#and then let it somehow force a brothers buddy comedy

[the-purple-possum]

When I say I really want a Jason adopts tim fic, I don't mean I want him to become a parent at 19 to a teen like 2-4 years younger than him, I want Jason to meet Tim and decide that he wants Tim on his side.

I want Jason to adopt Tim as his Robin, like he decides that he wants to recruit this 15 year old that is some how the smartest and snarkiest person in Gotham. I don't want infantilised tim, I want a sorta Nani and Lilo sibling dynamic, but with a smaller age gap.

Like sure, Jason sees his little brother as some sort of soggy kitten that he must protect, but also a Tim that is very capable of looking after himself.

I want Tim to look at Jason, see Bruce back when he first donned the Cape and traffic light colours. And then in true Tim fashion decide to fix him, B was being too over protective since Red Hood showed up anyways.

Like imagine, Jason meeting Tim instead by accident when he drops in on a drug trade. Tim says some quip that throws him off his game while fighting. Jason basically losing to a very deadly fifteen year old who's not slept in 29 hours, and he thinks 'f it, I like the kid'. Then trying to recruit him consistently until Tim goes 'why tf not'.

I want enemies to caretaker, but they both think they're the caretaker

[claygoestothemovies]

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Greg Berlanti’s FLY ME TO THE MOON had my theater cackling, myself included. Unfortunately, the rom part of this rom-com crashes on take off. Thankfully, this screenwriter (Rose Gilroy, based on a story by Keenan Flynn and Bill Kirstein) at least appears to know how a cat acts in real life, unlike another recent film.

The razor sharp caper follows Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson playing Don Draper if he was fast on his feet and had a sense of humor), a marketing genius who’s “encouraged” by a man working for Nixon (Woody Harrelson) to take on a job in Florida. What will she be marketing? Why, the moon, of course! America is deep in the Space Race, and NASA needs a social facelift if it’s any chance of succeeding. On the more technical side of making Apollo 11 happen is launch director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), and the last thing he needs is a smart and attractive woman making distractions, or something like that.

The big hook of the film is that in order to ensure that the moon landing goes off without a hitch to the American People and the world, they have to take measures to fake it. The comedy of all of this is hysterical. I haven’t laughed so much at a con since DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS. The jokes consistently land, and make fantastic use of Tricky Dick being in office. Scarlett Johansson is at the top of her game here, more films should let her be funny! Give us a ScarJo/Rachel McAdams buddy comedy, someone! Rose Byrne can come, too! Tatum is fine, and he handles the comedic elements satisfactorily. Harrelson and the rest of the supporting cast seem to be having a marvelous time, especially Jim Rash as the high strung director brought in to make the top secret film. Ray Romano also gives a warm turn as Henry Smalls, a fatherly figure working at NASA. A delightful black kitty is also featured. What a year for cats in cinema!

If this had just been a comedy, I would mostly give it top marks. Although I would definitely deduct points for that inexcusable runtime, no comedy - romantic or otherwise - needs to be 132 minutes long. But it’s not just a comedy. It’s a romantic comedy, and in that department, it somehow fails entirely. Everything about the romance, except for maybe the meet cute, feels so utterly forced I never bought in for a second. It’s the Sixties, I should be feeling Doris Day and Rock Hudson levels of sexual tension between these actors! Johansson could have chemistry with a napkin, yet Tatum seems like he could be her character’s brother; romantic sparks are not the vibe they give while sparring.

While overlong, and that could have been fixed by Nix(on)ing (sorry) the romantic plot, and my issues with the romantic aspects aside, I still had a great time with this one! I laughed a lot of that runtime, enjoyed some possibly revisionist history, and got to see ScarJo rocking period costumes and hair while making all the men around her look dumb. It’s not rocket science, but as far as popcorn entertainment goes, you could do a lot worse.

3.5/5

[popculturebuffet]

Toons for Our Times: The Casagrandes: Four Course Catchup

A

I take some time to catch up with everyone’s faviorite mexican-american family with a four course meal of shenanigans. 

Mexican Makeover: The thorny issue of racial identity erasure is handled via a lot of costumes, spicy food and a second Sergio, which suprisingly isn’t my own personal hell. Then again giving rusty a brother wasn’t either so there’s a precident.  Uptown Funk: Carl goes full Zach Morris, minus the white privlage, and marries Adelaide to get a free train ride, then let’s his hallucinations talk him into nearly killing everyone. At least the Leprechaun in the sandbox isn’t telling him to burn things anymore.  Bo-Bo Business: Hector won’t respect Bobby’s genius new ideas so Bobby sets shop at the near by hong’s market and procedes to nearly get murdered by bunnies. Dear god Anya was right.  Blunder Party: Ronnie Anne and Sid host their first event as a couple, a sleepover campout on the roof with their running crew. Adilade and Carl crash it causing their sibling and cousin to send the two on a dangerous scavenger hunt. As you do.  Context for what’s going on the page image under the cut. 

So yeah I originally wasn’t going to add the Casagrandes to regular coverage.... but what can I say. I had way more to talk about with the recent crop of episodes than I thought, the show often airs with loud house so it increases my coverage output and most importantly.. i’ts just damn good. While still having some kinks to work out, like forgetting to use CJ, the show is just really charming and uses i’ts premise well. So yeah when the show, at least according to the wiki, so expect full coverage of both this years halloween special and the show in full when it comes back in november... and with bobby being hypnotized into thinking he’s a cat apparently.. so yeah i’d be watching anyway, so why not go all in.  .So with that out of the way we’ve got a lot of ground to cover so, Golpeteo de pitter, which is spanish for pitter patter... maybe. If google translate mangled that I apologize. 

