was
added also. And there’s a lot of scenes reshot for dialogue
purposes, rather than completely new scenes added. Here’s the
craziest part: even a lot of Whedon’s footage got cut in the
two-hour mandate. </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtj4TZ_f542jG9P3uudt7msmaVihw0Fy9dXsVJJfHwthflb7N4QOLgAuIl662_Twh6E5hpMOkuf8aA3L8VHX-iLg_uZCAtgM99j8WHBc8ru5ONC6Q8nGWIxhcV8tBa14AY7PXY5t4Se6Q/s1600/imagesO495NW9C.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="164" data-original-width="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtj4TZ_f542jG9P3uudt7msmaVihw0Fy9dXsVJJfHwthflb7N4QOLgAuIl662_Twh6E5hpMOkuf8aA3L8VHX-iLg_uZCAtgM99j8WHBc8ru5ONC6Q8nGWIxhcV8tBa14AY7PXY5t4Se6Q/s1600/imagesO495NW9C.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;">“<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Well,
remember, Michael, WB had to replace Snyder because of the
emergency.” True, but they didn’t have to replace him with
Whedon. I’m hearing that they actually bullied, then sugar-trapped
Whedon with the job by first saying that he wouldn’t be able to do
his Batgirl film if he didn’t finish this film, then by saying that
they’d give him the next Wonder Woman film to direct if the first
one didn’t turn out right. This was before WW even came out and
they knew they had to reshoot a good grip of JL. Which of course
explains why WB hadn’t signed Patty Jenkins to do the sequel until
long after the film. Wait, have they officially signed her yet?
Instead of using Joss, they could’ve used any of the other
directors they’ve had on hand. Patty wasn’t doing anything, we
know Affleck wasn’t doing anything as he had to be acting in the
film, and David Ayers, as I can remember was finishing up the film
Bright but should have been available at the time. All of these
directors worked with Snyder before and had delivered successful
movies for WB, even if said successful movies weren’t all comic
book movies. But from what I understand, the problem was that they
wanted Whedon’s <i>name</i> more than his input (hence, why they
still cut the mess out of the movie even after he directed reshoots)
and they wanted someone who can handle directing special effects
which, surprise, surprise, Snyder did more special effects directing
on WW than Patty did if my “contact” is to be believed. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
entirety of the film again felt just like what I said about Wonder
Woman: it would’ve been good and acceptable had it come out in the
90s back when these comic book movies could be so goofy and stupid
and easily dismissed that there was no way the films would make near
a billion dollars. Even though MoS and BvS are critical messes in
their own right, at least they fit into a modern paradigm of comic
book films. This JL and WW could easily have been slotted into the
theaters after Batman Returns in the early 90s and made a killing.
But as a movie for today? A real dud. Highly forgettable, confused
and meandering at times and a painful mash of weightless, stakeless
fight scenes at others. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
predictions for the future. OK, so let me refer back to some of my
previous blogposts from yesteryear when I said that almost everything
that has happened would happen. I said after BvS that Suicide Squad
was a mess, that Wonder Woman would also not be good but that it
would shine as being the movie that got the franchise back on the
right track because it would have the golden glow of a female-led
superhero film like what fans had been craving for decades and a box
office driven by girl power, then that Justice League would return us
to the doldrums of mediocrity and send WB into a bit of a panic. So,
here’s what I called from a previous review of a DCEU film: half of
the previously announced projects would be canceled or worse, just
never spoken of again and pushed into developmental hell; the other
half they would blaze forward with quite gung-ho about them and still
not see the success they want; after this summer’s rather
disappointing War for the Planet of the Apes, I’m personally not
sure about a Batman movie from writer/director Matt Reeves but Batman
has shown the innate ability to recover over and over again from the
suck; The Flash movie will most likely never get made, but if it does
it is not going to clear up anything about this universe. In fact, it
will make everything even worse because they’re gonna definitely
try doing flashpoint to reboot things and, similar to the strange
timelines in the X-men universe, things are just going to get extra
confusing with Affleck replaced as Batman with a different Bats. The
funny thing about this whole idea of a flashpoint is that they can’t
adequately get rid of some of the problems that some fans have. Sure,
the tone will change, but if you don’t like the actors in their
current roles, you’ll still not like the actors unless they’re
all replaced. This is an even bigger problem because the Flash is the
character I hated the most, and you kinda can’t replace him if he
is the cause of the flashpoint. Even more to the point, the switch in
tones within that movie is going to be so jarring and such a
logistical mess for the director that most fans will not like it.
Side note: if I didn’t mention this earlier, I was told that the
scene in BvS where Bruce was sleeping and talked to the Flash wasn’t
referring to a still-future event but was in fact supposed to be
referring to Bruce’s “big guns” surprise that got Superman to
calm down during his fight with the team. Snyder originally planned
for the “angry Supes” to be a much bigger life or death fight
that would only be solved by Lois, but it was scrapped because the
budget was already inflating to considerable levels, so they toned it
down to what you got in the film, a watered down albeit good scene.
So, just in case you were looking for something more to happen with
that, sorry to disappoint you. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I
think that Aquaman will be fairly decent and will hover around a
60-70s on Rotten Tomatoes because people will have had a year to wash
this film from their mind. But a MoS sequel probably will not happen.
What they will do is test the waters with Superman again by sneaking
him into another of the DCEU films to see if people really do like
this “new” take on Superman. And that’ll most likely be in a
Flash film but could be in Shazam or Suicide Squad 2. If that movie
fails, then he’ll be scrapped for a whole generation until they are
brave enough to completely reboot the character and/or the entire
universe. Again, I don’t think there will be a second Justice
League, at least not for a while because remember this thing was
supposed to be a two-parter and they scrapped it. Frankly, at this
point, I would much rather see an almost all-female populated
superhero universe which would break new ground and could be very
interesting. They’ve already announced Gotham City Sirens, and
Wonder Woman 2. Move forward on Batgirl, and fit in a Hawkgirl movie,
then come back with an all-female Justice League or something like
that and see if that works because this current setup is not working.
And I have said this before, so I will say it again, DC does not need
to have the same type or level of humor as Marvel films. You can be
different but you have to own that difference and not shy away from
it. DC is too shy to stand in their bravery and it’s killing their
properties. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
worst part about this movie isn’t actually the movie but, wait...
OK, the movie is the worst part of the <i>movie</i> but the second
worst part of this whole situation is not actually the studio
meddling, though that’s a big thing, but the fans’ reactions. For
those fans who like this, stop! Stop it! Like, if I have to hear
and/or read another review that says, “it’s not perfect but it’s
fun” or “they’re working/building toward something” or
“they’re getting closer to getting it right,” I don’t know
what the heck I’ll do. We keep getting this kind of garbage film
because fans keep excusing this kind of garbage film. It’s like
(and people are going to hate this metaphor but it’s true) an
abused spouse continuing to go back to his or her abuser because they
emotionally or physically don’t abuse them as bad anymore. Like,
“Oh, it’s OK, because last night she only called me impotent as
opposed to saying that I was an impotent, jobless loser who she never
really loved who will never get another woman. See, she doesn’t
emotionally abuse me as much now. She’s improving.” Like, no.
Your wife is emotionally abusing you, or your husband is physically
abusing you. People, you are literally saying that this film was a
step in the right direction because it wasn’t as aesthetically dark
and because the characters all smiled a little more. Seriously. The
fights, outside of the one with Superman versus the team, aren’t
even that great. It’s just blah! </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiftOAnqblBfekb80Yz7DTtxfFK7UWNpc6M5SJvUL24ichkZc6KIuUg68oY-CEroiM3Y7g00nr3NS1GgKMFhacfhIlBfZXIfm6zRVyx2i9FpbNzWPE7yzD6KdS4P-ouqycsDiyS2niQZOI/s1600/hero_Justice-League-2017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1200" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiftOAnqblBfekb80Yz7DTtxfFK7UWNpc6M5SJvUL24ichkZc6KIuUg68oY-CEroiM3Y7g00nr3NS1GgKMFhacfhIlBfZXIfm6zRVyx2i9FpbNzWPE7yzD6KdS4P-ouqycsDiyS2niQZOI/s640/hero_Justice-League-2017.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
you can’t keep saying that they’re working/building up to
something. No. No! This—this movie—is what they were supposed to
be working up to. They’re not working up to something when we’re
literally five films into this universe. The work is supposed to be
done, the building is built and carpeted, and it ain’t that stable
and it ain’t that great. There’s this concept out—unfortunately
the exact word for it escapes me right now—that embodies the idea
of continually trying to wish for improvements on something while
acceptting that something as it is. This is exactly what the fans are
doing. You keep praising these films while hoping they’ll get
better mainly because you are afraid that they won’t make any more
of them if you don’t support these ones. Yet, you have no idea that
by praising this, you are actually sabotaging the future of these
films more than you are helping. Why? Because as big as the comic
book community is, you are not big enough to get these films to the
finish line that the studios are wanting to get. If so, this movie
would’ve gotten to 100 million over the weekend. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
far as the petition to see a director’s cut, stop. Snyder was never
able to edit the movie himself enough to make a coherent story before
he had to step away. Is there a rough cut? Yes. But a rough cut is
similar to a comic book turned coloring book. All the panels are
there but the color is missing. And with Whedon stepping in during a
lot of the CGI still being rendered and having him do his thing and
still being overridden, it’s not much of a director’s cut from
him either. What you can maybe get is an extended cut but even then
that will not improve on the film because most of it will not be
scored (although that may be a positive) and you will never be able
to hear Junkie XL’s OST. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">This is far different than Suicide Squad
and Batman v. Superman. If anything, what you should seriously do is
petition WB/DC to reboot the entire franchise and have me come in and
write the first Superman and start from there. I guarantee you I
could write and direct a better film. This may sound like some random
guy on the internet talking out of his neck but remember this post
because if I do ever get back to Hollywood and am able to pitch this
idea, you can look back at this and say, “Well, maybe he knew what
he was talking about.” Again, I can do this far better. I have only
ever truly wanted to make three reboots/live-action movies of three
different properties and I’ve said this before: Captain Planet,
Superman and Justice League, and a Dragonball Z film (it’s weird
that they are technically all from different decades). I can do JL
just as well as I can do Captain Planet. I want to do both if I can.
I’m gonna be working really hard to get there to do this to give
fans something amazing because this ain’t it. And yes, while I do
have some bias about these movies because I want to do my own version
so badly, I suppressed the heck out of that bias this time around and
rooted for both Wonder Woman and Justice League and didn’t come out
particularly liking either. WW was far better, but it had many flaws
from many angles, while JL was just a bad film that hovered just over
the Schumacher level. I’m really sorry to see you leave under these
circumstances Zack but maybe this just wasn’t meant for you from
the start. </span></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWu-RdVITw5UfeLaRy8QP3PfaOLKouceUlsAEf32dsYHrQIddk4HSLLl7tspsOfedhGNsz_CrgnQ1PekUh_k9lBhLH-NquhfhXqd_sImnca5kNDzCtkG_qE3oz8vrYJD3U3Kxl3MeSSU/s1600/justice_league___comic_con_sneak_peek__hd__mp4_201_by_batmanmoumen-dbhacw4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="1024" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWu-RdVITw5UfeLaRy8QP3PfaOLKouceUlsAEf32dsYHrQIddk4HSLLl7tspsOfedhGNsz_CrgnQ1PekUh_k9lBhLH-NquhfhXqd_sImnca5kNDzCtkG_qE3oz8vrYJD3U3Kxl3MeSSU/s400/justice_league___comic_con_sneak_peek__hd__mp4_201_by_batmanmoumen-dbhacw4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'll Keep Watch Over The DCEU... Until I Can Get The Hell Outta Here. I'm Batfleck</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you seen Justice League? If you haven’t, do you
think you will go see it? If you have seen it, did you like it? Are
you happy with the direction the DCEU is going? Who was your favorite
character? What was your least favorite thing in the film? And what
are your predictions for the future of the DCEU? Let me know in the
comments below.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ9Fh3OJ3THLqFAGCsBAlbPYvt6KfdbEReU_7e_xpu2BlZyb2MHn5eBpeBmhi8Ylx3ZVynG4DTk23twx2-07T8RNK3W7D4giU4ukAiE_u6HjuJZXDyV6zsPWt-LbeAWaPbcXjiwVwxDHE/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ9Fh3OJ3THLqFAGCsBAlbPYvt6KfdbEReU_7e_xpu2BlZyb2MHn5eBpeBmhi8Ylx3ZVynG4DTk23twx2-07T8RNK3W7D4giU4ukAiE_u6HjuJZXDyV6zsPWt-LbeAWaPbcXjiwVwxDHE/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “Mother! Ah, yes,
mother! Finally I will be able to rule with your power and--”
(ring-ring! Ring-ring) “Hold on, it’s my real mother on the
phone. Yes, hello? … Hey, mom. … Yeah … Yeah … Yes, I’ll be
coming back for Thanksgiving. Can I call you back, I’m kinda busy
right now. … Well, I’m trying to take over the earth. … Well, I
don’t know why I’m doing it, mom, it’s just something to do. …
No, Apokolips isn’t pressuring me to do it. … He mighta mentioned
somethin’ about how it would make me look cool, but—hey, I’m
trying to do something here, OK? I’ll call you back. … OK,
smooches. Love you too.” (hangs up) “Ah, mother!”
</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
Yeah, that corny little paragraph there totally could have made it
into the movie and you readers who saw the film know it. It’s right
up there with the two brunch jokes and Aquaman talking about how
scared he was to die while they’re flying off to the fight with
Steppenwolf. Classic Joss Whedon. Bad Joss Whedon. I’ll come up
with a better sign-off next time. </span></span></span>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.P.S.
OK, so I just read a review that mentioned the Green Lantern cameo in
this and I gotta say that I completely missed it. I was too busy
trying to compare and contrast the Amazons clothing with that of men
and the gods to see if it was sexist or not to catch that glimpse of
some alien Lantern. Sorry, but they should’ve had more than a few
seconds if they really wanted me to recognize the presence of one
back in the day. Or at least kept that line from the trailer about
there being no Lanterns to protect the earth. Hate it when stuff from
the trailer isn’t in a movie. Just hate it! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-35017589700850096622017-11-19T16:00:00.003-08:002017-11-19T16:00:53.402-08:00Whoop! Whoop! That’s The Sound Uh Da Police! #SWAT #3weekroundup #CBS #recap #review<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Whoop!
Whoop! That’s The Sound Uh Da Police! #SWAT #3weekroundup #CBS
#recap #review</b> </span></span></span>
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNQ6A-VUinOQcZW8E9L5LdPgsXGVjGn1RoOjD2npYxgpw1-EcpoIoQ5Sj6An1S4hBu7Lswd4GIC8z6ApL5QF5k77CqgpOmj1hNTuSUtNZ5YStXxz_hfHDlEV-GE8gP_vFyQQBEbGswkOk/s1600/S.W.A.T.-season-1-poster-CBS-key-art-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="300" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNQ6A-VUinOQcZW8E9L5LdPgsXGVjGn1RoOjD2npYxgpw1-EcpoIoQ5Sj6An1S4hBu7Lswd4GIC8z6ApL5QF5k77CqgpOmj1hNTuSUtNZ5YStXxz_hfHDlEV-GE8gP_vFyQQBEbGswkOk/s640/S.W.A.T.-season-1-poster-CBS-key-art-1.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<u><span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of CBS </span></u></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Here
we are again with another late-season three-week roundup of a brand
new (read: completely old and overdone) show. On deck this time, we
have CBS’s latest remake/reboot of the police drama S.W.A.T. While
I’d like to hand it to them this time for picking a decade other
than the 80s to finally remake something from, I can’t help but
still feel a certain turning anguish in my stomach at the fact that
we are getting yet another remake. Granted, this is of a very
pedestrian idea, but there are so many pedestrian ideas out there
that haven’t been explored that it somehow gives me pause to see a
new show and/or network (or a film and film studio for that matter)
trade on an easily recognizable name over even considering something
that could be wholly different. Yes, there are thousands of stories
one can tell that are centered around the S.W.A.T. team, especially
in this day of mass shootings galore and terrorists supposedly
running to every corner of the earth, but there’s other agencies
that we could explore and in very intriguing ways. But again, since
this is so on-the-head obvious, I guess I can give it a pass as it is
another cop show and, frankly, they’re all alike anyway. So, is
this newest iteration of S.W.A.T. a battering ram in the right
direction or will it just be another flash(bang) in the pan? Let’s
find out together! </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">CBS’s
new 2017 SWAT (from here on out I will not be putting periods between
the letters) stars Shemar Moore (most recently of Criminal Minds
fame) as Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson who is one of the leaders of
the Special Weapons and Tactics force of Los Angeles. The little bit
of twist this time around from what I’ve read (I don’t actually
know because I never saw the original) is that this black Daniel,
like every black cop character apparently, has a connection to the
very streets over which he now “presides.” Side note: Why is it
that every black or Latino character who plays a cop has to have the
same played connection to the streets but the white guys usually just
get to be cops? Seriously? I really try to keep this blog
non-political and try to stay away from commenting about feminism,
race, religion and the like, but what is it with that? At some point
they almost always deliver a, “Hey, but I got outta that life”
speech and/or a, “but people like me seeing people like me, black
people for them and not against them...” speech too, signaling that
they became cops because they want to put a stop to this notion that
minorities don’t respect the law or that good cops do exist or that
cops can have a positive influence on society or something like that.
It’s never that the black or Latino guy became a cop because they
just wanted to stop bad guys. Now I’ve gone on a rant at the
beginning of the review which is definitely no good. Let me hop back
on track. No race stuff from here out. Maybe. No promises. </span></span></span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Qz3DRiHemmQ8z1kn57Ku1On6mkfUPmuaeI1i63rystKGEeExCeydIQNAPgekkQj32SsW2BA1L36pPMC_BMfjnqhYctQHnx4OoFBr_a3Qkzd0-9eBR0I3jVZGkt2d__ZDSqm07agP3mA/s1600/swat-song-CONTENT-2017-840x460.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="840" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Qz3DRiHemmQ8z1kn57Ku1On6mkfUPmuaeI1i63rystKGEeExCeydIQNAPgekkQj32SsW2BA1L36pPMC_BMfjnqhYctQHnx4OoFBr_a3Qkzd0-9eBR0I3jVZGkt2d__ZDSqm07agP3mA/s320/swat-song-CONTENT-2017-840x460.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hondo and Deacon in foreground, Christina and Tan in back</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Daniel
is put in charge of his unit over another qualified senior SWAT
member after the previous leader shot and nearly killed a black kid
during the opening raid. Some weapons runners were in the middle of a
deal and took off running through the streets and jumping on rooftops
and houses, which is, apparently, a thing in LA because they did the
same thing in Straight Outta Compton. Well, Hondo uses the
opportunity to prove his badassdom by beating up one of the runners
and shooting one in the head within seconds, sniping a guy from 30
feet away. The leader tries to shoot one of the other runners but
errantly hits a black teenager. Because of this, and LA being what it
is, the police chief and mayor decide to fire the old leader and
promote the black Hondo over the white guy who was next in line, one
sergeant David “Deacon” Kay who looks like the next oldest guy on
the team.</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Through
the first three episodes, not much is given on Deacon’s character
per se, but you do get a sense of who he is. A family man, he is a
strong, rather silent type who, while he clearly feels the burn of
being passed over for a job which should’ve been his, is hardly
fuming about it as much as the many petty people that populate this
world would fume. But to his credit, Hondo has been a good leader so
far and has even consulted Deacon on the moves they should make in a
particular stakeout, but that’s not until episode three. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiROts1PCBGn-_i0zZmW11DZ6C4mAe2jcRmNkshOSuK0oC9IVzUrUQdqvYtkBBXqU8B7-2yOjOBxL1T-NVabuJ7gN8_iMxARQs6edo6z557NUscJ1eEIQDpRQGiivVi9mq-fdXhcIkk-kQ/s1600/MV5BMzIzOTZlMmEtYzAxOS00OGM4LWJlMGEtMjBkZjUxODliNDRhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQ4NDkwMzE%2540._V1_SY500_CR0%252C0%252C750%252C500_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="750" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiROts1PCBGn-_i0zZmW11DZ6C4mAe2jcRmNkshOSuK0oC9IVzUrUQdqvYtkBBXqU8B7-2yOjOBxL1T-NVabuJ7gN8_iMxARQs6edo6z557NUscJ1eEIQDpRQGiivVi9mq-fdXhcIkk-kQ/s320/MV5BMzIzOTZlMmEtYzAxOS00OGM4LWJlMGEtMjBkZjUxODliNDRhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQ4NDkwMzE%2540._V1_SY500_CR0%252C0%252C750%252C500_AL_.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christina</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Along
with Deacon and Hondo, we also have Dominique Luca who is the older
lock-and-step guy who does what his commanding officer tells him to
do but is a crack-up when not in the field. A SWAT lifer, he is the
womanizer who refuses to commit to anyone or anything outside of the
job. His father was a SWAT member and so was his grandfather, making
him third generation badass. We also have Victor Tan who is, for all
intents and purposes, our token Asian character through the first
three episodes. With so much going on with everyone else, he hasn’t
earned the character spotlight and, if I’m being honest, has nearly
melted into the background like ice cream into my belly (and you
thought I was gonna say pavement, didn’t ya? Nope! Went with the
clumsier simile). I think he also said that he’s married but I
can’t be certain. And I also don’t remember him doing anything of
real note, so... Yeah. Next we have Christina “Chris” Alonso
(side note: because I hate girls using boy’s names and because it
might get confusing with later references, I will call her Christina)
who is the Latina of the group. She is a softer version of Michelle
Rodriguez’s character from the Fast and the Furious franchise.
She’s Leti 2.0—the version that came back to the franchise after
they killed her off earlier, then brought her back more caring and
nurturing. Christina’s kickass-ness is quite evident and she seems
to have better detective skills than some of the others on the team,
Hondo excluded. She is also young and is one half of a “duo” that
represents the millennial generation (the actor playing Tan is
technically a millennial but I’m not sure if the character is or
not). </span></span></span><br />
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
other half of the duo is newbie Jim Street, played by Alex Russell of
The Chronicle fame. Hand-picked by the exiting squad leader, he is
your quintessential young maverick/death-wisher who runs gung-ho into
any situation. We see him first zooming through the downtown streets
of LA on his motorcycle, racing to get to work and tailed by a patrol
unit of cops who have no idea who he is. He shows up late to his
first day and in the dressed-down tactical uniform. He changes out of
that and joins the rest of the group. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">After
the opening salvo, the community where the black boy got shot is up
in arms about yet another police shooting. They organize an outside
protest rally for change for their little neighborhood and the city
as a whole. SWAT goes to walk around in their plain blue uniforms,
meeting people in the community and patrolling the gathering. This is
the best they come up with to mitigate the disaster that was the
shooting of the kid. While there, Jim flirts with Christina and I
don’t know if it’s the actor who is just always happy-go-lucky in
real life or if that is how the character is sorta supposed to be
played, but you can tell straight away that even though she is
turning down his advances because they work together, she is totally
going to give him some eventually. She gave this tiny flinch of a
smile that looked like she was holding back from jumping his bones
that night in favor of the, “Nah, I’mma make you work for this”
trope, which I am totally down for. I have no idea why, but I really
liked this. I’m jumping ahead. </span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLTuuQ1w90WcVz9ciQK8Z8BitXhZ4PkxgGvIYyrClglcGGHS3FX2tLaRVkx1tu7iOF6KsUBiFM2SSxt41Ehpb2juRQWcjsoJ_kfM2dKsuJAdAU7MNcytW9da84ZdycmQ7Wj6k0FIQmuyM/s1600/shemarmoore-swat-560.JPEG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="560" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLTuuQ1w90WcVz9ciQK8Z8BitXhZ4PkxgGvIYyrClglcGGHS3FX2tLaRVkx1tu7iOF6KsUBiFM2SSxt41Ehpb2juRQWcjsoJ_kfM2dKsuJAdAU7MNcytW9da84ZdycmQ7Wj6k0FIQmuyM/s400/shemarmoore-swat-560.JPEG.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jim Getting The Chew From Hondo And Deacon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
main speaker at the rally is a young man who had a family member also
suffer gun violence and police malfeasance not too long ago. As he is
up on the dais making his speech, someone starts shooting and guns
down one of the other people right beside him. Jim takes off toward
the shooter with little regard for his safety or his team. He loses
the shooter after showing some pretty impressive Spider-man skills.
