Yeah, the New York setting really opened up some different possibilities for this show. The 400, political corruption, and Scott parts of the show are already making use of that, in addition to the across the street dynamic. But there is only so much you can do in one show, and so a lot of downstairs stuff might just…

I’m sticking with my working theory that back when Fellowes intended this as a Downton prequel, the downstairs part of the show was likely a much bigger focus. Then along the way to the current show, and thanks in part to some other producers getting involved, the focus shifted, not least to Peggy Scott and her…

People on the right sometimes have a similar complaint. I think by most objective measures of mobilization, EVERYONE got mobilized to relatively high degrees circa 2017. At this point I don’t necessarily think it is more on one side or the other, although I do think it varies by issue, and of course there is still a…

They are not patriots per se, they are post-moderns who are skeptical of reason, science, and so on, and instead see everything in terms of ideology and power dynamics.

And amazing how the Party of Lincoln . . . crap, I am too exhausted to complete that thought yet another time.

Yeah, I am also in the “because it wasn’t good” camp.

Yeah, I would stand by V.M. Varga as one of the most fascinating antagonists ever put on screen. He is such a fun bundle of contradictions and deconstructions of normal antagonist traits, but—for me at least—he works extremely well as an antagonist nonetheless. And this is one of those performances where I struggle to…

Yeah, that is a perfectly fair criticism of the overall unsatisfying construction of Season 4, and I agree East/West was in that sense adding to that overall problem.

And to be sure, in many ways Season 4 felt much more conventional than other Fargo up to that point, such that East/West is sort of discordant with the rest of the season. So while I liked the episode in isolation, I can see why it didn’t work for people in the context of the season. And even for me, it was sort of a…

Yeah, Jesse Buckley plays a nurse who is actually a serial killer is a fantastic elevator pitch.

Stranger Things I Want To Believe.

I don’t think there is any particular premise which really has them all that boxed in. I mean, it is a supernatural horror show, but they can keep mixing up the horror in question and tell whatever stories they want about how that horror intersects with the human characters.

If it is still well-done I am pretty sure it will still be a hit.

S2 is my favorite, and I liked S1 and S3 about the same.  So to me there was no consistent trend as of S3.

I sort of agree with the common sentiment that even a “bad” season of Fargo is better than most TV.

Yeah, Buckley is a gamer, but I thought this role really ended up wasting her talents to a large degree.

The twister episode (“East/West”) was by far my favorite.

I appear to have liked Season 3 more than some. Maybe I just like Carrie Coon, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and David Thewlis?

Yeah, I agree that the warehouse fight was pretty lame. All the main characters got their own boss battle, none were particularly tense, just all very standard/boring stuff.

So all investments in new expensive streaming shows are risky. And yes, investors are therefore necessarily prepared to take SOME risk, but their appetite for risk is not going to be unlimited. Indeed, there are all sorts of different risks they could take with their money by funding different projects. So it still…