I have to go re-watch that DS9 episode now. (Luckily, it's one of the best ones.)

Haha, understood. :-)

If he'd pulled that "I was waiting for you" thing in a dark parking lot when I was on my way to my car after work, I'd have pepper-sprayed the shit out of him. Their meeting in the book, as well as Shadow himself, is so much more endearing. Don't we have enough cocky bros onscreen (and in real life?) In the book, I…

Dude, I agree with your point but I don't see why the Millennial-bashing is necessary, lol. I mean, what won't people lay at our feet? I don't even know what we're being blamed for in this case. Changing the meanings of words? Destroying marital fidelity?

She wasn't generic devoted girlfriend. It's heavily implied in the book that she's the one who put him up to the robbery (which was a bank, not a casino, but that's trivial) and that he did it for her. She had the upper hand in the relationship for sure and she was a pretty shitty wife and not the most upstanding…

Also, Shadow's personality is completely different. There's that. Ugh.

I agree with both of you. Laura was sketchy and vacant and there was real love between the two of them. Just because it wasn't a healthy relationship doesn't mean it wasn't a loving one. Plus, Laura also makes clear at one point that she was partly driven to the affair by how "vacant" Shadow can be. Shadow is passive,…

She's well-played by Browning but she's a bit stereotypical. She's nihilistic, she's semi-suicidal, hey I bet she likes it rough too! *eye roll* I'm fine with her backstory being expanded but I don't know that they made the best use of the opportunity. Still, I'm spending most of my pissiness on Shadow's…

Whose existence already demonstrates that magic exists in this world, so why should Tormund be fussed about resurrection on top of it?

I'll be the party pooper who is emphatically not happy with "brasher," "carefree" Shadow. I'm not an adaptation purist at all—the scenes between Laura and Audrey were entirely original and also the only part of this episode I really enjoyed. I don't object to major changes in characters if they offer an improvement.…

I wouldn't say that's bonus points. I'd say that's a necessity. You'd at least better not be explicitly another religion besides Christianity, especially Islam.

1) It also happens on a mass scale in non-Islamic societies.

They did a shitload of damage, yeah. And we haven't seen the end of it either.

Well, in this case, for almost everyone.

What I read is that they didn't want to essentially have "whites only" casting which meant that they had to sacrifice the "white only" society of the book.

Yeah, I'm confused by this too. I don't get in what way she's being white-washed. When I saw her, I identified her as a light-skinned Black woman and I haven't caught anything on the show that suggests that she's meant to seen otherwise.

I would assume it's much like ours is now. Ostensibly "meritocratic" but not actually, and conservative revolutionaries like the founders of Gilead wouldn't have any motivation to change that.

Well, there are a hell of a lot more bodyguards and sex slaves than there are commanders. Most of the society is composed of people who are subordinate in some way to a small ruling class. And really, why woudn't that small ruling class be almost all white? The conservative elite now is whiter than Wonderbread, and…

The men can afford to be more blase about it all. Their power is not in question and doesn't need to be guarded as jealously. And they don't need to prove themselves to anyone. They can afford to be nicer about being evil.

If they've maintained the backstory detail of Serena Joy having had a career of some kind (even if it's a little more up-to-date than televangelist), their relationship couldn't have helped being more equal. No matter what they believed about marriage and gender roles, no matter how much lip service they paid to him…