Review by Andrew Bloom
VIP9[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.
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@javikasu That is a hell of a compliment. Thank you very much!
Review by Andrew Bloom
VIP9[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.
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@andrewbloom don't know what's better, the episode or your review
Come on guys... no comments on this?
The rating is bad... should I give it a try? Help me out community <3loading replies
@ketu I just finished watching the first episode and I think it is one of the funniest thing I have ever watched.
Despite all the great character development, strong humour, the use of Kristin Bell's real life husband and the emotional bonds that I'm forming with all of these characters... the moment of this episode that made me love it the most was the fact that the film on endless repeat in hell is Pirates of the Caribbean 6: The Haunted Crow's Nest or Something, Who Gives a Crap
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@lefthandedguitarist I didn't notice Kristin's husband or the Pirates of the Caribbean thing! I was just too distracted by everything else. That was one hell of a Hell! Thanks for pointing that out, it only made the episode even more hilarious, for me.
Hated it.
As simple as that.
Terrible way to take the series to. I mean it's not as bad as the prequels, because the acting is quite all right, but it hits so many bullshit moments where I was facepalming every other scene it's unbelievable.loading replies
@bejot you clearly facepalmed the whole movie and didn't see it properly
I am incredibly grateful to Game of Thrones for this adventure I have found myself sucked into for some years now. I am grateful for all the emotions it brought me since day one, bitter and sweet alike. I am grateful for all the laughs, all the tears, all the jokes and gags, every single bit of it, I really am grateful and appreciative of it all. It's been just... wonderful.
That said, I am feeling robbed and betrayed right about now. This ending is arguably one of the worst series finales in the history of television and trust me I realize how bold of a statement that is. The terrible violations the characters have suffered this season, the lack of proper resolution to many of the plots and narratives developed over seasons worth of buildup, the seeking of shock value at the expense of quality writing... that and much much more solidified this as an absolute disappointment of a finale, as opposed to the marvel wrap it could've given this cultural phenomenon.
This episode does have its positives, as always the score, acting and cinematography are perfectly performed but I just do not think it's nearly enough to compensate for how lackluster the writing has been, as much as I wish they did. Oh well, sad as it may be, I'll just hold on to the good stuff and hope that GRRM's book, once finished, will tackle the ending in a more coherent, more respectful and more meaningful way. It's been real y'all...
P.S: I'll leave this here lest some people jump me again. This comment is a representation of my own personal opinion, I am entitled to one just as all of you are. If you enjoyed this season and felt this finale delivered what you were looking for then more power to you mate, but that doesn't nullify my opinion nor does it make yours any valid. If you want to discuss or challenge my views, I'd be more than happy to engage you on that basis but if all you have to offer are petty remarks then please keep them to yourself.
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Almost as bad as Lost! You said it well
These cliffhanger are so annoying, When are we? 2009? Just tell the story and move on
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@fabriziolambert the multiple timelines are an integral part of the show - if you don't like this format then I don't think this show is for you.
Review by Andrew Bloom
VIP9It's difficult to build tension and stakes in a prequel to some degree, and the problem is magnified the closer you are to the familiar part of the timeline. If you already know who lives and who dies, who has to reach a certain point of the larger narrative unscathed, it can deflate some of the excitement and intrigue of a particular storyline.
On the other hand, it can also heighten the tension in an episode, by spotlighting the mystery between the known beginning and the known ending. As Better Call Saul sets up Nacho calling a hit on Tuco, we know that Tuco lives; we know that Mike lives, and thanks to the opening scene, we know that Mike gets ridiculously roughed up, presumably in the attempt. It all raises the question of how we get from A-to-B. Does the hit go wrong? Does Mike beg off from Nacho and get a beating for his troubles? In true Breaking Bad fashion does some unexpecting intervening factor come into play that throws the whole situation out of whack? We don't know, but we want to know, and that's just part of the masterful job that BCS does in using its prequel status as a benefit and not a drawback when it comes to holding the audience's attention and interest.
It also does so by firmly establishing its characters' motivations without making them feel obvious or blatant. The closest "Gloves Off" comes is Nacho explaining why he's trying to take out Tuco. It takes a little prodding from Mike, but Nacho explains why he would want to be rid of the notably mercurial Tuco in a satisfying way that coheres with what he already know about him. Tuco is unpredictable. Beyond what we've seen in Breaking Bad, he has to be talked down multiple times in the desert with Saul, and it's perfectly plausible that he would be even more temperamental when using, which lines up with what we know of him from his run-ins with Walter White. Temperamental is bad for business, and it makes sense that somebody who seems cool, collected, and perceptive like Nacho would want that unpredictable element taken out of his calculus and his livelihood.
And then there's Mike, who is increasingly feels like the most down-to-earth incarnation of Batman there's ever been (and please, someone cast Jonathan Bank in a The Dark Knight Returns adaptation while there's still time). At some point, Mike Ehrmentraut's moral code, and his supreme ability to assess a situation and find the best option could hit the implausibility button a little too hard. But for now, it's a joy to see him listening to Nacho's (fairly well-reasoned) plan for Tuco and then poking holes in it before coming up with a better one, and eventually, an even better (if both more and less costly) one after that. There's a world-weary certainty to Mike, a sense that he's seen this all before and he knows the angles before anyone else does.
That's why the moral element to his storyline is vital and captivating. Taking a life is rarely something that's treated lightly in the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul universe. One of the most interesting aspects of Walter White's descent in Breaking Bad is the way that his killing escalated, from self-defense with Krazy-8 (who cameos here), to his failure to act to save Jane, to his more active vehicular activities to save Jesse, until making deals with neo-nazis and calling hits of his own.
But we know Mike's motivated not to do that, not to reach that point, and also that he will eventually. He doesn't have the "Mr. Chips-to-Scarface" transition that Walt does--we've already seen that he's killed the dirty cops who took out Matty--but there's a different between that and doing random hits for a big payday from various drug dealers, something the audience knows he eventually makes his peace with.
I bring up the Batman comparison with Mike because despite the difference in tone of their source material, they fit surprisingly well together. Both are gruff, both are uber-capable, and both, at this point at least, have a code against killing. There have been a lot of different interpretations of The Bat's reasons for this, but one of the most persistent is the idea that if he crossed that line, he wouldn't able to stop himself from killing every two-bit punk who crossed him, that it would be the easy solution to too many problems that required a more measured response.
But one of the interesting things about "Gloves Off" is that it comes close to positing the opposite for Mike. When Mike's going over his rifle options with the arms dealer we first met in Breaking Bad, he comes upon an old bolt-action rifle and makes clear that (in addition to his expert knowledge of rifles) that he's used one and is more than familiar with them. The scene intimates that Mike fought in Vietnam, that he he's seen the horrors of war, and likely bitten off more than his fair share of it. It's not a far leap to think that Mike killed people in war, that he was probably damn good at it, and that despite the avenging impulses that spurred him to take out Matt's killers, he has no taste for it.
When Nacho pays Mike and asks him why he would give up twice the payoff for a tenth of the effort, we already know the answer. Mike has a code. But he isn't Batman; he's already crossed that line and seen and felt what it does to a person, and that reminder, a symbol of that time, is enough to make him earn his money the hard way to avoid having to dip his toe into those waters once again. The sequence where Mike provokes Tuco, with his corny payphone accent and road rage argument is fun and it's clever and it's brutal. But it's the cumulative result of all Mike's seen and done, of who he is, and it makes those bruises we see him packing frozen vegetables onto more meaningful and important, both to the series and to the character.