Hondo and the team have to chew him a little and they go back to the
station. </span></span></span><br />
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Hondo
learns the chief commanding officer in charge of all the SWAT units
in the city wants to handle the job with a sledgehammer rather than
some finesse, and he ain’t goin’ for it. Instead of roughing
people up, Hondo takes the “this is my hood” approach so often
used by the black cop in these shows/movies. He goes around the city
with his squad and asks some of the locals, stopping first at a
salon, which leads him to a street-hustling BBQ master, which finally
leads him to a towing company that was seen fleeing the rally on the
day of the shootings. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Well,
the towing company is run by some ex-military dudes (mostly white)
who look tough but SWAT’s got nothing on them for now. So Hondo
makes a stop over at the shot-kid’s hospital room. He’s alive and
awake and surrounded by family and the black activist dude. Hondo
says some encouraging words about how he was once in the same streets
and how it’s tough but the kid will make it and about how the
police are not there to be enemies to anyone. He then gets some intel
from the activist dude who said that he knew some ex-military sniper
who was supposedly into the movement but more from a “the
government is corrupt” standpoint rather than a “Black Lives
Matter” view. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Hondo
and the squad go to this sniper dude’s house to find that the other
towing ex-military people live there to. They figure out that not
only are these guys some of the people that were involved in buying
the guns at the beginning of the episode but that they also shot the
black people at the rally. They are trying to cause a race war not
because they believe in white power or the oppression of blacks but
because they are trying to bring down the entire system of the
government and hoping the city will rip itself apart in utter chaos. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Well,
Hondo splits his team. He gets to the roof of a building to stop the
sniper who has promised to kill a bunch of grade-schoolers only to
find that the threat is a decoy and they really plan to rob a very
important bank and start the domino in bankrupting the city(?). It
kinda got convoluted at that point but by then it was only ten
minutes left in the episode and I was ready for the wrap up. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
bad guys have a rocket launcher that they use once on a truck. Hondo
and his team manage to stop the baddies and fight them in the street.
Jim shows that he can definitely fight and be good at the job, but
still gets saved by Hondo and the day is saved. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxIjvH_Hk7R7jzTRNLqP5g67Y7ZH6RW-Skaa77wy_Wos9x_gT_IAvJjQOB3xl4l7q89-ITk82xBQ4p2ZbbT6kOw9Pzrn5Jvg3kFUvo0vRDCimvFW6GLfoGim-phZnw0iHZKL8gyrYx5Fc/s1600/n3cl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxIjvH_Hk7R7jzTRNLqP5g67Y7ZH6RW-Skaa77wy_Wos9x_gT_IAvJjQOB3xl4l7q89-ITk82xBQ4p2ZbbT6kOw9Pzrn5Jvg3kFUvo0vRDCimvFW6GLfoGim-phZnw0iHZKL8gyrYx5Fc/s400/n3cl.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jessica and Hondo; They Actually Make A Cute Couple When Dressed Down... And Naked</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">On
a side note, one of their superiors Jessica Cortez is sleeping with
Hondo. But because she is younger than him, a woman, and
higher-ranking, at the start of the episode she wants to officially
put in the paperwork to declare their relationship. But when Hondo
gets the promotion, she then becomes his direct superior which makes
her want to break it off, and you can just tell that Hondo wants
part-time custody of her bed sheets (he’ll come by and hit it on
the weekends). And as much as she is objecting, you can tell she’s
gonna cave. A lot of this show is predictable, but it’s the first
few episodes so... what can you expect? </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
two sees them open with a training exercise on a meth lab setpiece.
There, as they go through the raid and look into room after room of
meth makers without firing a single shot, newbie Jim takes off once
again on his own and winds up taking one of the meth lab workers down
but getting shut with a sticky arrow in the back of the head by a
secondary SWAT training officer/meth maker. His team lost the
exercise do to his freestyling without the team, and if it was real
life he would’ve gotten killed. They break from the exercise only
for the chief over the SWAT units to come and privately talk to
Deacon about the racial tension having died down in the city and how
he can now go back and make Deacon the new squad leader and, I guess
demote Hondo? It’s all very hush-hush and Deacon really isn’t
having it because he, at the very least, is a man of integrity. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
as the squad is going through more practice drills, across town a
county jail transport goes horribly wrong when the cousin of a big
bad criminal breaks him out of the transport. See, the lead prisoner
and three others were being transported to prison and were inside of
a building with a glass elevator. The lead prisoner’s cousin came
and shot up the guards, posed as a guard himself and they made off
with the lead prisoner and the other criminals who had to escape too
because they were all chained together. I’ll say I was actually
surprised that the lead prisoner and his cousin didn’t just kill
the other criminals once they escaped because he would’ve had to
know that by finding the other criminals, the police could
potentially interrogate them and then find him. And that’s exactly
what the SWAT unit tries to do. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmEs1evjiMyQmsl4LC3Oi3ZDYfOzOBq0PWZxR5-zrorPFUVR_4EAtTrSUyKbVAnxj0Yc2A74MiZjtlWrDYuDXK6Jp200j-5rSb84MFOqwpMWZHp1ZhosuV6fwRcWceXEzCZ3shN3RBueg/s1600/swat-s-w-a-t.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="868" data-original-width="1200" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmEs1evjiMyQmsl4LC3Oi3ZDYfOzOBq0PWZxR5-zrorPFUVR_4EAtTrSUyKbVAnxj0Yc2A74MiZjtlWrDYuDXK6Jp200j-5rSb84MFOqwpMWZHp1ZhosuV6fwRcWceXEzCZ3shN3RBueg/s320/swat-s-w-a-t.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Not
only is an escaped prisoner troubling the city, Hondo’s
non-girlfriend girlfriend and boss Jessica (she has a desk job but
used to be a patrolwoman; everybody is a cop) is the person who
busted the lead escaped criminal. If she knows one thing, it is that
this guy is all about the vengeance. Loves the vengeance. So she is
concerned most about the woman whose testimony put him away. That
woman is a single mom with two children, one of which was used as a
carving board for the lead criminal. As it turns out the lead
criminal was a rapist and pedophile who used to sleep with young
teenage girls. There mighta been some murdering stuff in there too,
but I can’t remember as they only mentioned it once. It’s a good
probability that the single mom and her family need protection but
because the police unit is already tight on fund allocation, the head
honcho will never approve of it. So Hondo takes it upon himself to
jump ahead and assign Christina and Jim to the woman’s house as a
safety detail. Naturally, they get their flirt on without really
flirting, talking about the latest dating apps and such. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
Christina and Jim are getting familiar with each other at the single
mom’s house, Hondo has split the rest of the team up to go and
collect the various criminals around the city, the very plan I knew
they’d try. They believe they can get the other accidental escapees
to rat on where the rapist dude might be or at least where he dropped
them off. So they trick the black criminal’s friend into telling
them that the black criminal sometimes frequents his sister’s
place; then they find the exotic animal smuggler back at his home
feeding the crazy exotic animals because they haven’t been fed
since he was arrested I guess; and they also find some other dude
doing something else. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">None
of that leads them to the rapist. But then Christina and Jim notice
that this teenage boy has been riding back and forth in front of the
single mom’s house like he’s casing the joint. They and Hondo ask
if he’s reconning for the rapist but he explains that he wants to
kill the escapee just as bad. He even says that he’s been bouncing
between the single mom’s house and his cousin’s house because the
rapist always claimed that the young teenage girl living there was
his bride and belonged with him. So Hondo and the group go over there
to find the rapist there, leaving Christina and Jim behind on the
detail. No, they’re not done protecting the family. In fact, the
rapist’s brother comes to get the single mom and her kids who go
and hide in the bathroom. Jim tells the little boy some story about
how he had to be a little man when he was younger and how that’s
the kid’s responsibility now and how the kid can calm himself down
during times of stress. Well, the kid does the thing and we get to
see none of the kickass-ing that Christina and Jim do to the brother,
but they do take him down. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
it turns out, the rapist is not only at the other young girl’s
house but escapes out the back with her. Now they need to figure out
where he might go. They hear something from one of the other
re-captured escapees and/or the girl’s father about some cabin,
discover that his aunt had a cabin which is still listed as existing
outside the city and not belonging to anyone, and they load up and
get going. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We get a huge shootout between the rapist and SWAT and
even have Hondo come riding in on a helicopter. Hondo, being the
capeless superhero he is, magically has the best shot from up high
when the rapist steps to the window using the girl as a shield. He
shoots the guy’s brains out and the day is saved. We also got a
little back and forth with Hondo and Jessica about their relationship
and his unspoken bad boy promises that he’s still gonna come over
every now and then and tap, flip and lick it, and she’s caving. She
wants to be bad. Secret romance that’s forbidden at work? Like
Brandy sang back in the 90s, she “wanna be dow-ow-own!” </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK9v1ueTyLGxfh-LCFrE27FiQCkhM8vw4v7p64w0r5EU4OFZVQRHeb1V69vr24zm10bviMH0_7JzdzfmgPDM0YEkCSTcu_YrFOVDYT_r5JZs_lDcJCJ5kIztSUHTkAXQPBtCl7Rr4fkBA/s1600/102_swat_photo03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="777" data-original-width="1080" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK9v1ueTyLGxfh-LCFrE27FiQCkhM8vw4v7p64w0r5EU4OFZVQRHeb1V69vr24zm10bviMH0_7JzdzfmgPDM0YEkCSTcu_YrFOVDYT_r5JZs_lDcJCJ5kIztSUHTkAXQPBtCl7Rr4fkBA/s320/102_swat_photo03.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
three opens wiith them doing typical SWAT stuff: a raid on a heroin
smuggling ring. Nestled inside what looks like a pretty nice
apartment complex, they get some good intel about some people
smuggling drugs and go to raid the place. They bumrush the door and
immediately people scatter. They catch a few of the people, gun
others down, then return to the apartment to find a fairly clean
room. There’s no coke, no ex, no nothing inside. If this was a drug
den at one point then they have surely missed the—boomp! They hear
a subtle sound come from somewhere in the back and open up a room to
find a bunch of people crowded into a room no bigger than a janitor’s
closet at a rundown elementary school. One man, the “lead mule”
is the only one who can speak English. They get his name out of him
and some gobblety gook about wanting to be in America or something
and then he starts rubbing on his stomach, foaming at the mouth and
collapses in front of them. He’s overdosing on the copious amounts
of burst condoms full of heroin. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
it turns out the people in the closet were all Filipino immigrants
who were being forced to be drug mules, and now the team has to
figure out who is behind this ring. Also, they learn that the people
in the closet (sounds like an off-Broadway gay musical about an
entire gay club in some straight-laced Republican dude’s closet)
are actually only halves or partial families. So they have to find
the families as well. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">While
that investigation is going on, we get some more background for Jim.
In the first episode, we learned that the SWAT leader that was fired
was the same cop that busted Jim’s mom. Her crime: she killed her
boyfriend who was abusing her and little Jim when he was young. Zoom
forward to episode three when we actually see Jim visiting his mother
in prison. She is still in there for a while (maybe for life) but she
looks good. Actually, if you watch a lotta TV you will notice that
his mother is Sherilyn Fenn who played Audrey on Twin Peaks. Anyway,
she tells her son that one of the girls who she is close with in jail
is getting out soon and that the woman is scared that her ex (a
supposed abuser) is going to find her and get violent with her again.
She just wants Jim to go over to the guy and warn him off of this
woman, rough him up if he needs to. He promises to do so. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLY1v9hGrJal06avIbZUAX1pNEkGTbtPCSpNYawmMgzzFNxgWwLwtrfyOeP-axXlgrDHEhruxPqD9CaTo1MKu6-gBDNI4K7JCKcKL4ZuOoJfU27fXvXj21sB9ebcpzMxqBexKuTXxclp0/s1600/MV5BNzllYzc1ZDAtZTBiNi00NTk0LTk3NGItZWU4MDMxNTk1ZTQ1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjI2NjIwMDg%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C749%252C1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="749" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLY1v9hGrJal06avIbZUAX1pNEkGTbtPCSpNYawmMgzzFNxgWwLwtrfyOeP-axXlgrDHEhruxPqD9CaTo1MKu6-gBDNI4K7JCKcKL4ZuOoJfU27fXvXj21sB9ebcpzMxqBexKuTXxclp0/s320/MV5BNzllYzc1ZDAtZTBiNi00NTk0LTk3NGItZWU4MDMxNTk1ZTQ1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjI2NjIwMDg%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C749%252C1000_AL_.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tan</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
to the main story, the team starts to search for the strands that
lead back to the people behind the smuggling ring. Remember we’re
not only dealing with drug smugglers, but also human traffickers and
extortionists. So this has to be a pretty big ring. They discover
that all of the people in the closet were asssociated with this one
particular pastor/priest. Because the lead mule is still struggling
to live and is currently unconscious in a hospital bed, the priest
tells the cops that they all worked for this same cleaning and
hospitality agency. So they go to the place, which supplies workers
for a lot of medical properties like nursing homes or places where
“not a lot of Americans want to clean out bed pans.” A white guy,
he tells them that he hires a lot of immigrants because they are
willing to work the nasty jobs for a visa, but that he has outsourced
his hiring to this one guy because this guy speaks Filipino. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Well,
cut through the BS, SWAT chase around the HR guy, then a few others
only to end up back in the white guy’s house. They figure that it
actually was the white guy the entire time. So they go to his wife
and, surprise, surprise, his wife is Filipino (I don’t think the
actress is actually Filipino but some other Asian ethnicity. I’ve
seen her play a few different Asian characters). And I’m like,
“Well, it was her the whole time.” But apparently the one cop
(who is not part of Hondo’s SWAT team) doesn’t realize this. He
turns his back on her and gets shot when he turns back around. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
woman and her husband get to a private airport where they try to take
off in a private jet but are stopped. The husband caves quicker than
a knifed souffle and tells the team everything while she resists
saying anything. She’s a gangster. With the husband’s intel, they
find the rest of the families before they die from suffocation while
locked away in a shipping container. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
with Jim, he goes to rough up the dude for his mom and gets arrested
for throwing paws with the guy who is totally not feeling anything
he’s saying. Well, Hondo discovers the real intel about Jim’s mom
and goes to visit her in prison. It turns out that prison has
corrupted her. Now Jim’s mom is a seller of contraband and the guy
on the outside was working with this woman on the inside who was
never actually getting paroled but is Jim’s mom’s competition.
Hondo warns her off of ever contacting her son again, or at least for
a good long while because he doesn’t need that kind of distraction
in his life right now. Oh, and there was a tiny thing about Dominique
needing a place to stay and depending on his SWAT brethren and
sisteren to house him for a while because his latest girl kicked him
out. Take a guess of who he stays with. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0zr8QyqjcLsA4zs_t2VdhSdfXHtvOFjjgq49CXHcHqxccIx6ClsAlsmCDrk1yKNvj_B6i2jRbVPVO8iyRMiXs_KBVeVBjviPyPJ7PY1khTQfEkfERrirTWTmEskGRRADMrWfWqASgpO8/s1600/59f0efe432ead.image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="918" data-original-width="1200" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0zr8QyqjcLsA4zs_t2VdhSdfXHtvOFjjgq49CXHcHqxccIx6ClsAlsmCDrk1yKNvj_B6i2jRbVPVO8iyRMiXs_KBVeVBjviPyPJ7PY1khTQfEkfERrirTWTmEskGRRADMrWfWqASgpO8/s320/59f0efe432ead.image.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div>
Dominique and Hondo</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What’s
my grade? I give it a <span style="color: red;">B+.</span> It’s strange that I enjoyed this show
because it’s a typical procedural drama that literally adds nothing
new to the plethora of cop shows we have on the horizon of TV. But as
a procedural, it is decent. The problem with the series is that it’s
just decent. It’s not flashy, nothing heavily intricate and is
predictable at nearly every turn, yet it’s entertaining for what it
is. I’ve said that a few times this new TV season and for those
that don’t know what it means, it means that you should know what
you are getting the moment you see the commercial for the show. It’s
just like every other cop show. And that’s the problem, but only if
you’re looking for something new and innovative. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
show is also very strange in that it takes SWAT, which is known for
being the tactical team that comes in when a situation gets out of
hand, and turns them (or at least the public’s general idea of
them) into your basic detective unit. In the first three episodes
they did more detective work than both Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling
did in the two Blade Runner movies. It makes me wonder what the other
cops do. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMljkbtNZHrsVqB1_AOdUS4ZeEZ5DC2A7VTK4bWBwe6yRHO-uVWmEjWv3ehwnjpaTz8I2UzOB3y4xoXTPO2LLoHZaItF9E2iPvrp2lnw0x-Ds7etbZisbVrJZ1-Ot_YVh04AuGwniR6Hc/s1600/swat___Super_Portrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="834" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMljkbtNZHrsVqB1_AOdUS4ZeEZ5DC2A7VTK4bWBwe6yRHO-uVWmEjWv3ehwnjpaTz8I2UzOB3y4xoXTPO2LLoHZaItF9E2iPvrp2lnw0x-Ds7etbZisbVrJZ1-Ot_YVh04AuGwniR6Hc/s400/swat___Super_Portrait.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Then
we have the stereotypes within the show. They get it right with all
of the minority inclusion, and it was about time that Shemar Moore
got to lead his own show (yes, he was a big part of Criminal Minds
but not the lead), but the writing is more typical of a lot of white
writers sitting around thinking about what other minorities do,
rather than having ethnic writers. I’m sure they do have minority
writers, but something about the black guy having come from “the
hood” is such a played motif that I groaned at the very mention of
it. But I digress. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? Sure, if you like shows where the good guys always
catch the bad guys and procedurals are generally your thing. If stuff
like Criminal Minds, Chicago PD and the like are what you enjoy, then
go for it. This is an acceptable remake to a show that, in and of
itself, was not all that great. I can’t really be mad at an average
show that has produced an average show. And SWAT wins a few brownie
points for having adopted and adapted the old theme song to both make
it current while not sullying the catchiness of the original tune.
But if you are looking for something with a little more dramatic
depth, then this probably isn’t the show for you. Ultimately, SWAT
is a bubblegum show that tastes good for a while but quickly goes
flavorless after a few commercial breaks. Will you be talking about
it the next day at the watercooler? Probably not. But the cases could
get interesting and they do a good job at establishing all of their
characters while leaving plenty of room for intriguing developments.
SWAT airs on CBS Thursdays at 10pm. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of the new TV remake of SWAT? If you
haven’t, do you think you would check it out now? If you have heard
of it, have you seen it? Do you like it? What do you think they can
improve? Do you think that Deacon will betray Hondo? And will Jim
find out about Hondo talking to his mom? And what do you think about
the relationships between Hondo and Jessica, and Jim and Christina?
Let me know in the comments below. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdAJ0H5lITlOmt8Zac-yQ15FT1hx3LQ9F1083NqpFdHY3r7BBfu3o9wnLw2azmQrYJLOZTafQypLb2xKm2RIAw1MRVozBjf1RdtqhKglXKKO6yWULg2YY7_bBtGMCFWL5R3ohSgrScvuE/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdAJ0H5lITlOmt8Zac-yQ15FT1hx3LQ9F1083NqpFdHY3r7BBfu3o9wnLw2azmQrYJLOZTafQypLb2xKm2RIAw1MRVozBjf1RdtqhKglXKKO6yWULg2YY7_bBtGMCFWL5R3ohSgrScvuE/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “Hi, 911? Yeah,
there’s a giant pitcher of red liquid walking around the house
across the street. I’m getting nervous and I think he has a bomb.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘Have you seen a bomb?’
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“No, but he keeps talking about an
explosion... of flavor.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘Of flavor?’
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Oh god, he’s coming this way.
Ahhh! He just burst through the wall of my house. [background noise:
‘Oh yeah!’] He’s terrorizing me with Kool-Aid goodness! Help!”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
But on a serious note, swatting is a very serious and very dangerous
practice done by quite a few idiots out there. If ever it is done to
you make sure that you don’t panic, get down low, do not resist and
calmly explain what has happened. I’ll try to come up with a much
better, shorter sign-off next time. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-32299165372101088992017-11-16T19:16:00.000-08:002017-11-16T19:16:06.335-08:00Growing Up Ain’t Always Easy... Or Fun #YoungSheldon #3weekroundup #CBS #recap #review <div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Growing
Up Ain’t Always Easy... Or Fun #YoungSheldon #3weekroundup #CBS
#recap #review </b></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHIJ78ztnkRfcCb3lJnBO3TR8BhyjLW2rIjUUIII4ivQvAnhLelll4rQkaSCLxWQhc4ZRU8_cy4wQpanVwcuVC0qRHqTRmw1CMaGYkMtLRdb5zLomWj10HC-vsAd2_TsqgTVyrwlH_wSk/s1600/20c58212ca09cf4d_st1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="525" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHIJ78ztnkRfcCb3lJnBO3TR8BhyjLW2rIjUUIII4ivQvAnhLelll4rQkaSCLxWQhc4ZRU8_cy4wQpanVwcuVC0qRHqTRmw1CMaGYkMtLRdb5zLomWj10HC-vsAd2_TsqgTVyrwlH_wSk/s640/20c58212ca09cf4d_st1.jpg" width="336" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<u><span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of CBS and Young Sheldon promotional materials</span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">It’s
time for another review/recap of one of this fall’s new shows. And
because these idiot networks can’t seem to premiere everything at
once like they used to, and insist on shuffling, re-shuffling, and
cutting the deck that is their lineup of shows, we’re here in the
middle of November for a show that premiered back in October (or
September. Whichever). Yay! So, is CBS’s hit show Young Sheldon
really deserving of all of its blue ribbon accolades or is this one
of those homemade volcanoes at the school science fair (womp, womp)?
Let’s find out together. </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYuQwadw8Ev0DrTmyLdlLVr2kMlbYDgB6A2p_UEFPDn68_uQ0-HjpnexLGzMOtH8LG-lZxD-Aq3QGiJJEcsTg4HkMnPKFqDngNSDDwcm_zVt9n885rLuWVVU9NrWchwmZQ5oEGk_ifg2A/s1600/f52f5bb6d6be622b_young_sheldon_101_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="208" data-original-width="370" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYuQwadw8Ev0DrTmyLdlLVr2kMlbYDgB6A2p_UEFPDn68_uQ0-HjpnexLGzMOtH8LG-lZxD-Aq3QGiJJEcsTg4HkMnPKFqDngNSDDwcm_zVt9n885rLuWVVU9NrWchwmZQ5oEGk_ifg2A/s320/f52f5bb6d6be622b_young_sheldon_101_1920.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">CBS’s
Young Sheldon, a spin-off of the long-running hit comedy The Big Bang
Theory, stars Iain Armitage as our titular character and follows a
nine-year-old sheldon as he embarks on the hormone-soaked wilds of
the high school jungle in, apparently, 1989. It is at this point in
the review that I must stop and give a caveat that I am not a fan of
The Big Bang Theory. It is not that I actively dislike the show, but
simply is a matter of timing. I didn’t see the very first episode
(or season, for that matter) of the show and I hate coming into
things at the middle when I can get it at the beginning. It premiered
during a time in which I was watching zero CBS shows because most of
them seemed to trend older with the exception of How I Met Your
Mother. I didn’t even like Two and a Half Men, so nothing drew me
to watch CBS. I have only seen a literal handful of episodes of The
Big Bang Theory and that was in syndication, so if you are a fan of
The Big Bang Theory, then take everything I have to say both during
the recap and during the review with a grain of salt. OK? Good. I now
return you to your recap/review already in progress. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Young
Sheldon, at the start of our series, is thrust into a new world that
he is hardly frightened of, but, in fact, looks forward to the
adventures of learning and overachieving at the high school level.
