The funniest part of that episode is Apple thinking Siri would ever get that playlist right.
“Don’t you dare settle for fine!” - Roy <3
That dude's reaction to his dick exploding seemed severely understated.
Honestly Gyllenhaal nailed his role. What an insane take on a lifestyle that is actually some peoples job. Well done movie
That Russian guy that they kidnapped is really cool :D
Armond deserved better. Season 2 should have Shane getting testicular cancer.
Set aside the last few minutes of the finale for a moment. That last little reveal changes the shape of the episode, and the series, in significant and meaningful ways that make it easy to let it overshadow the rest of the episode. But stop and think about everything that happens here before the scene where he finally meets The Mother.
Because it is, at best, a mixed bag, long before we see the blue french horn again.
I understand the urge to give the audience some idea of what happens to the gang between 2014 and 2030. The problem is that covering a decade and a half in one big episode makes every story feel rushed and underdeveloped. One of the great things about HIMYM is how it used the past and the future to inform the present. Jumping back and forth between a prior conversation and a current one could be the crux of a joke, as could Future Ted's knowing commentary on some boneheaded mistake or unexpected development that was coming down the pipe. But those time jumps weren't just fodder for comedy, as the show did a great job of creating dramatic irony and emotional stakes by showing what lie ahead or the path that led us here. But by compressing fifteen years worth of life developments into an hour, nothing has time to really breathe or feel like it has the temporal scope the show is shooting for.
After all, there's a great story to be told about the gang drifting apart over the years. Another one of the series's best features is the way it combines the exaggerated goofiness of its comedic sensibilities with real, relatable aspects of being in your twenties and thirties. Well, one of the things that hits you once you start to move past that stage of your life is the way that friends, even good friends, can slowly drift apart, not through neglect or anger or hurt feelings, but just because you're suddenly at different places in your life. That's an idea worth exploring.
The problem is that the rush of years in "Last Forever" makes this process feel like something sudden instead of gradual. Sure, we see the chyron at the bottom of the screen showing that we've jumped ahead a year or two, and there's a boatload of semi-clunky expositional dialogue in the episode to let the viewer know where everyone is in their lives and what they're up to, but when all those developments take place over the course of just a few minutes and just a few scenes, it can't help but seem very fast.
One of the best choices HIMYM's creators made in the final season was to parcel out little scenes of the gang's future throughout, giving us a glimpse of what the future held without trying to pack it all into one big episode like this. Sprinkling those flashforwards in did a nice job at making the group's future feel as well-populated as its present and its past. Obviously there were limitations on how much they could do this in prior episodes given the reveals in store for Barney and Robin and Ted, but the method the show chose to relay the gang's future almost inevitably leaves it feeling too quick, too underdeveloped, and too unsatisfying, even apart from the directions the individual stories go.
Those plot developments, however, are another albatross around the finale's neck. The first and most obvious problem comes from Barney and Robin's divorce. Again, there's a legitimate story to be told of two people who care deeply for one another, but don't work as a couple, but it's a difficult story to tell in five minutes, especially when you've spent huge chunks the past season and a half trying to convince the audience that they make sense together. As someone who's been a Barney and Robin skeptic from the beginning, it's entirely plausible to me that the two of them could mean well and have real feelings for one another, but still end up divorced due to some basic incompatibilities. But the reason for their split feels thin here.
There's nothing we know about Barney that suggests globetrotting would be something he's so against. And while there's hints of bigger issues between the two of them, like not getting to see one another or not being on the same page about their respective plans and projects, we never really get to see these problems develop. We're just told about them, and expected to accept that as enough to break them up one episode removed their wedding. Is that result plausible enough based on what we know about Barney and Robin? Sure, but it's just presented to us, rather than developed before our eyes, and since we don't see their path from pledging to spend the rest of their lives together to getting divorced, that end point feels like it happens by fiat rather than something the show earned.
Barney's reversion afterward is just as unsatisfying. Again, there's a believable story about Barney having worked so hard to become a better person, in part to woo Robin, and reverting to his old tricks as a retreat and defense mechanism when his marriage falls apart. But because of the rapidity with which the finale goes from Point A to Point B, it doesn't feel like the natural result of a difficult event; it feels like throwing nine years of character development down the drain in less than a minute. There's a disparity between how much time the show spent building Barney up as more than just an cartoonish hound dog and how much time it spends showing him reverting to his old persona. That cannot help but feel jarring.