Mexican Makeover: 

Like with our last bit of loud house coverage, we start with the least of the episodes first. That being said this one isn’t TERRIBLE, just a waste of a good concept and something intresting to explore. It’s also a real shame given this episode is written by Lalo Alcaraz, the writer of the comic strip La Cucaracha who works as a consultant on the show and previously wrote my favorite episode of the season, Croaked!, which we’ll be talking about soon. But he seems like a great guy, but everyone dosen’t bat a thousand.  This episode centers around Rosa, whose mother Mama Lupe, and her parrot sidekick Paco, coming to visit. Paco is a recolor of sergio which actually explains a LOT honestly, as I now feel Sergio is the Quaks to Paco’s Squaks. 

As in the crappy recolor who dosen’t have as many skills. As you can tell I don’t like Sergio much. He’s annoying, not very funny and only rarely has his moments and also spent one episode constnatly being obnoxious to Bobby, who as we’ve discussed and will soon discuss some more, is my boy. My precious baby boy. So bullying him is the equilvent of slapping me with a dueling glove. So yeah Paco is better than Sergio, being more laid back, less obnoxious.. and voiced by, of all people, legendary cartonist and the namesake of the parrot sergio, Sergio Aragones. I grew up with the guy in middle and high school as he frequently, and I belivie still does, work for parody magazine MAD Magazine, and while I haven’t read it also did 80′s indie comic Groo the Wanderer with Mark Evainer of Garfield and Friends Fame. The guy’s really damn funny and it was a real treat to find out he’s involved here, especailly since the namesakes for the loud pets have all sadly passed, so it’s nice at least one pet namesake between shows gets to guest star.  But my fanboying aside, Rosa is worried she hasn’t been making her family Mexican enough and thus goes a bit absolutley nuts. She steals the kids clothes and replaces them with various traditional mexican outfits, which is a bit psycotic, and gives us a shot of carl’s ass when he compalins about his underwear being replaced, which...

Yes thank you wayne. I’m sure even some of the 7 year old’s watching this don’t want to see a fellow 7 year old’s butt. Stop that. There’s a reason the parent show stopped the gag of having Lincoln in his underwear all the time and it wasn’t just because only chris savino thought it was funny. It’s especially creepy given after Savino’s sexual harassment, John K���s reveal of being a pedophile and whatever Dan Schinder did they refuse to talk about to the public but has ciruclated around, you TIHNK the’yd be more congizant of not showing borderline child porn. I mean it’s one thing to have a kid in underpants for a gag it’s another to have a close up of his butt. Just stop. Stop.  So the episode goes as you’d expect, Rosa keeps pushing things harder without explaining herself, including trying to force the kids to speak in spanish, feeding them extra spicy food and againt eh whole replacing their clothes thing.. which\ do look nice though and we do get that blessed image of bobby up top. The kids eventually confront Rosa who reveals she just dosent’ want to give her mom a heart attack, they go along with it with Sergio feeding ronnie anne spanish, which is nice continuity as her not knowing i’ts come up before, and everyone putting on a show.. which goes horribly wrong with super spicy food understandably not being built for a 80-100 year old woman, and while i’ts nice Bobby’s buddy par, we’ll cover their episode at some point too, shows up he also heavy metals so hard it knocks her over and destroys the painting, which yeah of course. Rosa comes clean and Lupe.. is entirely fine with it and feels that culture is more in values than in what you know about it, though she will teach them a few things because knowing where you came from is still important. Also Paco returns and.. why coudln’t both he and Lupe stay. For all my issues with the episode besides Carl’s butt shot, which we’ll get to in a second, I do really like Lupe and Paco is better than sergio in every way shape and form apart from the name. just color him read and have him smother sergio in his sleep and we’re up a better parot. 

Final Thoughts for Mexican Makeover:  This one was eh. I saved my thoughts on the main plot for here because it IS a topic worth talking about: loss of cultural idetntity,  especailly for first or second generation, as our main kids and their parents are, kids, how to ballance the cultures, what really matters.. it’s all good, deep really senstiive topics that i’m in no way qulaified to entirley judge because i’m very much white and am not going to whitesplain topics that I have no personal experince with.  But I can at least say they could’ve done MORE with this. For one thing Maria was absent, and it would’ve been REALLY intresting to get her take on it since Croaked! established she didn’t really give Ronnie Anne at the very least much of a lesson in their heritage. You can’t really BLAME HER: She works a demanding job, ended up having to raise them alone, and is tired a lot. As I said i’ts a VERY complex topic that’s created some VERY brilliant works around the subject, and while i’m not asking for “Moonlight... for Kids!” I am asking you to explore something like this. How aclimated the kids are to white culture is a topic worth exploring and could’ve been a special and while yes I know, it probably would’ve been “A Very Special Episode”..sometimes you need to tackle complex topics for kids. The Proud Family was also a screwball comedy, but it tackled the civil rights movement, xenophobia and other heavy subjects from time to time.. it also thought music piracy was the root of all evil but as I said no one bats a thousand. And it wouldn’t lack jokes as Alcaraz’s career is in satire: He knows how to write jokes about heavily charged topics and be clever about it on the freaking comics page, and given The Casagrandes like it’s sister show is basically a comic strip in animated form, he has the right format tow ork with it just ultimately becomes instead the cliche “person is coming time to hide everything we’ve been doing plot”, which has never been that good and is even worse on top of a more interesting idea. I don’t expect the show to be super deep all the time but I expect better than broaching a clearly difficult subject and not really giving it any weight. 

