hey, thanks! that’s very sweet, I feel commenting forces me to think about things lol, it’s my own process of processing what I watch.

We figured that the whole girl’s overnight in Noto was something Cam and Daphne cooked up to allow Cam additional one-on-one time to coerce Ethan on the investments. Dom smoldering over the boys scooping up on his previous night’s “dates” was also a bit concerning - lots of candidates to become “the body”.

I honestly think the show is highlighting how all this gender-essentialist talk is used in self-serving ways, with ulterior motives. Cameron and Daphne need to make their pattern into something universal - to rope in the other couple for whatever scam they’re planning, or maybe just to feel better about themselves.…

Portia clearly is indifferent to Albie. She couldn’t be less attracted to him, really. And he does make her uncomfortable. With so many women around, it makes no sense that he is so set on her. Maybe he sees her as this more vulnerable or “girl next door” type that he thinks suits him more. Meh, I’m not buying it

I agree that Albie and Portia’s stories are interesting, but I do think Portia does want that more aggressive, take-charge kind of guy. The first three episodes have seen Portia demand from the outset some casual sex—a romantic vacation tryst—and end up becoming an appendage of a man who she clearly finds increasingly…

I think Albie and Portia are interesting only in that Albie believes he is acting differently because he is using different language. Regardless, he is still constantly calculating how to have sex with Portia even if its in a more politically correct way.

I think Daphne flips the loneliness of men argument around though when she describes the psychopaths her husband works with (and mitigates her husbands own dangerous tendencies). Men have created this predatory structure and any sense of loneliness is ultimately their creation, the women need to move in herds to…

Daphne really trying to convince herself that she does what she wants felt painful. And maybe to some degree she does, but it comes at a cost to the self aware Daphne vs the performance she has to put on for her husband. 

I’m going to say off the bat that I’ve had students write absolutely incredible essays arguing both sides of this question, which I think is absolutely the point of the ending—it contains hopeful elements but at the same time suggests (without outright saying) that hope is illusory. My take on the ending is that it…

I think the latter, considering Ed Tom’s position by the end of the novel. He’s been beaten down by a world of cruelty he no longer understands. He held on long past when he could have retired, holding out hope that what he was doing mattered, that he was trying to save people and do good...only to ultimately resign…

Is the ending about holding on to the brief flickers of hope that we glimpse during our darkest hours, or is it about how that hope is an illusion, a fleeting dream that ceases to exist as soon as we wake in this harsh reality?

“And then I woke up.”

The Tommy Lee Jones bookends have always stuck with me. I’ve tried to be an optimist and lean toward there always being hope but there is this nagging feeling that the only hope we have is while dreaming.

Could be both, I suppose.

No Country for Old Men is a masterpiece, and the gas station scene in the clip above may be my favorite from the movie. But I do want to ask a question about the ending, and hopefully get some responses from the commentariat here:

Nice Rolax, looks better than my Rulex.

The real sign that Rolex pricing is coming down in any significant way, will be the ability to walk into a Rolex store and buy a Rolex

That has not been possible for a long time

They both lost control of their dragons. Luke’s shot at Vhagar even if Luke didn’t issue the command, so Vhagar, old and cranky Vhagar, lost it and decided to go for the kill.

Both of them lost control of their dragons. When Arrax attacked Vhagar, you can hear both Lucerys and Aemond trying to get them back in control.
And when before Vhagar killed them you can hear Aemond trying to restrain Vhagar
Aemond is a bully but is not stupid. He didn’t want to kill Lucerys (at least in the show).…