Ah, yes, the archenemy of legendary anti-hero CIAsshole.

“Hey—there’s nothing in the rules that says a drunk dog can’t drive a zamboni!”

My reaction exactly.  I hope the villain in the TV show is an evil Russian coach named Tito Smirnoff.

This was a strange episode. Like a lot of the show, it didn’t really work but there was just enough that I liked to keep me from totally giving up on it.

I don’t think the issue with a faithful adaptation is the number of episodes—I think it’s the budget. The first part of the story involves jumping between several characters in unrelated subplots, but those are the best parts of the book—ordinary people fending for themselves as their friends and families die,…

I’d give this episode a 3 out of 10. Interestingly I found the lack of Harold something I missed. I think him and Larry have been the only ones to come out of this with any kind of credit which is surprising given the talent of the cast involved.

I didn’t catch that discrepancy, but it did occur to me that Denzel’s character seemed more like a guy who was a teenager in the 1950s than a guy who was a teenager in the 1930s. Not just because of the music he listened to. His ex-colleagues had a “this guy would still be here in LA catching murderers if he hadn’t…

That was a strange choice. The idea’s supposed to be that Harold would probably survive with Nadine’s help, but she chooses not to help him. That might make sense with a broken leg, but it’s a bit tougher to recover from being impaled through the chest with a tree branch.

Yeah, given Trashcan Man’s role in the novel I don’t think The Kid adds much, either. To the extent Trashcan Man’s interesting it’s because he’s such a strange character, and you see how someone prone to obsession can be obsessively drawn to Flagg. But because Trash is so single-mindedly devoted to Flagg from the…

I’ve seen White Sands a couple of times—it was one of those movies I’d stumble across on HBO or Cinemax back in the day and end up watching all the way to the end (see also True Romance, Red Rock West). There’s no hardcore pornography in White Sands, but Mastrantonio and Willem Dafoe do have a sex scene in a shower…

I also think there’s something off about the performance. Nick comes off as a little aloof/brooding here, which isn’t how I remember the character in the book.

they keep trying to cram a huge, sprawling narrative with almost a dozen main characters into too small of a vessel.

This version of Trashcan Man probably couldn’t have worked at all, but definitely doesn’t work here. Like a lot of the characters he doesn’t get enough backstory, so he doesn’t register as anything more than a psycho whose clothing and behavior are designed (by the writers and the actor, not the character) for shock…

People who are deeply immersed in the fetish have begun icing each other’s cakes at 76ers games—that’s the only way they can feel anything anymore.

wtf are people lol

This New York Times story is pretty fun:

Ha.  I’ll have to swing by and at least consider ordering the bacon-stuffed pancakes the next time I’m out that way.

Cool--is the place still around?

It’s a shame they couldn’t film there. I’ve had family in/around Boulder most of my life so I’ve spent a decent amount of time in the area, and have some strong images in my head of what the Boulder stuff in The Stand is “supposed to” look like.

Yeah, I don’t hold that sort of thing against shows/movies that are trying to tell epic stories and don’t have tons of money, but I noticed a few times that they clearly aren’t in Boulder. I noticed the trees, too—the firs in the background when Nadine goes outside to look for Joe seemed off.