The Republic of California, after entering into free trade agreements with Canada, Mexico, the EU, Great Britain, Japan, Australian, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea, would be an unstoppable economic juggernaut and I would proudly burn my American passport for that vision.

“M*A*S*H* is the story of a man who’s constantly depressed because he saw a chicken die on a bus this one time”.
-Sammy B

It reminds me of the people who tuned into Lost’s last episode then hurriedly typed their reviews “I haven’t watched this for years and I tune in and I don’t understand anything!” 

Barsanti with a disingenuous, ill-informed, and just bad take; film at 11.

“That’s the problem, though: If the upcoming season finale is really good, you won’t be able to recommend it to someone who hasn’t seen at least one or two of the other episodes that set it up.”

He is the Marvel version of the Kristen Wiig SNL character who’s always saying “Don’t make me sing.” The dude loves to interfere. He solemnly swears it off like I do Oreos at the end of each package but both of us are tearing into another one next week. 

The only way you didn’t see this coming is a complete ignorance of the source material. The Watcher, for all his monologuing, is constantly interfering with events that he observes. The whole “I cannot, will not interfere” was basically a Chekov’s Gun line, of course he can and will.

But if every story is just part of the next story, why bother paying attention to any story at all?

I know I’ve read too many Star Trek novels when I had to pause the show twice to find out if Hysperia was the same planet from “Here There Be Dragons” and they were sneaking in a novel reference.

I was absolutely rolling at Rutherford shouting, "Did his kingdom come?!"

Also not-so-subtle: Billups is comfortable in his asexuality. Proud, even.

“... Which is exactly why my mom is always trying to trick me into having sex.”

But then, how come Daystrom Institute researchers like Bruce Maddox and Agnes Jurati have so much trouble creating sentient AIs of their own? You’d think with so many examples to study, it wouldn’t be so hard to figure out. Unless the problem is how to make one that isn’t megalomaniacal. (Evidently Noonien Soong had…

Of note, Billups’s mom was voiced by June Diane Raphael, who is great, but also the real life wife of Billups’s own Paul Scheer. Weirdly, this isn’t even the first time an actor’s spouse has played one of their character’s parents (Michael Burnham’s father was played by Sonequa Martin-Green’s husband Kenric).

Good episode .

Yes, that’s great! And considering how self-aware the show is, it has to be a subtle jab at how often that trope can crop up.

I just love that Evil Intelligent Computers are so commonplace there’s a whole section of the Daystrom Institute dedicated to storing them.

That, and he’s come a long way himself to be able to convincingly appear to Agimus like he’d turned on her in the first place, so the trust isn’t just a matter of him placing it back in her, but trust in himself to get the job done, like any good Starfleet officer.

The best part of the episode was, of course, Jeffrey Combs. The second best part was that in the evil computer master shot at the end, one of them has the CBS eye.

Seems like the lesson here is that Spirit Halloween is the one and only thing Jeff Bezos can’t kill.