But there’s a few problems. First, he is leaving his twin sister
Missy behind in, I’m assuming, elementary school. She is your
average little girl but she abhors her I’m-smarter-than-you brother
and has a sarcastic outlook on life. He will also be joining his
eldest brother Georgie (George Jr.) who is, at 14, entering High
School also as a freshman. As a football jock, Georgie wants nothing
to do with his younger brother because he has to build his own
reputation which is difficult enough, especially with the family’s
current situation. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
current situation: the family has had to move sometime within the
last few years. Why? Because their father George Sr. (played by Lance
Barber) is a football coach. As we learned in the first episode where
Sheldon sought to point out the flaws in everyone, including his
teachers who break the school’s rule book and, according to him,
aren’t smart enough, George must sit his son down and tell him
about the lesson he recently learned. Recap of that last sentence: we
learned that the dad learned and was about to learn his son
something, you follow? George used to coach at another high school
and I guess he saw some of the other coaches maybe at his own school
(I was a little confused here because of the situation) who cheated
in some way and was then let go and made a pariah. The reason I say I
was confused (and I don’t usually confuse easily, but it was very
late and I was mentally fatigued) is because it makes little sense
for the school to have fired him for seeing some other school’s
coaches cheating, especially if that rival school was cheating
against his own school. Then again, maybe there was an acceptable
culture of cheating, but that’s hard to believe because the show is
set in Texas and we all know how seriously Texans take their football
at all levels. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5HPlAcQdWEgaYYUxsxPb1e4yv2rWegD5w9-G2UONwmkKJIc6emqTqpIPkx7tRwveC-6UKNUA5WtJOV6HA-lws0vJcZMHReC4IzW1Tu7DmCKmIHsP_LvtDKyDDUU6YEygT3wG3LZU31m4/s1600/young-sheldon-cbs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="700" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5HPlAcQdWEgaYYUxsxPb1e4yv2rWegD5w9-G2UONwmkKJIc6emqTqpIPkx7tRwveC-6UKNUA5WtJOV6HA-lws0vJcZMHReC4IzW1Tu7DmCKmIHsP_LvtDKyDDUU6YEygT3wG3LZU31m4/s320/young-sheldon-cbs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">That,
of course, leaves the most important character of the series, even
more important than Sheldon: his mother Mary. Mary, played by Zoe
Perry (fun fact: she is the Millennial-aged daughter of Laurie
Metcalf of Roseanne fame and Jeff Perry of Private Practice and
currently Scandal), is the best character on the series so far. I
will try to withhold my critiques but just know that I like her. The
typical 80s mom, she is concerned about all of her children but is
most concerned about her little genius child and how he fits into his
new school and the world in general. We see this more in the second
episode, but let’s stick with the pilot for a little while longer. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Sheldon
goes to high school where, as I said, he goes through every one of
his classes and tells each one of his teachers something about how
they are doing something wrong. He even says that one teacher has a
mustache which goes against the school’s dress code. And that
teacher was a white woman. To get him to fit in more, his parents
talk to him about how everything isn’t always so rigid. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">While his
parents argue with the school administration about how he needs to
stay in that school and the teachers need to just deal with him,
Sheldon ventures into a music class where he shows that he is a
musical savant as he sits down to perfectly play the piano, though
he’s never done it before. And while the teacher there tells him
that he should pursue music, he refuses outright because he’s
purely about science and musicians take drugs. We see a little bit of
his brother being teased as the dumb brother as Sheldon’s
reputation has already spread, and get a talk from dad about how to
deal with a genius brother. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
episode bobbles along with some stuff in there to demonstrate
Sheldon’s aversion to playing outside, watching cartoons and doing
anything that doesn’t require the mind or science. And we also see
a little thing about Sheldon going to church and how he simply
doesn’t get it. But we end with a heart-warming and honest talk
between Sheldon and George about his firing from his previous
coaching job. “Is he sad about it,” Sheldon asks. Yeah. He’s
angry and a litle sad. And that comment makes Sheldon touch his
father’s bare hand without his mits on connecting on his father on
a more human, personal level. </span></span></span></div>
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</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDOT38rBZqg-ppBp1K9o8p3nPb3VejXW3EzuywztUp4DEanSPFst2moFS1c_qJa8qZSi2_ahH5zmaDyHHcXgEd5EPCTrEmVspL2Aafv5Urm8CrnNS1JMKRJelQJ6hQQwMZ-h_NHJbUd9Q/s1600/MV5BYmNjODZmOTgtMzJlMi00ZTQyLTliNjgtOWI3OThiN2M0N2I4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzExMTY0MjU%2540._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="806" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDOT38rBZqg-ppBp1K9o8p3nPb3VejXW3EzuywztUp4DEanSPFst2moFS1c_qJa8qZSi2_ahH5zmaDyHHcXgEd5EPCTrEmVspL2Aafv5Urm8CrnNS1JMKRJelQJ6hQQwMZ-h_NHJbUd9Q/s400/MV5BYmNjODZmOTgtMzJlMi00ZTQyLTliNjgtOWI3OThiN2M0N2I4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzExMTY0MjU%2540._V1_.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Georgie Jr. and Sheldon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
two focuses on Mary’s concern that Sheldon doesn’t have any
friends. This stems from her seeing her two sons eating in the
cafeteria and Georgie Jr. eating with friends but Sheldon sitting
alone having delusions about the cosmos and the big bang (get it? Get
it! Ha!). I should say, just in case you didn’t get it from the
first episode, that George Sr. is the new football coach at this high
school so his wife popping up and hanging with him during the day
isn’t that weird around lunch time. I don’t yet know what she
does for work, if she does work (this is the 80s and not the 50s, so
I assume she does work but who knows). </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5wiuauI63hWH7HkE-Brigm7ocXq055UIituzDr7sinqRJ_Ln9-j7VmrWr7EjAytSCt0XduRHGcjcwiIlxnJ767K7MTxbMQgFZspBSnAq5jjreI4xScgfLE6HKq4Tm3hDzFDCYhonim8/s1600/29906170001_5632135637001_5632118286001-vs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="539" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5wiuauI63hWH7HkE-Brigm7ocXq055UIituzDr7sinqRJ_Ln9-j7VmrWr7EjAytSCt0XduRHGcjcwiIlxnJ767K7MTxbMQgFZspBSnAq5jjreI4xScgfLE6HKq4Tm3hDzFDCYhonim8/s320/29906170001_5632135637001_5632118286001-vs.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Missy and Sheldon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Mary
errantly tells Missy about her worries concerning Sheldon having no
friends, and Missy then relays that message to Sheldon. So Sheldon
goes on an adventure to develop some friendships. He goes to the
library where he is pointed to the old book <i>How to Win Friends and
Influence People</i>. He uses the techniques within the book to visit
all the different cliques in the school to make friends. Along the
way he makes a few funny jokes that align with the “greetings,
earthlings” trope that fish-out-of-water stories have, but has no
luck with friends. Finally, his sister, who is struggling with the
idea of not being exceptional like her brother, comes up with the
idea to read the names on the book’s reservation card because those
people were also desperate enough to need a book to make friends. As
it turns out, all of the people who recently took it out are adults,
his teachers in fact. And after hearing a few terrible stories about
how one teacher stole another teacher’s innocence and how that
innocence-stealer was also left damaged from the breakup, he has to
return the book. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">In
returing the book, Sheldon finds a young Asian boy who is also having
trouble making a friend and huzzah! You’ve got a friend in me. Mary
tells him to invite his new friend over and they have a dinner where
George Sr. makes sure the boy’s mother doesn’t have a <i>particular</i>
name (he fought in ‘Nam), and the boy tells the story of how his
family escaped from Vietnam and have migrated here to become
low-paid, overworked immigrants. How depressing! But the good news is
that he and Sheldon can build rockets together and they both are
super into math. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL7tfKnz-KxfUQ75cXFmYfcRye-rTttImGu14WPKzxlNHD1x9brGcDtibugye6GG8wTgldRko94y833m7RMKGqzA3SdOd1WI4oGTA0Iv26UPNKgU8htQXdXLP1UOFGIpatI5D35DeK0-Y/s1600/623845-young-sheldon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL7tfKnz-KxfUQ75cXFmYfcRye-rTttImGu14WPKzxlNHD1x9brGcDtibugye6GG8wTgldRko94y833m7RMKGqzA3SdOd1WI4oGTA0Iv26UPNKgU8htQXdXLP1UOFGIpatI5D35DeK0-Y/s320/623845-young-sheldon.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sheldon's friend and Sheldon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
three focuses on two things: Sheldon’s grandmother (his mother’s
mom) and his rejection of religion. Every Sunday, Mary goes to church
and often takes the children (her husband is sometimes busy with the
football team). But Sheldon, being the person he is, must call out
the preacher’s claims that God created the world in six days, and
challenges the existence of God and even tries to make that old
stupid argument that God and science don’t align. But when he
learns that some of the greatest scientists he admires also believe
in God and that Pascale said that it’s smarter to believe in God
than it is to not, he is flabbergast. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
his grandmother, played by Annie Potts, comes to babysit a few times.
Like most grandparents, when she comes, the rules are a little more
lax as she adores her grandchildren. But when George Sr. suffers some
serious health emergency, grandmother or MeeMaw has to come and
emergency-babysit while George and Mary go to the hospital. Things
don’t look good when George thinks he is having a heart attack and
has to stay in the hospital longer than expected. With Meemaw not
being forthcoming enough with the deets about their dad’s health,
Georgie Jr. decides to take it upon himself to steal his sleeping
grandmother’s car and drive his siblings to the hospital. But being
14 he can’t drive and swerves all over the road hitting things at
eight miles per hour. He finally lucks out when they all see an
ambulance and follow it to the hospital. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Both
plots come to a head when Sheldon sneaks away to pray in the hospital
chapel. No, he doesn’t pray to God but to famed legendary scientist
Pascale because he thinks that if Pascale was wrong and there is no
God, then no harm done, and if he was right, then Pascale would
surely be near God and able to pass along Sheldon’s message. He
prays for his father’s good health, and just like that, his father
is getting better again. The episode ends with the entire family
going back to church and Sheldon’s tiny bit of belief having
already dissipated back into atheistic doubt. All is well. </span></span></span></div>
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<span id="goog_274633424"></span><span id="goog_274633425"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzN6pSsiJJ2KSPuxtDQc48oWhPrNrpWCzVX_MX1a36H8GWpwq0UxgkWGnq8SMtFDJwi2VJh4tnjE7Y5fVszrXH5QO04Ohv_kRwKWCVveOcx2COJBH5rbx6aLK1Z0HxaL2AG7HY_Pr1mfI/s1600/170922-young-sheldon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzN6pSsiJJ2KSPuxtDQc48oWhPrNrpWCzVX_MX1a36H8GWpwq0UxgkWGnq8SMtFDJwi2VJh4tnjE7Y5fVszrXH5QO04Ohv_kRwKWCVveOcx2COJBH5rbx6aLK1Z0HxaL2AG7HY_Pr1mfI/s320/170922-young-sheldon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What’s
my grade? I give it a <span style="color: #cc0000;">C+</span>. The only
reason I see for this being this fall’s number one new show is that
it has The Big Bang Theory as a lead-in and is associated with that
show. If, however, this was not associated with that show in any way,
I doubt it would really be all that. Let’s start with the way CBS
rolled this thing out. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">For
starters, I have a few issues with how networks and streaming
services premiere new shows these days. There almost seems to seldom
be a happy medium and it’s getting worse, not better. With Marvel’s
Inhumans premiering its first two episodes as a movie a few weeks
before the TV premiere; Star Trek Discovery premiering one episode on
CBS, then the second one on CBS All Access the very same night, and
the third the next week; and with streaming services premiering
entire seasons for binge-watching, I absolutely hate how we consume
TV. One of the biggest pluses for cutting the cord, other than the
cost, should be the ability to not fall prey to a network’s
whimsical maneuverings of their schedule. I have yet to cut the cord.
But even if I had, I would still have fallen prey to the same thing
when viewing Young Sheldon. For some dumb reason, CBS decided to
premiere this show not only out of its regular timeslot and date, but
a full month ahead of the second episode. The first episode came on
during premiere week on September 25<sup>th</sup>. The second episode
finally came on on November 2<sup>nd</sup>, and the show moved from
Mondays to Thursdays where it follows The Big Bang Theory. I can only
guess that the network is deathly afraid of the show dying without
the BBT lead-in. But in any case, having one episode of something
play, then skipping weeks before showing the next one, then having it
be off for at least another week during the Thanksgiving holiday,
especially during an era in which people want full seasons of shows
all at once, is courting cancellation. The time thing is needlessly
disruptive and can leave a bad impression on viewers, especially if
they didn’t love the first episode. And God the first show was
awful. </span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTPC8Wy4w5R9iBwiUXBhM8DsbG4AREb7AX__PTW8rm8lp9G4ewfHn4PdsPAtH3PouGoxYI9AjRTvwm8NzBeS31AxeuaoUfnJ0yBliGSDxvBQIYn6gT9yzwKJTlRbSjHbLjinIygf3UurA/s1600/Screen_Shot_2017-10-13_at_11.58.40_AM__www.imagesplitter.net_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="430" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTPC8Wy4w5R9iBwiUXBhM8DsbG4AREb7AX__PTW8rm8lp9G4ewfHn4PdsPAtH3PouGoxYI9AjRTvwm8NzBeS31AxeuaoUfnJ0yBliGSDxvBQIYn6gT9yzwKJTlRbSjHbLjinIygf3UurA/s320/Screen_Shot_2017-10-13_at_11.58.40_AM__www.imagesplitter.net_.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Missy, MeeMaw and Sheldon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Speaking
of, the pilot for this show is the textbook reason for why I always
give a show at least three episodes to prove itself. To me, it was an
absolutely terrible premiere episode, starting with who narrates the
show. It’s funny that I went to the IMDb page for this to read some
reviews and a few of those reviewers said the same thing I was
thinking, and that is that the show seems to suffer from Jim Parsons
narration. Parsons, who plays the adult Sheldon on The Big Bang
Theory, voices Young Sheldon’s inner-thoughts similar to on The
Wonder Years or Arrested Development. It’s not necessarily his
narration that is bad, but the fact that the show comes from his
viewpoint when it probably would be better if it came from his mother
Mary’s viewpoint. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">After
having seen Zoe Perry on last season’s Scandal, I can say without
doubt that she is a phenomenal actress. She shines in this series,
too. The show might actually be better if she narrated the show and
it focused on her perspective raising such a gifted child. She’s
really quite young in real life, but somehow plays older and has the
mother thing down really well. Out of all the characters on the show,
she actually feels the most geniune in all of her scenes. The comedic
lines are delivered with conviction, she showed true caring and
motherly concern for her family, and she is the one trying to balance
Sheldon’s genius eccentricities with being a regular kid. In fact,
both she and the husband character are pretty good parents, even if
they do play into a few stereotypical family sitcom tropes. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
biggest problem with the show, outside of the dramatic tonal shift
between this show and The Big Bang Theory, is that the titular
character is not likable. Let me say that I abhor the “likable”
description for characters. I have watched and read enough book, film
and TV reviews in my life to cringe every time I hear that word. To
me, it is a cop out for whenever a reviewer doesn’t understand or
agree with the choices of a character, and it only applies maybe five
to ten percent of the time. Characters don’t have to be likable,
they have to be interesting, and their interesting-ness should
overpower any annoyance or outright disdain one might have for them.
Young Sheldon does not overpower my disdain. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3KUlfNvNDcksEeIp7gjQqI6-ddhgPg5oghlkjEgixemFHTUcE7LDLZXguHFfFtEJR89tFZAH5gy5NIgV2f3uW4h6Jb0rxABbeaffHtm2FVPa_feKkHEFakdWc8LCkFWeqEzXySzFR01I/s1600/10YOUNGSHELDON2-blog427.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="427" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3KUlfNvNDcksEeIp7gjQqI6-ddhgPg5oghlkjEgixemFHTUcE7LDLZXguHFfFtEJR89tFZAH5gy5NIgV2f3uW4h6Jb0rxABbeaffHtm2FVPa_feKkHEFakdWc8LCkFWeqEzXySzFR01I/s320/10YOUNGSHELDON2-blog427.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Of
the few episodes of The Big Bang Theory I’ve seen, Sheldon is a
strange genius who, while very annoying and flawed, is played in a
way that can often come off as endearing. However, Sheldon’s
annoying I’m-better-than-everyone attitude is evened out by the
fact that he lives/works with a bunch of other geniuses that are
deeply flawed and know they are flawed. They are the essential “geeks
that can’t get girls” concept, who evolved over time. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Here,
on Young Sheldon, I know we must give him enough time to develop into
the character he is supposed to be, but that will take years/seasons
to happen. On this show, he comes off as a smart-alecky, know-it-all
brat who thinks that everyone around him is exhaustingly beneath him.
I had a friend tell me that she didn’t want to watch the show
because she felt that she would get pissed watching some
smart-mouthed kid talk back to adults and would feel compelled to pop
the character in the mouth once. She’s old school and from the
Midwest so don’t give me the PC “you can’t hit kids” thing.
And while I probably wouldn’t do that myself, I had the same
inclination. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Young
Sheldon is not endearing and seldom funny in his pursuits. Where
adult Sheldon has this almost Grinch-like or Cat-in-the-Hat-esque
mischievous grin upon his face even when putting down his fellow
geniuses or the non-superior-brained normies, Young Sheldon never
gives that particular type of warm invitation to come laugh with him.
Instead, he looks at everyone as if he is fed up that they don’t
think his way, and that they’re idiots for not. He’s got a huge
superiority complex that goes beyond America’s love of precocious
kids. This is only made more evident by the fact that he is
surrounded only by his family. Where on Big Bang he is circled around
three other geniuses in their own right, on this show he only has the
laypersons of his family. On Big Bang when he makes jokes about his
colleagues intelligence or eccentricities, its endearing because you
know that he is speaking with people who are close to his equals.
Here, we know that he has no equal. Everyone is mentally a peon to
him, even the adults, and he treats them as such, which is the most
annoying thing you can do in this particular political climate.
Again, I’m definitely not the PC-type (read my books to find out)
but saying that Texas is some stupid, backwards land where a child is
the smartest person serves to make fun of the average working Joe and
Jane in a way that might not be great viewing for everyone. I thought we were past the "small town life is full of simpletons"-trope about twenty years ago. If you’re
going to satirize the “simple-minded” religious of Middle
America, then you better be damn funny doing it, otherwise, they
might tell you to take a hike. And this show really ain’t all that
funny, even though I’m not one of the simple-minded. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? If you’re a fan of The Big Bang Theory then yes
you should check it out. Some people won’t like the change in
format between the shows--going from the multi-cam studio audience
show that is The Big Bang Theory to a single-cam show of Young
Sheldon in which there is no laugh track. This is a big departure for
CBS in the comedy area, though ABC, FOX and NBC have all been doing
it for years with much success. The other non-studio-audience comedy
CBS has/had is the new show Me, Myself and I, which has since been
shelved, but not officially canceled. This show will be a little
different for most CBS viewers to watch as it doesn’t even have
strong musical cues to hammer home the jokes. I personally think that
was a bad idea to switch formats between the two shows, but it does
give some variety. As far as it being funny: eh! The first episode
wasn’t funny at all, but the next two episodes had a few good
laughs in them. Personally, I probably wouldn’t watch the whole
season and would only tune in now and then for Zoe Perry. I find that
the callbacks to The Wonder Years and Boy Meets World aren’t strong
enough for me to recommend it as the new go-to family show, but it’s
serviceable, as in it can serve up one or two laughs per episode.
Maybe. Young Sheldon airs on CBS Thursdays at 8:30pm. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtzlU4R-X9DcAH8ovSw_YUQmZ8t-ylDJEFnXj9e8SpwSBbLL7sMCqVV_Ga-niT-TKf2AtXA26JC_q5uLa-txc3Y1fksSUG7upu4vMresMAMnrMdsRI_H4GJPzyTNWgFvOGtMFF69kkxTY/s1600/Young-Sheldon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtzlU4R-X9DcAH8ovSw_YUQmZ8t-ylDJEFnXj9e8SpwSBbLL7sMCqVV_Ga-niT-TKf2AtXA26JC_q5uLa-txc3Y1fksSUG7upu4vMresMAMnrMdsRI_H4GJPzyTNWgFvOGtMFF69kkxTY/s400/Young-Sheldon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Included this pic because Zoe Perry looks her age, a young 33.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span id="goog_999750937"></span><span id="goog_999750938"><br /></span></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of Young Sheldon? If not, do you think
you’ll tune in now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Did
you like it? Was I too hard on the show? Where do you think the show
can improve? And do you think we’ll one day get kid-cameos of the
other Big Bang characters somehow? Let me know in the comments below.
</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTiSPy529wpqp-mrrb-w0bMdaasDkkAc0CIGKH4VwqaLIOD5PPPoYs8_ekmMrJhw7oYYbbm_8293LXG-67-19b92JhSPS3qJPaAazrudIO-f-abUz3iSzEl6wnAjMisl7rU79R5BN3KDM/s1600/manonroofgabriola.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTiSPy529wpqp-mrrb-w0bMdaasDkkAc0CIGKH4VwqaLIOD5PPPoYs8_ekmMrJhw7oYYbbm_8293LXG-67-19b92JhSPS3qJPaAazrudIO-f-abUz3iSzEl6wnAjMisl7rU79R5BN3KDM/s320/manonroofgabriola.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking I</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">f
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “Let’s see: two
and two make five? That doesn’t sound right.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘I don’t know. Looks right to me
and I’m pretty smart. I’m a whale biologist.’
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“But the numbers—”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘Whale biologist!’
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
OK, that’s not the actual dialogue, but points to you if you know
the reference to which that paraphrasing might refer to? Hint: It was
an animated comedy on FOX. That show had scientists too. And, uh..
Yeah. That’s all I have to say. I’ll think of a better sign-off
next time.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-63148169061616180012017-11-15T16:04:00.001-08:002017-11-15T16:04:44.199-08:00To Write A Novel #NaNoWriMo #HalfwayMark #TMOTR <div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>To
Write A Novel #NaNoWriMo #HalfwayMark #TMOTR </b></span></span></span><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_A8ZTsvhaP6Q9hz4EaQu_yuykb60lhF-XvA-3MZ8lFoZzgFlDfxVeKqq0WV4Cfr-xeMYpXpzLah5U_gREn-bf7JR3UV-uKsuk9MkW9GDv9KbPCF3EmJH1ay-MKtLY598bAYOfMVA6hFc/s1600/national-novel-writing-month-badge-logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="368" data-original-width="640" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_A8ZTsvhaP6Q9hz4EaQu_yuykb60lhF-XvA-3MZ8lFoZzgFlDfxVeKqq0WV4Cfr-xeMYpXpzLah5U_gREn-bf7JR3UV-uKsuk9MkW9GDv9KbPCF3EmJH1ay-MKtLY598bAYOfMVA6hFc/s640/national-novel-writing-month-badge-logo.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<u><span style="font-size: x-small;">This picture courtesy of the NaNoWriMo commission</span></u></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Writing
a novel can be pretty hard, y’all. Like... yeah! For those that
don’t know or who have never tried, writing a full-length novel is
very difficult and can be not only taxing on you mentally but quite a
pain physically. And that’s even if you’re writing something you
enjoy writing, something wonderful, something light and free and
fluffy and lovey-dovey! Piecing everything together to create an
easy, memorable and enjoyable reading experience for those future
readers you one day hope to have is no easy task, but it is sometimes
in this difficulty that we stumble upon (mental stumble upon. Wait,
what do you call that...? Thunk upon! That sounds right) brilliance.
The one drawback to brilliance is that you never quite know if it
counts as such until it’s out there for others to see and consume.
