I listened to a breakdown of the actual numbers on NPR, and they said the Saudis paid about $100 billion for arms deals during the Obama administration, and there’s only about $4 billion in deals currently. So, of course, Trump was bigly exaggerating the actual price for which he was willing to sell (more of) our…

I’ve thought this before, but the whole Khashoggi affair has brought the thought back into mind again...are we backing the wrong horse in this power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia? Iran obviously does awful stuff too, and it would be really hard to overcome the history between us and them, but I still kinda…

“He’s a vlogger and she’s a stay-at-home mom. They only have $800,000 to spend! How can Drew and Jonathon use their brotherly hijinks to get this very relatable middle-class couple into a new house? Tune in next week to find out!”

I woke up this morning still humming the “Winner Takes It All.” The more I think about it, the more I love that flashback cold open. It encapsulates everything about Chuck and Jimmy’s relationship.

Yeah, really we knew this moment was coming ever since Kennedy retired. Trump was always going to nominate a far-right asshole, and the Republicans in the Senate were always going to vote for him. We feel worse about it because Kavanaugh is an even bigger asshole than it first appeared, and there was a brief glimmer…

Yeah, the series as it stands is definitely centered on a male protagonist, but I do think somebody could re-work it relatively easily to have the female characters be more important to the main plot and less silly than in Jordan’s descriptions. It basically starts out by saying, “Suppose only women could be Jedi, and…

Yeah, with all the pieces they had set up—Werner being unreliable, Nacho caught between Lalo and Fring, and Kim and Jimmy back together, but in a dangerous way—I thought this episode (especially given the title) would be like one of those tour de force Breaking Bad episodes that paid off lots of development work and…

This was a good episode, but I feel like it was a little anti-climactic given my expectations based on the title and the extended run-time. 

This bugged me too. I didn’t want to mention it and come off as too pedantic, but then I figured that Chidi would want us to be sticklers for little things like this. I’m a philosophy professor in the US, and there’s basically zero chance that you could get a permanent, full-time position without a PhD. There’s also…

Not to get too far into politics, but this double episode was the perfect antidote to the other stuff I was watching on TV earlier in the evening--intelligent, funny, and relentlessly optimistic about the ability of flawed humans (and demons) to make themselves better. 

I was wondering about this with Matt Lauer too. There have been those news reports in the past couple weeks that he’s been letting his fans know that he has a comeback in the works, and I keep thinking, “Who the hell are the Matt Lauer fans really jonesing to see him back on the air?” I only knew him as the kinda…

Yeah, as a Steelers fan, I’ll be kind of happy when Ben retires. As far as we know, Mason Rudolph (if he is the heir apparent) isn’t as rapey, and it will make it easier to root for the team, even if they are worse. 

Yeah, I’m glad that we’re (hopefully) done with the Hand. To me, they never made sense as the villains in the more grounded series, unlike the Kingpin, Punisher, or Cottonmouth. It’s fine if Danny Rand wants to go fight mystical ninjas because of “reasons,” but I felt like it was a mistake to drag the other characters…

My bet is that there isn’t actually hard evidence that Trump personally conspired with Russia, hence his and his lawyers willingness to have him talk to Mueller about that one aspect. However, it seems very likely he has committed obstruction of justice to keep Mueller from getting his cronies and idiot family…

Unfortunately, Bunk doesn’t use those exact words, but he does convey a similar message in the first episode. 

I agree that he was good in Logan, but like some of the other actors mentioned, Holbrook just doesn’t strike me as leading man material. He was tolerable for me as the doofy, in-over-his-head gringo in Narcos because Pedro Pascal and Wagner Moura had charisma and screen presence to spare in their roles. Same thing in…

I appreciate the even-handed obituary for McCain. I’ve said it before, but maybe it bears repeating. Right now, everyone who supports basic human rights, the rule of law, and a democratic system of government (even if they do so imperfectly) is on the same team right now. Reading Levitsky and Ziblatt’s How Democracies…

That’s how I took it as well—she sees Mesa Verde’s president (or whatever he is) overreaching and knows that means trouble for her if that business goes away. Though, I do admit, her concern in that scene is still pretty ambiguous.

I know no one is likely to read this, but I just watched this film on a long flight yesterday and wanted to sort out my thoughts on it.

Is it just me, or is he looking more and more like H. Jon Benjamin?