What kills me is that I love where they take Barney in "Last Forever." There's something beautiful about the idea that what really changes him isn't some conquest or accomplishment or even a great romance; it's becoming a father. For Barney, "The One" isn't a woman he'll meet some day; it's his daughter, and Neil Patrick Harris delivers a tremendous performance in the scene where he repeats his Ted-like plea, this time to his baby girl. It's a wonderful scene, but the path the episode takes to get there still comes off as a shortcut that has to ignore seasons of character development in order to make it work.
The finale isn't all bad though. While the story of the gang drifting apart is too quick, the scene where they all reunite for Ted's wedding is legitimately touching and full of the good will and warm feelings that the show's been able to generate during its run. Ted and Tracy (I can use her name now!) continue to be adorable together, and the twist that romantic Ted made it five years and two kids into his relationship before he actually married The Mother is a small but effective way to show how much the substance of finding The One was more important to him than the formality of it (even if he was planning on a European castle). It's one of those lived-in details that speaks to his character.
Beyond that, the actual meeting of The Mother is very well done, and it really had to be. Sure, there's a few meetcute cliches involved, but the easy rapport between Ted and Tracy soars once again and nearly saves the entire finale. After all, this was the moment the "Last Forever" had to nail, and it did. Ted and Tracy's conversation weaves in enough of the yellow umbrella mythos for everything to click, and Joshua Radnor and Cristin Miloti both sell the subtle realization that this is something special. For an episode that had to make good on the promise of its title, that meeting went about as well as any fan of the show might have hoped for.
And if the series had ended there, everyone might have gone home happy. Sure, the other problems with the rushed and shortcut-filled finale might have rankled a bit (particularly the way it undoes the wedding we'd just witnessed), but making that moment feel as big and as meaningful as it needed to after all that build up is no small feat, and that alone would have bought Bays & Thomas a hell of a lot of slack.
Frankly, the series could have still gotten away with Tracy dying shortly thereafter, another controversial choice in the finale. There's something tragic but beautiful about the audience watching Ted seek out the woman of his dreams for nine years and then realizing that he only gets to be with her for the same amount of time, while still cherishing and being thankful for the time the two of them had, for that connection and love that was wonderful and worth it no matter how all too brief it may have been. There's a touching theme about the fragility of things in that story, but also about the joy that comes from finding the person you love, that stays with you even after they're gone. It's sad, but it's sweet, in the best HIMYM way.
And then there's Robin.
The decision to pair up Ted and Robin in the last moments of the finale is as tone-deaf and tin-eared an ending as you're likely to find in a major television program, and the reasons abound. The most obvious is that the show devoted so much time to the idea of Ted getting over Robin, and had any number of episodes (the most recent being the execrable "Sunrise") where Ted seemed to have achieved that, to have moved on in his life. Folks like me may try to handwave it, and the show can call back to the premiere of Season 7 where Ted and Robin can declare that all you need for love is chemistry and timing, but at base, Ted and Robin getting together feels like it contradicts so much about the two characters' relationship with one another over the years. So much of the final third of the show involved going over the same beats between Ted and Robin over and over again, of having each move past the other, and coming back to them in the final, despite how iconic that blue french horn has become for the show, just feels like another poorly-established cheat or retcon that isn't in sync with where the show went since that finale was crafted in Season 2.
What's worse is that that ending transforms the story Ted's been telling from a heartwarming if irreverent yarn about the path that led to him meeting the love of his life, to a smokescreen to gain his kids' approval for dating an old flame after their mother's death. Look, to some degree you have to accept the conceit of the show for what it is and not take it too seriously. In real life, no two kids would sit through such a long story, and no father should tell his children about all the women he slept with before he met their mom. But taken in broad strokes, How I Met Your Mother is a story about how all the events in Ted's life, big and small, good and bad, planned or unexpected, went into making him the person who was ready to find Tracy and capable of being with her.
