I loved the hell out of that movie as a kid. “The chalice from the palace has the pellet with the poison, the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.”

Seconded. That was a cold splash of a reminder that this is still not the old AVC.

I’m sure they’ll give it to JAW for his side-splittingly hilarious comedic performance again.

Best Writings In A Comedy: The Bear, “Fishes,” written by Christopher Storer and Joanna Calo

I will remember your invaluable legal advice next time I shoot a gun at a condom.

He had no reason to believe the gun wouldn’t fire. It wasn’t supposed to be loaded with live ammunition, period. The responsibility for ensuring there was no live ammo on set and in the device designed as a lethal weapon that was in perfect mechanical condition fell to the AD and the armorer, not Baldwin. SAG-AFTRA…

I think plot took more of a beaten into unconsciousness with a tire iron and thrown into the trunk seat than a back set.

It felt like a Masterclass commercial.

Just imagine if the genders were reversed here and how it would look if people were this skeptical of a woman complaining about being assaulted physically and verbally.

Maybe this is a generational divide, but I assumed “written it down immediately” meant the Notes app on his phone. Because no, people don’t usually bring a pen and paper into a Portapotty these days.

I’m totally down for character driven, but you have to either learn somethings new, or be “hanging out.”

I feel like I saw a dish on the menu that had everything I wanted and liked, but the execution and plating was terrible; side dish was bland, main was slightly overcooked, etc. I like your metaphor as well. Or a prixe frite menu with five courses and it ranges from eh to excellent.

Your point about the creative team wanting to spend time with, and reward, real chefs...

oh my fucking god, it was insufferable. the big collage, then all the “real chefs” telling their stories... which i get was to be inspirational, but it felt so incredibly pretensious and smug. and *boring*

easy analogy or not, there were a lot of moments this season where I was wondering if that was what the producers were genuinely trying to do. Like some sort of conscious attempt at Prestige TV to parallel the fine dining in the show. 

this season reminded me of a mediocre, high priced tasting menu.

Agree. I am not fond of the recent decade’s over-emphasis on “plot above all” that creeped into critique and certainly online discourse (blame cinemasins).

This season, while enjoyable, was a step down from the previous two because its clear they were stalling to pad the episode count. There’s story content for one season here but they’ve stretched it out over season 3 and the upcoming season 4. I’m sure it was worth it financially, but creatively, it caused some issues.

Leveling up doesn’t do much in the DLC, it’s all balanced around the blessings you get from exploration that give you scaling damage buff and damage taken decrease. Seems like people at ~level 150 are having about the same amount of trouble as those who came in at ~300, assuming they’d properly leveled vigor to 50 or…

One of the ironies of The Difficulty Discourse is that Elden Ring is From Soft’s greatest game in large part because they made a handful of small compromises that resulted in a much less frustrating, hair-tearing experience while maintaining their overall design philosophy. The Stakes of Marika, sites of grace often…