Story-wise, I had Coop pegged as the ghost from the moment Murph first showed him the broken lander. What I was wondering through almost the whole film, though, is whether Coop had figured that out himself, before he left. His expression as he was closing the door to Murph's room for the final time (just as the last…

I agree. There's no way for Coop (or anyone else) to get back to the Gargantua system (or whatever the heck it was) without replicating the time-bending wormhole technology of the Future Space People. . .which even they were unable to develop until they had evolved into mysterious 5-dimensional entities akin to…

Actually, her boyfriend's planet wasn't the correct planet. Or at least not the only correct planet. Hathaway's boyfriend was Dr. Wolf, and although I don't remember the name of the Lazarus explorer on the plaque that Hathaway was standing over at the end, I do remember that it was definitely not Dr. Wolf. I think it…

There was an offhanded mention, when TARS was first introduced, about its status as a former military robot that had been donated to NASA by the Pentagon, because "this was what they could spare".

The walking monoliths were a great piece of visual design, but there's another shout-out to 2001 hidden in them: to some extent, the casually shitty way that the humans were willing to sacrifice them to accomplish mission goals (notwithstanding the pretty obvious fact that they were fully sentient) is a mirror image…

I completely understand how someone in Dr. Mann's position could have panicked and pressed the "thumbs-up" button on an uninhabitable rock just to get himself rescued, but I don't get why, once he was rescued, he couldn't have simply confessed his sins, apologized, and asked to be taken along for the rest of the…

They mentioned something about gestating the first 10 frozen human embryos using "equipment on the ship."

I don't remember God and Generals as a political movie. . . but it was certainly a tedious one, and a crushing letdown for those of us who were hoping for a worthy follow-up to The Killer Angels.

I know. What it called to mind to me, was the spirited despair (for lack of a better way to describe it) of Macbeth at the moment when he realizes that all the impossible conditions that would have to combine to bring him down are in fact all being neatly moved into place by the hand of fate, and that he's been doomed…

There have been many such suggestions. In her audience chamber, she made a point of hearing from the shepherd before letting the nobleman in, and then forced him to speak to her for himself rather than through his herald. Danaerys is very clear that she personally deserves to be in charge of (at a minimum) Westeros…

That didn't save Sean Bean. . .

Interesting question. Which of Kubrick's contemporaries would you have chosen to direct 2001 in his place? Alfred Hitchcock's version would have been compelling, but probably very similar to the one that exists. John Frankenheimer would have knocked it out of the park, but as a very different movie. . most likely an…

Ah. Thank you. I left my Mencken Chrestomathy at home.

To quote H.L. Mencken, "There comes a time in every man's life when he's consumed by the desire to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and start cutting throats."

Exactly. As another commenter pointed out, if something this lengthy was a hallucination, it would make sense only if the camera panned down at the end to show Don on the floor
having a heart attack. This makes me wonder about another bizarre incident, though, when Don pressed the button for the elevator and the doors…

"You know, Lou, I see two futures for you. You can devote your energies to a product that will cause untold death and suffering for millions; or you can burn this piece of crap and go sell some tobacco."

Based on the choreograhy, it also struck me as a possible shout-out to Ann Margaret's performance of Bye Bye Birdie from much earlier in the series.

He's also due to endure one final, vicious barb from Don (or the "Creatives") about "Scout's Honor." There's no way the writers are just going to let that thread go.

If this wasn't the last season, I'd half-expect the maniacal bully from Lucky Strike to bring him in house.

Lou isn't going to go peacefully, because he never does anything peacefully. At a minimum, we're owed a world-class shouting match between Lou and either Peggy or Don.