Future Ted himself put it best in "Right Place, Right Time." He tells his kids "There's a lot of little reasons why the big things in our lives happen." He explains that what seemed like chaos was bringing him inexorably toward the best person and the best thing to ever happen to him, that there were "all these little parts of the machine constantly working, making sure that you end up exactly where you're supposed to be, exactly when you're supposed to be there." And he tells them at the time, he didn't know "where all those little things were leading [him] and how grateful [he]'d be to get there."
That, to my mind, is the theme to take from this great, if tainted show. Sure, it's unrealistic that anyone would go on that many tangents in telling the story of their great romance, but the point is that each of these moments, each of these people, were crucial in who he was and who he became when he met Tracy, and that they were as important as that fateful meeting was. Yes, it's a long story, and it has many many detours, but it's the story of all the twists and turns and bumps in the road that brought Ted into the arms of his soulmate, and that smooths over the rougher edges of the show's premise.
Instead, the twist that it's all supposed to be about Ted having the hots for Robin turns that lovely story into a long-winded attempts by a middle-aged man to convince his kids that he should date their aunt That seems much more crass. There's still meaning to be wrung from it, meaning that finds parallels with Tracy and her dead boyfriend Max and the idea that you can have more than one meaningful relationship in your life. But it doesn't add up with what the show had really done to that point. The past nine seasons were no more about Robin than they were about Barney or Marshall or Lily. They no more feel like a way to suggest that Aunt Robin's good dating material than they do that Ted should spend more time with Uncle Barney. As great as that blue french horn was the first time, it had meaning because it represented something we knew was going to end, but which still had beauty and value despite that. This last time we see it, it's represents the opposite, that something beautiful has ended, and the value it had is cast aside in favor of a relationship the series spent years disclaiming. That is deeply, deeply unsatisfying.
Take away those final few scenes, concocted in a different era of the series, and you have a flawed but still potent finale, that delivers on the show's biggest promise and gives the gang one last "big moment" together. But add them back in, and you have an ending to the series that not only runs counter to so much of what the show developed over the course of its run, its final season in particular, but which, moreover, cheapens the story the audience had been invested in for the past nine years. It's almost impressive how a couple of truly terrible moments can do such retroactive damage to such a longrunning show , but here we are, with a sour taste in our mouth from such an ill-conceived finish.
Future Ted was right, a little moment can have a big impacts, and the one at the end of the series is a doozy in that regard. But maybe, just maybe, when we tell our own stories about How I Met Your Mother, we can do what Ted should have done many times -- just leave that part out. There's something wonderful to be gleaned from the ending to this fun, optimistic, heartfelt, and occasionally very rocky series, but it requires us to do what we always do when looking back on things: focus on the good stuff, make our peace with the bad stuff, and remember it at its best.
I could honestly watch a full show of Olivia Colman being a pretentious, passive-agressive bitch.
homegirl was really 'bout to jump from one boat to another while wearing high heels :skull::skull::skull:
1) (again) Teenagers and their underdeveloped brains, oh my god. Unfortunately, in TLOU every idiotic decision becomes a literal life or death situation.
2) STELLAR performance by Storm Reid, I swear it forced Bella to take her own acting up a notch. The result was my tear stained face (and quite possibly yours too).
3) Fuuuuuuucccccck! "Back in 5 mins", I'm bawling.
8/10 - for Riley/Storm Reid, the pop culture references, the delightful reminders of life pre apocalypse, and a (nearly) flawless victory.
Well that was definitely back to Ted Lasso at its best. In a somewhat uneven season, they pulled it all together with aplomb. Laughed out loud a number of times but “Trent Crimm, independent” got me the most.
This was truly heartbreaking…Worlds collide as Jimmy’s life morphs into Saul’s longterm burden. Seeing Howard be killed so swiftly was gut-wrenching. I particularly love the juxtaposition between Nacho’s heroic/final victory death and Howard’s tragic demise - Jimmy and Kim tarnished his reputation and his death will now cement his defamed legacy and undercut all the success his life and career had seen. Love how both death scenes feel very inevitable and using that fact to heighten the tension and bask in the moment of the scene. I can’t praise the BB/BCS team enough. Emphasized bravo to Patrick Fabian, putting on an award worthy performance all season long.