It would be too much and too far to call Jimmy's story an afterthought in "Gloves Off", but his is clearly the B-story of the episode, despite the pretty significant fireworks between Jimmy and his bosses, his girlfriend, and his brother. The chickens have come home to roost from what we witnessed in "Amarillo". Jimmy is on incredibly thin ice with his employers, and also with Kim, who's been shunted down to the basement as punishment for his sins.
These scenes tease out a great deal of the core of Jimmy's character as well. One of the things I love about Chuck McGill as a character is that he is often wrongheaded or petty or unduly harsh, but there's a germ of truth to most of the things he says, even if he bends that truth to suit his needs. Chuck's not wrong when he tells his brother that he always seem to think that the ends justify the means, that if Jimmy can get the right result, what does it matter how he gets there? It's a striking moment when Clifford Main disabuses Jimmy of the notion that the partners' anger is about the money spent, or that the success of Jimmy's plan mitigates what upset them in any way.
Instead, it's the fact that he circumvented them, that he knew (despite his protestations to the contrary) how they were likely to feel about it, and rather than confronting them directly and trying to argue his case, he went with the mentality that it's easier to get forgiveness than permission. That mentality blew up in his face here, and not only did the blowback threaten the promising position he's lucky to have here, but it hurt someone he loves. Jimmy cannot help breaking the rules, and his golden tongue has almost always offered him a way out of any real consequences. Here, that doesn't fly, and his bad behavior takes down Kim with him.
"Gloves Off" ties together the three big factors we know motivate Jimmy: his inability to color within the lines; his desire to be with and do right by Kim; and his jumbled up resentment, love, and desire for approval from his brother. The scene where Jimmy and Chuck confront one another, like most scenes between them, is dynamite in how it teases out more of Chuck's perspective and personality, and leans into the tremendous, complicated dynamic between the two brothers.
Is it too much to suggest that Chuck might be playing sick, or at least embellishing how bad he feels once Jimmy arrives? He seems surprised that Jimmy is still there in the morning, and it's hard to say whether Chuck is above using such tactics to avoid uncomfortable confrontations he could undoubtedly see coming. Better Call Saul has yet to dig into what specifically led Chuck down the path of his electrical sensitivity, but it would not surprise me to see it as a reaction to, and a way of avoiding, stress or trauma or something unpleasant in his life.
That's the crux of the confrontation between Jimmy and Chuck. Chuck still sees Jimmy as a shyster, as someone who bends the rules, who gooses the system, in order to get what he wants, regardless of what the risks are or whether other people have done it the hard way. And Jimmy confronts Chuck with his hypocrisy, that Chuck can't outright say that he wants Jimmy out of the legal practice and that he'd leverage Kim to put pressure on Jimmy to that effect because that would be extortion and that would be against the rules. But even if he can't say it out loud, or admit, even to himself, that that's what he's doing, Chuck has his less than savory ways of getting the result he wants too. He uses Hamlin as his proxy and hatchetman; he subtly undercuts his brother and puts the screws to him and the woman his brother cares for, all under the guise of keeping things proper. And yet, he sees himself as quite above the fray.
There's more than a bit of Jimmy in Chuck. There's a sense that Chuck too knows what levers to pull, what buttons to push, to make things happen, but while Jimmy, to some degree or another, owns what he is and not only acknowledges its utility but can't escape it, Chuck is in denial, and convinced that he is a saint simply trying to keep order with an agent of discord who's threatening to topple the applecart and make a mockery of all he holds dear. And in between them, Kim is willing to fall on the sword, even when she'll be hurt by the result, because it's the right thing to do, and despite her extracurricular activities helping Jimmy con Ken Wins, the right thing comes far more naturally to her than to Jimmy, or even the petty Chuck.
Even though they never interact, "Gloves Off" draws a contrast between Mike and Chuck here. Mike knows what his goal is, sees what it would cost to his soul in order to get it, and without seeking praise or understanding, suffers more to get something less, but to keep something greater. Chuck, on the other hand, won't do the dirty work. He won't demote Kim himself; he won't be direct with his brother, because he can't suffer the minor indignities even as he's trying to bring about what he sees as the greater good. Mike acts with honor even when he's on the wrong side of the line; Chuck can't let himself be the bad guy even when he thinks he's in the right, and Jimmy is stuck in the middle, trying to figure out his place in a world where he's punished if he breaks the rules, but worries that he can't succeed without doing so.
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Superb write-up man, better than most of the guff I read in the broadsheets!
fuck you chuck you lil bastard
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my exact words when the ep ended...although i didn't call him little
Review by Miguel Costa
The best part is that it isn't even over!
The Bar now has proof that Chuck indeed has it out for his brother (via his meltdown under oath), now Kim and Jimmy can show that Chuck was entrapping him. The Bar believes Chuck has a mental illness, and will likely buy into Jimmy's story. They claim the tape Jimmy destroyed was "evidence" but they made a copy, which is what was destroyed (a copy can't be evidence). Everything points to Chuck getting absolutely destroyed in the next episode or two.
Then that's what I believe will happen: Jimmy wins the Bar hearing. Chuck becomes the subject of the hearing (or a new hearing) due to his mental illness causing poor judgement and trying to entrap his brother to try and make him lose his license. Chuck loses his license. Simultaneously to Chuck losing his license, things are progressing with Kim and Mesa Verde, she has to make a decision, her career or Jimmy. She looks back on the things Jimmy has done and acknowledges that he can only hurt her career in the long run. She cuts ties with Jimmy, and Jimmy goes to check on Chuck to find him dead at home having killed himself.Saul Goodman is born.
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@wakematta That's just my theory on what's about to happen. There's many possibilities, some really darker like Kim dying or Chuck doing something crazy. Best thing about the show is you never know. ;)
Great dual moment at the end with them both realising they have met. And so the game of cat and mouse begins!
I like how flawed they both are, it's such a rarity to have layered female characters written well. Really liking this show.loading replies
I actually think there are several shows (currently) that layer female characters well. We are in such an era now, where women as leads or co-stars are given much more defying material... Shows like: Homeland, The Americans, How To Get Away With Murder, Game of Thrones, The Hand Maiden’s Tale, The Good Place, Good Behavior, Queen of The South, Claws... the list goes on... all feature at least one if not more deeply complex female characters. Killing Eve is a wonderful addition, especially with a lead Asian-American actor.
[8.1/10] For the entirety of this season, Kim Wexler, and the audience, have been waiting for Jimmy McGill to genuinely deal with his brother’s death, to confront it in some way, rather than moving on as though nothing happened. From the season premiere, where he brushed off Howard’s tortured confession with a happy air, to last week’s raging out, we’ve seen Jimmy sublimate his feelings about Chuck and his brother’s death. We’ve seen him repress them, run from them, and act out because of them, but never really face them head on.
Those feelings are at the core of “Winner”, the finale of Better Call Saul’s fourth season. The latest scheme from Kim and Jimmy requires Jimmy to cry crocodile tears at Chuck’s grave on the anniversary of his death, to get earnestly involved in the scholarship grants made in Chuck’s name, to loudly but “anonymously” throw a party for the dedication of the Chuck McGill memorial law library and seem too broken up to enjoy it. It’s all a big show, to attract as many members of the local bar as possible, in the hopes that word will get back to the committee judging his appeal for reinstatement as a lawyer.
It is an effort to put on grief, wear it like a mask, for self-serving purposes. The knock on Jimmy, the thing that held him back in his first hearing, was a lack of remorse or concerning or mournfulness about his brother. So he and Kim send every signal imaginable to the legal community, in lugubrious tones, that Jimmy is a broken man still shaken up by his brother’s passing, only withholding mention of Chuck because the memory is too painful to bear.