But that doesn’t mean you have to fret. I believe that all writing,
even the fairly bad stuff, contains nuggets of greatness. That means
that for you NaNoWriMo’ers this month, even if you struggle to get
to your goal, even if you end the month without having completed your
task, remember that you most likely have written something great. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Remembering
back two years ago, I embarked on my first official (that’s very
important) NaNoWriMo in November of 2015. It was a helluva month as I
also decided to take on the unnecessary added challenge of
NaNoBloPoMo or, wait... Is that what it is? That doesn’t sound
right. NaBlo...? National Blog Post Month (NaBloPoMo! Ha!). For those
that are unfamiliar with it or don’t blog, NaBloPoMo is where you
post at least one blog post everyday for an entire month. Now, if
you’ve read anything else on my blog, you’ll know that it is not
like me to not be very verbose. Trying to both do my writing on my
novel while also doing the whole blogging thing was extremely hectic
and nearly pushed me over the edge. Somehow I managed to accomplish
both in a whirlwind that saw me complete the month with at least 30
(don’t know the actual number. Would have to look back to check and
I’m rather lazy and too busy to do that right now) blog posts and a
118,000 word first-draft mystery novel. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdAJ0H5lITlOmt8Zac-yQ15FT1hx3LQ9F1083NqpFdHY3r7BBfu3o9wnLw2azmQrYJLOZTafQypLb2xKm2RIAw1MRVozBjf1RdtqhKglXKKO6yWULg2YY7_bBtGMCFWL5R3ohSgrScvuE/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdAJ0H5lITlOmt8Zac-yQ15FT1hx3LQ9F1083NqpFdHY3r7BBfu3o9wnLw2azmQrYJLOZTafQypLb2xKm2RIAw1MRVozBjf1RdtqhKglXKKO6yWULg2YY7_bBtGMCFWL5R3ohSgrScvuE/s400/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">That novel is TMOTR (#TMOTR
for social media) but you can call it by its god-given name <i>The
Man On The Roof</i>. It was only the second mystery novel I had ever
written, yet all the while writing it I felt a surge of energy that
continued to push me forward each day and make me cognizant of its
weightiness. I felt I was writing something that would be amazing.
Now, granted, I am quite often delusional according to my therapist
Bert the trash man who absolutely swears he’s just a trash man but is
older, black, always has great nuggets of wisdom and totally fits the
archetype of the magical negro (I swear that brotha went to Hogwarts
or somethin’). But even with that I still couldn’t fight the
feeling that I had created something great, which is one of the
biggest reasons that kept me pushing through the project, pushing
through the small snippets of writer’s block (though I find it
insanely difficult to actually get writer’s block when you’re
constantly writing and working on at least two different projects at
once. I know it sounds crazy hard, but try it. It frees your mind)
and the mental fatigue of crafting a story; pushing through the
emotional roller coaster that was (and still is) my relationship with
each of the characters and growing to love and loathe them as the
time went on; charging forward through the quandaries and quagmires of
questions that came up in the plot and how to get from point A to
point C while making point B the most dramatic; creating a world and
setting for not just my characters to live in but creating enough
empty space for the reader to slot his or her thoughts and feelings
into the setting too, in order to fill out the rest of the
environment; battling to create not just narrative but atmospheric
narrative; making sure each voice was right, each character just
distinct enough; and figuring out a way to lure the reader deeper
and deeper into the mysterious darkness while keeping them hooked on
every word, every sentence, every idea put forth in the book. It’s
a heck of a lot. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
N<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">ow, two years after having written it, I finally
am ready to release it and am looking for reviewers of this book that
I think is similar to Gone Girl, The Girl On The Train, Big Little
Lies, In A Dark, Dark Wood and the like. No, I wasn’t editing this
the whole time. I worked on the editing for three weeks after I
finished it and haven’t touched it since but only now do I think
the timing for the book is right. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">That’s
neither here nor there. What is important is that I know your plight
dear NaNoWriMo’er and for all you first-timers, I can say that it
is wholly doable. Is it a challenge? Of course. And no, nobody
expects you to finish over 100,000 words (which is only an
achievement if the book is actually good). But push yourself further
and harder than you ever have before. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ciqMa1NSAqh-AggmXijhJWGcyPk-x7eYT9l60ABtrnyHjRs6Qyciq_UADHEFdKiwqTEeFfGvPZHija0St2UIp81qrhqAAR_QnFxpHz1xCaWS7ln7OrHunzVrrwT-N7hQPrUEgPCGvdc/s1600/Knowledge+of+Fear1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ciqMa1NSAqh-AggmXijhJWGcyPk-x7eYT9l60ABtrnyHjRs6Qyciq_UADHEFdKiwqTEeFfGvPZHija0St2UIp81qrhqAAR_QnFxpHz1xCaWS7ln7OrHunzVrrwT-N7hQPrUEgPCGvdc/s320/Knowledge+of+Fear1.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div>
First Mystery Suspense Thriller</div>
<div>
Coming In </div>
<div>
December</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">OK,
now it’s that cringe-worthy time where I give you unsolicited
advice. I know. I hate getting that kind of advice because it seems
to almost always come from some smart-butt who thinks he or she knows
everything or knows something that I don’t, and just wants to rub
it in. If you don’t want to take it that’s totally fine, but I do
find that sometimes this stuff helps. Sometimes it helps to hear
something you already know from someone else to sure-up your own
confidence and sometimes there truly are things that you didn’t
think of that another person has thought of and that can be helpful
to you. So, here it goes, my tips on getting through the month. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">First,
I know that this month, for many, is so often not really about
finishing the novel but about word counts and lengths, and as we get
deeper into this thing, we’re gonna start seeing more and more
people posting about how many words they’ve written in one day or
one week, or how close they are to the minimum goal of 50,000 words.
Ignore it! Ignore it all. Is it good to keep track of just how much
you’ve done, you’ve accomplished? Of course. And taking a peek at
how many words you’ve logged in a day or over a week does help you
to gauge your productivity level, but don’t let this sidetrack you.
In fact, don’t let the word count get you down at all. This is
totally gonna sound like bragging but I assure you it is not and it’s
truthful (you can go back through my blog and check if you’d like).
So don’t judge. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyways, as I was doing the posts and the novel
writing, and we did have the Thanksgiving holiday on which I am
always the primary cook for my family, I still also had yardwork to
do. As some of my long-time readers may know, I am a vegetable
gardener and all-around environmentalist (Go #CaptainPlanet) so I am
really big into composting. Well, that year I foolishly, for the
first (but not last) time requested a truckload of leaves be
delivered to my house. Leaves which I would use both for mulching all
of my aesthetic gardening beds, as well as mixing with coffee
grounds, lawn clippings and food scraps to set as the base for my
compost pile. The picture below is of the leaf pile. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIRRDh_4ws95cyXTxyvbARf7MD6olCDfDNsGvDMMe7CCBw_4Tb05meajchbyA8INUA9cz2al2aQtN-qVep0qaXb0E-8pDaOdGIBjI_BlPblm-6OSS6RXy7xt-rF34XWkykC5rfkXkl_4A/s1600/20151117_161347.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIRRDh_4ws95cyXTxyvbARf7MD6olCDfDNsGvDMMe7CCBw_4Tb05meajchbyA8INUA9cz2al2aQtN-qVep0qaXb0E-8pDaOdGIBjI_BlPblm-6OSS6RXy7xt-rF34XWkykC5rfkXkl_4A/s320/20151117_161347.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The pile was
taller than me, as long as a full-sized Sedan (maybe longer), and
made of the driest, most compact assortment of leaves you can get.
Most were maple leaves and they smelled amazing, like warm maple
syrup. We had 70 degree temps that week in November which is
unseasonably warm but pretty great because it would get dark hella
early and it was the week of Thanksgiving so everybody was home and
off. Moving the leaves alone, it took me four days to get them all
moved from the front of my yard to all around the property where they
needed to be. That was four days of not writing at all on my novel. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Whatever
time I did get at the end of the night went directly to my blogging
and sleep. And another full day of Thanksgiving-ing (uh... That
should totally be a word. Yes, I know that thanksgiving in and of
itself is technically a verb. Don’t bother me with minutia, reader)
where I also hardly wrote anything. So out of 30 days I only wrote
for about 25 of them. My point is that if I had stressed over word
count and how much I got done during those days (I may have blogged
about stressing a little), I would have volunteered my brain for
writer’s block and never achieved my goal. How many words you have
doesn’t matter as much as how complete the story is and how good
those words are. Granted, there is some importance to the word count
if all you’ve previously done is write short stories, but even
then, I’d say don’t look at the word count until you are
satisfactorily finished with the story, then hopefully you still have
a week of time left at the end of the month to make some changes or
additions within the story. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmccUDXx4mLYJVhviiaF024fthN4iGx5qnUXNK1CceYjoa7IYtobZZG6SFlcl5fAn1c_y0JBymisn6JtYwQ0dgkS0u-S8Rr2PJuAsTIucJWc5OqNlSP5rfdYkJGYiPbeVBUQL9xhXowjM/s1600/TheWriterS2Ep15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmccUDXx4mLYJVhviiaF024fthN4iGx5qnUXNK1CceYjoa7IYtobZZG6SFlcl5fAn1c_y0JBymisn6JtYwQ0dgkS0u-S8Rr2PJuAsTIucJWc5OqNlSP5rfdYkJGYiPbeVBUQL9xhXowjM/s320/TheWriterS2Ep15.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div>
The Writer Seasons 1-3 Out NOW</div>
<div>
on Amazon Kindle</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">With
that point made, I feel everything else should flow easily. Remember,
while this month is certainly focused on finishing a full novel, it’s
not really about finishing a full novel, but telling a story as best
you can in a way that pleases both you and a potential reader one
day. Have fun with this thing. Remember that the writing is supposed
to be the fun part, even if you are purging anger, resentment,
depression or the like out onto the blank page (The Man On The Roof
#TMOTR was written in a rage-fueled miasma that stemmed from
continuing to be a failure at writing and all-around, and having poor
timing in my life). Don’t stress over words. Take risks with your
writing, try new things, let the story take you where it wants to
venture and be willing to make mistakes. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">But—this is something that
most other authors won’t tell you because everyone is a huge
worshipper of the editing and revisions process—make your first
draft as near to perfect as possible. Yes, you’ll have plenty of
time to go back and tinker and fix and add and subtract, but one of
the reasons why this month is so challenging is not because of the
word counts or things of that nature, but because it wants you to
challenge yourself to write a novel and not just slop together some
pretty words that occasionally make sense. If you’re gonna stress
over anything, stress over the tightness of the narrative and the
believability of the characters (not even so much the relatability as
each reader will pick and choose who they relate to based on their
own biases). </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Another
big nugget of advice: DON’T TRY TO EDIT ANYTHING DURING THE MONTH!!
It’s tempting, I know. And some people will tell you that it pays
to be a perfectionist and if you just go back and tweak things, it’s
OK. No. Stop before you do that and remember this thought: there is
more brilliance deleted by authors than ever makes it into their
novels. Quote from me. Michael Stephenson. If you’re a seasoned
writer you should already know that you should never be deleting
anything anyway, unless it is a grammatical error like mispalings and
such. But sentences that don’t sound right in the flow of things,
dialogue that you don’t particularly care for and even entire
scenes that you think can be cut—keep all of it in your first
draft. And if you want to make an edit later, then mark it as
something you want to take a look at, then write whatever you wanted
to edit it to be (if you already have something in mind) just below
your note, but don’t delete it. And don’t slow down your mind’s
conscious stream of thought to go back and question yourself if this
one particular word is the right particular word in that sentence,
because you could come back to the novel in a month or two and
realize that your first choice was the best choice but you can’t
remember what it was. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
for outlining and framework construction, I will leave it up to you.
I will tell you that while I had been thinking of TMOTR for a while,
I hadn’t had a proper outline and, in fact, the original idea I had
for the story was drastically different than what the novel ended up
becoming. Sometimes I have an outline but sometimes I simply leave
prompts for myself, something which I recommend all writers do. The
prompts are generally questions or brief synopses about what I want
or think should happen either next in the story or what I am
comfortable writing next. Again, this month should be about getting
into a particular groove of comfort that allows you to open your most
creative mindset. Some good questions are: what a particular
character learned from what you wrote that day, when you want a
crucial event to happen, how you see the characters interacting with
each other at the end, and et cetera. Those are just examples, but it
is important to think like a reader would which is going to actually
drive your narrative. If you can get into the mind of your reader
before they are in their own mind, and anticipate what they will
think when reading your work, then you can reward them by fulfilling
their expectations or yank them deeper into the story by throwing an
unexpected twist at them. And yes, sometimes the best thing to do is
to let yourself fall into a bout of writer’s block because right
after that is usually when the magic happens, but never get concerned
about not being able to get any words down on the page. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-lRD-3w5gXRfHiRH4GN87E1htgAFvv3uU8KELzk0EY6oODnZuRSFXTh9px97CmWRe1Csd3_KYRBkrvHW2WF0DMDjIuQWcgH_XI8528_dLVT9WCGLVrLJEjUJTl01nHLA2GEeP5A__Hs4/s1600/ExtraordinarySeason1Ep1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-lRD-3w5gXRfHiRH4GN87E1htgAFvv3uU8KELzk0EY6oODnZuRSFXTh9px97CmWRe1Csd3_KYRBkrvHW2WF0DMDjIuQWcgH_XI8528_dLVT9WCGLVrLJEjUJTl01nHLA2GEeP5A__Hs4/s320/ExtraordinarySeason1Ep1.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Extraordinary Season One Out NOW!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">This
month’s pursuit is solely to make you a better writer, make you a
faster thinker and more agile wordsmith. It is meant to challenge
your perspective on how you write from start to finish, including the
planning process. So get messy, make mistakes, and most of all, have
fun! And some of the best times you’ll have during this process
will come, surprisingly, not from the writing, though that will be
pretty amazing. Some of the best times might very well come from
social media and any other offline/real-life socializing groups that
you have where you can get together and talk about either writing or
reading or both. NaNoWriMo is one of the few months where you don’t
have to be or feel alone in the writing process. Yes, writing is
often solitary but it doesn’t have to be this month. Go to wherever
other writers are and share your stories of what you are doing. Give
updates on what you are writing, what characters you’ve fallen in
love with, which ones you absolutely loathe, or how the plot has
changed from what you thought it was originally. And don’t just
share triumphs, share failures, the mundane, the quirky, the
questionable and the like. If you’re struggling with a particular
section, don’t agonize in silence, take it to Twitter or Facebook
or Goodreads or wherever and ask questions about that situation
there. Yes, while there is always a bit of paranoia about idea theft,
there are still tons of authors out there willing to help you solve
your writing problems. And sometimes it’s just good to commiserate
with others trying to achieve the same thing. Make friendships and
more importantly, make enemies, too. Seriously, haven’t you always
wanted a nemesis? You could totally have one and have that person be
a writer just like you. It’s perfect! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway,
that’s my two cents. To all my fellow writers and authors who dare
to participate in the 2017 November NaNoWriMo, I wish you good luck
and happy writing. And for anyone interested in reviewing my novel
The Man On The Roof, I would love it if you did. Here’s a
description: </span></span></span><br />
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">There
was a man on your roof.” And so starts the psychological intrigue.
A small, quiet, Northeast Ohio suburb plays host to a murder when the
body of a teenage ne'er-do-well is found hanging from a street banner
on a summer morning. At the end of the lane where the murder took
place, live five different couples and one old man. Neighbors make
for convenient friends as all five couples consider themselves one
collective group. But someone here is a murderer. Lies, betrayal and
twisted deeds come to light as fingers point and eyes narrow. Who's
lying? Who can be trusted? Who has a secret worth killing for? As
spouses turn against each other but one thing is for sure: The boy's
murderer was trying to send a message. The murderer <i>will</i> kill
again.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTiSPy529wpqp-mrrb-w0bMdaasDkkAc0CIGKH4VwqaLIOD5PPPoYs8_ekmMrJhw7oYYbbm_8293LXG-67-19b92JhSPS3qJPaAazrudIO-f-abUz3iSzEl6wnAjMisl7rU79R5BN3KDM/s1600/manonroofgabriola.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTiSPy529wpqp-mrrb-w0bMdaasDkkAc0CIGKH4VwqaLIOD5PPPoYs8_ekmMrJhw7oYYbbm_8293LXG-67-19b92JhSPS3qJPaAazrudIO-f-abUz3iSzEl6wnAjMisl7rU79R5BN3KDM/s320/manonroofgabriola.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
A psychological
mystery thriller in the vein of <i>Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train</i>,
and Liane Moriarty's <i>Big Little Lies</i>, The Man on the Roof is
told in 10 distinct voices that dig into the inner marrow of the
lives and secrets that the people at the end of Shady Lane hold.
Designed to be re-readable and keep readers on their toes, it will
keep you up at night and have you second and third-guessing every
theory about who done it and why. You might want to take notes on
this one because you'll surely be talking about The Man on the Roof
(#TMOTR) all year long! If you'd like to review it, let me know in the
comments below and we can set something up. Currently, it will only
be an ebook but hopefully within six months I will have hard copies. <br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Otherwise,
I wish you all as much success as you can stand this month and
beyond. Write something cool, and if it isn’t cool don’t fret,
nobody actually reads books anymore anyway ;). </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, (looks at book on
coffee table) “Wow! Have you read that book?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘Uh... Yeah, totally.’
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I love the part when she takes the
paddle and starts spanking the guy and he turns into a dragon and—”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘Well, actually, I haven’t read it
at all. I’ve just been using it as a coaster for my tea mug. Dat
tea be hot and delicious!’
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
(exasperated head shakes)
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
Yes, I know that was a long sign-off. Don’t judge me. I should be
judging you, reader. You totally know that you have at least one or
two books that you have been meaning to read but is now serving as a
cup coaster somewhere or is sitting somewhere in plain sight to make
you look well-read. For shame! Well, at least drink a cup of tea for
me. Cheers! I’ll think of a better, shorter sign-off line next
time. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-91712063886032058652017-11-15T09:52:00.001-08:002017-11-15T09:52:54.887-08:00It’s Finally Come! Best Comic Book Movie Of The Year! #ThorRagnarok #recap #review #Marvel<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>It’s
Finally Come! Best Comic Book Movie Of The Year! #ThorRagnarok #recap
#review #Marvel</b> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7aRlNdssoO4rBiB6X-mEdN7qGLN31wOiT8imGZaBd6u5gT5I6PV8VdTwlkgBB9VKTSvRFiSBjRMmgIftfxGfiAaM4W1oo99YldB-hf43mCUl9iYpucxLonnnBECp0tNG4WuTimJwF1NA/s1600/thorimax3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="876" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7aRlNdssoO4rBiB6X-mEdN7qGLN31wOiT8imGZaBd6u5gT5I6PV8VdTwlkgBB9VKTSvRFiSBjRMmgIftfxGfiAaM4W1oo99YldB-hf43mCUl9iYpucxLonnnBECp0tNG4WuTimJwF1NA/s640/thorimax3.jpg" width="436" /></a></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of Marvel/Disney Studios</span> </u></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">OK,
before people start throwing rocks, let me, once again, reiterate, as
I have in practically every other movie and/or Marvel-themed piece of
entertainment that has come out this year, I wasn’t able to see
Logan yet, so I don’t know if I would’ve liked it or not. But I
did see Guardians of the Galaxy, Wonder Woman and Spider-man:
Homecoming and can tell you that they were all overrated an—well...
OK, I guess <i>Guardians</i> was closer to being properly rated, but
it had many flaws that brought the movie down for me. And while, yes,
Wonder Woman was great as a statement film for feminism and just
having the first female-led superheroine (if we’re forgetting
Supergirl, Elektra, and Catwoman) it was hardly worth its 90%+ Rotten
Tomatoes score. It showcased some of the same flaws that we so
vehemently called out Batman v. Superman, Suicide Squad and Man of
Steel for and still somehow managed to feature some sexism in it
against both women and men. And Spider-man: Homecoming was just...
Ugh! I wasn’t even looking forward to the movie and still wound up
disappointed. </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXOTyx_nvMWZNdHUL-aA27vElVB6gnVJH8N_3IfIoHoEt4inIvKKtb9T6RoZp27cE28fvPoj2_JqKLM3ld38g0HjfffMiOyWxf_cVFIuTIM543v0hNqBQbDaHrOER292j_FhfOFQNfhaQ/s1600/rs_600x600-171020123519-600.thor-ragnarok-4.102017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXOTyx_nvMWZNdHUL-aA27vElVB6gnVJH8N_3IfIoHoEt4inIvKKtb9T6RoZp27cE28fvPoj2_JqKLM3ld38g0HjfffMiOyWxf_cVFIuTIM543v0hNqBQbDaHrOER292j_FhfOFQNfhaQ/s320/rs_600x600-171020123519-600.thor-ragnarok-4.102017.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So, with Justice League only a few days away, and my
predictions about DC films so far holding true—I called that Batman
v. Superman was a mess before it came out, also said that Suicide
Squad wasn’t going to be any good, and that people would praise
Wonder Woman as being the “savior” of the DCEU and almost
literally quoted article headlines a near year before the film came
out about how they would read “Wonder Woman Shows The Boys How To
Do It” or “A Wonder Woman’s Work Is Never Done,” and I also
said in the same post calling all of these things out that while WW
would be a shining beacon for fans even though it would still not be
very good in hindsight, the DCEU would return to mediocrity with
Justice League and lead to headlines like “Wonder Woman Still
Rules, Aquaman No Longer A Joke” or “Is The DCEU Better Without
Batman And Superman”—I’d have to declare Thor: Ragnarok as the
best superhero/heroine comic book film of 2017. With all that said,
let’s dig into the recap review and let me note that outside of the
plot of Thor being cast off of Asgard by the evil villain Hela and
having to fight his way back, there will be spoilers. There will be
spoilers galore. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">SPOILERS!
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I’d
first say that the trailers really don’t tell you much of anything
about the plot so much as they show you all of the cool scenes from
the film. With my year of “first trailers” coming to an end, I
can say that I didn’t see much after watching just the one trailer
from a few weeks ago, so I was fairly clean going into it. However,
even in that trailer (I think it was technically trailer 2) there was
still a lot of stuff that made it into the movie. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
stated, the plot is simple. Thor, after Age of Ultron, set out on a
cosmic journey to explore the nine realms and beyond to find this
demon, devil-looking thing called Surtur. As was sorta alluded to in
Age of Ultron with Scarlet Witch playing in Thor’s mind, there is
an ancient prophecy on Asgard that says that one day Surtur will come
and bring Ragnarok to the land. Ragnarok, for those not in the know,
is essentially the Norse equivalence of the apocalypse. Everything
gets destroyed and is rebuilt anew. In fact, I believe the very word
Ragnarok means rebirth or restart or something like that. Just know
that there’s a ton of destruction that must go on before the
restarting part. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Obviously
Thor doesn’t want the destruction of Asgard. Who the heck would
want that? All that gold would just be... burned and turned to rubble
and all sorts of terribleness. So, in the opening scene we find our
hero actually captured in some kind of underground fiery lair of
Surtur, because he wants to ask him about the evil demon/devil’s
plan to destroy Asgard. Surtur tells him something about how much he
hates Odin and how the guy is a total liar and an all-around douche.
And Thor’s like, what? Dude, chill, that’s my dad. There’s some
comedic elements in there where Thor is swiveling around on a hanging
chain and at first I thought, oh God this is going to be like
Guardians where the jokes were misplaced. But then I actually thought
the chain joke sorta worked and I didn’t know if I had adjusted my
expectations or the writers just didn’t overdo it like they tend to
so often do in comedies as of late. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway,
Thor beats the crap out of this dude and takes his skull/crown, which
Surtur said he was going to put into the eternal flame on Asgard that
is in Odin’s treasure room, which was supposed to turn him into a
giant, indestructible demon thingy. Thor then tries for a quick
planetary escape but that’s when we realize that Heimdall (Idris
Elba’s character) is not there at the bifrost gate anymore.
