The original ending is available as a DVD extra. It has McClane catching up to Simon some six months later in, I think, Switzerland.

Justifiably, I think. This season's shenanigans to one size, kickers have been making 40-50 yarders pretty reliably for over a decade. Seems crappy to essentially award the team that first makes it to their opponent's 35-yard line.

True. True.

If anything, Luke spends most of his time being maybe a little too mellow. Probably good for an invulnerable man with super strength, but it makes the sudden 'rage' narrative a pretty heavy lift.

Good point. If the handsome town doctor with greying temples starts talking about having seen a monster in the woods, the townsfolk are more likely to organize a search party than to think he's going senile. Social capital counts for a lot.

I'm pretty sure that was a deliberate choice. The First Order (terrible name) was supposed to be the JV squad that was a tenth the size of the old Empire so tried to make up with it with zeal and boot polish.

That's an interesting thought. It certainly would hew pretty closely to the show's blaxploitation roots.

I half agree: Cottonmouth was definitely a wannabe, but I don't think that made him a clown. He wanted to be Kingpin, essentially: feared and respected in all corners of the underworld.

It's so frustrating.

…Okay? Didn't think I was "sneaking" anything but plainly stating a preference fairly come by. But okay, if that's how it reads then that's not how it was meant.

You're doing a whole lot of projecting here, friend. I am not anyone's fanboy, nor am I "championing" anything or anyone.

The guy who wrote it was shot by goons in the pay of the mobster who was accused of corrupting half the police force in the first place.

Luke Cage takes place in the same temporal Never-Never Land as Archer, apparently, e.g. a limbo between 1970 and 2016.

For shows that operate with the cooperation with the NYPD, the Marvel/Netflix universe seems pretty happy to show every second cop as venal and corrupt, at least most of the time.

That seems like a deeply unkind reading of a pretty innocuous statement. OP is asserting that Shades is in many ways more intriguing at this point than the title character. I happen to agree.

It's true. The 'right' moment for the reaction comes and goes, and another hasn't arrived yet, then suddenly there's a squeal and a jump.

I always read that scene as Brimley having put the noose together before or during his infection.

Eh. I don't find the yellow helmets work with head-to-toe white. Ironically I thought we missed an opportunity to go full green, which would have looked striking. They might have deliberately avoided that due to last year's colour-blindness-related hilarities.

One of the great aspects of TPIR is that, apart from some changes in games and models (and one notable host changeover), it hasn't really changed since the late 1970s.

Yeah, that's hot.