As usual, it’s a good plan! It’s hard to know for sure whether the signs of Jimmy’s faux grief make it back to the review board, but they at least seem to be effective on his immediate prey. And Kim is there by his side, shooting down his more outlandish ideas, workshopping his speech to the committee, and helping her partner mislead people in the hopes of regaining something that was taken away from him.
But the key to it all working is Jimmy’s speech to the review board. He goes in with a plan to recite Chuck’s letter to him. Jimmy wants to let his brother’s eloquence and feeling carry the day so that he doesn't have to put on that mask of true feeling and seem insincere. But he departs from the script. He improvises. He offers what sounds like an honest assessment of his relationship with his brother, the reasons why he became a lawyer, the difficulty of gaining Chuck’s approval, the truths about Chuck’s demeanor and the hardships their sibling relationship faced at times.
The the impact of those words is heightened by the karaoke cold open that shows Jimmy as needling but caring, Chuck as condescending but proud, and the two of them as loving siblings. It clearly moves the review board. It causes Kim to wipe away a tear. And you’d have to be made of stone to sit in the audience and not feel something as Jimmy offers what sounds like a heartfelt and honest eulogy for his brother and their relationship.
But it’s a canard, a put-on, a lie. It is an echo of similar faux-sentimental assessments from Chuck, and once again, I almost believed it. Jimmy revels in having put one over on the review board. His cravenness about tugging their heartstrings astounds Kim, underlining her worst fears about the man she loves. After tearfully echoing the passage from his brother’s letter, about his pride in sharing the name McGill, Jimmy asks for a “doing business as” form to practice under a pseudonym instead. Saul Goodman, scruple-free lawyer to the seedy underbelly of Albuquerque, is born out of the ashes of his brother’s life and name.
There was no truth in Jimmy’s seemingly sincere pronouncements. There was no outpouring of grief or real feeling in that confessional moment, or if there was, it was anesthetized and calibrated to be used for dishonest purposes. For ten episodes, we’ve been waiting for Jimmy to acknowledge what his brother meant to him in some genuine way, and instead, he gives us, the review board, and most notably Kim, what turns out to be just another performance.
It is, in a strange way, a negative image of how Mike behaves in this episode. When he speaks to Gus about Werner’s disappearance, he seeks mercy on his friend’s behalf, trying to avoid a mortal response from his employer. He pleads caution, forgiveness, the possibility of correction. But when he speaks to Werner himself, he’s colder, angrier, more taciturn and practical in the way we’ve come to expect as the default for Mr. Ehrmantraut. He too has a divide between the face he presents in his profession and the one he presents to his erstwhile friend.
But at least “Winner” gives us some good cat-and-mousing in that effort. For all the heady material in Better Call Saul, it’s hard not to enjoy the petty thrills of detective work and chases gone wrong all the more. Seeing Mike pose as a concerned brother in law, and piece together where Werner’s likely to be is an absolute treat. And the way he manages to loses Lalo Salamanca -- with a gum in the ticket machine ploy -- is a lot of fun.
Lalo himself, though, really drags this portion of the episode down. He’s a little too cartoony of an antagonist on a heightened but still down-to-earth show. The fact that he crawls through the ceiling like he’s freaking Spider-Man was patently ridiculous. And his single-minded pursuit of Mike and ability to ferret details out just as well veered too far into the realm of contrivance. I appreciate the promise of greater friction to come between Gus and Mike’s operation and the Salamancas, but the bulk of Lalo’s business in this one was unnecessary, and kept Nacho, who’s been underserved in general this season, on the sidelines.
Still, it leads to a tragic, moving, heartfelt scene between Mike and Werner where what needs to be done is done. Between Werner’s naive requests to see his wife, Mike’s matter of fact resignation about what needs to happen, and Werner’s slow realization of the position he’s in all unspools slowly and painfully.
The upshot of it is simple though. Mike found a friend, and he has to kill him. There’s sadness in Mike’s eyes, evident beneath the anger that it came to this. There’s pain in Werner’s, and for yours truly, when Werner tells Mike that he thought his little escapade would result only in frustration but ultimately forgiveness and understanding from Mike, because they’re friends.
There’s not room for friends in this line of work, at least not under Gus Fring. Ultimately, it’s not up to Mike, and underneath the stars of New Mexico, at a distance, with a spark and a silhouette, we see him have to end the life of someone he’d rather let go, because it’s his job. Werner is the first man that Mike kills for Gus, but he won’t be the last. And it all starts with a man who made one mistake, that can’t be forgiven, because the powers that be would never allow it.
That’s what ties Mike’s portion of the episode to Jimmy’s. Jimmy delivers what is basically the Saul Goodman Manifesto to a young woman who was denied one of the Chuck McGill scholarships since she was caught shoplifting. He tells her that chances at respectability like that scholarship are false promises, dangled in front of lesser-thans to convince them they have a shot when they were judged harshly before they even stepped in the door. The system is stacked against you. The rules are to their benefit. So don’t abide by them. Make your success without them. Do what you have to do. Rub their nose in your success rather letting yourself be cowed by something unfair and biased against you. The world will try to define you by one mistake, but fight back and don’t let them win.
That’s a comforting worldview, one that lets the viewer off the hook to some degree. We want to like Jimmy. He’s affable. He’s fun. He’s good at what he does. It’s easy to buy in Jimmy’s own sublimated self-assessment -- that the white shoed system is unwilling to overlook less credentialed but hard-working individuals who’ve had missteps but overcome them, so he has to fight dirty. It’s tempting to buy into that narrative -- that the people with the power aren’t playing fair, so why should he? Why shouldn’t scratch, claw, fight, and cut corners along the way to getting what he deserves?
But the truth is that “the system” hasn’t done much to keep Jimmy down. Howard Hamlin wanted to give him a job after he became a lawyer. Davis & Main gave him every opportunity to succeed. Even the disciplinary committee is not unreasonable in questioning Jimmy’s penitence when he offers no remorse for the person he hurt with his scheme. Jimmy’s made plenty of his own mistakes, but it’s not “them” trying to hold Jimmy McGill down; it’s “him.”
That’s the trick of this season finale. Despite all the put-ons and subterfuge, Jimmy does genuinely reckon with the death of his brother, he just does it in the guise of unseen forces set against him rather than a cold body in the cold ground. It’s Chuck who tried to keep Jimmy from being on the same level as him. It’s Chuck who instigated the disciplinary proceedings that continue to be a thorn in Jimmy’s side. It’s Chuck who judged his younger sibling solely on his mistakes, who overlooked his hustle, who saw those missteps as all that Jimmy was or could be. When Jimmy rails against the system that he sees as holding him down, when he uses that as an excuse to color outside the lines, he’s really railing against the brother, and his feelings of anger and pain and grievance, that no longer have a living object of blame to sustain them.
Because Jimmy has to be the winner. If Jimmy is denied his reinstatement, if a young woman with a checkered past but a bright future can’t earn a scholarship in his brother’s name, if it’s ultimately judged that someone like Jimmy isn’t allowed to be in the profession of someone like Chuck, then it means that Chuck won, and Jimmy can’t bear that.
Despite the loss of his sibling, we only see Jimmy truly cry once this season. It’s not in front of the review board. It’s not in a quiet moment with Kim. It’s in his car, by himself, when the engine won’t start, when he feels stymied, when it seems like the forces Chuck set in motion will pull him under for good, cosmically confirming his brother’s harsh assessment of him.