Instead, there is a new dude there exploiting the hell out of his
position. He lollygags about getting Thor back home and only after a
few attempts does Thor finally escape. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
first thing Thor realizes is that something isn’t right about
Asgard. Again, it’s assumed that he hasn’t been back at least
since Age of Ultron, and probably not since The Dark World because
he, in all of this time, didn’t realize that his brother Loki was
ruling in their dad’s place, magically disguised as Odin, sitting
on the throne—something we saw at the end of The Dark World. As he
gets to the palace, he sees a bevy of beautiful broads feeding his
hedonistic father lounging on a golden divan as he watches a play
based on the “heroism” of Loki, who is said to have sacrificed
his life to save the kingdom of Asgard. We get a few cameos here by
Sam Neil playing Odin, Chris’s older brother Luke playing Thor and
Matt Damon playing Loki. It’s mildly humorous. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Thor
immediately realizes what’s going on and forces his brother to
reveal himself in front of everyone and to show that he exiled Odin
to New York City. Together, Thor and Loki go to Shady Acres
old-folk’s home only to find it being torn down. We then see a
strange magic being used that makes Loki disappear into the ground
and leaves a card for Thor. At this point, I was actually surprised
but shouldn’t have been. I don’t know if it was the stress of
this year with politics and work and all, but it seemed like Doctor
Strange came out so long ago that when he made a cameo I was totally
surprised by everything. I had forgotten how he did his little
magical portals and all of that. Well, he gives Loki back, and shows
them where to find their father. He’s in Norway and we’re all
supposed to be like, Oh! Duh! Ha! </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">They
step through Strange’s portal to Norway and find Odin sitting on a
rock near a cliff, ready to die and talking about how he failed to
prevent Ragnarok, even though Thor is convinced he stopped Surtur. He
then tells the two boys about how Hela is coming and that she is not
only the goddess of death, but she is their older sister (Thor’s
blood sister) and she is far more powerful. He dies and disintegrates
into orange fairy dust and Hela arrives directly after that, ready to
battle on earth. Thor throws his hammer and that’s when we get the
trailer scene where she breaks his hammer and Thor is stuck without
it for the rest of the movie. In that instance, Loki turns full
coward and calls upon the bifrost to open, even though Thor knows
this is bad because he thinks Hela will follow them into the bifrost.
She does. They battle inside and she first flings Loki out of the
rainbow bridge, then she does the same to Thor. She alone arrives in
Asgard and kills Thor’s two soldiers of fortune from the first
movie (or whatever the hell their names were; also should mention
that Lady Sif is neither in this nor mentioned at all. I know Jaimie
Alexander is busy with Blindspot, but it’s strange not to even
spare a few seconds screentime to mention where she was, dead or
alive), then recruits, as a minion, the other idiot bifrost operator
who nearly got Thor killed at the beginning of the movie. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Finally
home after years of being gone (she’s been gone so long that she
never even met her brother Thor, unless, I’m guessing, she met him
as a baby), she rips through the palace walls, murals and paintings
to show the real stories of how Asgard got to be the “capital” of
the nine realms. As opposed to the pictures and stories of Odin in
which he brokered peace through treaties and governance, she shows
how they ruled with iron fists, slaughtering millions of people
across all the realms. But she got greedy and wanted to rule more
realms than Odin did and once she overpowered </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">him, he kicked her out
and locked her away somewhere, where she remained until today. </span></span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc8Mj72H_J4i_5nzJP6MW3fjlrYNJf1FRKPc4mQL5NyIoezmZxnmzTl61w1jZmS-3h5LDzUzRgQO43gfg48didJVk_CIteGdgSS_S5U9dw56JSieaUWoOhHFRslJg0kN_zt6MZxh7PnGw/s1600/gallery-1503312508-hulk-parade-valkyrie-thor-ragnarok.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="768" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc8Mj72H_J4i_5nzJP6MW3fjlrYNJf1FRKPc4mQL5NyIoezmZxnmzTl61w1jZmS-3h5LDzUzRgQO43gfg48didJVk_CIteGdgSS_S5U9dw56JSieaUWoOhHFRslJg0kN_zt6MZxh7PnGw/s320/gallery-1503312508-hulk-parade-valkyrie-thor-ragnarok.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
as she’s doing her evil thing and destroying the people while
trying to galvanize some of them behind her, Thor lands on a junk
planet where tons of stuff falls out of the bifrost and, I’m
guessing other mystical cosmic pathways. Here, he meets Tessa
Thompson’s Valkyrie who serves as a scrap collector under the rule
of Jeff Goldblum’s The Grandmaster. She collects the hammerless
Thor, sells him to The Grandmaster who has plans to pit him against
his greatest champion, and shows herself to be a true lush. As her
story goes, she’s been on the junkyard planet since before Thor was
born. She and the rest of the Valkyrie group of women (remember that
Valkyrie were both the group all-female warriors of which she was
part and is how she is referred to) went against Hela under orders of
Odin. They were all defeated that day which then caused Odin to use
all of his might to banish Hela. Valkyrie barely escaped with her
life and wound up on this planet. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">It
bares mentioning that this junkyard planet has no concept of time. So
even though Hela’s defeat was years ago, and Loki fell out of the
bifrost just a few seconds before Thor did, Valkyrie looks the same
age as Thor and Loki has been getting chummy with The Grandmaster for
weeks by the time Thor arrives. </span></span></span>
</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinSp5rMyypdU169MomtQ3zd-Jwj1MgIVUuNB5P-0npRdanBwUy-4tMs_EUPTQai1Q7y2okUc_QUW2IVIPC1OEQ8zsj2E7XkRhpa9Dz8WH6sXEtmGaSV62mx35znkxq1Z3qHSbjOBK3pUA/s1600/thorragnarok-grandmaster-meetingthor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="1307" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinSp5rMyypdU169MomtQ3zd-Jwj1MgIVUuNB5P-0npRdanBwUy-4tMs_EUPTQai1Q7y2okUc_QUW2IVIPC1OEQ8zsj2E7XkRhpa9Dz8WH6sXEtmGaSV62mx35znkxq1Z3qHSbjOBK3pUA/s400/thorragnarok-grandmaster-meetingthor.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div>
Ladies and gentlemen, uh... uh... Jeff Goldblum</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
here’s where things get tricky and sticky, because Jeff Goldblum is
gonna Jeff Goldblum, and he totally Jeff Goldblums here. And it’s
actually quite good. The entire planet is over-the-top madness. Think
of a mix of The Gladiator with Mad Max: Fury Road but with a Monty
Python-esque humor behind it all. With most other actors, this could
play out as entirely cheesy and stupid, but Jeff Goldblum brings so
much Jeff Goldbluminess into not just his role but the entirety of
this world that it doesn’t come off as a parody of a comic book. He
geniunely made me laugh with his quirkiness, his facade of some kind
of 80s/new-age DJ that’s in love with dubstep and strange crunchy,
video game-sounding music. He felt like a slightly younger, hipper
Hugh Hefner if Hef was more into fighting and music and Daft Punk
cover bands rather than softcore porn. The eclecticness of his
character fit in perfectly with the electicness of the junkyard
world. Even the line where he explains how time doesn’t work there
and talks about his age without ever giving a number is so bizarre,
so eccentric and so fundamentally Jeff Goldblum that it made me
laugh. It felt akin to those moments on SNL where one of the cast
breaks due to something another cast member did, and the other cast
member doing the funny thing just keeps making more and more jokes
because they want to see their fellow SNL member crack up with
laughter. Yes, that’s a long explanation but totally apt. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway,
as you can guess, the grand champion is the Incredible Hulk like in
the commercials and they fight. There’s some pretty good comedy
with Loki finally seeing this grand champion and realizing who it is,
and then Hulk doing to Thor what he did to Loki at the end of the
first Avengers film. There’s a bit of lull time in the movie in
which they are trying and actually succeeding to build plot,
character and tension to lead into the final act. It’s some pretty
solid screenwriting, even if it’s a bit uninspired. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">After
some back and forth, Banner finally emerges from his Hulk cocoon and
realizes that he’s been the Hulk for two years, ever since leaving
earth in the Quinnjet. He went high into space and somehow jumped
through a wormhole and ended up on the junk planet. He’s since, as
Hulk, learned to talk a lot more than what we’ve seen in the other
movies. The people on the planet love him as their champion. We also
get Valkyrie’s story and how she felt ashamed that everyone else in
her group died fighting Hela, save for her. They get Loki back on
their side even after he tricks his brother one last time. It seems
almost like he has to make a decision once and for all to be good or
bad and he chooses good (I reserve the right to withhold final
judgment until Infinity War because it looks like he’ll be right
back to his treacherous ways again). </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Thor,
Hulk, Loki, Valkyrie and a prison full of other misfits escape back
to Asgard where they discover that Hela has raised an army of the
dead to either slaughter or bring to heel the rest of the Asgardians
that have been hiding, and eventually conquer the rest of the realms.
These rebels, led by Heimdall who has the sword to control the bifrost
gate, plan to escape from Asgard but are bridge-blocked by Hela’s
direwolf. And Thor and his team come in the nick of time to save the
day. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">While
the rest of the team fights off the undead army on the bridge and get
the Asgardian peoples onto this new huge spaceship, Thor fights Hela
to try to defeat her or at least stall her long enough to empty the
city. He has a come-to-Odin moment and realizes that he never needed
the hammer but that the electricity, the power is within him. He
channels it to strike Hela with a huge lightning bolt which wounds
her but is still unable to defeat her. So he finally realizes that
his father’s prediction was right and so was the prophecy, but it
wasn’t a prophecy of doom but of salvation. Asgard was never the
city but the people that lived there. The city is just a structure
that could be rebuilt somewhere. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
he instructs Loki to go and throw the Surtur skull/crown into the
eternal flame and resurrect the hellbeast. Dude comes back ten times
bigger and badder, and destroys Asgard with Hela on it, who fights to
the very bitter end because she derives most of her power from Asgard
and doesn’t want to see it destroyed. The place is destroyed as
Thor, Loki, Hulk, Valkyrie and the other Asgardians stand on the
spaceship looking out to the destruction. Now, they must find a new
home on earth. Norway, maybe? </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What’s
my grade? I give it a solid <span style="color: #cc0000;">B+</span>. OK, so
one of the things that we have learned this year is that yes, there
is such a thing as comic book movie/tv oversaturation. At least I’ve
learned that. It comes when you start seeing plots constantly
recycled and very seldom improved upon, rather than something new and
inventive or innovative. If we’re being honest, FOX’s The Gifted
TV show is quite the same as every other X-men film: mutants are
hated for being different, they run, they get caught, they break
free, they run some more, they eventually end up doing something
heroic. But what is worse is that The Gifted is practically the same
as ABC’s Marvel’s Inhumans which saw Inhumans (the
non-copyright-infringing mutants of the MCU) be stripped of their
cool costumes, run around in a world they don’t know but where they
are hated for existing, get caught by some bad guys, get caught by
some other bad Inhumans, break free, run some more, then eventually
do some hero stuff. It’s practically the same plot, just with
different powers. Again, The Gifted is/was better (Inhumans is off
now) because it showed more use of powers even if we’ve seen those
powers a thousand times. But the worst is when you just end one of
your shows only to have a movie premiere which is a carbon copy of
that failed show. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">In
Thor we have a kingdom in peril from a jilted sibling who thinks they
should be the rightful heir to the throne and rule it all themselves.
They somehow get the current ruling sibling off of the entire world,
let alone out of the city. That hero sibling ends up in a strange
land they don’t know where they are forced to fight semi-familiar
enemies only for some of those enemies to become allies later. They
must then depend on the kindness of some locals to help them escape
back to their planet where they then must defeat their sibling only
to realize that the place they hold so dear, the city they lived in
their whole lives, is not actually all that important. To be a hero
they must let it be destroyed and then migrate to earth. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">I
started that last paragraph by saying “In Thor” only because most
fans actually watched that movie as opposed to Inhumans. The problem
is that it is an exact carbon copy of the entire first season’s
plot of Inhumans. Maximus, Black Bolt’s younger brother, tried to
overthrow him. Maximus and a few other Inhumans of the royal family
were cast down to earth (hell, they even had Gorgon, the black guy,
as one of the royal guards. What is Valkyrie, the black woman, if not
some aspect of a royal guard to Odin?) where Black Bolt ended up in a
prison for a while. They are forced to fight some locals (Karnak and
the drug farmers), forced to fight some old familiars (Maximus
loyalists sent after them), manage to team up and get back to the
moon, only to realize that it is time to let the city of Attlan be
destroyed with Maximus inside while they all escape back to earth.
It’s the same exact plot. THE. SAME. EXACT. PLOT! Hell, they didn’t
even bother to change the names enough to at least start one city’s
name with a different letter. Attlan? Asgard? One of these cities
couldn’t start with a B? </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Granted,
I know, almost nobody watched Inhumans, but the fact that this show
and the Thor movie came from the same studio and that this show,
which is an ABC show, is supposed to be connected to the broader MCU
(unlike the Netflix stuff) is troubling because it shows that either
no one saw these similarities in story or they did and really didn’t
care. If you have fatigue at an executive level, that’s when you
know that saturation has set in and that apathy will soon follow. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
far as dislikes, I also didn’t like how Thor had almost no bite.
It’s strange the way a lot of these films are made today. I
remember going to the movies really down and depressed last year
thinking, man, maybe I’ve gotten too old to enjoy movies anymore
because none of them really give me that spark of magic where I feel
it deeper than just the back of my eyeballs. The dialogue seems cheap
and yadda, yadda, yadda. I was actually nearly ready to give up on
most films and then I saw La La Land and I actually felt something
again. Was it a new plot? Hell no. It’s as old and played as every
other plot in Hollywood, but the way it was made had an effect on me,
stayed with me, inspired me. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Here,
while Thor was a really good movie, it was actually difficult to talk
about the movie three hours after it. There weren’t these parts
that really had me emotionally invested. Even as Odin died I didn’t
quite get to that feeling of, “Oh man, this character that I’ve
been seeing since, 2011 is finally going to be no more.” I saw
another reviewer say it was a fun, wholly forgettable ride and that’s
so true. For me, it was like Chinese takeout: good while you’re
eating it but hardly fulfilling and memorable. In the end, even with
the good acting, the mostly well-timed jokes and the serviceable plot
not full of holes, it couldn’t push into that realm of greatness. I
think this is partially because this movie had little expectations,
and thus little buildup like, say, Wonder Woman, Black Panther or
Spider-man: Homecoming do/did. It was easier to either love or hate
those films and feel passion about the projects because of the long
waits for them and debates and excitement that surrounded them. Here,
I just had the feeling of, “Oh, yeah! That was pretty enjoyable.”
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Let’s
see, uh... the directing was pretty good. With some of the scenes in
the trailer like Valkyrie storming Hela, I thought it would look too
polished and, thus, too comic bookish like the Justice League film
looks, but I was pleasantly surprised that the film was filled with
inhabitable environments rather than celluloid comic panels. Here’s
a strange note: I actually really enjoyed the music. Outside of
Immigrant Song (love that song), I thought the original music was
actually good this time and, if not memorable, at least wasn’t as
cookie-cutter as most of Marvel’s music is. Yes, some fans have
argued that Marvel and the Avengers have great music but they either
don’t have great taste in music or just don’t like music. Lift
one track of the original score from any of the other movies
(exception of Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America: Winter
Soldier) and put it onto any of the other films and you’ll hardly
be able to tell any difference. Each superhero, to me, should have
his or her own unique music that is identifiable by ear. If you used
some of this crunchy, video-game-esque music in the next Avengers
film to herald Thor’s and/or Valkyrie’s arrival, you would make
the scene two times better at least, I guarantee you. It fit
perfectly with this film and with the character’s laughably strong
video-game-esque invincibility. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Going
forward, what do I predict? Hm? OK, now that we’ve covered most of
the movie and revealed tons of spoilers, we can also talk about the
fact that Thor no longer has both of his eyes. This could stick and
we have the character look like a younger Odin for the rest of his
time in the Avengers. Or it could be quickly healed by Dr. Strange
once Thor gets back to earth. We know that the huge ship we saw in
the first post-credits scene is actually Thanos’ ship, so we could
be in for a huge opening battle scene between Thor and his posse, and
Thanos and his goons, with an assist from the Guardians of the Galaxy
in there somewhere. A big brawl is how both of the Avengers films
have started so far. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Then
there is the question of the hammer. Is it possible for Thor to get
his hammer back? I think the better question is does he need a
hammer? I think maybe he could get a new one on earth possibly from
some spell by Dr. Strange or some forging of vibranium by Black
Panther or Tony Stark, but who knows if he will do that or if the
character will even be around long enough to do that. Remember, as
contracts are ending for all of the first Avengers and all of their
movie franchises have come to their trilogy conclusions, we could see
some big deaths in Infinity War; in fact, I’m hoping for some big
deaths. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Ragnarok
or “reset” could be alluding to more than just this one film but
could spill over into Infinity War where the entire team is reset and
Thor is dead. Also, we don’t now if Loki is actually good for...
well, good, or if he will betray Thor yet again. We saw him stop and
gaze at the tesseract briefly before he threw that skull/crown into
the eternal flame. Does that mean he stole it? If he didn’t take it
with him, then how would Thanos get it to complete his infinity
gauntlet because Asgard is destroyed. And also, this is for those who
have tried to watch as much Marvel MCU stuff as they could, but will
we see the shows finally re-blend into the films? With Agents of
SHIELD off-world for their next season, will we see remnants of
Asgard or the beginnings of a fight between Thor and Thanos or the
Guardians? What of the fact that we now have two peoples in the
moon-Inhumans and the Asgardians now displaced and seeking home and
asylum on earth? We know that Inhumans are part of the movies and not
just the TV shows, so will there be some mention of them somewhere in
Infinity War? </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">My
prediction is that Infinity War will feature the death of Loki within
the opening minutes of the film to bring his Avengers and Thor movie
arcs all the way full circle. I also think that we’ll get a brief
cameo appearance from Hela, goddess of death, only this time she may
or may not be played by Cate Blanchett because I think she will come
back as a skeletal being similar to the Mistress of Death’s design
in the comics. That will be courtesy of her face having been burned
off by Surtur during Asgard’s destruction. I think that somehow
Thanos will use one of the stones to bring her back (he seemed to be
near that general area of the galaxy because he ran into Thor’s
ship so fast) but will only be able to bring her back to a certain
extent, which is why she won’t have skin. Together, the two of them
will be able to control dead superheroes and crush tons of enemies—as
if Thanos wasn’t already enough. And I also think that Marvel’s
Agents of SHIELD will finally join the movie team in some capacity
and either make it back to earth at the same time as the Guardians
and Thor, or help in the initial space battle with Thanos or
something like that. I think this because the premiere date for the
next season—December 1st—is such a strange time to premiere a
season of something on a Friday unless they have some kind of timing
element that needs to happen before Black Panther and/or Infinity
War. Otherwise, why not just start the new season in the new year
where you won’t get disruptions from holiday specials? Makes no
sense unless they plan some kind of tie-in. And that especially goes
for if one of the big three (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America) are to
die in the film because I can’t see them getting rid of any of them
without first letting Coulson fanboy over them again. </span></span></span><br />
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<span id="goog_957956052"></span><span id="goog_957956053"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
far as the character melee goes, I think that there will be even more
characters in Infinity War than we expect and that are listed on the
cast sheet. So, who from Thor’s film do you expect to be in
Infinity War? Because they did see Thanos’ ship right there at the
end, it does make me think there’s going to be a little bit of a
slaughter of some characters that we maybe just started to love. But
I also find it an interesting concept to have Valkyrie and Heimdall
make it to earth and end up in Wakanda in the next Black Panther
film. Both are warriors and seem like they would fit well into that
society. Granted, I haven’t seen the film yet, but from the
trailers it looks like they could fit. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you go see it? Yes. I mean... if you’re over the entire comic book
movies-thing, then don’t go see it. And if you’re only a DC fan,
then I guess you shouldn’t see this. But know that I am not a super
fanboy for either (although, I’ve always dreamed of writing a
Justice League/Superfriends movie and am hugely disappointed by the
entirety of the DCEU) but I think that this is an outright good movie
regardless of its comic book source material. It’s good. Go see it.
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you seen Thor: Ragnarok? If you haven’t, are you
planning on seeing it? If you have, did you like it as the end of a
trilogy? What do you expect from Infinity War? Do you have comic book
movie fatigue yet, or no? Were you satisfied with the rendition of
Planet Hulk they did, or do you still want more? And which characters
from this film would you like to see stay around longer in the MCU in
some capacity? Let me know in the comments below. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I<span id="goog_1987412459"></span><span id="goog_1987412460"></span>f
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “I’m not gonna say
that I’m winning, I’m just saying that if we were keeping score
and handing out trophies, I’d get the big gold one and you’d get
the participation trophy.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
Yes, I have made plenty of scathing reviews about DCEU films but I’m
honestly not trying to hate. I grew up watching and reading DC comics
and cartoons that have filled our airwaves back since TV became
popular. I hate this whole taking sides thing. I’m not diehard
Marvel and actually didn’t like either of the Avengers films, but
like the individual hero movies. As films, most of the DC films are
not that good. But even more to the point, I feel like the one that
was good was overrated in Wonder Woman. I guess it comes down to what
you want out of a comic book film. Everyone throws around the word
fun, but how about we have it be more than just fun? Because fun
doesn’t always translated to good. To me Return of the Living Dead
is fun, but that doesn’t make it good. So I hope that Justice
League will be both fun and good even if it doesn’t rise to the
level I know it could be. I want to write a Superman and Justice
League trilogy so bad that maybe a little of that sorrow that I
haven’t done it yet is spilling into my reviews, but still, these
films can be better. Let’s hope I’m wrong on my previous
predictions.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-26426683019691956172017-11-03T15:16:00.000-07:002017-11-03T15:16:03.517-07:00This Has Not Been Marvel’s Year #Inhumans #3weekroundup #recap #review #ABC<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>This
Has Not Been Marvel’s Year #Inhumans #3weekroundup #recap #review
#ABC</b></span></span></span><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGz5ttkmDJXKektjsEaDRrF53cTlCZbykA3r1M-3guFxrYYiO9umkZlRlYcZEGiJ43KBxMePiaVEsyvTDKRkBTJ7CLYmchg13jfYVPct5RcTpQle2XBCloGmPjJKQtX8JOLfFy_2UqssM/s1600/inhumans_marvel_tv_series_2017-2560x1600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGz5ttkmDJXKektjsEaDRrF53cTlCZbykA3r1M-3guFxrYYiO9umkZlRlYcZEGiJ43KBxMePiaVEsyvTDKRkBTJ7CLYmchg13jfYVPct5RcTpQle2XBCloGmPjJKQtX8JOLfFy_2UqssM/s640/inhumans_marvel_tv_series_2017-2560x1600.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<u><span style="font-size: x-small;">All pictures courtesy of ABC and Marvel</span></u></div>
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<b></b><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Let
me start this review by saying that I haven’t seen Logan still to
this day, so don’t lump that movie in with the title of this
article. This is mainly focused on Marvel Studios properties as
produced or co-produced by Disney. Having already covered my disdain
for this summer’s Spider-man: Homecoming and contented
disappointment in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (it was OK, but
could’ve been better), I now turn to TV. As noted earlier, I didn’t
see The Defenders and didn’t particularly care to. I don’t have
Netflix and only occasionally catch some of their shows on Youtube.
That leaves me with the network shows. And while I have yet to see
The Gifted (again, that would count more as FOX studios for me rather
than Marvel), I have seen the first few episodes of Inhumans. So, has
Marvel transformed what could’ve been a theatrical blockbuster into
a serialized mega-hit, or is this show begging for Marvel to do the
humane thing and put it out of its misery? Let’s find out together.