Uptown Funk: Now we’re past the one I was eh on because I knew how it’d turn out, and somehow got even less on board as it wasted a good concept and good ideas, and to the one out of the four I was most pumped for. And of all things it was a CARL episode.  I passingly mentioned last time I didn’t like Carl, and that opinon’s started to change. I’m still not a huge fan, his voice is grating and he STILL hasn’t given  up on Lori seasons later after Clyde long has and the other show long regonized this was a bad idea. Buuut i’ve come to realize he has his moments, with Monster Cash, which i’ll cover very soon for Halloween Havoc, and this very episdoe which is utterly fantastic. Though part of that is also the supporting cast, who were the reason I was pumped.  I talked abotu the Changs Breifly in my Operation Dad review but since Adalaide and Stanley are more promenent here and Becca will be, if not in person, in Croaked!, i’ll gladly dive into them. The Changs are the Casagrandes next door neighbors and EASILY one of the best parts of the show. A lovely interacial nuclear family, the four are all really likeable and distinct. I’ve talked about Sid before, so we’ll save more of that for in a bit. Stanley her dorky dad voiced by Kim Jeong who works as the subway conductor for Great Lakes City. He’s just a treat, in both sense of hte word, and really sweet interacting with his daughter and has a tendency to make small apperances due to Ronnie Anne and Sid riding the subway wherever they need to go. As i’ve said it’s nice to see Ken Jeong get to play a goofy, normal-ish dad and be funny without having to either play an over the top lunatic, weirdo or asshole. I love community but Chang could be a lot but this Chang is alright.. and probably dosen’t speak to his community college student brother that often for his family’s saftey. He does have Rabi Chang, his other brother over a lot though. Look if Teen Titans go can be jammed into the same multiverse as ok ko and steven universe, this show can take place in the same unvierse as community. 

Becca is stan’s wife and the head zookeeper at the zoo as well as the runner of their various shows, voiced by melissa joan hart and while not around as mcuh as her husband, is still a delight and it’s a delight to have clarissa back. Also together with her husband they make one hell of a couple to get sandiwthced between.. and no shame there, and yes i’m aware they have kids, i’d be happy to help raise them. I”m no asshole. 

Anyways speaking of those kids, we lastly have Adalaide, the star of this show and an adorable 6 year old and as Sid calls her “A sass bucket” which is accurate both for 6 year olds in general, and for this one, though like most kids her age she flips from being adorable to entirely blunt when warranted. She also has a Frog, named Froggy II. We’ll get into what happened to Froggy I and how she met Froggy II in October. 

So yeah two of my faviorite side characters, I consider sid main, PLUS one of my other faviorites Vito in a supporting roll. What’s not to love? As for the plot Carl brushes off Adalaide, because he’s a little jerk festival, but changes his tune when he overhears Stanley offering to have Adilaide join him on the train even see the control. Carl being a fanboy for trains among many other things which I shall list now: Things Carl’s a Fanboy For: 1. Money 2. Petty Schemes 3. Zack Morris 4. The Ladies 5. AC Slater 6. Luchadores 7. Trains. 

He naturally has his eyes light up like a christler buliding and given numbers 2 and 3 on the list quickly comes up with a scheme to get that train ride, since Stanely offered her a plus one. Granted he could’ve PROBABLY just asked Stanley for a ride and being the upstanding guy he is, and given Carl’s also a train nerd and stanley is their king, he would’ve said yes, but this is the same boy who thought his adult cousin’s same aged girlfriend would want to go out with him when said girlfriend lives in a house with at least 3 girls close to his age instead she could set him up with. The boy is more of a short term planner, like most schemers in fiction really, he sees the dollar signs like eddy from ed edd n eddy and has some good ideas, but not the more obvious solutions that aren’t as scheme based around him. I swear if this kid didn’t have a moral center this would be him in 50 years

I mean the only reason the boy hasn’t used sharks or explosives is because his parents and grandparents won’t’t let him.

Anyways Addie is skepteical for about 5 seconds and my one real complaint about the episode is it felt like she was genuinely skeptical, and playing him slightly with their games.. but it turns out nope she just genuinely bought it. But as smart as she is she’s also only 6, and her being adorably trusting works just as well.  So they play games. They have a tea party, with carl wearing a truly glorious peacock that I guarnatee sid has worn both for playing with her sister and just to feel fancy. They then play with Froggy.. which gets uncomfotable as Adaladie forces Carl to kiss him, and then basically goes full on “NOW KISS” when it fails to turn froggy into a prince and Froggy runs because he wisely dosen’t want to make out with Carl, and is omly passable and not disturbing instead because she’s 6 and dosen’t know better. They then play chase froggy, which Carl wins but gets flies thrown at him in hte process so does he really?  They get to their final game superheroes, with carly playing his faviorite el falcone.. but also being the hostage while Adalaide saves him because this is 2020, she don’t need to be no damsel in distress. And this to me is why the episode works.. Carl IS a huge jerk here, manipulating a younger child who just wants to be his friend to get a train ride he could’ve gotten just by asking her.. but he gets put through the ringer, and most of his “humilation” is stuff that isn’t that bad: Tea is alright, there’s no shame in wearing makeup or a veil, and being rescued by a woman is awesome. It’s just Carl’s own baby’s first toxic masuclinity that makes these situations minus kissing froggy uncomfortable, so it adds to it as Addy’s doing nothing wrong really and any pain on carl’s part is an accident on hers. She’s just an imaginatiee little lady and he’s jsut a jerk. But they pair well together his underserved ego with her adorablility and creativity and as we’ll see smarts. Part of the reason I was so excited is their one real scene togehter in monster cash, when Carl is throiwng everyon’es money back at them which is also the best bit of the episode and we’ll get to that when we cover it her response is a stern “Don’t you even dare” and he hands it back to her because you don’t mess with Addy. 