There is grief in Jimmy McGill, pain caused by a severe loss. But that loss didn’t happen when Chuck died. It happened when Chuck broke his heart, turned him away, told him that he didn’t matter. As with others on T.V. this year, death didn’t mean the loss of a confidante for Jimmy; it meant the end of the possibility of approval, of pride, of the sort of family relationship Jimmy had always wanted and thought he might one day gain.
There is truth in those tears behind the wheel of an off-color sedan, a mourning in private to contrast with the show he puts on in public. And Saul Goodman -- the real Saul Goodman -- is born. Because if Jimmy couldn’t earn his brother’s love, then at least he can win, he can try to become what Chuck never thought he would, reach heights his brother never reached, no matter what lies he has to tell, what corners he has to cut, or who he has to hurt or deceive to get there. That’s Jimmy’s truth now; that’s his response to his Chuck’s death, and that’s the force that moves him from the decency and concern of the man we meet at the beginning Better Call Saul to the amoral, win-at-all-costs mentality that comes with the new name that distinguishes him from his brother.
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@andrewbloom Damn brilliant! Nailed it!
When season 6 first aired, I just knew it was going to end with BoJack either dead or in prison. As it turns out, he's a bit of both (he's actually in jail and he's basically dead to every single person he's been close with in the past). I also knew that Mr. Peanutbutter, Todd, and Princess Carolyn were going to be fine (did PC's relationship with Judah remind anyone of Peggy and Stan from Mad Men or was it just only me? What a great surprise! I happen to love them together very very very much and I'm incredibly happy at the idea of Princess Carolyn being with someone who actually respects her, loves her, understands how her job works and how important it is for her, and is always willing to go the extra mile for her), but I always worried the most about Diane. I've always felt very connected to her and I kind of hoped things worked out for her because that could mean that things will eventually work out for me as well. I was a little bit disappointed to find out that she's no longer with Guy because I also wanted her to be with someone who truly loves her and cares for her, but then I remembered what Sonny said to her a couple of episodes ago about Guy always choosing "broken women" whom he then "fixes" and who eventually leave him when they're better, and I realized this: maybe that's why Diane is no longer with Guy. She is not "broken" anymore. And her final scene, in which she cuts off BoJack from her life for good, is further proof that she is, in fact, alright.
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@waltandmartha I actually had to rewatch it because I can't believe I missed the part in which she shows BoJack her ring! I guess I was too caught up in the moment to focus on what I was actually watching. Thank you for telling me! (I guess my previous essay about her not being broken and all that was my sad, sad brain at its best: overanalyzing everything)
@edrick If your question is genuine, I have to say... wince
It, uh...it's getting there...maybe. This certainly wasn't it's strongest episode, but it was better than the previous one. If you're not currently keeping up with the episodes, I'd say just reading a summary of what happened in this and last episode would suffice. So far, episodes 4 through 7 have been the best episodes this season. Everything else has been either "fairly good" (most of the other episodes) or just "meh/shrug" (this and last episode). It's a shame that this final season is so...underwhelming...
Review by Andrew Bloom
VIP9[8.4/10] We live in the finite. Everyone reading this has a limited amount of time on this plane of existence. Maybe you believe there’s an eternal paradise waiting on the other end. Maybe you believe in reincarnation. Maybe you believe that we’re simply waves whose essence is returned to the fabric of the universe. Whatever you believe, almost all of us can agree that whatever we have here, our fragile world and fragile bodies, are not built to last.
That is both terrifying and maddening: terrifying because, like Janet, none of us truly knows what’s on the other side, and maddening because there is so much to do and see and experience even in this finite world, and given how few bearimies we have on this mortal coil, most of us will only have the chance to sample a tiny fraction of it.
So The Good Place gives us a fantasy. It’s not a traditional one, of endless bliss or perpetual pleasure or unbridled success. Instead, it imagines an afterlife where there’s time enough to become unquestionably fulfilled, to accomplish all that we could ever want, to step into the bounds of the next life or the next phase of existence or even oblivion at peace. The finale to Michael Schur’s last show, Parks and Recreation, felt like a dose of wish fulfillment, but with this ending, The Good Place blows it out of the water.
Each of our heroes receives the ultimate send-off. By definition, nearly all of them have found ultimate satisfaction, a sense of peacefulness in their existence that makes them okay to leave it, having connected with their loved ones, improved themselves, and accomplished all that they wanted to. If “One Last Ride” seemed to give the denizens of Pawnee everything they’d ever wanted, “Whenever You’re Ready” makes that approach to a series finale nigh-literal for the residents of The Good Place.
And yet, there’s a sense of melancholy to it all, if only because every person who emerges from paradise at peace and ready to leave, has to say goodbye to people who love them. Most folks take it in stride, with little more than an “oh dip” or an “aw shoot”, but there’s still something sad about people who leave loved ones behind, and whom the audience has come to know and love, bidding what is, for all intents and purposes, a final farewell.
But The Good Place finds ways to make that transcendent joy for each of our heroes feel real. Jason...completes a perfect game of Madden (controlling Blake Bortles, no less). He gets loving send-offs from his father and best friend. He enjoys one last routine with his dance crew. He inadvertently lives the life of a monk while trying to find the necklace he made for Janet. It is the combination of the idiotic, the sweet, and the unexpectedly profound, which has characterized Jason.
Tahani learns every skill she dreamed of mastering (including learning wood-working from Ron Swanson and/or Nick Offerman!). She connects with her sister and develops a loving relationship with her parents. And when it’s time to go, she realizes she has more worlds left to conquer and becomes an architect, a fitting destination for someone who was always so good at designing and creating events for the people she cares about. Hers is one of the few stories that continues, and it fits her.
Chidi doesn't have the same sort of list of boxes checked that leads him to the realization that he has nothing more to do. Sure, he’s read all of the difficult books out there and seemingly refined the new afterlife system (with help from the council) to where it’s running smoothly, almost on automatic. But his realization is more from a state of being happy with where everything is, with what he’s experienced.
He has dinner with his best friend and Eleanor’s best friends and has so many times. He’s spent endless blissful days with the love of his (after)life staring at the sunset. His mom kissed Eleanor and left lipstick on her cheek, which Eleanor’s mom wiped off. I love that. I love that it’s something more ineffable for Chidi, a sense of the world in balance from all the bonds he’s forged rather than a list of things he’s done. And I love that he felt that readiness to move on for a long time, but didn’t for Eleanor’s sake.
Look, we’re at the end of the series, and I’m still not 100% on board with Eleanor/Chidi, which is a flaw. But I want to like it. I like the idea of it. And I especially like the idea of someone being at peace, but sacrificing the need to take the next step for the sake of someone they love. The saddest part of this episode is Eleanor doing everything she can to show Chidi that there’s more to do, only to accept that the moral rule in this situation says that her equal and opposite love means letting him go. Chidi’s departure is hard, but his gifts to Eleanor are warm, and almost justify this half-formed love story that’s driven so much of the show.
Unfortunately, no matter how much peace he finds, Michael cannot walk through the door that leads to whatever comes next. So instead, he gets the thing he always wanted -- to become human, or as Eleanor puts it, a real boy. Ted Danson plays the giddiness of this to the hilt, his excitement at doing simple human things, the symbolism of him learning to play a guitar on earth, on taking pleasure in all the mundane annoyances and simple fun and things we meat-sacks take for granted. Each day of humanity is a new discovery for Michael, and there’s something invigorating about that, something heightened by his own delight at not knowing what happens next in the most human of ways.