</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Before
I begin, I should warn readers going forward that I actually enjoyed
ABC’s Agent Carter that followed Peggy. You should be able to find
a review of it somewhere on this blog. Was it great? Heck no. I
thought it had a rather rocky start but that it got its footing about
halfway through the first season and delivered a pretty good second
season that linked well into the films. I should also say that I’ve
been a day-one fan of Agents of SHIELD even when Marvel fans hated on
it and even before Captain America: Winter Soldier switched the game
up, which I still hope will happen again with this next Thor or with
the Black Panther film. Yes, I’ve liked what I’ve seen of
Daredevil as well, so you know where my baseline for fandom is. With
all of that said, this Inhumans show is worse than that first cake
that your boyfriend tried to make you on that one birthday you had
where he was trying to go above and beyond to impress you knowing
damn well he can’t cook for nothin’. Yer garbage, Inhumans!
Gah-bage! </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQXxfp_XEiDDR8MdTSIiJrDPbDcfSwfdORY4IKWa8Qi9OnhEL6bBAZo7QeZkzPXGZOa1o9T6Y_TxQGAukOjOi83ZEEWGJjCpLCIppE6DUS24p2CJUfXHa1rCwSi3jaEmRbaAn4QUj6xJU/s1600/marvel-inhumans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="825" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQXxfp_XEiDDR8MdTSIiJrDPbDcfSwfdORY4IKWa8Qi9OnhEL6bBAZo7QeZkzPXGZOa1o9T6Y_TxQGAukOjOi83ZEEWGJjCpLCIppE6DUS24p2CJUfXHa1rCwSi3jaEmRbaAn4QUj6xJU/s400/marvel-inhumans.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left to Right: Gorgon, Karnak, Black Bolt, Medusa, Crystal, Maximus the human</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Inhumans
follows the boring exploits of the titular race of people. Inhumans,
as explained in Agents of SHIELD, are humans who have undergone a
transformation after having been exposed to Terrigen crystal mist.
Think mutants but with an alien twist. And to think that I was
actually worried about this show when I started plotting my
Extraordinary episodic serial novel (out now). Anyway, like mutants
(which we all know Marvel can’t have because they sold all of them
to FOX), Inhumans are hated beings that are hunted down, captured and
often jailed or killed. The world is not really ready for them but
they are in it regardless. Only in the show Inhumans do we learn that
these types of people have existed for years, eons. Currently, to
avoid all of the harshness on earth, the Inhumans live in an
old-school monarchy kingdom on the moon, beneath an invisible dome.
They live in a city that is divided into a strange caste system that
almost seems to exist for no reason save but to create needless
drama. In the comics I thought that they lived on a floating,
invisible island above New York, but I haven’t actually read the
comics. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
city, as said, is ruled by an archaic form of monarchy in which there
is a royal family and no kind of parliament. There is a king and
queen. The king is Black Bolt, played by Anson Mount. Throughout the
first episode (which is smashed together with the second episode to
make them movie-length. More on that later) we see Black Bolt using
his hands to speak. At first, without knowing much about the
character, one might think he was deaf or dumb (couldn’t speak). We
later find out that he is actually imbued with such great power that
simply by speaking he can launch cars, destroy people and even wipe
away entire cities with the booming sound of his voice. This, I
suppose, is why they call him Black Bolt, though, I would’ve
expected his powers to be more thunderous than just sound, but I
digress. Let me also say here that from what I’ve heard on the show
so far, no one has a legit name AND a superhero name. For instance,
Black Bolt isn’t his work name like Spider-man or Iron Man. It’s
his actual name, or at least what everyone calls him. Just keep that
in mind as we walk through the characters. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4zPej5pP-QIku-RBYDug2bvLWRHo2VQXsvAIBXDWTHdbjx-UEelXWk1iecRg_ZJXbqobARoJO3Wel30eYW_kgjPipR2sFlQ8OIDh24h_3MgfIFBzHTFn85R5ua1HvZAINEZTcv0rqdVE/s1600/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4zPej5pP-QIku-RBYDug2bvLWRHo2VQXsvAIBXDWTHdbjx-UEelXWk1iecRg_ZJXbqobARoJO3Wel30eYW_kgjPipR2sFlQ8OIDh24h_3MgfIFBzHTFn85R5ua1HvZAINEZTcv0rqdVE/s400/maxresdefault.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Next,
we have his wife and queen Medusa played by Serinda Swan. Medusa, as
one could guess, is Marvel’s play on the mythical she-devil of the
same name that was said to be able to turn a man to stone simply by
him looking straight on at her face or, in some twists of the story,
directly into her eyes. While she doesn’t have that power here, she
does have another intersecting aspect of the Greek myth’s powers:
sentient hair. The mythical Medusa was said to have a thicket of
snakes for her hair, where as Inhumans’ Medusa has long red hair
that she can control and use as snakes. We see this in her
introductory scene with Black Bolt. As they are making love, he
reaches for his communicator only for her hair to restrain him and
keep him bed-pinned. Similar to the Bible’s Samson, in her hair
lies all of her strength. Here’s a funny factoid: the actress
Serinda Swan who plays Medusa was also in the Percy Jackson film
series where she played the role of Aphrodite, but only after
auditioning for the role of Medusa. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Keeping
this going, we next have Maximus played by Game of Thrones alum Iwan
Rheon (Ramsay Bolton). He is the younger brother of Black Bolt and
thus a member of the royal family. But the most interesting thing
about him is that he is human. Apparently, as we learn in the
melded-together first and second episode, when he was introduced to
the terrigen crystals as is every person in the moon kingdom, while
it gave his brother immense power, it changed his Inhuman genetics to
make him perfectly human. Yes, he is bitter about it. Yes, he is our
heel. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Then
we have Crystal. Crystal rounds out the royal family as she
technically qualifies by proxy. She is the sister of Medusa. While
Black Bolt and Maximus were born into the royal family, Medusa and
Crystal, as we learn in episode three were born into what can only be
assumed as a noble family that tried to revolt against the royal
family and the system under which the kingdom operates. We’ll talk
about the system in a bit, but let me round out the cast. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoCHAf84bZRFwX4XW1iVSa9D2YRPBKlW-ubZCPffhEZlqQdrKpVTSOFcH-gSfvXXZmeHXcwYEEnZX1B9aJQSYIxqHCOc8eBIOfEsc0bMBwYSfgHla5ffmPBouwoIwDegTglsuhWRwVJms/s1600/landscape-1503415647-marvel-inhumans-lockjaw-teleporting-dog.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="480" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoCHAf84bZRFwX4XW1iVSa9D2YRPBKlW-ubZCPffhEZlqQdrKpVTSOFcH-gSfvXXZmeHXcwYEEnZX1B9aJQSYIxqHCOc8eBIOfEsc0bMBwYSfgHla5ffmPBouwoIwDegTglsuhWRwVJms/s400/landscape-1503415647-marvel-inhumans-lockjaw-teleporting-dog.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Crystal
has a massive dog named Lockjaw and even he is inhuman—er, I mean
in-dog-an? Anyway, this huge bear-dog of a thing (he’s a really big
dog. Think four Donald Trumps all smashed together except a lot
cuter) has the ability to teleport to anywhere in the galaxy I’m
guessing as he easily goes between earth and the moon. All he needs
are the instructions. The one problem is that his teleporting skills
are not an exact science. Either that or the instructions given to
him aren’t specific enough for him to properly understand. But in
the end, he’s a good boy. He’s a very good boy. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
round out the main cast with Gorgon played by Eme Ikwaukor. Our black
guy of the group, he is half man, half minotaur or centaur. The point
is that he has hooves and is part of the royal guard and is the
distant cousin of the royals. Then we have Karnak played by Ken
Leung, our Asian guy. He seems to be council to the king and queen.
His power, as I understand it, is that he can either rewind time or
rehearse a scenario completely in his head and course-correct to get
the best outcome before he ever makes a move. Or something in-between
that. If you’ve ever seen the Nicolas Cage film <i>NEXT</i> where
he can see the future, think of him in that sense. And finally we
have Auron who seems to be the personal... guard or maybe just a
minion/henchwoman of Maximus. She can fight but I can’t remember
what her Inhuman power was. It’s inconsequential for the first
three episodes. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
we start out by witnessing an Inhuman on earth being tracked down by
a group of what looks like black-ops military men. We first assume
that this is one of the many government bodies tracking down
Inhumans. The Inhuman girl is young and she runs into an older man
who is also inhuman and looks like a green alien. He tells her that
there is a place for her and that she isn’t a freak like she thinks
and tries to save her. But before they can escape the black ops team
shoots her and shoots the Inhuman guy too. Next, we jump up to the
moon city and see that some private tech company has rovers up there
to map out the surface so that they can build things like a hotel and
whatnot up there. As they are mapping it out, the rover-drone hits
against the invisible force field that hides the city from prying
eyes. Before the drone pilot can explore this phenomenon further, a
hoof stomps the drone. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
then jump to the King and Queen in counsel with Karnak who is talking
about the drone. Gorgon defends his decision to kill-stomp the drone
and Maximus is all gung-ho on this idea that they need to go and
invade the earth before the earth invades them. Black Bolt keeps his
calm as always and allows for Medusa to speak for him when she says
that they must do nothing for now. Revealing themselves will only
cause harm. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway,
they must all go to what I called a Misting Ceremony which every
person in the city must go through at some point in time. This is
where, as teenagers, people are exposed to the terrigen mist and
their powers are revealed. From what I can see, usually teen siblings
do it together, meaning that there’s no set age where everyone does
it. Apparently the entire royal court must be there to witness every
one of these ceremonies because they have to run and get Crystal as
she stands out in the city looking at boys and playing with Lockjaw. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
see a brother and sister enter this terrigen chamber and breathe in
the crystals’ mist. While the girl becomes a flier with butterfly
wings, the boy comes out and looks no different. It is not until
Maximus touches him that he feels a power course through him. He sees
some kind of imaginative vision of Maximus’ future. The strange
thing about this scene is that the boy tells Maximus in front of
everyone that Max will be pinned by snakes and whatnot, yet no one
reacts to this as maybe being some kind of mental power. You would
think that Karnak, who, arguably has a mental power that wouldn’t
have been perceptible to the outside onlooker at first, would have
said something about this, but it is almost as if no one else hears
him. Again, it just stuck out as strange to me. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Moving
on, we finally get to this caste system in which they live. There
seem to be three levels of hierarchy here: the royals, the middle or
noble class and the bottom dwellers. The noble or middle class have
powers that are elegant and or extremely useful. Flight is a noble
class power, for instance. Well, the lower class seem to have powers
that are not that elegant or are hard to define or find a use for.
Strength seems to be a lower-class power as it is only good for one
thing. Speaking of that one thing, the lower class is made to work in
some sort of moon mine. What is in the mine? Why do they have a mine?
What the heck are they mining? Why does everyone in the lower class
have to work there? These are all good questions, none of which are
answered by the show within the first three episodes. But what we
know is that while the butterfly-winged girl gets to stay with her
parents in the middle class, her brother who hasn’t been seen to
have powers by anyone save Maximus, is sent to work in the mines.
There is some talk about how Maximus himself should be in the mines
as he is a mere mortal but he turns this objection into a cry for
revolution. Supposedly, they have this rigid caste system because of
how limited their moon resources are. This forces them to put people
in their place and ration out what little they have to those who can
actually use it. Frankly, I didn’t fully get this part, but I will
save that criticism until the end. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Moving
on, we now know that Maximus wants to rule over the kingdom so that
he can move all of their people back to earth where they left from
thousands of years ago. The assumption is that he wants to rule there
too. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Shortly
after the misting ceremony, the royal court learns of the
disappearance of the green Inhuman guy from the beginning. As it
turns out, the guy was sent on a secret mission to retrieve the girl
and hasn’t been in contact with the person who sent him since. So,
Black Bolt and Medusa decide to send Gorgon down there to hopefully
find the missing Inhuman and the girl. Crystal gets Lockjaw to take
him down to the Hawaiian island on which the girl was lost, but it
doesn’t appear to be the exact same island but another one of the
smaller islands that is unmarked. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgARgX9SQlIoxdeBgqsxUQXXYHMaClmBA5EJk-1M2cN0hjYsJ_VIdrbqPxZtsROyJd2nl3YpRFnstp0kbXvK64Zc5UfcB9tR9yueMueBx0zVDqG6GjnmFJFWHDkOX78lYhxApXa3wOs1m4/s1600/black-bolts-closest-advisor-is-his-cousin-karnak-played-by-l_qhwr.640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="640" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgARgX9SQlIoxdeBgqsxUQXXYHMaClmBA5EJk-1M2cN0hjYsJ_VIdrbqPxZtsROyJd2nl3YpRFnstp0kbXvK64Zc5UfcB9tR9yueMueBx0zVDqG6GjnmFJFWHDkOX78lYhxApXa3wOs1m4/s320/black-bolts-closest-advisor-is-his-cousin-karnak-played-by-l_qhwr.640.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
soon as the head of the royal guard is gone, all hell breaks loose.
Here, I again must note that the first two episodes of this were
smushed together to make one long two-hour premiere so I can’t
fully divide them from each other quite like you might want. So just
follow me here until we get to episode three. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So,
with the royal guard gone we soon learn that Maximus is a sneaky,
conniving little fella. For starters, he, Black Bolt and Medusa have
all known each other since they were children with her parents being
high-order nobles and all. As it turns out, he and Medusa used to get
into some trouble and he formed an undying crush on her. But after
Black Bolt received his power and would never talk again, the
would-be king was put into a room of solitary and told by his parents
that he must both deal with his newfound power/handicap while also
ruling as king—his brother Maximus could never rule because he was
no longer Inhuman. Well, all of this pressure got to him which made
him ask but one question to his parents as they stood in front of
him: “Why?” The very ask disintegrated his parents in front of
him, making him the instant king at a very young age. It was for this
reason that Medusa felt pity for him and snuck away into his cell of
a room to start their romance that would continue on into adulthood,
leaving Maximus behind. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Well,
Maximus brings up a what-if scenario that implies he is plotting to
become king but maintain the same queen, and Medusa uses her “snake”
hair to pin him to the wall, just as the boy saw in his vision when
Maximus touched him. Now only Maximus knows of the boy’s true
foresight powers. He goes back to him to ask a few more questions and
the boy basically ensures him that his evil plan to take over the
kingdom will go well. And so it begins. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinYG1O47kwbs_t5JrxQC4axT0xs9IwFffrIX-sQEdUNQav1FYs2OIwi0ssDsR0d_v4vhyphenhyphen-F2s7kYQWNg2OMTLdQUsIp2d1k69_iRElG8B_v1UAmuTkPESbLvkBYt_1wlBJtqjoAjjFI5Y/s1600/inhumans_iwan_rheon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="825" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinYG1O47kwbs_t5JrxQC4axT0xs9IwFffrIX-sQEdUNQav1FYs2OIwi0ssDsR0d_v4vhyphenhyphen-F2s7kYQWNg2OMTLdQUsIp2d1k69_iRElG8B_v1UAmuTkPESbLvkBYt_1wlBJtqjoAjjFI5Y/s400/inhumans_iwan_rheon.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
learn that Maximus was the one who hired those black ops guys to go
and kill the girl and the Inhuman who was trying to save her. He did
this on purpose knowing that Gorgon would have to leave the palace to
go off-world, which would leave the royal court open for attack. He
has his men, led by Auron, swarm the palace and take out the royal
court one by one, but of course they fight back as best they can. He
embarrasses Medusa by chopping off all of her hair in a reverse
Samson and Delilah, sends his men to kill and be beat down by Karnak
who replays every scenario over and over until he can win the fight,
and even goes to get Black Bolt to surrender and bow to him as the
new king, thinking that the man couldn’t possibly speak or attack
him because the guilt of killing both parents and then his brother
would weigh on him too great. But the crazy part is that as this
takeover is happening, Crystal gets word that Maximus is a traitor
and hops into quick action. She orders lockjaw to find all of the
royal members and transport them to “the same place as Gorgon.” </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Remember, however, that Lockjaw isn’t that great at this or those
instructions are too vague, so he finds each person and transports
them somewhere slightly different. Karnak ends up at the top of a
jungle mountain; Medusa ends up in the middle of a huge crater; and
Black Bolt, on the brink of parting his lips to say something and
destroy his brother, is taken to the middle of a city (Oahu) in the
middle of a street full of traffic. Lockjaw, having never seen such
busyness and honking and calamity from the traffic gets cutely
anxious and teleports back to the moon in a panic, leaving his king
to survive on his own. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Before
Lockjaw can get to Crystal, Maximus has already found her and is
ready to attack. The dog arrives and while she is giving it
instructions, Auron comes and zaps the dog unconscious. Not only is
the royal court all dispersed across Oahu and its surrounding isles,
but they currently have no way of getting back to each other and very
little way of communicating to each other. And only at the end of
episode two do you realize that this is probably not the show that
you were anticipating. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">This
sentiment is cemented even more on episode three. See at the end of
episode two we see Karnak fall off of the cliff while climbing down,
resulting in a bad hit to the head. On episode three he realizes that
he no longer has his powers like he usually does. They’re probably
not gone forever, but he cannot see how a situation will unfold and
correct it to his advantage every time. He haphazardly wanders onto a
secret jungle plantation of marijuana, which isn’t all that bad in
and of itself but when the workers there hold him at gunpoint, he
can’t defeat them. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
as Karnak is imprisoned in the jungle drug cartel, Black Bolt tries
to fit into his environment to keep clandestine. He goes to a store
and gets a suit and tie but walks out without paying as he has no
concept of such an idea of cash-money or credit. He lets out a tiny
yelp when the police pursue him and sends a squad car tumbling
through the air with gusto. Jail for you my friend, although it looks
a lot more like prison, but I digress. Anyway, far away there is some
scientist guy who knows of the Inhuman stronghold on the moon and
seeks to protect Black Bolt, so he contracts an inmate to help break
the man out of prison. Yes, this man is also an Inhuman but I’m not
sure the guards knew that. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Gorgon
is still on the island and has learned of the treachery of Maximus.
Armed with a locator beacon and communicator that links back to the
moon city, he tells Maximus that he is going to leave his
communicator/locator on for the traitor and his minions to come and
find him. He wants the fight so he can end it all now. Well, Max only
half takes the bait by sending Auron instead of going himself. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Upon
her arrival on earth Auron first runs into Medusa who, though she
doesn’t have her hair powers anymore, is still a fierce ass kicker.
She stabs Auron and leaves her to die. Here, it was unclear for me if
Auron actually did die or not but she gets up after a few hours of
laying on top of a car hood, and heals herself. I’m not sure that
is her power, though. She calls back to Maximus and says that she
needs help so he sends this really evil big-bad who is supposedly so
vile that they have him locked away in a solitary prison behind a
thick wall up in the moon city. His name is Mordis and he looks like
he’s wearing a toned-down version of that iron mask Leo DiCaprio
wore in that movie where he played a Man in an Iron Mask. Gosh, what
was that movie called? Hmm? Don’t know. Mordis, to boot, is not
scary nor intimidating and plays more like the most disappointing,
comical parts of Ultron in that Avengers 2 movie, or some comedic
interpretation of classic villains in a Robot Chicken skit. It’s
rather sad, frankly. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So
Gorgon, who can’t swim, is rescued from the water by these surfers
(this happened in episode 2 but I didn’t mention it because it
didn’t feel necessary at the time) who now want to help him fight
whatever force is supposedly coming for him. Well, he warns that they
could die but they’re like, whatever, dude. Auron, Mordis and a
crew of other red-shirt nobodies come to fight Gorgon and the
surfers. A few get their butts kicked, one chick with cool gardening
powers (totally want those) makes trees do her bidding and Gorgon
decides to flee with the surfers because they are outmatched. But
dude, you were all big and bad not turning your locator beacon off. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
Medusa was able to contact Bolt and listen to his heartbeat to know
he was safe and still alive (this was before he got arrested). Now,
she is on a Kill Bill-esque journey to find him. She sneaks into some
rich person’s home and Goldilocks-es about trying on their clothes,
eating their food and all sorts of stuff. When she leaves she hops on
different buses and public transportation, sees a story about a guy
who is a suspected Inhuman who did some stuff to some police cars,
and somehow finds the jail and is there to rescue him when Black Bolt
and the other guy break out of the jail and fly off in a helicopter.
As luck would have it, that drone pilot from the first episode is
trying to investigate what happened to the drone and has somehow been
led to the prison also. Medusa kidnaps her and tells her to follow
that copter. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
on the moon, Maximus is trying to make moves to either get Crystal to
be his queen instead of Medusa or get her to support him in front of
the high council to take over the throne as king. Or both. One thing
is for sure: he has lied to the people about Medusa and Black Bolt
abandoning them. He’s doing everything he can to sully the royal
court’s name. But he needs the high council to assume full power
and push for this move down to earth. Crystal won’t do it but he
keeps working on her, tepidly seducing her by reminding her how her
parents rebelled against the kingdom for this very reason and how
combining their powers can only help the people. She’s young but
smart and does what she must to keep everything from imploding. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLmbmtGqhGcw1YJ548yprAGYm7-va6o4gIa-T2VErsCuXc0RD5Ht3Liaab7aBukeesNxPLvHWqbPXADDg8qPTq0u9mVHBjGkEB38yt1FyalCc9FBy7XeerpPR-XKu9PZO829k-fTAa7xo/s1600/gallery-1499704882-inhumans-black-bolt-lockjaw-marvel-anson-mount-imax-abc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="603" data-original-width="768" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLmbmtGqhGcw1YJ548yprAGYm7-va6o4gIa-T2VErsCuXc0RD5Ht3Liaab7aBukeesNxPLvHWqbPXADDg8qPTq0u9mVHBjGkEB38yt1FyalCc9FBy7XeerpPR-XKu9PZO829k-fTAa7xo/s320/gallery-1499704882-inhumans-black-bolt-lockjaw-marvel-anson-mount-imax-abc.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What’s
my grade? I give it a <span style="color: #cc0000;">D</span>. Look, there are
so many things that are wrong with this show that it’s hard for me
to pinpoint one thing that doesn’t work. For starters, I hate the
fact that for whatever reason ABC, Disney and Marvel all believed
that this show was good enough to merit a theatrical release of its
first two episodes. When I heard they were doing that, I actually got
excited, especially considering that this is a limited series that
is, I believe, only supposed to have eight episodes. To me, I
thought, “Wow, they can spend a good grip of money on each episode
to make it absolutely amazing.” Wrong! If you’re going to release
the first two episodes of a show as a movie, then make sure that it
sorta plays like a movie. Even ignoring the so-so costume work, the
uninspired acting and the TV-focused cinematography, the plot itself
played more like a television show with little direction. The first
two episodes didn’t even have a proper climax. I know that it is a
show, but still, it would be better to focus on writing the show as a
film than to have it flounder in both aspects. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Going
back to the acting, I just don’t know what went wrong. With the
exception of the black guy who plays Gorgon, I’ve seen all of the
main characters in other stuff where they were much better. I’ve
been a fan of Anson Mount ever since I saw that Jason Statham film
Safe, which a lot of people didn’t like but I thoroughly enjoyed. I
think he’s good. Yet, here, with the absence of dialogue for him to
speak, he is no more interesting than a mannequin. No, this is not a
criticism of the character and I’m not asking for them to give him
more lines, I’m asking for them to better direct him in expressing
the character’s underlying emotion. I remember watching the movie
Quiet starring Camilla Belle as a girl who doesn’t speak, thinking,
“Wow! She’s amazing.” Granted, I was already crushing pretty
hard on Belle at the time but still. She brought a certain charm and
characterization to the silence of the character that didn’t
require her to speak for you to feel. Here, Mount often wears only
one look on his face the entire time: “Son, we need to talk.”