Addy then brings up pretend marriage and while Carl has his first , and probably not last, panic attack over comitment he does realilze this can be used and gets his train ride over it, with the two taking Froggy along as their baby. But being Carl, he’s not ready for marriage to a strong judge on the supreme court who makes him change the diapers and humilaties him in public, whcih i’d be more upset about if again he didn’t deserve it. We also have VITO! Local itallian, the Mercado’s best customer and Hector’s only friend. He also has his two winer dogs with him which.. yes. Just yes. And they have matching hats and sweaters because Vito is the best.  Hedecides to toss froggy and book it for the train car. Adalaide realizes she’s been played and is understandably pissed but sadly, needing to find her friend her husband threw, dosen’t storm into Stanley’s conductor car and throw him off the train.

Instead Carl geeks out with Stanley over the train, which means he probably is meant to marry into this family, and Stanley’s glart awards. When Stanley’s called away to deal with the frog fracas, Carl is left told not to touch anything. So the obvious happens.. Carl hallunciates a bunch of pre school level choo choos who tell him to press the button. I love .. everything about this. It’s just pure hilarity and insanity and I’m here for it and a really creative, and insane gag and a nice take on the shoulder devil trope. 

Naturally Carl, being Carl, presses the big button which turns on the ac and then blasts Stan’s train mix. Which sadly isn’t just this over and over and over and over again. 

With Carl possibly banned from trains for life he naturally turns to his wife for help, who is none to happy with his bullshit, and not willing to help him because why would she? But Carl.. genuinely apologizes. It’s why I mentioned he has a moral center. Unlike say Zack morris 80% of hte time or Eddy from Ed Edd N Eddy at his worst, Carl can FEEL human emotions like guilt, and while he does need Addy’s help to not get in massive trouble, you can tell he genuinely feels bad about hurting her and is only asking because she’s his only hope and for the sake of the various passengers who if she dosen’t step in will go off the rails on a crazy train, she agrees.  Turns out though Addy is pretty badass on top of being adorable, and uses Froggy II as a grappling hook, then turns out to have inherited her dad’s knowledge of trains, which was foreshadowed earlier as she said she’s gone with him a lot and was bored at his offer and won two time junior glart awards.. which given that likely includes teens and tweens, is Valeria Richards levels of acomplished. God damn kid. Kudos. Stanley gets understandably mad at carl But Addy covers for him and since she saved her dad’s awards, Carl can live.. and come back sometimes. Carl, first through his action figure then himself apologizes for being a jerk toa ddy and manipulating her.. a genuine one that shows he means it and finds she’s pretty cool. Gues this marriage CAN be saved. And so we end this episode as you’d expect. 

No.. for one thing i’td be leprechaun-train monstrosity. For another the happy couple team up as superheros and thwart froggy being hit by a train , who greatfully smooches carl who, having grown, takes it in stride. Happy end

Final Thoughts: I love this one. It was funny, intresting and had carl develop as a character while fleshing addy out and giving us some great stanley stuff. It made having a jerk as the protagnist here work and made me go from begrudgingly liking carl to actuallyl iking him. while he’s pretty terrible here he suffers for most of his actions and learns from it, and he and Adelade ahve a great dynamic that we thankfully do indeed see again this very marathon. But first. IT’S BOBBY TIME. 

Bo-Bo Buisness It’s my first episode starring Bobby on this blog and i’ts been TOO long and there will be more to come I promise. As i’ve made no secret of Bobby is my faviorite character here, and as you can tell that’s a tight race, and is just.. great here. The move to the city fleshed him out by giving him drive with his desire to run the mercado, franchise it, and go to buisness school to do all of it properly, while keeping his loveable sweetness, stupidity and relationship with Lori which has gone from deeply unhealthy to awwwwwwwww. 

So naturally I was on board for another Bobby Bonaza, and this one like most of his eps is pretty good: This time around it focuses on Bobby’s hard work ethic and youthful energy..and it leading him AWAY from the mercado.  Bobby tries setting up free wifi and a table like a cafe in the Mercado, but Hector flatly refuses and refuses anthing Bobby comes up with, citing his 30 years running the place sucessfully, while Bobby cites his less than a year of it and his book of ideas, though Hector refuses to budge. And what I like here is that while hector IS still the bad guy here, it’s not in a one dimensional “Jerk for the episode’ way this show’s sister episode tends to fall into. Or treating a character being a jerk like their the wronged party, or.. you get the idea. Point is hector has SOME points: He has run a small buisness in a huge city for 30 years, beating out gentrification, racisim, big buisness and other threats to run at thriving mercado, even with another market across the street. He also owns a sizeable apartment with room for two diffrent families, 5 adults, 6 kids, a dog and an asshole, and his wife is super for the building as a whole. He’s done MARVELOUSLY for himself and deserves to be proud and his stubborness likely comes from just how much he’s been able to acomplish while others fell around him.  However.. Bobby is still sympathetic. It’s very clear working here is his dream job: His plan for his life is to expland the place into a franchise and run it himself one day, he’s the clear sucessor and Hector wont’ be around forever.. probably for a LONNNG time still, and his ghost will probably haunt the place with Rosa’s scolding him, but since ghosts can’t own property probably, someone has to take over. Bobby is his clear sucessor and his ideas aren’t bad.. poorly exceuted in this case, but not bad. As we’ll see in a bit the table idea can work, bobby just didn’t think it through and Hector could’ve HELPED HIM with it and as we’ll see most of the ideas Bobby ends up doing elsehwere are just common sense for this day and age and the one that isn’t is the one that does him in. But Hector, likely seeing any change as a threat to his bottom line and his legacy, rejects him out of hand. H’es likely scared that his protege can do BETTER, or worried that one wrong move could cost him his life’s work. I also find this ironic since a few episodes ago, though I still need to see it, Bobby himself had the same problem letting go and letting someone else control the buisness with his sister and cousins running the place while he had his anniversary with Lori. Bobby DESERVES to be given his shot.. and so when he decides to quit the mercado in a huff and take his table and his ideas with him.. you agree with him. Sure he’s leaving the family legacy.. but if Hector wont let him make it his own or appricate how much fucking work he does or love he has for the place, then what legacy is there? That got heavy. We get a great joke next as bobby makes a metaphor about the dinosaurs.. then wonders what happened to them and like me on any given day stops to google it.. and since he uses a laptop unlike me and my desktop computer or phone, and his table, he inadveratly sets up a table outside.. which fixes the problems with his idea, if by accident and impresses Mr.Hong the owner of a nearbye market who could use a fresh faced go getter like bobby and hires him right on sight and agrees to start putting his ideas in. 