Why is everybody complaining? It’s an awesome show. If you want to see some aliens, watch the countless shows about alien invasions - there are many.
But this one…is different. And that’s good. It’s about the people, not about the aliens.
That was a heavily loaded episode. But the writers already said loong beforehand they'd include these topics/are contemplating on how to deal with writing a cop show in these times, so no surprise there. They did a good job, especially not ending on a joke, even if the second episode sets itself free from the context of the precinct to be "fun" again even if it might be for just one episode. It's foremost a comedy after all and making fun inside the precinct is going to be difficult in this last season, given what's going on currently in this world. Completely ignoring it, in quite a diverse cop show no less that never shied away from addressing issues, would be irresponsible. Personally, I am looking forward how - if at all - they are going to deal with what this first episode set in motion in this challenging last season. This show never shied away from addressing the elephant in the room, never too subtle either. But now it's a problem for some?
It takes a lot of skill to execute a scene this long. This is almost an entire episode of a restaurant conversation between several people, and it's very very well done. Very good writing and direction.
[9.8/10] It seems like every season, there’s one episode of BoJack Horseman that just floors me, and this may be the best of them all. More than BoJack’s dream sequence in S1, more than his unforgivable act at the end of S2, more than the even the harrowing end for Sarah Lynn in S3, “Time’s Arrow” is a creative, tightly-written, absolutely devastating episode of television that is the crown jewel of Season 4 and possibly the series.
The inventiveness of the structure alone sets the episode apart. It feels of a piece with the likes of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for finding outside the box ways to communicate the idea of dementia and the brain purging and combining and reconstructing dreams and memories into one barely-comprehensible stew. The way that the episode jumps back and forth through time is a superb way to convey the way this story is jumbled up and hard to keep a foothold on for Beatrice.
And that doesn’t even take into account the other amazing visual ways the show communicates the difficulty and incoherence or what Beatrice is experiencing. The way random people lack features or have scratched out faces, the way her mother is depicted only in silhouette with the outline of that scar, the way the images stop and start or blur together at emotional moments all serve to enhance and deepen the experience.
What’s even more impressive is how “Time’s Arrow” tells a story that begins in Beatrice’s youth and ends in the present day, without ever feeling rushed or full of shortcuts. Every event matters, each is a piece of the whole, from a childhood run-in with scarlet fever to her coming out party to an argument about the maid, that convincingly accounts for how the joyful, smart young girl we meet in the Sugarman home turns into the bitter husk of a woman BoJack is putting in a home. It’s an origin story for Beatrice, and a convincing one, but also one of the parental trauma that has filtered its way down from BoJack’s grandparents all the way down to poor Hollyhock.
And my god, the psychological depth of this one! I rag on the show a decent amount for writing its pop psychology on the screen, but holy cow, the layers and layers of dysfunction and reaction and cause and effect here are just staggering. The impact of Beatrice’s father’s cajoling and her mother’s lobotomy on her development as a woman in a society that tried to force her into a role she didn’t want or necessarily fit is striking in where its tendrils reach throughout her development. The idea of rebelling against that, and the way BoJack’s dad fits into that part of her life is incredible. And the story of growing resentment over the years from a couple who once loved each other, or at least imagined they did and then found the reality different than the fantasy is striking and sad.
But that all pales in comparison in how it all of these events come together to explain Beatrice’s fraught, to say the least, relationship to motherhood and children. The climax of the episode, which intersperses scenes of the purging that happens when Beatrice contracts scarlet fever as a child, her giving birth to BoJack, and her helping her husband’s mistress give birth all add up to this complex, harrowing view of what being a mom, what having a child, amounts to in Beatrice’s eyes.
The baby doll that burns in the fire in her childhood room is an end of innocence, a gripping image that ties into Beatrice’s mother’s grief over Crackerjack’s demise and whether and how it’s acceptable to react to such a trauma. The birth of BoJack, for Beatrice, stands as the event that ruined her life. BoJack is forced to absorb the resentments that stem from Beatrice’s pregnancy being the thing that effectively (and societally) forced her to marry BoJack’s father, sending her into a loveless marriage and a life she doesn’t want all because of one night of rebellion she now bitterly regrets. For her, BoJack is an emblem of the life she never got to lead, and he unfairly suffers her abuses because of it, just like Beatrice suffered her own parents’ abuses.