The one character who gets the least indication of a next step is Janet. We learn that she is Dr. Manhattan, experiencing all of time at once. We see her accept Jason’s passing, hug our departing protagonists, and take steps to make herself just a touch more human to make her time with Jason a little more right. But hers is a story of persistence, of continued growth, in a way that we don’t really have for anyone else.
Along the way, the show checks in with scads of minor characters to wrap things up. We see the other test subjects having made it into The Good Place (or still being tested). We see Doug Forcett deciding to party hard now that he’s in Heaven. We see Shawn secretly enjoy the new status quo, and Vicky go deep into her new role, and The Judge...get into podcasts! As much as this show tries to get the big things right for all of its major characters, it also takes time to wrap up the little things and try not to leave any loose threads from four seasons of drop-ins across the various planes of existence.
That just leaves Eleanor. She takes the longest of any of the soul squad to be ready. She tries, becoming okay with Chidi’s absence. She overcomes her fear of being alone. But most importantly, she does what she’s come to do best -- help people better herself. There’s self-recognition in the way her final great act, the thing that makes her okay with leaving this plane and entering another, is seeing herself in Mindy St. Clair and trying to save her. The story of The Good Place is one of both self-improvement and the drive to help others do the same. Saving Mindy, caring about her, allows Eleanor to do both in one fell swoop.
So she too walks through the door, beautifully rendered as the bend between two trees in a bucolic setting. Her essence scatters through the universe, with one little brilliant speck of her wave, crashing back into Michael’s hands, reminding him of his dear friend, and inspiring him to pass on that love and sincerity back into the world. It is, as trite as it sounds, both an end and a beginning, something circular that returns the good deeds our protagonists have done, the good people they have become, into some type of cycle that helps make the rest of this place a little better.
Moments end. Lives end. T.V. shows end. The Good Place has its cake and eats it too, returning to and twisting key moments like Michael welcoming Eleanor to the afterlife, while cutting an irrevocable path from here through the crash of the wave. It embraces the way that the finite gives our existence a certain type of meaning, whether we have a million bearimies to experience the joys and wonders of the universe, or less than a hundred years to see and do and feel whatever we can. And it sends Team Cockroach home happy, wherever and whatever their new “home” may be.
In that, The Good Place is a marvel, not just because it told a story of ever-changing afterlife shenanigans, not just because it tried to tackle the crux of moral philosophy through an off-the-wall network sitcom, but because it ended a successful show, after only four seasons, by sending each of them into another phase of existence and made it meaningful. There’s a million things to do with our limited time on this planet, but watching The Good Place was an uplifting, amusing, challenging, and above all worthwhile use of those dwindling minutes, even if we’ll never have as many as Eleanor or Chidi, Michael or Tahani, Janet or Jason, or any of the other souls lucky enough to be able to choose how much eternity is enough.
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@andrewbloom You have always been a terrific writer Andrew, but you have surpassed yourself here :)
A gazillion Bearimy later, the show manages to bring itself back from the dead for one last breath, giving us an emotional, heartfelt, sweet, sappy closure. Farewell, The Good Place! May you find your own Better Place.
Also — interesting note —, I realised something quite striking (maybe) a few hours after watching the episode: every single one of the humans who were a part of the main cast disappeared into oblivion, except for Tahani, who still lingered on. Eleanor, Jason and even Chidi fell into the egocentric routine of "I lived a full afterlife, I did all the things that gave me pleasure, I am satisfied with myself". Tahani went through that, too, she was even ready to also blow the essence of herself into smithereens, but she took one step further and realised she could "live" on to help other people. Was Tahani, in the end, the only truly selfless human of them all, the only one genuinely worthy of being in The Good Place? I guess that will depend on what is considered to be a "good" human being but, quite honestly, that ship has sailed a long time ago.
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@waltandmartha Tahani doing Michael's job and unintentionally terrorising newcomers would definitely be fun to see :grin:
Review by Toliman
VIP10TLDR ? This movie is Disingenuous. At best, it's a Ghoulish dark satire of the republican party during the Bush/Cheney era. Except, they forgot to insert comedy or satire. As a result, it's grim and insulting, the parody is often at the expense of the audience being too stupid or uncaring, or religious. Large chunks of american history are deleted, omitted or filtered so that the movie can focus on the death toll of the war, or the "Wazzup" meme, etc.
large chunks of Dick Cheney's history don't make it into the movie, or are stylised / exagerrated / spoofed.
It is a well made disaster of a movie. Care went into making this.
But, it's as bad as Holmes & Watson, Star Trek Discovery, The Last Jedi or Ghostbusters 2016. It's deeply unlikeable at times, and it is actively trying to rewrite history as it goes. I'm not a republican or a conservative, i don't follow politics, this is a highly deranged film that is deceptive at times, and I doubt that any of the events took place, as a result of the ham-fisted effort at painting Cheney as some mastermind villain, working in the shadows. It's only missing that villain laugh track during the more hammy moments.
The most sanguine part of the movie is that they treat the WTC bombing and 9/11 properly, but they draw an enormous bow throughout.
part of the movie hinges on the use of executive power being wielded by Dick Cheney through the Bush Presidency, to the degree that they'll infer it becoming part of the reasons why Cheney brought the war from Afghanistan to Iraq, and that he also used the position to secure oil reserves in Iraq before the war started, as well as ignore questions / receive kickbacks from Haliburton contracts, and infer that he brought a lawyer into the emergency/control room during the "crash" period of 9/11 post-pentagon collision, as airline flights and air corridors were shut down, airports were being closed, and private/civilian aircraft were being tracked and landed in airports, etc. So that he could wield this Executive Power without asking the senate or the Congress or the President for approval.
It walks the line of defamation, and yet, apparently it's from the guy who made Anchorman 2 and Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, The Other Guys. Brad Pitt and Will Ferrel financed this movie, i think. Their companies are in the titles.
All of the Actors do a great job. I even like Annapurna for their video game productions (Donut County, Gorogoa, Edith Finch, Florence), and i've seen a handful of Annapurna movies, like Phantom Thread, Her, American Hustle, and Sausage Party...
I went in with no preparation, and assumed it would be a dark comedy with political overtones, because, politics and Steve Carell, and I can see Aquaman later on. It can't be that bad, it's Christmas week.
This movie has the unfortunate effect of making you hate theatrical movie releases and critics, and perhaps all movies.
Yet, it's so well made, it has style, artistic credibility, and it's directed, shot and lit perfectly, the sound is on point, the acting is sometimes forgettable, But it's similar in style to other "moral" drama films, like "The Big Short", leading into the Global Financial Crisis where they pander heavily on people's motives and actions of "we're getting away with it", sic. The pandering is incredible.
It is a better political movie than most, but it's utterly manipulative and disingenuous at it's heart, and nothing can make that funny or amusing.
Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9 is unhinged and deranged, while Vice, is just powdercoated hatred and bile, trying to hide under progressive and democratic ideals. it's more like an upmarket youtube political conspiracy movie talking about Hilary Clinton's "SECRET Brain surgery", George Soros, the Koch brothers or the Jewish conspiracy movies you get recommended after watching "The Young Turks" or "David Pakman".
They even sink low enough to include a "Ghostbusters 2016" poke at the audience in the end credits by lampooning the partisan nature of the film, in an attempt to skirt criticism and outrage
A sideplot about an hour in, has a series of scenes in a focus group with the same strangers. The marketer/political consultant asks the group to raise their hands to choose between climate change or global warming. Another time, it's a choice between Estate Tax or Death Tax, inferring that marketing & political think-tanks, along with Fox News, used politically correct language in the 90's and 2000's to make conservative ideas palatable.