And the wifi table.. is a huge sucess and putting it outside gave the customers more room, so it fixes the one flaw in his plan, and serving out cafe and snacks I can’t prounounce or spell properly, bobby shows his idea WOULD have worked: instead of creating loiterers it simply gives customers like Vito, who pretty much lives at the Mercado anyway so why not, a place to sit, eat and check their email and stuff, and bobby’s a good enough salesman he can convince them to eat and given the mercado already has a customers only policy on toilets.. they could’ve just made the table purchase only, and once per hour, and their regulars would’ve lapepd it up. Hector refuses to accept this though and stews and drives sergio and carl away.. which yeah if you can out asshole Sergio, you may be the bad guy here.  The two feud over dinner to their family’s confusion, and to Rosa’s annoyance and dope slaps when she spills her hard worked on food over their petty sniping but bobby’ sstar continues to rise with a music video for hongs including that bit seen above, rapping and just.. whatever the fuck that video was it was the third best rap in nick history behind that “nnnnnnick” rap and this. 

So yeah with the comeerical, Hongs has tons of customers, and Hector stews more. However things can’t be good forever, as the last 4 years have proven they can be bad for an especially long time but good? Sadly no, as Bobby gets what he always wanted: The keys to the store.. maybe not the store he wanted but still and gets to run hongs solo.  Sadly though Bobby ends up fucking up, letting people bring their pets which wrecks the place, and ends up with bobby getting swarmed by an ever multiplying batch of bunnies. 

As Bobby is cuddled to death, his exact words, Hector finally relents and saves the boy from literally drowning, and the two get the rabbits out.. but well with social media and all that hong knows what happen and bobby’s fired. But back at the Mercado, Hector rehires bobby, and genuinely apologizes. I do feel it comes a bit quick.. but I guess after your grandson almost got bunnied to death, you rethink your life choices. Bobby admits he was in over his head while Hector genuinely admits Bobby has good ideas and he was being a stubborn jackass and decides he can use them after all. Starting with the commerical where the two perform a nice mexican song, the whole family adorably dresses up like various mercado items as seen at the veyr top and we also get this. 

Yes, yes to all of this. And we’re out.. for a moment then back in but you get it. 

Final Thoughts for Bo Bo Buisness: While not the best Bobby episode, that would be the one that introduces Par and again i’ll get to that one, this one is still pretty good. While I do feel Hector turns around a bit quick, otherwise it’s funny enough and has enough character stuff with bobbby, even if i’ts mostly just from knowing him in this series to work out. I”m not ANTI-nonsense episodes, I just don’t want them there when ther’es clearly a way heavier issue your steping around. This wasn’t the BEST the series has done comedy wise but it was fun enough. Alright one more...

Blunder Party: 

And we end on another pretty good one. And oddly for this show it’s the only Ronnie Anne focused one of the four. Usually she’s dead center but it seems the series is getting comfortable enough, much like it’s parent show, to ease out of focusing on just one character as the viewpoint and letting the others breathe. Still this was a good un and let’s talk about it. 

It’s Party Time and Ronnie and Sid are having a sleepover on the roof. Their first party of a couple.. i’m so proud of by baby gays.. or gabies as I call them. I mean.. yes i’m not subtle with my shipping but they act less like close friends and more like two tiny lebisan awww factories.  Anywho the whole crew’s here, which as with a lot of things this episode let’s talk about them: Casey, Nikki and Sameeer were introduced in a loud house I haven’t seen and naturally carried over to the show proper, showing up when Lincoln visted in an episode I will defintely cover at some point, and accepting Ronnie Anne wasn’t a born city kid. They have neat designs, are nicely diverse, and while lthey do need some fleshing out, given that like Lincoln’s own friend team squad they show up in a good chunk of ronnie anne episodes, we got time for that so we’re good. There’s also new addition Laird, the school’s own screech powers, and your standard awkward dork whose not that great. So yes even this group has a waste of a character, though he’s not AS bad as rusty or useless as Liam, just feeling a bit less essentail than Ronnie Anne’s running crew, who match her general vibne, and Sid whose her soulmate. 

But as the pizza arrives via Sergio, because he has to be useful at least once, our heroes soon find the party crashed by Great Lakes City’s newest power couple: Carl and Adelaide! Looking like their fucking team rocket. Seriously I had other options for this episode, including bobby sliding around on his back comically, so it says something just how great that iamge is and how fucking gloriously smug yet awesome they look. 