Then there’s the jaw-dropping revelation that Hollyhock is not BoJack’s daughter, but rather, his sister. As telegraphed as Princess Carolyn’s life falling apart felt, this one caught me completely off-guard and it’s a startling, but powerful revelation that fits everything we know so well and yet completely changes the game. It provides the third prong of this pitchfork, the one where Beatrice is forced to help Henrietta, the woman who slept with her husband, avoid the mistake that she herself made, and in the process, tear a baby away from a mother who desperately wants to hold it. It is the culmination of so many inherited and passed down traumas and abuses, the kindness and cruelty unleashed on so many the same way it was unleashed on her, painted in a harrowing phantasmagoria of events through Beatrice’s life.
And yet, in the end, even though BoJack doesn’t know or understand these things, he cannot simply condemn his mother to suffer even if he’s understandably incapable of making peace with her. Such a horrifying series of images and events ends with an act of kindness. BoJack doesn’t understand the cycle of abuse that his mom is as much a part of as he is, but he has enough decency, enough kindness in him to leave Beatrice wrapped in a happy memory.
Like she asked his father to do, like she asked her six-year-old son to do, BoJack tells her a story. It’s a story of a warm, familiar place, of a loving family, of the simple pleasures of home and youth that began to evaporate the moment her brother didn’t return from the war. It’s BoJack’s strongest, possibly final, gift to his mother, to save her from the hellscape of her own mind and return her to that place of peace and tranquility.
More than ever, we understand the forces that conspired to make BoJack the damaged person he is today. It’s just the latest psychological casualty in a war that’s been unwittingly waged by different people across decades. But for such a difficult episode to watch and confront, it ends on a note of hope, that even with all that’s happened, BoJack has the spark of that young, happy girl who sat in her room and read stories, and gives his mother a small piece of kindness to carry with her. There stands BoJack, an individual often failing but at least trying to be better, and out there is Hollyhock, a sweet young woman, who represent the idea that maybe, just as this cycle was built up bit-by-bit, so too may it be dismantled, until that underlying sweetness is all that’s left.
This singular episode, which I initially didn’t think I would like in the beginning, became more incredible than entire movies. It was beautiful, poetic and entirely self encapsulated in a tiny little world where people can still pick out their little slice of happiness.
To all those who hated the episode, replace bill with a female in your head if you have to, but open your eyes to why this story was so fulfilling and poetic in a world filled with meaningless death and endless suffering.
This was a loud non stop chaotic trip. There were very few breaks to catch your breath. Some people are going to hate it. Adam Sandler is terrific, it's great to see him doing something different than his normal Netflix crap. The music is trippy.
Okay, what the f? How did they pull this brilliant piece of cinema off? I am your standard hater of Disney live-action and I am pleasantly surprised they made me enjoy a Cruella origin film. Wtf. I want that little dog Wink. What a boss.
I just LOVE how so many people are butthurt by this episode. Just goes to show how much this is still needed in our world. This was a masterpiece in storytelling.
Jeez, the snowflaky reactions of straight white men because not every single episode and narrative centres them - anything deviating from that priority is apparently "woke". Get over yourselves, you egomaniacal bigots.
Anyway, another great episode that nicely expanded Ellie's backstory - bonus points for the Mortal Kombat II appreciation, too :nerd:
Bran: I can never be Lord of Winterfell, I can never be Lord of anything, I'm the Three-eyed Raven.
Also Bran: I'm the King.
[7.6/10] Holy cow, there’s a lot to unpack here. This was the most disjointed of the episodes so far, with a slew of former guest stars returning in a somewhat haphazard fashion, and fewer throughlines to unite everything.