At the end of the movie, Cheney is in a cross-chair interview, after just having had a heart replacement. As the interview starts, the scene pauses, and Cheney/Bale instead, turns away and lectures the audience directly (invoking Frank Underwood's, stylised yet sociopathic 'lectures' in House of Cards) , saying he did what was best for America, despite the cost and the lives lost in the war(s) sic. It's just on the borderline of "helping make america great again" and a typical Frank Underwood self-justification, we fade to black, get a terrible americana/Fly Fishing title credits to the music of West Side Story's Puerto Rican version of "Coming to America" and we return to the Focus Group, mid-credits. The final scene has the consultant ask what people thought about the movie. A member of the group, complains that the movie insults conservatives, while the neighboring person insists it's factual, with the first man then calling it liberal propaganda, and then calling the other a libtard, sic. and hits him, both getting into a fist fight, while the camera turns away, to another woman, who turns to her neighbour in the room, and says she's going to enjoy the next Fast and the Furious movie (sic).
The implied comment is that they did the research, and had to improvise the story in-between, because nobody would speak about Dick Cheney's history or family to set the record straight. When/If you see a biography of Barack Obama in a few years, attending child brothels with kevin spacey in indonesia,
receiving oral sex from a pansexual transvestite, while he's snorting a line of cocaine off a preteen boy, while another person is handing Barack a membership form for the Democratic Party ... Vice, is going to be the movie that they quote and use dialogue from.This is the kind of movie that Alex Jones and infowars would make of Hilary Clinton & Barack Obama, by selectively omitting pages from a biography, and denigrating the characters and roles they undertook. The excuse would be, they couldn't confirm the story, so they took liberties and stuck with the facts, being transcripts, police records, licenses, marriage dates, etc.
I'm Australian, I genuinely don't care about the politics, but the smearing of the republican party is like a sledgehammer at times.
There are several Saturday Night Live level 'jokes' or skits/scenes that don't even make you cringe, they're just deeply unsettling attempts at humor or levity. Care went into the timing to paint several scenes as 'dark', or darkly funny at the expense of others. I expect people would laugh at them, it didn't connect with me, or the other 5 people in the theater.
It's not quite Fahrenheit 11/9 levels of insanity, on the contrary. It walks the line of parody, conspiracy and defamation neatly in a lighthearted attempt to skip 20 years of context, in a 2 minute conversation.
There's an early moment, perhaps 40 minutes in, where Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld is ruminating to a younger Dick Cheney in a random hallway of the oval office, about the imminent bombing of cambodia while Nixon is talking with Kissinger in a spare room of the Oval Office to avoid recordings. Mid-lecture, you hear Carell while we see a village about to be bombed mid-lecture, a typical cambodian/indonesian forest village, women and children sitting around, before explosions occur, and the scene changes back to Carell & Bale, unphased.
This kind of manipulative sledgehammer is used, repeatedly to invoke... satire? outrage ? compassion ?
This occurs about 5 or 6 more times, with even less subtlety.
Alfred Molina's "restaurant" scene, Molina's character offers Cheney and 3 seated guests at a restaurant table, Extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo Bay as menu options , is ham-fisted, but it's executed darkly and humorously, similar to say, Aaron Echkhart's Thank You For Smoking scenes, lampooning Tobacco, Firearms and Alcohol lobbyists.
It's the kind of movie where you could let things slide if you were a lifelong US democrat, because it tries to tell harsher truths of the political and military consequences, overtly, by flashing to bombings, drone strikes, torture, rendition, deception and greed, during the more infamous moments of nixon's career and Bush's presidency.
And it profoundly relies on Fly fishing to represent Dick Cheney, as other movies do (2007's Shooter) to the point where they use gaudy Americana as Fly Fishing decorations (rockets, drones, Oil Rigs, missiles, the white house, Surveillance cameras) in the end-credits.
There's element's of Zero Dark Thirty in the invocation/flashes of torture, waterboarding, confinement, exposure, even the Abu Ghraib incident/leak with a prisoner being dragged by a Dog Collar by Lynndie England (the "work safe" versions) appears here. and rendition scenes along with the "Shadow government" themes of Dick Cheney's role as Vice President during George W Bush's tenure. It is highly implied several times that Cheney set himself up as the Executive, the CEO in charge of the war by undermining George Bush and, being responsible for the birth of ISIS, hiding reports from the president, etc.
They walk the line when it comes to defaming the Cheney family, there's also an implication of Lynne Cheney's father, Wayne Vincent murdering his wife in an argument by drowning, and of Lynne Vincent, being raped by her father Wayne in an over-edited and dubbed scene that was heavily muffled to avoid the censor noticing. Wayne, is seen pointing to his daughter during a muted, abbreviate shouting scene implying alcoholism and frequent domestic violence.
It extrapolates the most defamatory versions of people, and highlights that absurdity.
It takes what should be parody or simulacra, a 'bad saturday night live' sketch comic scene, and extrapolates moments as their cheapest moments. It's also high budget, they take Sam Rockwell's version of President Bush, Governor Bush, and rotoscope him into the more infamous moments of Bush's Presidency, i.e. the mid-war "Mission Accomplished" presentation on the Carrier Deck.
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@toliman For someone who cares so much about "facts," it's interesting to note that you did not use "(sic)" properly /even once/ in this long ham-fisted soliloquy.
A really cool idea for an allegory, but it could’ve, and should’ve, gone a lot deeper with its social commentary.
A lot of it feels half baked and not all that sharp.
Also, the characters are flat, and it leaves you with a lot of questions that needed to be cleared up (Why do people go to this place? Who’s behind it? Etc.)loading replies
@jordyep I think that not having answers place us in the character's perspective; we know as much as him. It reminds me Cube (https://trakt.tv/movies/cube-1997)
A really cool idea for an allegory, but it could’ve, and should’ve, gone a lot deeper with its social commentary.
A lot of it feels half baked and not all that sharp.
Also, the characters are flat, and it leaves you with a lot of questions that needed to be cleared up (Why do people go to this place? Who’s behind it? Etc.)loading replies
@jordyep this movie needs at least one hour more
This episode reminds us that The Mandalorian is a Disney product.
The Mandalorian for no reason became soft and sentimental. The only reason possible for this change is the "cute factor" shown more to the audience than the character, just like a Disney show would do. For someone who is supposed to be on this sort of job for a while, breaking a guild code just for some random child is a stupid thing to do - especially for someone who is supposed to uphold honor. The hostiles - supposedly trained soldiers and mercenaries - are nothing but incompetent mooks. Other Mandalorians show up as deus ex machina, almost feels like they are there just so Disney can sell more toys.
There is no build up. Everything in this episode is self-contained. From the appearances of other Mandalorian to the whistling bird, it's all used vulgarly in this episode.
This episode is such a huge let down. And we're still on the third episode.
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Do you really got a so straight and narrow interpretation of the main character choices? Did he took the kid only out of empathy or sentimentalism? Maybe he didn't liked the idea of the Empire toying with that unknown power like the ones he saw? Didn't that scene in the Mandalorian foundry hint at some strong code to honor in the Mandalorian hlture that goes beyond the simple mercenary work? Didn't that flashback of Mando childhood memories, suggest that he may feel a personal connection with a lonely kid being victim of the empire conflicts, even with that last image of child Mando hiding in a box to match the baby Yoda cradle image?
Is just Disney. Wow. That's it? I mean sure it is, is just a sci-fi action show not trascendental philosophy. But man... such oversimplifications make me wonder what's the point in trying to build more complex characters, when even the average audience got so monodimensional and just keeps seeing only what they want to see..even when they do not like it..