The two want to join and even outdo the big kids at stretcing and flinging pizza, but as many little siblings like myself know all too well, the big siblings don’t want you there. I can’t count the number of times I wanted to hang with my brothers friends, but he refused frome lementary all the way up to high school. It was maddening. SO I sympathize with them, but i’ve grown tor ealize grown up kids want to have their own time and fun so I sympathize with both parties: Carl and Addy just want pizza and games and to hang with the big kids and Ronnie Anne and Sid just want to host a party as a couple without watching their siblings. 

However Carl forces a compromise.. by using his special mood.. whining loudly and summoning Rosa.. whos eriously just.. teleports behind the kids. I thought only Lucy could do that in this unvierse. Respect. 

Rosa however is resonable. While she dosen’t want the kids to be excluded, and it’s understandable and nice of her: The kids just wan’t to feel included and Rosa is resonable enough to say they will have to leave eventually wehn it’s time for bed. A fair compromise. Also i’d wonder why Adelaide is here but I assume the Chang Parents had her come over there, which Rosa being the lovely person she is agreed to. I didn’t get into her above but I do like Rosa a lot as a character as she’s a resonable authority figure.. but liable to slip into her own foibles, and is kind and loving with her family if strong and strict when she needs to lower the boom. Mostly on Hector who i’m amazed survived last episode and getting his own grandson to leave in one piece. 

But yeah I mean I can only imagine what’s going on there...

Also  sex obviously, but since I obviously can’t and won’t show you that, have this video to jodeci’s freak n you instead and let your imagination fill the blanks if you want. 

I will use this song any time I can. Anyway, Sid being the peach she is tries to convince Ronnie anne all is not lost. Earlier she used a metaphor saying how they had all the perfect ingredents like a smore, and now adds pizzza.. which ot be fair a pizza smore, but using bagles or something sounds great, but pizza on a smore sounds like my own personal hell.. though Sid likes it so i’ll let it live.. for now. That’s also why Sergio is alive. FOr now. 

But even sid has a limit and the power couple soon break those: An attempted scary ghost story session goes bad as they break poor sameer by predicting eveyr story he has even the one the poor kid wings, and he and his prehinsile hair are sad. Cheer up kid at least you can probably go live on Krakoa at some point. Free health care, free housing, living on a giant  paradise. Good stuff.

The two then ruin an attempted dance party, which unlike the above which was just bad timing, this time their just obnoxious as addy wnats to ballet, and Carl wants to... put it to his butt whle playing fart noises. Okay for starters. 

Secondly if he wanted to do that he could’ve got a cd of Nickleback cheaper and no one would’ve noticed.. then again they might of thought the poor boy had Dihera.  Somehow this isn’t the last draw. Nikki, being a real one, holds a gross drink contest which carl spits out on the crowd.. which really WHAT DID YOU ALL EXPECT. This is how those things end. WIth spit up and fury. 

Anyways enough is enough, so our ambigiously gay duo hatch a plan and send the little kids on a scavanger hunt. So while the Ronnie’s Running Crew have fun, and spot bobby and his best buddy par and bobby flop on some mangos and slide around on mango juice all episode as a result, the dream team work on getting that list done. From getting one of Hector’s nosehairs to Mr. Nakamura’s faviorite sweatervest (which takes a while) , to Carlota’s diary they do it with flair. Of note is the two having to steal Sergio’s crackes.. and nearly getting murdeered by the parot who seriously looks like he’s about to skin a child.. thankfully when HE does a shining by crashing through the door, he just gets stuck so no child murder tonight. Horay! Well until Carlota finds out her diary missing then this happens. 

But things get dire when the kids think they see the smaller kids get stuck in par’s truck. Thankfully bobby knows where his best friend is at all times, because he’s consdierate and knows where he’s headed next, and the kids end up following him, while Sameer stays behind to distract with his hair puppets since Rosa wants to little ones to go to bed. 

Sid and Ronnie anne and co head to the dump , shenagins insue and they think they lost their sibling and cousin.. only to find them, the two having gotten a mango that looks like Vito and won.. and Sid and Ronnie apologizing and admitting their scam. In a nice bit though while Carl gets upset, Addy quickly points out they DID ruin their fun, and crash the party, and Carl begrudingly admits he’s wrong. Again, keep them married show. Carl needs Addy to keep him honest and Addy needs carl to hide the bodies of her enmies. They make a good pair, just like their big sis and cousin. 

Anyways, Ronnie Anne and Sid ask to have the kids for just a bit longer to repair them and again this is why I repsect Rosa. She finds out the kids disobeyed her or at least found a loophole but isn’t mad and gets both sides learned from it. Our kidlets get a giant ass smore for their heroic efforrts, Nikki returns Carlota’s diary in secret to avoid their deaths while Sergio is arrested for attempted murder of two minors. A good night all around. Bobby joins in to close out, which isn’t met with any resitance because who dosen’t love bobby, while Hector wakes up to the vito mango and wonders what happened to him.. okay apparently Vito’s been turned into a non-sapient piece of fruit before and I want details show.  Final Thoughts Finally: A pretty good one. Carly and Adleadie continue to prove to  a hell of a combo, whie the proven dream team of Sid and Ronnie Anne work well off their younger counterparts. It overall leads to a fun episode with lots of great gags.. and also bobby sliding around on his back comically like he’s a goddamn roomba and I am hear for it. Just overally really good stuff and a really fun plot. This really feels like stife of the party done right. Both sides screw up but make up instead of one just getting their way because protaganist. And overall this batch of episodes was really damn good and I look forward to watching the series reguarlly from now on. Until then, just one more day then this blog gets all spooky! SO stay tuned, stay safe and go team venture! Play us out nickleback! WAIT WHY DID i SAY THAT NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOO

[toddlazarski]

“The Terminal List”

The A.V. Club

“I’m not gonna tell you again. Stay off my list.”     

