The second-person narrative in the early going was hard for me to get a handle on at first, too, but a) there is a reason for it and b) that reason is pretty satisfying if you stick with it long enough for it to be revealed. (It didn’t hurt that I knew going in that all three books of the trilogy won the Hugo, an…

I’ve been mulling over a particular question Nate asked (“Why would anybody wish to be a sidekick?”) and I think I’ve got an answer.

Gary is desperate to be included, but he’s also got low self-esteem and a streak of, if not cowardice, then certainly risk aversion at his core. When you think about it, “sidekick” is the…

Plus, it’s literally the only thing they know about him besides his name, because this audition was dropped in their lap by a distracted but powerful executive. Which makes me wonder how much time Hollywood casting teams have to devote to indulging the whims of suits with more money than sense, who want to seem like…

Let me just state right up front that I HATE Oasis and I LOATHE “Wonderwall”, and the kind of schmaltzy vocal-led pop/soul that many contemporary shows feature in their designated Act IV Emotional Moments often nauseates me. But Maze’s version was really, really good. It made me think there’s a point to that song…

Just waiting for a biologist to yell THAT IS NOT HOW PHOTOSYNTHESIS WORKS GOOD DAY so I don’t have to. By the time the sunlight gets into the plants it’s sugar or whatever the plant equivalent is, right? And we already saw Alex charging her up with sun lamps to help her get over the Kryptonite poisoning back at the…

Am I a bad person for thinking cold, emotionless Brainiac-5 is about 500% more interesting than the ersatz Spock we’ve been getting from Jesse Rath so far? I haven’t quite been able to put my finger on what has bothered me so much about his performance, but having him finally drop the vocal equivalent of having one…

Another theme that Veep has pushed (and achieved a brilliant, subtle resolution here) is that for all their chest-pounding about the press being the guardians of freedom and the keepers of the public interest, political journalism as practiced at the highest levels is ultimately just a species of celebrity-watching,…

It’s kind of amazing how he keeps topping his previous instances of going over the top as Uncle Jeff.  By the end he’s making his role as X the Executioner on Harvey Birdman look centered and restrained.

The other big plot head-fake in this episode: I was pretty certain that Remiel was going to either defeat Amenadiel in their fight or distract him long enough to resume the hunt for angel-baby — then run smack-dab into Maze, who would get to demonstrate her value as slightly-to-moderately psychotic protector to the…

See, but that’s how they getcha! I was dead certain that the little girl in Game of Thrones (not Lady Mormont, the wildling girl who wanted to fight the wights but was persuaded to go to the crypt to “protect everyone”) was going to die when closed captioning informed me that her name was Teela, even though it wasn’t…

I think one of the strongest things about this season of Lucifer overall is that, aside from a couple of the murderers-of-the-week, nobody is really a mustache-twirling villain. Almost everybody has a valid point of view (or at least a valid complaint) and the carnage that they cause is largely a result of…

Re-opening the ring box after Linda closed it was just... <chef kiss>

That’s my cue to remind everyone of a little film called Game of Death!

My head-canon for why Cecile didn’t figure out that Joe was hanging by a thread until he told her is that he was in a building full of a bunch of other people hanging by a thread, so he probably melted into the mental background noise.

Ooeuf, that was a rough one.

It sort of depends on where you focus your attention; to me, Priest is a heavy metal band that also wrote some “crossover” hard rock songs early in their career — in fact, their original drummer quit over the decision to move away from the more esoteric material on their first couple releases. Also, Rob Halford is…

To be honest, I have actually come around on Catherine in recent weeks, and am a little ashamed to admit that her finally adopting a somewhat fetching hairstyle played a role in that.

Murman is the name of the Ukrainian (?) kleptocrat running interference for Selina; he’s the one who bought the team, so the team probably made him a jersey to be presented for the obligatory photo.

True, but the current Commander-in-Chief is no friend to Selina and would certainly slow-walk any diplomatic incident until she’d lost the election.  Imagine Trump being told he has to deploy the military to rescue Hillary Clinton from being delivered to the ICC. Oh, they’d get there eventually, I’m sure, after every…