This episode reminds us that The Mandalorian is a Disney product.
The Mandalorian for no reason became soft and sentimental. The only reason possible for this change is the "cute factor" shown more to the audience than the character, just like a Disney show would do. For someone who is supposed to be on this sort of job for a while, breaking a guild code just for some random child is a stupid thing to do - especially for someone who is supposed to uphold honor. The hostiles - supposedly trained soldiers and mercenaries - are nothing but incompetent mooks. Other Mandalorians show up as deus ex machina, almost feels like they are there just so Disney can sell more toys.
There is no build up. Everything in this episode is self-contained. From the appearances of other Mandalorian to the whistling bird, it's all used vulgarly in this episode.
This episode is such a huge let down. And we're still on the third episode.
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@xaliber I'm buying what the screenplay says I guess. What someone else (fictional or real) would/should do, in any given circumstance, is hardly something to be decided from others.
I mean doing 'whatever you want' means exactly that, following your own moral compass. I'm not sure what Mando will do next, he may change his mind or not, still that would be quite believable since that is what most people do in a conflicting situation.
I'm a little confused even by your idea of screenwriting since I do not see anything blatantly wrong here. I see things that you do not like instead but again, that hardly makes an argument to invalidate a screenplay.
I'll be honest, the problem these days is not with the quality of the Star Wars franchise or any other shows. The problem is with the quality of the average audience.
Or as Orson Welles once said - You can't expect every audience to be a good audience.
Is this episode written by 16 years old?
This episode wanted to be Seven Samurai but ended up as that terrible The Walking Dead episode where everyone gets slaughtered (they're not though in Mandalorian, since this is a Disney series).
There is no development and no build up at all in this episode. Like the previous episode, everything is self-contained. All are introduced and resolved in this same episode. A lot of things happened in this episode but nothing actually contributes to the plot - except for exposition dump.
The bandit raid is a terribly weak, villain of the week setup. They just show up as some evil nuisances - no motives, no goals at all. The Mando teams up with an ex-rebel, which debunks a tired cliche, but at this point this feels like a try-hard attempt to make The Mando as a morally righteous hero. There is a half-assed attempts at romance here, but it feels forced as it happens so sudden. Despite being self-contained (or maybe because it is) the episode lacks closure by the end, and the nifty little scene regarding one stray bounty hunter seems like something that appears just because they still have several episodes to go.
The dialogues are terrible: it's a tonne of exposition dumps. I don't have any idea why the writers think it makes sense for the characters to suddenly ask a stranger, "when was your last time you open your helmet?" and, in return, open up a heart-to-heart "hey I got a tragic story" past to a stranger. The banters with Gina Carano's character is okay, but it feels like they have to slip backstory every now and then. As if they're not having a real, human conversation. Every dialogue feels so forced and hurried as if they have to make it fit into this episode.
Also, it seems like they have no idea what an AT-ST is. It's a vehicle, not a droid.
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@xaliber Seems like you should just stop watching
That Baby Yoda is too damn cute!! OMG I laughed so hard when he pressed the button after being told not to touch anything.
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@lunatee I was already laughing my ass off just at the fact the Mandalorian had to ask him not to touch things and then.... BOOM! the lil sh*t does it again! :D :D :D
The beginning of the episode left me wishing we could've seen more of this side of Star Wars: regular stormtroopers doing their job, getting into action, and all the unseen dynamics rarely mentioned in the mainstream film trilogies. We did have something in that vein: Republic Commando explored the lives of elite Republic clone troopers; Jedi Academy had us follow the lives of youngling under tutelage of Luke's academy; the original Battlefront showed us the transitioning of a republic to an empire through the eyes of the soldiers.
It's the lives of the mundane, the less than extraordinary, yet still gripping and intriguing. They let us dive deeper to the world of Star Wars beyond the flashy buzzing of lightsabers and spectacles of the magical force.
The Mandalorian wished it could be one of those. Unfortunately, it failed terribly.
In episode 5, @ShrimpBoatSteve has said that the series has became too predictable, and I agree - the finale shows how predictable the whole season is. https://trakt.tv/comments/264475
After the long flashback which most parts we've already seen in previous episodes - seemingly making the scenes feels almost like a filler - The Mandalorian episode 8 seems reluctant to set their foot to the ground with its notable world-building as previously seen in Eps 7 and Eps 1 to 3. As I have previously said, after everyone gangs on The Mando (Eps 7), Baby Yoda/Little One's background (who Baby Yoda is, why is he wanted, what the Imperial remnants wanted to do with him, etc) remains unresolved. As the episode shows us Moff Gideon rising with a darksaber in hand, yet another reference moment: every substance the show can possibly offer will be dealt only in Season 2 (or, worse, more).
Stormtroopers in Star Wars have been infamous for their terribly inaccurate shots, but in this episode it feels like their incompetency is amplified to the point of parody and, of course, plot armors. Scout troopers - which is supposed to be snipers - can't shoot droid right in front of their eyes. Instead of coming in squads, troopers only come individually (incinerators burning the building, a few troopers slaughtered by the blacksmith, a few others guarding the tunnel, and the most stupid of all, Moff Gideon waiting for nightfall just for no reason) which makes for a convenient plot armors for our heroes to trek on their way.
Of course, there are casualties - what is a story without something seemingly at a stake? - but it is nothing more than devices to delay the heroes from their trek. Taking cues from Eowyn's "I am no man" of Lord of the Rings fame, in less than moment-defining fashion IG-11, which himself came as a sort of droid ex machina, said that it is no "living being" while resurrecting The Mando from fatal injuries, remedied every possible threat with its healing devices.
Antagonists can be dumb, but there is a limit to dumbness that can suspend audience's disbelief. This episode has antagonist almost feels like they are intentionally dumb and there is nothing really at a stake when everything can be easily remedied.
This episode is not the worst, certainly, as the action sequence is flashy and satisfying. The one near ending where The Mando utilizes a neat jet jump is clever and actually can show the extent Star Wars can be when the director wanted to think creatively beyond the force. Knights of the Old Republic and the aptly named Star Wars Bounty Hunter played with clever tricks similar to this once a while, and the trick doesn't feel cheap as they stand on a very good storytelling.
The Mandalorian's flashy action, regardless, seems to serve only as explicit fanservice - a style over substance.
There are plenty of action, which, by itself, is quite well-done. The consistently hardly imposing threats, unfortunately, dull down the possible thrill those scenes can offer - in a typical corny action heroes such as Gerard Butler's character in Has Fallen trilogy. The scene, for example, with The Blacksmith let us peek into the martial arts capability a Mandalorian can exhibit. But the rather plot armor of incompetent stormtroopers leave no stake at hand; the martial arts dexterity looks more like a cheap imitation of main trilogies of Jedi's acrobatic feats.
Redemption ultimately ends with nothing to be redeemed about, as the people in this show seems to be forever clumsy. From start to finish, everyone made questionable decisions. Nobody blasted the Mando's group with that large amount of stormtroopers. Nobody checked whether Moff Gideon is dead when the fighter was down (Gideon also miraculously survive the crash), with Carga, a supposedly veteran bounty hunter, lightheartedly saying they are already free of the Empire's grasp.
Everything people said in this episode, just like many episodes prior, are not crafted as if the actors were having human conversation. They were rushed by time - they seemingly appear to be set in motion by the plot's demands, to say X so Y happens; to say A when B moment happened.
This episode almost feels like a filler to conclude the dragging episodes this season has been. Screenwriting-wise, this whole season is nothing but bait-and-switch to justify next season(s).