A meme-able bit of brute, reminiscent almost of Harrison Ford’s “get off my plane” from Air Force One, it’s the kind of guttural one-second trailer blip that makes a story’s audience targets and muscle and narrative ambition pretty evident. But it is leveled by Chris Pratt, played with an occasional thousand-yard stare so vacuous, so PTSD-soured it looks like he's either forgotten his lines or is taking a beat to consider how the winding paths of his varied career ended him here. Critic’s Choice comedy player, lovable character actor, Marvel lead, Warner animation lead, Hillsong church member, maybe not Hillsong member, he is “muddled,” he admits, and now Andy from Parks and Rec is the type that can recognize a hitman just by his wraparound shades. 

The Terminal List is peak dad prestige TV, a political thriller straight from the songbook of Tom Clancy, with the best-seller list trappings of Lee Child and others so capable of framing bloody revenge tales around characters with names you feel your voice drop an octave when speaking aloud: Jack Ryan, Jack Reacher. In this case we have James Reece, as penned by Jack Carr, a former Navy Seal himself, who holds the distinction that the FAA has mandated no domestic flight can takeoff without at least one middle-aged passenger reading one of his books. He writes muscularly about guys with muscles who call each other "brother" and refer to teammates as "my boys" and discuss objectives in terms like “this motherfucker is ours” and grow lush beards and pick each other up from the airport in Jeeps with lines like “don’t tell me you’re calling a fucking Uber” while a Butt Rock version of "Simple Man" tumbles from the car stereo. There are acronyms, oh so many acronyms — IED, SOP, QRF—tossed knowingly with practiced company man aplomb. If you are not a dad or a knowing dad isn't viewing beside you, it almost feels one might manifest on the couch there simply to explain how it is short for “Quick Reaction Force.”  

The archetypal flavor profiles are all here: patriotism, heroism, duty, fellowship, shirtless knife-and-gun fights. Also, there is summertime popcorn appeal, for us armchair schlubs to follow along, be a bit awe-inspired by those in a noble-ish trade, to pay witness to the high purpose of communal badassery. 

The action opens with a Seal Team Seven job gone awry. An ambush turns into a 15-minute bloodbath. Hurried whispers of “access points” and "trip wires" lead to a bloody cavalcade of yelling and grunts and fire and wounds and neon orange lines emanating from machine guns donned by men wearing tactical gear and night vision-type contraptions leftists will find themselves shaking their heads disapprovingly of, thinking, “our taxes pay for that?” 

By the end it all just looks like a lot to clean up. Postured explanations are levied at disbelieving superiors and investigators: "that's not how it went down." To kick it all off we get an opening verse from the bible. There is more than a hint of red state chest thump—a suspect is chided for drinking “light” beer, somehow there’s a Bryson DeChambeau cameo. Also in the mix are Taylor Kitsch as Ben, an incorrigible good-natured bad influence buddy we know is like a brother because he says “I am your brother.” And Constance Wu plays Katie, a war journalist who only cares about the truth. You know because she says, “all I care about is the truth.” Jeanne Tripplehorn is the Secretary of Defense, a whole cloth TV land politician, obvious because she speaks of "leaving things better than I found them." 

The List mostly pops with the nuance of an M-16. From the jump the feel is of a bloody, predictable, testosterone-charged romp making occasional detours toward melancholia. Afterall, following such an open there are funerals to tend to. And though he’s given chances to opt out, Reece stands there, stoic in shades and Navy formals, letting you know these lips don’t quiver. There is a deeply human story here, as he deals with memory confusion, untrustworthy flashbacks, general fuzziness, headaches. A doctor flippantly discusses concussion “repercussions” like the Seals were a late-80’s NFL team. Hints of sadness creep in, a bit of pathos, almost—we don’t really get a picture of who those guys in those caskets were, but, well, they were co-workers. It really feels like a relief when Pratt’s personality, that easy neighborly goof charm, briefly emerges with a bucatini joke halfway through the third episode. There are such moments, fleeting, off-ramps that might allow an approach to contemporary post-war literature like Nico Walker’s “Cherry,” with its dark absurdist poetry of military pursuit; or some vibes of the devastating portrait of PTSD in the 2018 film “Leave No Trace.”

But it’s really about the procedure of uncovering and the business of revenge. “Answers or blood?” as Ben says. It starts with a chemist outside of Aleppo, the Seals’ original target, and the first clue in Reece’s late-night brow-furrowed Google searches, operated while popping pills and bottles of beer. It’s hard not to picture Burt Macklin. But hunkered in his man-of-war cave in Coronado, the show and actor seem to fancy themselves a kind of True Detective (an aesthetic from which the opening credits borrow generously). There is a brooding but bent machismo, with such fist-clenched will it feels on the verge of a boxing movie training montage. Reece begins on his odyssey (“this is personal”), toward varying levels of military contract-type baddies, some with offices and lairs absurdly fit for a Bond villain. Here is an altruistic man on fire, with, yes, a unique set of skills, the kind who knows when “we need to get off the grid,” or how to keep your cell phone from acting as a tracking device, increasingly alone, further alienated. Carr seems to ask: who can you trust but your gun? Another acronym, LLTB, or, “Long Live The Brotherhood,” is engraved on one said piece, and you know most of what he is getting at. 