Even during the opening love scene, I kept thinking that he needed to
sit his teenage son down for a talk about responsibility, and how
driving is a privilege and how he better not get one of those loose
Bronte girls pregnant. Its so stern all the time that it is bordering
on satirical. Show us pain, anguish, love, hate, something other than
sternness. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Medusa
is pretty good and oozes both sex appeal and intelligence, especially
because she is the mouthpiece of the king. She seems most capable,
oddly enough, even over Karnak. Speaking of, Ken Leung had a great
gig on The Night Shift and I don’t know whose idea it was for him
to part from that show but I wish he was still on there (Edit: that
show has recently been canceled). While he is doing a decent job
here, he could be doing so much better. I’ve seen his better. The
Crystal character is OK as a young, teenage princess who must hold
her own against the would-be usurper but she is certainly no Sansa
Stark. Speaking of, Mr. Ramsay Bolton himself Maximus is also just OK
here. It is as if the directors told Iwan to be a toned-down version
of Bolton. You know, the one that they can show on broadcast network
TV. With the plot similarities between his yearning for power,
holding a young queen/princess hostage and forcing her and her people
to bend to his will, it might’ve been a better idea to have him
playing in a different role so as not to draw any comparisons. Here,
he just doesn’t quite seem evil enough. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What’s
worse about Maximus, and this speaks to the plot, is that the way
this show is written and the brief exploration of the caste system
makes it feel an awful lot like he’s technically right. For me,
someone who hasn’t read the comics and doesn’t want to bother to
do all the research like I have for other comic book characters, the
caste system makes little sense when paired with the mines and
whatnot, and their refusal to move to earth even after the Inhumans
have long been a part of the earthly society. Yes, I know, if you’re
only watching the movies you might not have realized this, but on
Agents of SHIELD one of their main cast members is an Inhuman and has
been since season two. Why the heck are they still up there on the
moon and for god’s sake, what the hell are they mining? </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Finally,
my last big complaint is geared around how the show was packaged and
sold as opposed to what it actually is. Again, as someone who wasn’t
a fan of the comics, I didn’t get all of the hate for the costumes
at the time of the poster coming out. I thought that they looked
alright for TV and that their looks sorta fit into a real-world
representation or at least into the MCU representation of characters.
But now having watched the show, I find a completely different
complaint cropping up which only now piggybacks off the costume
complaint and that is that these don’t seem to be Inhumans. Think
about this, at the end of the two-hour season premiere we have the
coolest character in Lockjaw unconscious, we have Black Bolt unable
to ever really use his powers for fear of decimating the entirety of
the moon city, we have Medusa no longer with her hair powers (is she
really even Medusa now?), we have Karnak unable to use his fix-o-dent
powers, Gorgon is trapped on a small secluded island, and we have yet
to see what Crystal’s powers are. Between Yo-Yo, Quake and her last
boyfriend when he was still alive and on the show, we’ve gotten far
more Inhumans using superpowers on Agents of SHIELD than we get on
this show. Really only the bad guys have the powers. So this
basically is a bunch of regular people running from some superpowered
ones, which is not a bad twist on the genre but is hardly done well
enough to make any statement. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">In
the end, the costume complaints are fairly unwarranted too because
not only do they abandon their powers but they also abandon their
costumes. Sure, Gorgon and Karnak are still in their get-ups but I’m
sure that the latter is going to change into something more
human-like within the coming episode. He’ll be wearing a breezy
Hawaiian tee in no time (Note: He did change into a bohemian chic
style). </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? No, not unless you’re a die-hard comic book fan
and/or you have eight to ten hours of your life to kill. Look, I
wanted this to be good because I wanted another series that could
crossover and complement Agents of SHIELD, and that could tie into
the movies in a big way. Hell, we’re going off world for the next
Thor and the next season of SHIELD, it only makes since to see
Inhumans as a stepping stone for both of those things or to maybe see
them show up in Black Panther or reference those events somehow. Give
us another Winter Soldier twist for all of the properties. But no.
This is simply not worthy of any of that. It needs to be completely
retooled, maybe recast and definitely written and directed by others.
Give it a bigger budget or just release a film version like
originally planned, because this is going nowhere fast. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of Marvel’s Inhumans? If you haven’t,
do you think you’ll watch now? If you have heard of it, have you
seen it? Do you like it? Where do you think it could improve or is it
doing a great job at interpreting these characters. And do you know
what the hell they’re mining for on the moon? And how cool is
Lockjaw? Let me know in the comments below. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTiSPy529wpqp-mrrb-w0bMdaasDkkAc0CIGKH4VwqaLIOD5PPPoYs8_ekmMrJhw7oYYbbm_8293LXG-67-19b92JhSPS3qJPaAazrudIO-f-abUz3iSzEl6wnAjMisl7rU79R5BN3KDM/s1600/manonroofgabriola.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTiSPy529wpqp-mrrb-w0bMdaasDkkAc0CIGKH4VwqaLIOD5PPPoYs8_ekmMrJhw7oYYbbm_8293LXG-67-19b92JhSPS3qJPaAazrudIO-f-abUz3iSzEl6wnAjMisl7rU79R5BN3KDM/s320/manonroofgabriola.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></span></span></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
</span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “We’ve got to stop
these disgusting mutants and—”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘Uh, no-no! They’re Inhumans.
Inhumans, sir.’
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“What? They’re not mutants?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘No. We couldn’t get the copyright
license back.’</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
This seems to be the season of the copy because, for some reason, it
looks like every new show has a doppelganger that is either another
new show on another network or is a returning show. I sure do hope
that FOX’s The Gifted isn’t just a mutants on the run show like
Inhumans pretty much is. I’ll try to come up with a better, more
original sign-off next time, but no promises. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-56847590624206500072017-11-03T10:35:00.001-07:002017-11-03T10:35:25.260-07:00Not Gonna Be No Clay Wheels And Patrick Swayze #Ghosted #FOX #3weekroundup #review #recap<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Not
Gonna Be No Clay Wheels And Patrick Swayze #Ghosted #FOX
#3weekroundup #review #recap</b> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwBxGyz1KVPtREGstwsIxHFsWnY5GVvvmc3_Dq-GbBV3wh3-BzIMIgZnY99WDxaTbMaYQenOjK3CaWxT9PTDmT3ZU65zKucDQ7wh8Tz-2rz2pb-8OZoIRaEgSM4jtrBfDupkmvU5B2ctM/s1600/250px-Ghosted_TV_Series.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="374" data-original-width="250" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwBxGyz1KVPtREGstwsIxHFsWnY5GVvvmc3_Dq-GbBV3wh3-BzIMIgZnY99WDxaTbMaYQenOjK3CaWxT9PTDmT3ZU65zKucDQ7wh8Tz-2rz2pb-8OZoIRaEgSM4jtrBfDupkmvU5B2ctM/s400/250px-Ghosted_TV_Series.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<u>All pictures courtesy of FOX</u></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">So
a lot of the TV season premieres have been a little staggered this
year, which I actually hate because then something new is always
coming on every single month. I’m not gonna go on a rant here, but
I think that things get canceled so quickly and nothing is ever given
the chance to stick and stay or build up a fanbase because of both
this culture to binge-watch everything, and because of this releasing
of shows at any old time across all platforms and networks. I think a
great many networks would really be able to see what they had if they
released all of their fall shows at once, then let them run for three
weeks before making any snap judgments, because you know that some of
this stuff is just going to get switched around by date and time, and
the worst thing to do is to switch its day or time after a few weeks
of existence. Dang it! I said I wasn’t gonna go on a rant. Why
didn’t you stop me, reader? Anyway, for today’s review we have
Ghosted. Does it scare up a good TV-watching time or is this show as
good as gone? Let’s find out together. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">FOX’s
Ghosted (#Ghosted) stars Craig Robinson as Leroy Wright and Adam
Scott as Max Jennifer—an unlikely, totally odd couple drawn
together to stop crazy paranormal, supernatural and just plain ol’
bizarre happenings. Basically, this is the half-hour comedy version
of FOX’s defunct Sleepy Hollow mixed with a little X-Files. OK, so
we start with Scott’s character Max Jennifer in a book store
talking to a random customer-lady. He reveals to her that he used to
be this quasi-famous big-shot science professor at an Ivy League tech
school (MIT) on the East coast. It should be pointed out that this
show is supposed to be happening in California (LA, I think. Don’t
quote me on that). He reveals this because he tries to get the
customer-woman to believe that he is not crazy after he said that he
was going through a rough time in his marriage not because his wife
left but because she was abducted by aliens. Yeah, he’s,
essentially, that crazy-haired, big-noggin’d dude on the History
Channel’s Ancient Aliens show. Or any teacher/scholar off of that
show, really. And out of nowhere, he receives a bop on the head and
is kidnapped. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
cut to Robinson’s character Leroy Wright who is working as a
security guard in a local mall. In some quick character building, we
learn that he is actually an ex-LAPD Missing Persons detective who
was recently fired. His former partner is dead, but his partner’s
family—a wife and son—are still around and Leroy, being the good
guy he is, tries to help out and be a friend to the boy, sticking to
the cop’s code of family. He has to go to a janitor’s closet in
the mall and is also bonked on the head. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKO2r4SA4wdlYh6NOh_sOyimtnxPjkKz7_OUqkPI8dacrkVkTexJ2YplCMRcmQOlwn9Y8njezt8L1la57xZEusKdmofpUAVxO7gMs0NkqadfkxRoMVJHsKP0umMZ7BNQYz1dPnCyiXonY/s1600/ghosted-fox-tv-show.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="665" data-original-width="1198" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKO2r4SA4wdlYh6NOh_sOyimtnxPjkKz7_OUqkPI8dacrkVkTexJ2YplCMRcmQOlwn9Y8njezt8L1la57xZEusKdmofpUAVxO7gMs0NkqadfkxRoMVJHsKP0umMZ7BNQYz1dPnCyiXonY/s400/ghosted-fox-tv-show.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wait, So... What?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
two of them awake in the same room, sitting on chairs with a stern
white woman in front of them. Ava Lufrey (played by Ally Walker) has
ordered their kidnapping because she needs their help. She is in
charge of a secret government agency called the Bureau Underground,
which is pretty much like the MIB, save for paranormal and
supernatural stuff... And aliens. From what I’ve seen, the agency
basically covers everything under the sun, yet is so unbelievably
small that it almost qualifies as being quaint. One of Ava’s top
field agents just went missing and he left a cryptic message before
he <i>was</i> disappeared. The message: get Dr. Max Jennifer (yeah,
dude’s a doctor-professor) and Detective Leroy Walker. Have they
ever met the guy? Nope. But Ava cuts crap smooth and quick and offers
them restoration of their respective careers and positions if they
help the Bureau figure out what happened to their agent. With a
little bit of massaging, Leroy is convinced by Max and the adventure
begins. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwQ1Soz2Mf8xVHnrwNxxMfYr2j-uGJ75wGpuJHQEqe5ChKtGxDJJoraNycNal8k0aEjxtZYtWnBTrB2_s2X9vSo7qul6ilnOVJF6r7wMizmV4F4AC81ENIgFLA62f-_6QvyMC79LHQx68/s1600/ffg_pilot_sc36pt_0165_f_hires1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="692" data-original-width="1000" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwQ1Soz2Mf8xVHnrwNxxMfYr2j-uGJ75wGpuJHQEqe5ChKtGxDJJoraNycNal8k0aEjxtZYtWnBTrB2_s2X9vSo7qul6ilnOVJF6r7wMizmV4F4AC81ENIgFLA62f-_6QvyMC79LHQx68/s320/ffg_pilot_sc36pt_0165_f_hires1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Also
working for the Bureau and seeking to help them in this pursuit are
scientist Barry Shaw (played by Adeel Akhtar) and tech-girl/resident
ass-kicker Annie (played by Amber Stevens West of The Carmichael
Show). As you can guess, the scientist, while brilliant in the things
he produces for Leroy and Max to use on their little adventures, is
also a bit of a dimwit and is yet another character played for comic
relief on the show. Annie seems to have more of a straight-man role
which could (read: definitely will) morph into a love-interest role
for one of the two guys. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Not
but a few blocks into this trip do we see how this show will play
out. Leroy does not want to be paired with Max in any way, which is
sad for him because they had to come as a packaged deal for the
mission or else no perksies. He tries to kick Max out of the car so
that he can be left to do his detective work alone, but Max pleads
with him in a heartfelt little speech about how this is all he has
after his wife was abducted and how after being called crazy for
believing what he did, this is the first chance ever for him to be
proven right about something. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">They
continue their detective-ing through the city to get to the
disappeared-agent’s storage unit. In it, they don’t find much of
anything but they do find a copy of Max’s book. See, not only is
our good friend Max a doctor, but he wrote the book on Multiverse
theory and how there are multiple -verses as opposed to one and how
each one has its own replicas of the same people and oh my god, why
am I explaining this? If you’ve seen a comic book TV show or read
them or just about any sci-fi, then you know the principle. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">The
team uses some clues to discover that the agent was working
undercover at a nuclear power plant but the Bureau has no idea why.
As it turns out, someone or something in the plant is diverting power
to another tower in some sorta sender-receiver coil hookup. Well,
before they can figure out where the power is going and why, they
encounter some goblin-eyed skinhead who looks like WWE’s The Big
Show. They manage to escape but only by their teeth’s skin. Back in
the lab, the team figures out where the power is going, then go to
what looks like an abandoned building. But because Leroy doesn’t
trust Max, he handcuffs him to the car’s steering wheel while he
goes and investigates. But suddenly some sorta purple/fuchsia/pink
tractor beam grabs the entire car and starts to abduct him. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Leroy
returns to the car and doesn’t see the beam but does let Max out.
Only now does he confess that the reason he was fired from the force
is because he made the judgment call to raid some room/building
without backup, his partner followed and was then shot. He feels
guilty for getting his partner killed and actually wanted to protect
Max by leaving him in the car. Together, they breach the building
only to find the missing agent dude in a room on what looks like a
surgical table or morgue table. And guess who’s there? That same
The Big Show-lookin’ son of a gun. Well, big and bald does
somethin’ crazy: he plucks his head off like a Lego-man’s head
and sets it on the surgical-tools table. This is the first
paranormal/abnormal/WTF thing that Leroy sees with his own eyes and
now believes a little somethin’, somethin’. But what, not even he
fully knows. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">They
try to get the agent to safety but end up running from the headless
big man. They play keep-away with his head for a little while before
he finds them and yanks his head back. A very quick mover, the big
man somehow gets the unconscious agent up onto the roof before Max
and Leroy can regroup. Max gets to the roof slightly earlier than
Leroy and sees a spaceship tractor-beam the agent inside, then zip
off. It also returned the green-eyed Big Show goblin to a normal
human and Max is tripping. Leroy is still ready to dismiss the alien
story, though. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfNywfpMMdMsCT1Xe9AMAR031sX4K5Um_CQNOmRPx6Lpy8LH5XVMchL0g1gNJUNG5hw5_lIu7f27x8uxCgYHtha1NDizxPwpqVaTsi3mzpKNK7kn0CO7unqIW1W7KUA1fOdFsuhKGc8VI/s1600/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfNywfpMMdMsCT1Xe9AMAR031sX4K5Um_CQNOmRPx6Lpy8LH5XVMchL0g1gNJUNG5hw5_lIu7f27x8uxCgYHtha1NDizxPwpqVaTsi3mzpKNK7kn0CO7unqIW1W7KUA1fOdFsuhKGc8VI/s320/maxresdefault.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">They
get back to the Bureau and sit with the boss lady to tell her what
happened. She gives them the old, “well, you’ve tried your best,”
and thanks them. She’s gonna try to do what she can about her
promise, even though they didn’t actually rescue the agent. But
then Max and Leroy stand for what they believe and each commit to
joining the Bureau and fighting for what is right. They want to see
this mission all the way through and if they can somehow get the
agent back, then they will. Ava tells them that she can’t wait and
even says that they can talk to the other people with abduction
stories similar to what Max reports happened to the agent. And what
do ya know, Max sees the different people that have come in and
realizes that one of them is his wife. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
two sees the two men starting on their first official day as part of
the bureau. A fairly lax recruitment and field agent training, they
go through not a lick of basic Bureau Underground protocol or
training of any kind. They are just out on the job immediately. This
episode delves deeper into Leroy’s personal life. While Max is told
that his wife must be prepped to meet with him and it will take a
little while longer before he sees her, Leroy asks for the night of
Halloween off so that he can take his dead partner’s kid out
trick-’r-treating. Ain’t that just like a black dude: get a job
and on the first day ask if you can have the day off. Anyway, the kid
tricked his mom and is hoping that it is alright if Leroy drops him
off at some young girl’s haunted Halloween house party. At first
Leroy is against it, but Max plays the cool non-uncle uncle and
convinces him to let the boy live (we’re talking 12-year-olds
here). </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Before
they can drop him off, they get a call about a “creature” with
“fangs and glowing eyes.” Ava is all freaked and tells them to
get over there now. Well, the “creature” turns out to be a cat,
but something is strange about this cat. It bites the boy. The boy
subsequently becomes like some sorta strange rabid zombie like in the
move Quarantine (or Rec). He flees from the car and runs all the way
to the house party. Dressed as a vampire, the young white girl at the
door thinks that it’s cool and she’s into this cool funny black
boy at her school. Then he gets on the floor, growls and bites the
hell outta her. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">By
the time Leroy and Max show up to the house, every kid inside is
infected with whatever this is. Back at HQ, they concoct a plan to
create some kind of antivirus/cure but they will need to get the kids
to stop trying to bite everyone in order to administer it. So, Leroy
and Max go into the house with tranq guns and take out every kid
inside, including his dead partner’s son after video-calling with
his mom and showing the kid vamping on his back trying to bite his
neck. She’s none the wiser. It does play slightly funny. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">With
the kids out, the day is saved until Leroy realizes that he’s been
bitten and starts to bite Max who he had duct-taped to the
passenger’s seat. Leroy is injected by Annie in the nick of time.
Back at the Bureau, the kids receive the cure and the day is saved.
And the kid awakes to thank his play uncle AKA Bee Mo (Beast Mode in
babyspeak) and realizes that the guy is not trying to replace his dad
but be there to support him. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
three sees the team dealing with a rash of strange deaths. Some guy
was found in a resort hotel dead from no apparent cause. There are no
puncture marks, no cuts, no bruises and tox report is clean. But the
strangest thing, and what is surely the reason he’s dead: got no
heart. How the heck does a human heart just disappear? Who knows, but
while they’re trying to figure that out, Max is trying to dig deep
into Leroy’s life. After learning that he will finally get to see
his once alien-abducted wife, Max wants to know if Leroy had
somebody. Leroy at first doesn’t reveal it but finally relents and
says that his last girl he proposed to on the jumbotron at Dodgers’
stadium and she said no, and it was very hilarious. Sad for him, but
hilariously awkward for everyone else. He’s been off relationships
since. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Leroy
and Max go to the hotel to follo</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">w the one suspect they have: a past
doctor turned photographer who was caught on surveillance cameras at
both heartless murders—oh yeah, there’s been others. Some of the
firsts were in Florida and now they’re here. Undercover as a
Bachelor Party weekend with just two guys (saddest party ever), they
try questioning the photographer and circumventing the fine-ass lady
detective working the death case. Things get complicated when the
photographer dude dies in the same way as the other heartless fella. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF_kLQoSjX854SzFfz8mBHnKhrkhswsEi7EtZEaMekj47s6M9LVx-pKECevCrwFNtUx0FvGDbIRHhQJeRSQeekwh-PWLg6ongEepk3rHs2DAV4jUPCd6syRt0y-NSp1HGCi3Z5ObL6Lzc/s1600/tumblr_owuo2iWfVh1wyzxgyo1_1280.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="700" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF_kLQoSjX854SzFfz8mBHnKhrkhswsEi7EtZEaMekj47s6M9LVx-pKECevCrwFNtUx0FvGDbIRHhQJeRSQeekwh-PWLg6ongEepk3rHs2DAV4jUPCd6syRt0y-NSp1HGCi3Z5ObL6Lzc/s320/tumblr_owuo2iWfVh1wyzxgyo1_1280.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
at HQ we finally see Annie and Barry get something to do to develop
their characters more. Ava gives them daughter duty: spy on her
daughter and figure out who and what Doug-o’clock is—something
she saw on her daughter’s social network page. As it turns out, her
daughter figures out this plan and winds up in her mother’s office.
She’s about to really complain when Annie stops her and tells her
that she had a horrible mother who hardly ever noticed her while she
was growing up. The little girl should be thankful for her
overprotective mother. And we get a nice “Awwww” moment. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
with Leroy and Max, as they keep detective-ing away, Max tries to set
Leroy up with the black detective. He succeeds and is free to go do
some of his own sleuthing while Leroy is trying to get his own
middle-aged-man groove back. Max sneaks into the dark room of the
photographer/once-doctor (he lost his medical license) only to find
that the doctor was also Scooby-Dooing. He was at the sight of both
murders not because he did them but because he was stalking the
person who did them, trying to capture her. With an assist from Barry
back at the office, Max learns that the real killer has tattoos on
her arm and that she is a succubus who yanks out men’s hearts with
a seductive love. Yes, it’s the cop. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">There’s
a fight between Max and Leroy about how Max is totally killing the
vibe by interrupting his soon-to-be booty call and how he should get
out. Max is proven right and kicks the crazy succubus out of the
balcony window. She disappears and the day is half-saved. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">They
get back to HQ and find that Max’s wife is ready to meet. He visits
her in some makeshift cell somewhere but she escapes, does that
creepy MIB-style vertical blinking thing, and tells him not to look
for her. And this is one of the many parts where you as a viewer and
fan of weird stuff are totally wondering, “Hm? You know, why the
hell isn’t there a live-action MIB show on TV? That woulda been way
better than the last movie. Will Smith, you don’t have to star in
it, but get to producing that show, man!” </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOh3TCwga5_ZiTOwGJzR3dTCSe6pLaov79EbTTxX1G7lzo5OB0loY6LaaxNSA6YdneM3R5IGMbVqlVGhxcigda_y9Loxmjw-to0hp2zDfTi-4yb1ZAzwsJpHYEM4v-UsHDXY667oYDcCM/s1600/x240-PTo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="427" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOh3TCwga5_ZiTOwGJzR3dTCSe6pLaov79EbTTxX1G7lzo5OB0loY6LaaxNSA6YdneM3R5IGMbVqlVGhxcigda_y9Loxmjw-to0hp2zDfTi-4yb1ZAzwsJpHYEM4v-UsHDXY667oYDcCM/s400/x240-PTo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What’s
my grade? I give it a solid <span style="color: #cc0000;">B+</span>. This
show is goofy comedy, so it isn’t going to challenge you in any
meaningfully deep way, but it will entertain for a little while.
Craig Robinson and Adam Scott seem totally in their element and
comfortable with their roles. They have a very good chemistry, albeit
not historically good (they’re no Abbott and Costello). But if
you’re looking for something close to Parks and Recreation or The
Office (their previous shows), then you might be out of luck. I will,
however, say that this comedy, while slapstick, is very much-so more
mature than FOX’s other big comedy/sci-fi add The Orville. This
show might actually have some laughable moments whereas The Orville,
in my opinion, really doesn’t. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">There
really isn’t much I can say about this show. It moves at a good
pace as it assumes that you already know the concept so you should be
able to slide right into this show. It also doesn’t try to be
something it isn’t. It doesn’t straddle the line between comedy
or drama. And it has at least two overarching mysteries for the
entire season: what really happened to Max’s wife, and where the
heck did that flying saucer take the agent guy. It’s a solid comedy
addition to the sci-fi genre. Will it break any barriers or tread new
ground? No. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? Yes. If you liked shows like The X-Files or
Supernatural or Warehouse 13, then you should probably enjoy this if
you also like a heavy dose of comedy with your “the truth is out
there” adventures. Ghosted airs on FOX Sundays at 8:30pm EST. Check
for it on demand to catch up.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of Ghosted? If you haven’t, do you
think you’ll tune in for a peek? If you have heard of the show,
have you seen it? Did you like it? Where do you think they can
improve on the show? Which character is your favorite? Do you wish
that they would give Annie something more to do like I do? Let me
know in the comments below. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTiSPy529wpqp-mrrb-w0bMdaasDkkAc0CIGKH4VwqaLIOD5PPPoYs8_ekmMrJhw7oYYbbm_8293LXG-67-19b92JhSPS3qJPaAazrudIO-f-abUz3iSzEl6wnAjMisl7rU79R5BN3KDM/s1600/manonroofgabriola.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTiSPy529wpqp-mrrb-w0bMdaasDkkAc0CIGKH4VwqaLIOD5PPPoYs8_ekmMrJhw7oYYbbm_8293LXG-67-19b92JhSPS3qJPaAazrudIO-f-abUz3iSzEl6wnAjMisl7rU79R5BN3KDM/s320/manonroofgabriola.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></span></span></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
</span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Until next time, “The truth is...
wait a minute, we’ve looked everywhere for the truth but one
place.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘Where?’
