Also, even outside of its context, "Backseat Freestyle" is clearly satirizing rap braggadocio as much as engaging in it.

"I mean, the parking lot here. Not much to see. It is a different angle on the same parking lot we saw from the Hebrew school window. But if you imagine yourself a visitor, somebody who isn't familiar with these… autos and such… somebody still with a capacity for wonder… Someone with a fresh… perspective. That's what…

Me too. I love that Stuhlbarg's Fargo character is named Sy. It makes eminent sense.

Given how ubiquitous the cameras are and how rarely anyone reacts to them or recognizes Forrest as the Review guy, I've long wondered (probably since the first season finale) if the entire show and anyone directly connected to it is in Forrest's head, manifestations of his subconscious battling for his soul. That…

It's after nap time, what is he a farmer?

Does the AVClub even still review comedy specials? The haven't covered anything since Jen Kirkman and Jim Gaffigan in January. There have been half a dozen notable specials since then on Netflix, HBO and Comedy Central. If they skip Chappelle too then I guess that answers my question.

Is he supposed to be a good fighter, or just magically protected? He has a line in an earlier episode about how he can't lose a fight where the emphasis makes it sound less like a boast than like he literally cannot lose a fight for reasons that even he doesn't understand. But maybe it was just an awkward line reading.

Money: nature's trophy.

Joy may have lost me forever when she chastised Danny about how she has to live in the real world. Right, the "real world" of treating hundred million dollar payoffs like pocket change and organ harvesting for rich clients. This show has a class issue that's only exacerbated by thinking Danny's naive admonishments and…

Meanwhile it’s becoming clear that Ward isn’t the full-on villain his father is.

I was thinking Mason Verger.

That's my assumption. It would explain her enthusiasm for the creepy guy leering at her at the gym who, when finally making small talk, only talks about himself.

Haha my wife and I said the same thing.

When watching it in early 2016 I actually found The Hateful Eight oddly hopeful. My take was: Hateful Eight is an allegory about how neither side actually won the Civil War. (This may get rambly but bear with me.) Yes, the Union “won” because the nation stayed whole, which was Lincoln’s stated fundamental purpose for…

I like the Usual Suspects allusion. They walk through the wreckage and carnage of David's rescue mission to find one surviving but badly injured old man sputtering on about the devil with a human face. Followed by the reveal that our hero and our villain were one all along.

10% life-size cardboard cutouts, 90% gift shop.

Hit or miss overall but Michael Sheen and the entire segment leading into and out of his appearance were the highlight for me.

I assumed he was meant to be Philip Roth, though he was mentioned in an earlier episode so maybe not.

That was my thought too. We know the river water is poison. Combined with Lenny's combative interrogation (Will no one rid me of this troublesome nun?) someone finally got up the nerve to act.

Another possible reading: the characters didn't really care which country they were in and so failed to specify one. This was a public relations trip before anything else. And while the pope's speech was powerful it could also be read as condescending and highly oversimplified, the words of a man whose country and…