Finished the S2 finale tonight. God, this was a great season. Everything came together extremely well.
The final Judy/BJ exchange is the whole reason you get someone like Tim Baltz and put him front and center on your TV show.
āBJ, if we ever had a baby, do you promise youād still wanna fuck me even if my shit got played out by the kid?ā
āJudy, Iād love nothing more than to bang your played out mother pussy for the rest of my days.ā
āBJ, donāt you ever change ok? Just stay the kind giant nerd who thinks that heaven is a joke but will think different after he dies because the secret thing is everybody goes to heaven, even science guys.ā
partner and I absolutely annihilated this show in a single day when we found it in a canteen in the arid desert of CONTENT weāve found ourselves in (more commentary on the amount of consuming weāve been doing during covid than the quality/amount of stuff released dont get me wrong)
this show is about my paternal family, there are so many little details they get right in here itās wild, like the āfamily driving a fleet of themed carsā or the āfamily compoundā trope (my family has always used the term ācompoundā as well to describe the same thing) or the astounding lack of boundaries/awareness when talking about sex with family, if kelvin had become a Pro Wakeboarder I swear he would be my cousin
if thereās a miss here itās that these people are far too functional and clever, like, most of my family has trouble being in public in any capacity (not because of anxiety, just basic incompatibility with normal society), its basically a cult but the fear tactic is your delusions die at the gate at the end of the driveway (unless youāre in florida or missioning on the family yacht, or attending a Christian Retreat College or whatever)
judy is the absolute MVP character for me, her dialogue is the stuff of legends, and oh my god her grocery store freakout this season, just, chefs kiss
Please donāt consider this recommendation, but I want to at least draw peopleās attention to one of the weirdest shows Iāve ever seen, āThe Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window.ā
It is set up like a parody ofā¦ I guess like lifetime original movie psychological thriller type things? Something like this? But it only counts as a parody in the loosest definition of the word, as 98% of every episode plays like an entirely sincere attempt to create a wine mom murder mystery? There is about half of a joke in every episode, and that joke is usually just someone saying something three times, or some event repeating itself unnecessarily. Everything else is played totally straight, but itās just like the most cliched and mediocre possible version of that story.
I have no idea how it got made or why, but seeing that Will Ferrel was a producer on it does kind of help to explain it. Itās one of those things where the joke seems to have been primarily something enjoyed by the people making the show, and the fact that it exists as a show that was released to the public is kind of an afterthought. Like, the show itself isnāt funny, but the idea of making it must have been hilarious to someone?
remebering that time will ferrell and kristen wiig made a semi sincere lifetime movie and the plan was that it was supposed to just pop up on tv and spread organically and go viral by everyone trying to figure out what the deal even was and that was the point of it but lifetime decided to market it in advance so it didnāt exactly work
Oh yeah it is definitely mining the same vein as that. I think the fact that Kristen Bell is like, somewhat more believable as a dramatic actor is kind of what fucks it up though, weirdly? Itās very hard to look at anything Will Ferrel says and not find it at least a little funny, but TWITHATSFTGITW is so deadpan it just becomes extremely disorienting, and then they will drop something like the tragedy around which the story revolves is that her daughter was killed and eaten by someone named āMassacre Mikeā because her husband, an FBI forensic psychologist, brought her with him on ātake your daughter to work dayā and left her alone with Massacre Mike for 5 minutes
Winning Time is very much Adam Mckay at his most Adam Mckay. It does look absolutely great and the casting is fantastic but you really gotta be in the mood for constant fourth wall breaking. I do really like all of his weird infographic and animation gimmick stuff though. Also thereās a scene on the set of Airplane! and the actual Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams are just there looking functionally straight out of 2022 which no one but nerds will notice in the moment
i have not actually watched it, because now it is the uh opposite of ākeep circulating the tapesā, but the new kickstarter funded season of mst3k on their weird custom streaming thing seems bizarre. feels even lower budget than the original somehow. they can mostly no longer afford practical effects (even the door sequence is āanimatedā now) the theme song does not refer to a host because there are multiple hosts and multiple tom servos, crows, and gpcs (the character is called gpc now whichā¦fair enough). iām sure the actual movie stuff is probably fine as the netflix seasons or whatever but weird conceptually
Our Flag Means Death, starring my boi Rhys Darby, has been enjoyable so far. Iām a big sucker for good-natured Captain Taylor types, and swashbuckling piratry.
Its a little try hardy. The actual story of the clueless gentry turned pirate is amazing, and naturally hilarious and I feel like treatment is pretty poor but could be a lot worse. Im kinda sad Black Beard is being used as a through-line villain. Black Beard, ship-less, talked Stege into hiring him to act in an advisory role but Black Beard began slowly taking over the operation. Iām not sure it was clear that Black Beard was Black Beard right away. The sissy boy bullying jokes were hard to sit through.
The reading everyone bed time stories and paying everyone a wage was real though as was his reliance on his quarter master to figure out what a pirate do, how a ship go and to keep the sailors from killing him.
Iām pretty forgiving of it for having such a fun concept and good casting, but it isnāt particularly funny so far. The Black Beard arc as you described wouldāve been way better than what theyāre currently doing, and this is totally the place to slowly build up characters and mythos like that.
Kinda wish this wasnāt primarily a comedy, and rather, just had comedic characters in it. The anachronisms that pop up all the time situate this firmly in āmodernized comedy universeā and that sorta takes the teeth out of it. The whole thing with the natives felt like it was more concerned with making everyone likable than it was with telling any jokes.
Yeah Im just very in love with this particular jester on the stage of history. The native thing was awkward I wanted to mention it but didnt know what to say. Its very uhā¦ performative? but Its like severing a role. Pointing some things and contridictions out in a very short handed way. The show is overall well done like its fitting itself into molds and staying digestible in its medium while trying to work with this unusual source material.
The black beard arc I described is my understanding of the historical events as Ive digested them, that probably really happened.
This show is on my nerves but I keep thinking about it and wondering what happens next.
Anybody else watch Raised by Wolves? Itās absurd and kind of interesting at times. One thing I like about it is how characters change dramatically in their philosophies and behaviors. The alien planet has a bunch of made up rules to it that constantly test my patience and willingness to follow the plot. It follows a sort of dream logic and I am legitimately excited to see what happens next.
The constantly shifting rules and characters that you canāt quite pin down make the show exude uneasiness. Both S1 and S2 are terrifying at various points because thereās no way to guess whatās going on or whatās going to happen.
It looks cheap sometimes and meanders about but it stays pretty compelling, like right on the edge of nonsense.
I said it about S1 and I think itās still true: Iām not sure what direction the actors were given but they all have weird affects and quirks that make them feel alien. The robots continue to be in like the uncanny valley zone of human. And I love how Marcusās actor plays that character. Thereās always this look in his eyes that makes him feel unhinged but still cogent enough to be dangerous.
The acting is really entertaining. I am giddy whenever Father is in a scene. āSomeone has been messing around in Fatherās shed,ā is a line Iāve repeated several times because I couldnāt believe they put it in there.