So let’s cover those guest stars! We have the two culprits from season 3 playing the Hannibal Lecter game with Veronica in season 3. We have Max (Mac’s old boyfriend) as the owner of the dispensary on the boardwalk. And we even have the triumphant return of Vinny Van Lowe, in all of Ken Marino’s usual glory, as a separate P.I. hired by Mrs. Maloof to track down the family ring. It’s a minor thrill to see these people again, but everything is so glancing that it feels like more of a case of “hey, remember that guy!?” than naturally adding them to the story. (Though meethinks we haven’t seen the last of Vinny.)
Heck, I was even a little come-see come-saw about the return of Leo, and he was my favorite of Veronica’s love interests back in the show’s original run. I don’t know what it is, but the dynamic between him and Veronica isn't as easy or natural as it was back in the day, and the two of them talking about their romantic lives on a stake out feels pretty contrived. He’s still a welcome presence, and I like that he’s an FBI agent assigned to the bomber case because of local ties, but right now he feels more like a device than a character. (Though my favorite part of the episode was his awkward interactions with Logan, and Logan ensuing query of whether Piz was hiding in the back somewhere.)
Oddly enough, the best pairing in this episode was between Keith and Clyde. There’s something endearing about the two old guys trading war stories together, even if the show seems to want you to think that Clyde is playing Keith to some extent. It also gives Veronica a chance to be clever when she uncovers what’s in Clyde’s bag from the hardware store.
Oh, and I almost forgot the return of Weevil! I like the fact that he got to save Veronica’s behind here, showing his continued loyalty, but also remaining sort of a tweener on the good/bad divide, since he’s fallen into chop shops and working with local “hoodlums.” He gets the line of the episode when Veronica chastises him for these things, “It must be nice to have choices,” which sums up the show’s complicated take on racial and class divides, letting its protagonist be self-righteous but also flawed and, at times, myopic about where she sits in the social order.
I have to admit that I’m a little tired of The Murderheads. I do like that Maddie goes to them because she doesn't know where to turn after overhearing the Mars family’s theory, and that the Murderheads, in turn, blow up the Mars family’s spot by broadcasting the hypotheses Veronica and Keith are still running to ground in an explosive town council meeting. Still, the comedy stuff with that crowd has gotten a little too broad for my tastes.
But the mystery stuff is coming together at least. We’re getting more pieces falling into place for the whole “real estate plot from Big Dick” theory, with shell companies buying up boardwalk businesses. That said, it’s way too early for an answer to the central mystery to be that clear and that right this early. So my new theory is that the owner of Comrade Quacks is behind the bombings, meaning to teach the assulting douches of Neptune a lesson, given who’s ended up dead so far.
I’ll admit that I’m a little worn out by the Congressman Maloof story, which feels a little more exaggerated than the rest. (Give or take a neck bomb.) Him being faked out and presumably extorted by the cartel guys is a little much, and the same goes for the hillbillies being found in the desert. I like that they’re bringing the cartel folks closer to Veronica’s orbit, but until then, it just feels like a distraction.
Oh, and I almost forgot that Dick is pretty damn funny in this one! Him landing in a Lifetime X-mas movie in Romania about a woman who falls in love with two mannequins is the kind of comedic specificity that I get a big kick out of.
Overall, this one was not as strong or cohesive as some of the past episodes of this season, but there’s still good stuff to enjoy along the way.
This whole season has been fucking amazing but this episode stands out as one of the best imo.
Yup! That's the power of Kate Bush
This was an emotional rollercoaster. Very happy to live this phenomenon!
No?!? I honestly didn’t expect that!! Although it makes sense, now.
The production value is amazing! The acting is top-notch! The writing isn't bad. BUT this is one anti-climactic first episode compared to the pilot for Game of Thrones. It's not terrible, but there isn't much of a drive that makes it as addicting as GoT. I'll stick around to watch the rest of the seasons, but this first episode makes it feel like a supplement to the original series rather than its own thing. So odd that the week started with the end of an amazing spinoff but now the start of one that doesn't realize it has heavy shoes to fill.
The Murderville Christmas special deviates in some aspects from the formula established in the series. This is certainly something I appreciate. There is, for example, more than one guest star. Maya Rudolph and Jason Bateman both have their moments. Of course, everything is still improvised. The humor is hit or miss throughout. But there are enough funny moments to make this one of Murderville's better episodes.
