Here’s a thought: that scene was supposed to be confusing because Sally lives in a haze of alcoholic despair and PTSD. So writing and directing a scene where the audience is as disoriented and scared as Sally immerses us in the world of the show more fully and gives us more empathy for the characters of Sally and…

I think, weirdly, the best social commentary this show has done yet was Ken’s slowly recognizing and dreading the world he’s creating for his kids. It’s a classic, uniquely GOP trait: a total, biological resistance to empathy... until something happens to them personally. Whenever you hear any of these right win…

“I’m not a fascist in my heart. I’m just friends with fascists, financially and politically support them, and constantly repeat fascist things,” isn’t very convincing. Also, Roman supposedly calling out Joy wasn’t sincere. It is a common fascist tactic to call out hypocrisy as a way of avoiding criticism.

Someone needs to make a list of NoHo Hank’s malapropisms. Anthony Carrigan delivers them so confidently and nonchalantly that it would be easy to miss them (“place de resistance”).

I don’t even think Roman is really ideologically aligned with Mencken and his fascism. He said tonight words to the effect of “Nothing matters” after he said his dad was dead. The last few episodes he’s been spiraling in his grief. So in his nihilism, electing Mencken doesn’t matter. And it is a better chance of…

That’s the whole point. You’re totally allowed to dislike it (it’s not for everyone), but the tone seems to work for a lot of people. There’s a lot of appeal in how caustic it is. I also wouldn’t say that the characters are unsympathetic. They are totally terrible people, as illustrated by this most recent episode.…

I was just about to say this. ATN doesn’t actually control the election count, and they calling it early by mistake, before it’s revealed that Jimenez actually won, can set up the end of Waystar Royco and the end of the kids controlling the company. The share prices plummet and Mattson buys the whole thing for much…

Yup. It’s fucking gross. That script was also significantly more violent and Leon is a full-on sociopath. The “no women, no children” rule is still there but otherwise he doesn’t give a shit. Leon trains Mathilda by having her actually kill random people. The script opens with a variation of the rooftop sniper rifle…

Ugh, that fucking stage direction is just...ugh. I wonder at what point actually shooting it that way got nixed. Like did Portman actually see *that* or was it at least updated to the shot scene where he rejects her (which is ‘better’, but that’s the lowest of low bars) before she saw it. 

I wonder if she saw/remembers seeing those page and/or remembers filming that deleted scene. Because yikes.

good lord.  ewwwww

JFC.

Even Leon character finds it cringey, and that’s what saved it for me. He very specifically makes sure it never goes beyond platonic because he knows it’s wrong. Which is more than can be said for the director, a fact I only learned much later in life.

Cracked had a listicle years ago that included an entry about Leon. In the international cut, she tries to coax him into sex but he turns her down:

America is BIG. And in the Midwest a lot of it is flat. And obviously, that wasn’t shot on a soundstage. There are a non-zero number of residences that appear, if you frame it right, ‘in the middle of nowhere.’ But there’s also probably a paved road within a couple hundred yards, leading to a main thoroughfare a…

i think the reason we aren’t reacting that way is because we like it and think it’s good.

At the start of this episode, I was thinking maybe it was too much darkness without enough humor. Then Barry showed his son videos of kids dying in little league, and I just fucking lost it.

He talks about responsibility and thinking about others here to his son, but he’s just as selfishly monstrous sans the violence. He knows his wife and son are miserable, but, poignantly too, thinks this is the only way to curb his violent tendencies.

They’re in Hell. (You thought Kim Wexler had a rough go of it--meet Sally.) I’ve never rooted so hard for Barry to go back to being a hitman. He talks about responsibility and thinking about others here to his son, but he’s just as selfishly monstrous sans the violence. He knows his wife and son are miserable, but,…

“The doubling of characters and resetting identities through a filter of filth and decay evokes Twin Peaks’ final episode”