I've actually been somewhat unhappy with the gender politics around Naomi, and can totally understand her frustration in recent episodes. She's by far the smartest, most competent person on the Roci, yet the men around her keep sidelining her. I was a more annoyed about this before she was shown to be increasingly…

Naomi for Speaker.

Yeah, I never got that. Someone told them it feeds off released energy, so…they try to nuke it? How stupid can you get? I actually thought that would be the twist earlier this season — they'd nuke it and then it would become greater and more terrifying than they could possibly imagine. I guess this is that twist times…

As someone who just binge-watched S1, I can confirm that's true. In retrospect, I might not have been too happy with how this played out as a full season of TV if I were watching in real time, but binge-watching helps the pacing issue a lot.

I don't know if anyone else ever experiences this, but when I read books or watch TV I can often guess the gender and ethnicity of the author/showrunner very quickly, based on which characters get the most focus and have the best internal lives. (There are some exceptions to this, like Rob Thomas's shows, though even…

> I get the impression that he's more or less aware that he doesn't really have a conscience the way other people do

I know exactly which point that hit me, which was the scene where everyone finds out that Holden logged the distress call, and Amos asks Naomi why she didn't tell him, and then answers himself, "Because you were afraid of me." Then gets up and leaves. That was one of the best character moments I've ever seen on TV —…

Yeah, people love watching cake-decorating shows, right? This is just decorating on Instagram. Seems fine.

To be honest I think it's the legacy of the Iraq war — that was our cult of the military moment, and it worked out badly enough that our conservatives had no choice but to turn isolationist. If anything like London happened here, especially with the murdered cop, there would be a big resurgence of heroic death…

I had never heard of this piece before and just Googled it: http://www.nybooks.com/arti…

The popcorn with kimchi powder is actually pretty good. (Hilariously, I really dislike their real-butter-and-Parmesan popcorn. I don't go to movie theaters for real butter and a reasonable amount of salt, dammit.)

I used to think the Marvel Civil War movies simplified things too much. "I wish they would represent the US government being taken over by Nazis as Nazi ideas infiltrating the thinking of otherwise normal people, not as actual Nazis taking over," I used to think. Back in the glorious days of 2015.

Wild Kratts! They're still on??

I've seen versions of an analysis floating around that part of the rural/urban political split is because rural living, by definition, makes you less dependent on others. In rural areas, cars are far more practical than mass transit, you need a gun because it takes quite a while for police to get to your house, you…

I've been thinking about this ever since I heard about Steve Bannon's obsession with Camp of the Saints. What is it about rich old white guys that makes them really into these obscure, terrible books?

Oh man, I'd love to get links to TVDW's greatest hits on this site.

Once I got nostalgic about my first-ever comment on this site, and went back and looked at that thread. This was a long time ago, pre-Disqus — I think I was commenting on first-season Glee, which would put it around 2009 or so. At the time, I recalled having been struck by how intelligent the comments were. When I…

The old brunch had lots of bitching and whining too, to be fair.

The Harriet Tubman thing is bugging me a bit as well, but Aisha Hinds has been used so well that it's working for me. Hopefully they keep that balance.

Ooh, Sam seems like a good bet. That'll be wrenching.