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Inside ourselves.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘Say whaaaaa!’ (mind blown!)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
Come up, now that’s definitely a good sign-off. Heck, it can even
be a good all-around sign-off for the first time finally, like...
ever. I could put that at the end of every post because it’s so
Kantian and deep and philosophical and—what? You don’t like that?
It’s nothing like the writings of the great philosopher I. Kant?
Fine. But just let the record show that I thought it was pretty good.
I’ll think of a better sign-off next time. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7943248666065481720.post-80156222930983497992017-11-02T19:07:00.001-07:002017-11-02T19:07:26.352-07:00Not Bravery, Nor Boldness But #Valor #3weekroundup #recap #review #CW <div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Not
Bravery, Nor Boldness But #Valor #3weekroundup #recap #review #CW </b></span></span></span>
</div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsUaJ0tgXIiuZM1zrEbNTPN8jxmto3nZMnwZYsgOv7XKzCzh2bW9qhEH0CB8gjLiPRmdD-NsZzS0f8yNou1xQjzfDrT3ia3cxhQPjGJ6Oq-9U5Q6znhLbDssIElcOohXW-Ya57p9G3NlY/s1600/valor-key-art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="662" data-original-width="442" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsUaJ0tgXIiuZM1zrEbNTPN8jxmto3nZMnwZYsgOv7XKzCzh2bW9qhEH0CB8gjLiPRmdD-NsZzS0f8yNou1xQjzfDrT3ia3cxhQPjGJ6Oq-9U5Q6znhLbDssIElcOohXW-Ya57p9G3NlY/s320/valor-key-art.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Annnnnndddd
we’re back. Welcome ladies and gentlemen to another grand new
series three-week roundup review. At this point you know the rules: I
wait to give a show three weeks to impress me before I review it
because most pilot episodes are clunky and overly hyped anyway, so
give a series time to settle in and see how it’s doing. Today,
we’re looking at one of the CW’s new offerings Valor, the last of
the three major military-themed new series offerings for this year
(some might point out that Martha Raddatz’s book The Long Road
Home, which I haven’t read, is coming on TV too, but that is just a
miniseries and not a full series). We’ve already taken a look at
both NBC’s The Brave and CBS’s SEAL Team, so does Valor have the
right stuff to measure up or is it not worthy enough to wear its
fatigues? Let’s find out together. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">CW’s
Valor stars Christina Ochoa as Nora Madani, an officer and Black Hawk
chopper pilot in the US Army. Score one point for casting a Latina
female as the lead for the show (CBS was called out for not having a
single female leading a new show, even though they really didn’t
have that many new shows this fall). Christina, even though she is a
classified missions operator who flies black-ops mission specialists
to secret locations to conduct secret missions, seems to be fairly
new at her piloting when we first meet her. I say new in that she is
simply not as experienced in in-field combat scenarios as her
co-pilot is. Her co-pilot Leland Gallo played by Matt Barr, is a
free-wheelin’ hotshot who has had tons of in-field experience and
loves the ladies. And the ladies love him. He’s about business when
he needs to be but doesn’t seem to shy away from fun. And already
the show was winning some more points because, unlike on The Brave,
we got actual character development for some of our main characters. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXZKq6QfvmlWBkaSyKw4JH4jkYltiu-ozuonYz-9QPI_wQ_OecpKl5OemJaP5iBefZ-BqzkuNQlrZ25Ktt84iVmAy9c9W0NifAnAU7ItNTkq53LHU0D6mOVtTpkaNy79S5VceJO6BPXYk/s1600/Valor%252520%2528The%252520CW%2529%252520copy.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="630" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXZKq6QfvmlWBkaSyKw4JH4jkYltiu-ozuonYz-9QPI_wQ_OecpKl5OemJaP5iBefZ-BqzkuNQlrZ25Ktt84iVmAy9c9W0NifAnAU7ItNTkq53LHU0D6mOVtTpkaNy79S5VceJO6BPXYk/s320/Valor%252520%2528The%252520CW%2529%252520copy.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Nora
and Leland are joined by a slew of other players in this story that
quickly gets complicated, but I should first start with the inciting
incident of the show and go from there. OK, so we open with Leland
and Nora flying a secret mission into somewhere in Somalia. We learn
later that the Somalian government knew nothing about this mission
and the details are highly classified even within the Army rankings.
While the team is technically bifurcated into the flyboys and girls
and the ground troops, as a whole, the team is supposed to fly into
Somalia and secure an HVT or High-Value Somalian Target who is
supposedly some kind of insurgent. Well, they land, the ground crew
loads out, they run into some shack where some militants are keeping
this supposed Somalian insurgent, take on more enemy fire than they
expected to, run back, hop into the copter and try to escape, but
something goes terribly wrong when an RPG fires off and hits the tail
of the copter. They have to make a daring crash-landing close by in
some lake or pond and escape enemy territory. At some point their HVT
escapes and everything goes to hell. Nora gets shot through the leg
and panics and things go a little blurry for her. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">And
we zoom to one month later back in the states. Here is where I jump
back and possibly confuse you a little by telling you about the
people on the helicopter transport. So, rounding out the crew in that
transport were Jimmy Kam (who looked like he was a gunner of some
sort. I really couldn’t keep up with the ranks and the back and
forth chatting about people that weren’t shown was a little
confusing to my aging brain) the black guy, Crank Hendrix one of the
ground guys, two others, and the actual hooded Somalian. This is
important for the overarching season mystery. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">OK,
back to one month later and we catch up with Nora who is greeted in
the morning by her boyfriend and fellow Army officer Lieutenant Ian
Porter. He works in Intelligence and is all over Nora in their
kitchen. They appear to live on base, though I don’t know if they
live together. Anyway, he is concerned that her one month of leg
rehab to get over the gunshot was hardly enough time for her to heal
mentally from what happened. He thinks she’s still having trouble
dealing with the fact that they crash-landed and that only she and
Leland returned. Well, she insists she’s fine and can’t wait to
start her first day back on the job in months. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
jump over to see Leland in bed with some random white woman who
enjoys handcuffs and good times. He charms his way back into his
pants as he has to leave quickly to also get back to work after his
one-month forced vacation. While he wasn’t injured, his leave was
mandated. He, too, seems to live on the base as his girl is also in
the Army in some capacity. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
finally jump over to the wife of Jimmy who is getting their son ready
for school. There’s some back and forth about him singing and how
dad used to sing with him. He then asks about his dad and we get this
band-aiding of what’s really going on. She insists that her husband
is just not back yet from his mission which happens to be one of the
longest that his son can remember (again, they’re special ops, so
they don’t do regular tours of deployment like other soldiers).
While it’s sorta hinted at here, it isn’t outright said until
after Leland and Nora step back into their platoon and are awarded
some medals for their valor in the field that Jimmy and Hendrix are
not classified as dead, but are MIA and suspected to have been
captured as POWs. They’re alive. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
then switch over to Jimmy and Hendrix and pause for a minute when we
finally realize what the writers did with the names there, and we
aren’t quite sure how to react. Seriously, how should we react to
those two being together like that? What’s the point of the music
reference? I digress. We find Jimmy and Hendrix sitting in some dirt
cell still somewhere in Somalia, supposedly being held captive by a
local warlord. And here we finally get a feel for the show’s
language. It should be noted that the show not only jumps between
what’s happening on the base back in America and the jail cell in
Somalia, but it also jumps back and forth in time, constantly going
back to reference the night of the crash similar to the show Lost.
The boys look a little beaten, but fair considering they’ve been
there for a month. This pretty much sums up every jump to their
storyline. Oh, and they’re constantly plotting to escape. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
on the base, after receiving the commendation in front of her other
officers, Nora is told by her CO that she is being pulled from actual
flights and given a desk position for the next few months because
some of the higher-up men are worried about having women in combat
positions like hers. She stands up for herself and says she’s fine
physically and mentally and should be in a helicopter just like
Leland because they both went down in that crash. Leland had more
combat experience is the excuse given. But when orders for a possible
mission to go back in and rescue Jimmy and Hendrix come from OGA,
Nora fights to be one of the pilots to fly it, along with Leland. Now
she must prove herself in a local below-the-tree-line field test. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWcTjOKxXi3frGk0mFWaOpXstZvnhYRqyaJKdNuHnEKagR0EhZQ9C7p0UAgQSxyh6EHw1D__rsrxic1m9oPo1qcCZjdRhfVXgwrj8xTy5ppLFLhHnjkzt11SUCYnZWVlVxhuq9AEsQzOo/s1600/x240-wgc.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="427" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWcTjOKxXi3frGk0mFWaOpXstZvnhYRqyaJKdNuHnEKagR0EhZQ9C7p0UAgQSxyh6EHw1D__rsrxic1m9oPo1qcCZjdRhfVXgwrj8xTy5ppLFLhHnjkzt11SUCYnZWVlVxhuq9AEsQzOo/s320/x240-wgc.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
her boyfriend, who recommended that she not be put back into a
chopper too soon, is dealing with his own bit of sexual harassment as
the new OGA liaison comes in hot for him. This woman off-bat says
that he is cute before she starts directing how things will go
concerning the entirety of this case. See, OGA is an acronym/nickname
that the Army uses for the CIA. The CIA only gets deeply involved
with a military exercise when the case or whatever is happening is
quite big and important. That coupled with what happened out in the
field puts both Nora and Leland on high-alert to watch their backs
because something super-sketch is going on here. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
happened in the field, you ask? Well, upon getting the HVT into the
copter and being blasted with the RPG, they ripped the sack off the
target’s head only to realize that he wasn’t some African or
Middle-Eastern brown man but a white Army guy. They were lied to, but
why? And why would this Army guy be out in the middle of nowhere,
Somalia? The mystery only thickens when, after forcing Jimmy, Hendrix
and the rest of the squad off the helicopter early before having to
crash-land with the target still on board, Nora and Leland are
confronted by some all-black special ops/CIA guy who orders them to
hand over the rescued Army dude. The Army dude says that the guy in
black is the enemy and is the reason he was in Somalia and we’re
all just as confused as our two leads. Well, the guy in black
threatens to kill both Nora and Leland but Nora fires first. In the
hubbub, the other Army guy escapes. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
one month later, Nora confronts her man about recommending her
grounding, practices to pass this flight test with Leland, nearly
crashes the helicopter with Leland in it, quite quizzically almost
jumps Leland’s bones after they have a few hours of trying to
figure out the mystery behind the rescue mission, then passes her
flight test. I know, that explanation for just one episode was hell-a
long, but there was a lot going on. Oh, and we learned at the very
end that Nora is apparently snorting her crushed-up pain pills like
they’re cut coke. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
two starts with the squad being told that they must somehow impress
some higher-up politicians who are supposed to find the funds for and
determine if they can officially go on this rescue mission to save
Jimmy and Hendrix. But as I said earlier, the Somalian government
just found out about their little mission the first time and is
pissed. They shut down any air traffic to Americans, making the
mission all the more difficult. Meanwhile, the CIA woman not only
keeps sexually harassing the hell out of Nora’s boyfriend (she is
totally jealous of Nora so it seems, and Ian has no idea that his
girlfriend nearly cheated on him with Leland), she also keeps lying
about the target. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile,
Leland and Nora continue their investigation into who the HVT was, as
well as who the guy in black that tried to shoot them was. They find
that the guy in black was listed as KIA because he supposedly died
during a HALO jump years ago, but has now assumed an off-books
blacklisted identity. But he was supposedly an officer. It’s quite
confusing. We discover that back in the field they had decided to
keep the secret about the HVT and the man in black. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Across
the pond, the POWs stage their getaway but are confronted by the
warlord and his minions. He unceremoniously executes one of his own
men and recaptures the prisoners. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
at home, Leland learns that Ian is the son of a politician. Even
more, his politician mother then asks to fly with Nora and Leland in
the copter to be impressed on a tactical chopper-attack exercise.
She’s impressed but their CO, who is also riding along, is pissed
because they disobeyed the rules. But even still, they get on the
rescue mission officially. Leland opens up about a past love to Nora
and they start to believe that the CIA is watching their every move.
They talk about this domino that the Army guy dropped while escaping
in the woods. Funny enough, the warlord who has Jimmy and Hendrix
sends a video in which he demands a ransom and also holds a domino
and they are like, that can’t be a coincidence, right? Strange from
a guy who was supposed to be a Somalian insurgent but ended up being
a reported KIA white American. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Episode
three starts with them planning the rescue effort. Nora is getting
close with Jimmy’s wife Jess but still can’t tell her that she’s
going on the mission to go and get Jimmy. And Nora keeps having
flashbacks to the previous mission while continuing to do more
detective work about who they picked up. She also finally opens up to
her bf about the doubts she’s having about flying. She goes and
finds the sister of the HVT and tries to talk to her but first gets
nothing. But she does realize that she is actively being followed by
someone, she just doesn’t know who. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Back
a month prior, Nora and Leland walk through the jungle and circle
back around to the tiny hut where they supposedly rescued the Army
guy/Somalia insurgent. They learn that not only was the entire
firefight/threat staged from that night, but that this was a complete
CIA setup from jump. There probably never was anyone in that shack,
just Americans shooting other Americans. They then have to move out
when they realize that their own rescue is coming soon. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">We
finally get to a mission in which they must first get medicine to a
small village. This is like some sorta precursor mission before the
rescue mission and Nora freezes up on this mission before making her
second kill in the field when the copter lands and is ambushed. They
succeed and escape but Nora confides in Leland again about her
struggles to get back whole mentally. The good news is that they’ve
decided to go forward with a hostage exchange to get back Jimmy and
Hendrix. But that’s nothing because that sister-woman that Nora
talked to earlier calls Nora back and tells her that the Army-guy/HVT
they let escape in the first mission may have been radicalized at
some point. He might’ve been a bad guy after all. Oh, and that
sexually harassing CIA woman is, apparently, gay. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4lQg59rUSs3LlbF50eZy5HEsKBqxkNnBRTaDcUtg8onz5R0CH8lkZTv9yq_8CRmDJ00MhWciQ6YdPAIRBoEP4cHqzukz1rQQzRjhr2fNFkSoXbBcFB5n8IQjtugUojKj9ajWTCFxrO1w/s1600/170802-valor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="262" data-original-width="350" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4lQg59rUSs3LlbF50eZy5HEsKBqxkNnBRTaDcUtg8onz5R0CH8lkZTv9yq_8CRmDJ00MhWciQ6YdPAIRBoEP4cHqzukz1rQQzRjhr2fNFkSoXbBcFB5n8IQjtugUojKj9ajWTCFxrO1w/s320/170802-valor.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jimmy's wife on the right</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What’s
my grade? I give it a <span style="color: #cc0000;">C</span>. Look, I read
some of the reviews of Valor and all of the military-themed shows
before ever reviewing them. Out of all of not just the military shows
this year, but all new series, Valor topped the list as the worst
rated or second worst rated behind only Marvel’s Inhumans.
Regardless of what my rating says as compared to the other shows, I
don’t understand this critic’s rating. First, even though I rated
it a C, I actually liked this show slightly better than The Brave. So
why did I rate it lower? I took a full grade off and not just a plus
or minus strictly because of the show’s apparent inauthenticity,
which is something that I know was burning the uniformed britches of
tons of past and active military personnel. Yes, there are uniform
goofs, rules and regulations flaunting (they continue to let Leland
keep his facial hair), and there are a few age discrepancies here
because most of these operators and people would be slightly older in
real life, however, those inaccuracies do not and should not scuttle
the show completely. I get it, plenty of fans and people out there
love to nitpick but I think that there is something to also be said
for plot, storytelling, intrigue, et cetera. And as far as that goes,
if you can get through the inaccuracies of costume and what have you
during the first episode, then you might be able to enjoy the show. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Again,
I don’t get the hate for this show. I guess I have to chalk some of
it up to the fact that the networks and even the streaming services
have all scaled back on new series this year while they continue to
figure out the new landscape of TV-viewing in this country, and how
to adjust for the future. Fox only had three new high-profile shows,
ABC had four (Ten Days in the Valley is more of a miniseries that
wasn’t supposed to have a second season, so I’m not counting
that), NBC had two big new adds and one shouldn’t even count
because it’s another Law and Order and CBS had/will have the most
with four current ones and two additions in Young Sheldon and SWAT
coming soon (Star Trek isn’t counted because its on their streaming
service). With the CW’s two new shows, that barely scratches a
baker’s dozen of new shows for all the major networks. Even Netflix
has scaled down and canceled some of its recurring shows in order to
eliminate that huge debt they have. So I guess some show has to be
low-rated but I would say that given a normal season in which we get
most new shows all at once and get near two dozen, this show would
probably be in the middle of the pack as far as ratings. It’s just
not bad enough for me to trash it. But then again I also liked last
season’s No Tomorrow for its cheery disposition in the face of
impending doom, something which the critics absolutely hated. So what
do I know? </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">With
all of that said, Valor, for me, lays somewhere between The Brave and
SEAL Team. Again, this show plays into the expected groove of other
CW shows. It focuses on character development of young (they are all
over thirty just for military people who were complaining about
seeing twenty-somethings in high ranks), hot leads, is super diverse,
helps to ably empower women, and focuses on the personal lives of the
characters and not just what they do. As I said in my review of The
Brave, that show focused too much on the mission and not enough on
the characters. It took four or five episodes before I truly felt
anything for Heche’s character who had lost her son in action.
There was no emotional connection with the characters and they played
like cardboard. SEAL Team went more personal with it and exposed us
to the lives of the SEALs when not on a mission, giving the soldiers
depth and multidimensional sides that deal with family and regular
life. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Valor doesn’t focus so much on the mission, which might be
missed by some die-hard military fans still lingering around after
the inaccuracies. In the first three episodes, you only get two
missions. It also isn’t a military procedural where you get one
goal/mission a week and that mission is solved by the end of the
episode. They do stuff, sure. But there aren’t big accomplishments
each episode. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">However, where Valor shines above both SEAL Team and
The Brave is in the overarching story for the full season. The Brave
didn’t have a secondary story at all to latch on to when the team
was not in an active mission. SEAL Team had the training of Clay,
whether the main guy and his wife would get back together, and if the
dead team member cheated on his wife or not as overarching stories.
While those are all nice, Valor’s intrigue about inter-agency
malfeasance and missions gone wrong or governmental bodies/agencies
lying is far more intriguing, and speaks to the heart of one of the
four archetypes of soldiers. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">OK,
this might be offensive to some, but from what I’ve seen in
soldiers that return from active duty in war-torn places, you have
four types: soldiers more committed to loving their country than ever
before, the ones who did their job and are glad to be out now because
their service was just a job, the ones who are mentally scarred with
PTSD or some other form of mental or physical disability, and
finally, the ones who are disillusioned with patriotism and this
country as a whole. While the last two often overlap, many soldiers
don’t have to be mentally or physically disabled to be
disillusioned. The Brave deals with almost none of these archetypes,
which is why it felt hollow. SEAL Team at least tries to deal with
the PTSD thing as well as the just-a-job sentiment. Valor deals with
the disillusioned soldier idea, which is probably most prevalent in
reality. The idea that the government or mass media lies constantly
either to soldiers or the people, or both about what is going on
overseas is a sentiment shared on the show and discussed in a
meaningful way. It drives the main plot of the show and has you
wondering what kind of danger these men and women are really in.
There are lies, and spies and people looking behind their back and
all sorts of possible twists to be played here. It could get very
intriguing</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Ultimately,
the thing that pulls the show down the most, outside of the military
protocol inaccuracies, are the acting and the writing. While the
plotting is good, the written dialogue is rather bad. It sometimes
tries to overfeed you the plot and thoughts of the characters and
rings as clunky as that “training” line at the beginning of
Wonder Woman (if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking
about). The acting is also not exceptional but that is partially
because of the bad dialogue. But I’d say that ABC’s The Mayor has
worse dialogue. And so does Dynasty and Inhumans. But I digress. To
me, the show is not bad, it’s just not exceptional. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Should
you be watching? Shrug! If you were in the military and/or you have
family in the military, chances are that you will be irked by the
inaccuracies of things like ponytails in uniform and whatnot, so this
might not be for you. If you are older and don’t usually watch CW
shows like Riverdale, or any of the superhero shows, then this also
isn’t for you. But if you want to see something that will be
plot-intriguing similar to last year’s Frequency, or you enjoy spy
thrillers where you and the characters must constantly question who
you can trust, then you might like this. A big disclaimer, though,
because this is not 24-level spy stuff. This is like spy-lite, hold
the mayo. I’d choose to watch this over The Brave but not over SEAL
Team, if that helps. Valor airs on CW Mondays at 9pm. Catch up with
past episodes on theCW.com. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">What
do you think? Have you heard of Valor? If not, do you think you’ll
tune in now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Do you like
it? Was I too rough or too lenient on it? Does the plot intrigue you?
And what do you think is really going on with the CIA? Do you think
the Army guy really is a terrorist? And will Nora and Leland hookup
at some point in the season? Let me know in the comments below. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdAJ0H5lITlOmt8Zac-yQ15FT1hx3LQ9F1083NqpFdHY3r7BBfu3o9wnLw2azmQrYJLOZTafQypLb2xKm2RIAw1MRVozBjf1RdtqhKglXKKO6yWULg2YY7_bBtGMCFWL5R3ohSgrScvuE/s1600/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdAJ0H5lITlOmt8Zac-yQ15FT1hx3LQ9F1083NqpFdHY3r7BBfu3o9wnLw2azmQrYJLOZTafQypLb2xKm2RIAw1MRVozBjf1RdtqhKglXKKO6yWULg2YY7_bBtGMCFWL5R3ohSgrScvuE/s320/manonroofarblancaaltered.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Check
out my 5-star comedy novel, </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1VLhOy7"><span style="color: #0000cc;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Yep,
I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend</span></i></span></a><span style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">#AhStalking </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
</span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1KVMy9X">#AFuriousWind</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the
NA novel </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1BLu3RS">#DARKER</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1HvJfyB">#BrandNewHome</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> or
the bizarre horror </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1UtmDrY">#ThePowerOfTen</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1FHlkLU">#TheWriter</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/1kpuMAz">#ADangerousLow</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://amzn.to/2t6xtfj">Extraordinary</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow
my blog with that Google+ button to the right.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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Until next time, “Be all that you can
be in the army of one that always stays faithful. Oohrah!”</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.
Let’s be fair here and say that all military shows will have some
stuff that just isn’t by-the-book exactly the way that military
branch does it. And yes having good consultants will quail some of
the inaccuracies, but that shouldn’t disqualify the show for you
off bat. Surprise, surprise, all shows have something like this,
whether they be law shows, cop shows, hospital/doctor shows or
anything job-related. They take liberties with rules and regulations
to make the series look appealing and playful. If you were pissed by
these inaccuracies in all three shows, I’d say calm down and give
each show another chance and you might like it. Good plot and great
characters go a long way in healing TV transgressions. I’ll come up
with a better sign-off next time. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009MS919M">Amazon</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/117743-books-similar-to-breaking-bad-scandal-and-other-popular-tv-shows">Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows</a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/filmbooksbball">Twitter@filmbooksbball</a>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michael Stephensonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02744621777401005165noreply@blogger.com0