I was expecting this article to be an open goal given Whedon's always been a half-smart nerd with an overt fetish for physically powerful young women so I am surprised to take issue with it

In practice I'd rather say Roma than risk offence, but I don't think 'gypsy' is very commonly received as a slur by the community involved, many of whom self-apply it, and the controversy is largely people of the white mainstream trying to establish a break with old stereotypes. Also true of 'Indian' and 'Native…

He's rather portly to be Napoleon.

Season 2 was still lifted hard from existing neo-noir though. The cop stuff was largely patterned after James Ellroy and the Vaughn plot is taken almost beat-for-beat from The Long Good Friday, which is actually more frustrating as it's not well known enough to get the credit, and also it's much better.

There's a theory offered downpage that the boy looking for a kiss from the girl is to become Bob's original host. I can't feign particular confidence in this show's predictability or my understanding of its mythos, but that, or some version of it, links far better with the casting of the boy, the site of the event,…

Fuck that makes so much more sense than the weirdly prevalent "the Hispanic kid is Leland and the horror-bug conspiracy is Laura's gestation" theory.

A glimpse inside the mindset of animé fans, ladies and gentlemen

You watched an entire thing specifically linking Bob to WWII nuclear testing and your argument is still if you want to make an omelette you have to very slowly and messily crack open a couple of eggs.

Yes, initially I thought that having your skull slowly crushed in by a terrifying hobo apparition was bad, but then I realised it was all in the name of getting a mutant frog-cockroach to crawl itself inside a sleeping girl's mouth, and I decided that maybe I had been too swift to judge these guys.

AV Club seems to have missed out Uber's worldwide "Greyball" program for identifying government inspectors and secretly denying them rides so it can evade regulation. Although the article does mention it briefly.

You know I see people throwing around the word "murdered" a lot and I'd just like to stand up for pre-reform Bobby and say that he killed the guy in self-defence (and while briefly postponing Laura's death). During a drug deal, admittedly, but I think he dealt with it alongside all the other shit he'd rather not have…

Doctorow: "And although the newspapers called the shooting the Crime of the Century, Goldman knew it was only 1906 and there were ninety-four years to go".

Where the hell are the Leftovers cast? I'm supposed to believe they just disappeared?

No-one else thinks she was fraught with nerves while waiting to see if Adam would actually come back to her? If she offscreen scored drugs she's not going to go down the bar and order a seltzer, and while I can't rule out duelling pregnancies it would seem a little much to imply that loosely this late in the run.

I never liked early-season Charlie and always found Marnie shallow and irritating so the writers basically reshaping her characterisation around that as to someone who is perpetually getting dumped upon was perfectly satisfying to me. I still liked Panic In Central Park a lot, oddly, but even at the time it read like…

I don't think it's impossible for Hannah to step up to the plate, especially since the final season is likely going to be generous that way, but I kind of sympathise with Elijah's take if not his mode of expression. Her track record for managing her own life and/or committing to absolutely anyone or anything is…

QUITE POSSIBLY theeee most underrated and underexPOSED actoorrr of his calibre… *stage whisper* AND generation…

She seems to be undergoing a surreal and protracted identity crisis that involves her becoming a shill for a violent Turkish authoritarian for some reason, but hey, it's a fresh start.

This is what throws me every time I read the reverence around it from the US because surely every other country in the world just uses cane sugar by default (apart from Canada I guess?), and also all they're doing is using the previous recipe of a soda your country invented and then ruined because you vastly…

Waiter of colour.