There is much to be said about this kind of terrible business model, where series is written with nothing exactly in mind but to find reasons to continue producing the franchise - the same business model Disney has been using on their MCU franchise and Star Wars films/spinoffs - but the crowds of gladly willing moms awing for Baby Yoda and nerd dads geeking over Star Wars reference doesn't leave enough rooms for those commentaries.
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@xaliber While a lot of your points are valid, gosh you're miserable about everything. Just watch something else and let those that will enjoy the series enjoy it.
The beginning of the episode left me wishing we could've seen more of this side of Star Wars: regular stormtroopers doing their job, getting into action, and all the unseen dynamics rarely mentioned in the mainstream film trilogies. We did have something in that vein: Republic Commando explored the lives of elite Republic clone troopers; Jedi Academy had us follow the lives of youngling under tutelage of Luke's academy; the original Battlefront showed us the transitioning of a republic to an empire through the eyes of the soldiers.
It's the lives of the mundane, the less than extraordinary, yet still gripping and intriguing. They let us dive deeper to the world of Star Wars beyond the flashy buzzing of lightsabers and spectacles of the magical force.
The Mandalorian wished it could be one of those. Unfortunately, it failed terribly.
In episode 5, @ShrimpBoatSteve has said that the series has became too predictable, and I agree - the finale shows how predictable the whole season is. https://trakt.tv/comments/264475
After the long flashback which most parts we've already seen in previous episodes - seemingly making the scenes feels almost like a filler - The Mandalorian episode 8 seems reluctant to set their foot to the ground with its notable world-building as previously seen in Eps 7 and Eps 1 to 3. As I have previously said, after everyone gangs on The Mando (Eps 7), Baby Yoda/Little One's background (who Baby Yoda is, why is he wanted, what the Imperial remnants wanted to do with him, etc) remains unresolved. As the episode shows us Moff Gideon rising with a darksaber in hand, yet another reference moment: every substance the show can possibly offer will be dealt only in Season 2 (or, worse, more).
Stormtroopers in Star Wars have been infamous for their terribly inaccurate shots, but in this episode it feels like their incompetency is amplified to the point of parody and, of course, plot armors. Scout troopers - which is supposed to be snipers - can't shoot droid right in front of their eyes. Instead of coming in squads, troopers only come individually (incinerators burning the building, a few troopers slaughtered by the blacksmith, a few others guarding the tunnel, and the most stupid of all, Moff Gideon waiting for nightfall just for no reason) which makes for a convenient plot armors for our heroes to trek on their way.
Of course, there are casualties - what is a story without something seemingly at a stake? - but it is nothing more than devices to delay the heroes from their trek. Taking cues from Eowyn's "I am no man" of Lord of the Rings fame, in less than moment-defining fashion IG-11, which himself came as a sort of droid ex machina, said that it is no "living being" while resurrecting The Mando from fatal injuries, remedied every possible threat with its healing devices.
Antagonists can be dumb, but there is a limit to dumbness that can suspend audience's disbelief. This episode has antagonist almost feels like they are intentionally dumb and there is nothing really at a stake when everything can be easily remedied.
This episode is not the worst, certainly, as the action sequence is flashy and satisfying. The one near ending where The Mando utilizes a neat jet jump is clever and actually can show the extent Star Wars can be when the director wanted to think creatively beyond the force. Knights of the Old Republic and the aptly named Star Wars Bounty Hunter played with clever tricks similar to this once a while, and the trick doesn't feel cheap as they stand on a very good storytelling.
The Mandalorian's flashy action, regardless, seems to serve only as explicit fanservice - a style over substance.
There are plenty of action, which, by itself, is quite well-done. The consistently hardly imposing threats, unfortunately, dull down the possible thrill those scenes can offer - in a typical corny action heroes such as Gerard Butler's character in Has Fallen trilogy. The scene, for example, with The Blacksmith let us peek into the martial arts capability a Mandalorian can exhibit. But the rather plot armor of incompetent stormtroopers leave no stake at hand; the martial arts dexterity looks more like a cheap imitation of main trilogies of Jedi's acrobatic feats.
Redemption ultimately ends with nothing to be redeemed about, as the people in this show seems to be forever clumsy. From start to finish, everyone made questionable decisions. Nobody blasted the Mando's group with that large amount of stormtroopers. Nobody checked whether Moff Gideon is dead when the fighter was down (Gideon also miraculously survive the crash), with Carga, a supposedly veteran bounty hunter, lightheartedly saying they are already free of the Empire's grasp.
Everything people said in this episode, just like many episodes prior, are not crafted as if the actors were having human conversation. They were rushed by time - they seemingly appear to be set in motion by the plot's demands, to say X so Y happens; to say A when B moment happened.
This episode almost feels like a filler to conclude the dragging episodes this season has been. Screenwriting-wise, this whole season is nothing but bait-and-switch to justify next season(s).
There is much to be said about this kind of terrible business model, where series is written with nothing exactly in mind but to find reasons to continue producing the franchise - the same business model Disney has been using on their MCU franchise and Star Wars films/spinoffs - but the crowds of gladly willing moms awing for Baby Yoda and nerd dads geeking over Star Wars reference doesn't leave enough rooms for those commentaries.
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@xaliber You must be fun at parties. :yum:
definitely my favorite of the Christopher Reeves Superman movies I remember loving this movie when I was a kid because of all the action sequences involving the other kryptonians which was definitely a step up from the previous Superman film where there was no real villain to challenge him physically
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@sawyer189 Then why a 4 out of 10 ? Lol
#shortysquad
After the excellent episode Mr. Greg this was a real classic one. One gem learns something about herself and reveals a fact about Homeworld. I became a real Peridot-Fan while her transformation from an antagonist to a protagonist. This is for me the quintessence of SU, don't fight your enemies but make them your friends. Peridot is a tragic figure, like the Crystal Gems she gave up her initial ideology to fight Homeworld and still struggles with her new life and her decisions. But we can see all this in "realtime". Furthermore i hunger for every tidbit about Homeworld. Now we know, why Homeworld has this expansion drive: They need resources because HW itself runs out of them. We know already that the farming of Gems needs a lot of planetary resources and maybe even Homeworld is used up in this process. This subtle world building is another aspect what makes SU great.
In the episode itself i think i see a commentary on millennials and their connection to technology: As we know now, Peridot is an Era 2 Gem, who, because of the lack of resources, has not the ability to shape shift and therefore uses technological advancements. In the real world, baby boomers depleted more or less the resources of planet earth, ruined the economy and the now emerging generation, the so called millennials, are relying on technology instead of the old ways. Despite this technology being an integral part of the society, both at Homeworld and here, the older generation looks down on the younger for the extended use of it (like Amethyst trying to convince Peridot, that she doesn't need their tablet). In the end Peridot shows that she developed her own abilities, which are connected to her reliance on technology. I would be very interested if someone has a similar theory or another one.loading replies
@vanilla-chief Just wanted to take a quick moment to let you know that I love reading your thoughts on some of these things. In my opinion, your theory about this being a commentary on millenials and technology is spot on. It's the same vibe I also got when watching the episode. I look forward to spotting more of your commentary in the future.
Wow. Lyra steps through that portal and ages 18 months and none of the characters seem to realize that they have all aged 18 months as well.
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@strykar weird considering they filmed season 1 and 2 at the same time!
So this piece of shit gets a higher rating then The hunger games: Mockingjay part 2?
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Mockingjay part 2 is terrible
So this piece of shit gets a higher rating then The hunger games: Mockingjay part 2?
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Agreed, Mockingjay was a terrible movie.