As we are confronted, if you can stand to look at all at the daily news, by a circle of abject cowardice and failure of men with guns, who stood pat and frozen and scared or indifferent to a opportunity for righteous duty, right there in front of them, there is a certain catharsis in viewing even fictional heroic violence. Reece packs his bags, his passports,checks a rifle for readiness, takes a pair of hand axes off the wall, and there is an expectant feel of pregame. It is a comfortable groove, a thinking man’s thriller, neither too thinky nor too thrilling. But damn if it doesn’t feel a bit invigorating to go down the dark hallways of this world of men of action, and think, yeah, this motherfucker is ours.  

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND – May 11 (Mother’s Day!)

Usually, the second week of May wouldn’t necessarily be a dumping zone, but you’d rarely find a big hit, because whatever movies open are usually going up against the second weekend of whatever big superhero movie is kicking off the summer, usually something from Marvel Studios. That would be the case again this year except that Marvel Studios moved Avengers: Infinity War forward a week, which means that it’s now in its third weekend. That makes it a great time for a little female-friendly counterprogramming as two movies try to take advantage of the Mother’s Day holiday on Sunday.

LIFE OF THE PARTY (New Line/WB)

Actor/comedian Melissa McCarthy is back in theaters with a third movie directed by husband Ben Falcone following 2014’s Tammy and 2016’s The Boss.  This is McCarthy’s first movie in almost two years after starring in Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, and it’s basically a remake of Rodney Dangerfield’s Back to School, in which she plays a mother who goes to college with her daughter after getting divorced.

McCarthy’s been making a name for herself as a comic actress since Paul Feig’s hit Bridesmaids, for which McCarthy was nominated for an Oscar. She reteamed with Feig a number of times after that for The Heat, Spy and the aforementioned Ghostbusters, all relatively big hits. In the last couple years, McCarthy has been seen more on television with regular appearances on Saturday Night Live, which probably has helped keep the attention of her younger fans, so we’ll have to see if her absence from theaters has created a vacuum that needs to be filled. (McCarthy has a couple more movies coming out this year, although they’re smaller releases.)

Life of the Party is a PG-13 comedy which means it won’t be limited by its R-rating, although it still seems like the type of movie that will appeal more to older women than younger ones. Guys? They’ll either go see Infinity Waragain or stay home and catch up on TV, since they’ll be out in force for next week’s Deadpool 2.  I personally haven’t seen the movie (thanks for not inviting me to a screening, WB!), but I also haven’t seen much in terms of promotion, which isn’t a good sign.

McCarthy still has enough of a fanbase that I can see Life of the Party opening with $18 million or more, but it doesn’t seem as strong as some of McCarthy’s other offerings in terms of potentially bringing in a wide-range audience, and that’s likely to keep it under the $20 million mark, even if it gets a nice Mother’s Day bump.

BREAKING IN (Universal)

Offering some counter-programming for audiences wanting something a little darker is this high-concept psychological thriller starring Gabriel Union as a mother trying to protect her family during a home invasion of their high-security home.  It’s the latest thriller from Will Packer, who has had quite a few hits among African-American audiences including Think Like a Manand its sequel, the Ride Along movies as well as last year’s summer comedy hit Girls Trip.

For this one, Packer is teaming with Final Destination and American Pie producer Craig Perry and director James McTeigue, who is best known for doing 2ndunit with the Wachowskis and directing V for Vendetta. Packer previously produced thrillers Obsessed, which grossed $68 million,and No Good Deed, which grossed $52.5 million after opening with $24.2 million. Both movies were quite profitable since they were made for less than $20 million, and this is Packer’s fourth movie with Union, who has carved a nice niche for herself among African-American audiences with movies like Love and Basketball, Bring It On and others.

Universal is well aware of the movie’s Mother’s Day weekend opening and the business it can bring in from women who happen to be mothers with the tagline for the film being “Payback Is a Mother,” which could give the film a nice bump on Sunday it might not have received otherwise.

Breaking In is opening in over 2,500 theaters, which is more than No Good Deed, but it’s about a thousand less theaters than Life of the Party, which means it’s likely to end up in third place with somewhere between $13 and 16 million.  (I will add a caveat here that I tend to under-estimate Packer’s films, maybe because I don’t see nearly as much as the marketing as I should to be able to gauge interest in his movies.)

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. Avengers: Infinity War (Disney/Marvel) - $60 million -48% 2. Life of the Party (New Line / WB) - $19 million N/A 3. Breaking In (Universal) - $14.8 million N/A 4. Overboard (MGM/Pantelion) - $7.1 million -51% 5. A Quiet Place (Paramount) - $5.4 million -30% 6. I Feel Pretty (STXfilms) - $3 million -38% 7. Rampage (New Line/WB) - $2.8 million -45% 8. Black Panther (Marvel/Disney) - $2.1 million -32% 9.Tully (Focus Features) - $2.1 million -37% 10. Super Troopers 2(Fox Searchlight) - $1 million -49%

LIMITED RELEASES

There is an absolutely CRAZY number of specialty releases this weekend, and as before, I’ve seen merely a handful of them, although there’s definitely some intriguing options to the wide releases if you live in a big city.

We’ll start with one of this week’s stronger genre films, Coralie Fargeat’s action-thriller Revenge (Shudder, Neon), starring Matilda Lutz as Jen, a young woman on a romantic getaway with her married boyfriend. When his two hunting buddies join them, one of them rapes Jen, and as she tries to escape, she falls off the edge of a cliff. Left for dead, she somehow survives and returns to get….  Okay, you read the title of this movie, right? Then you kind of know what to expect. I liked the movie but didn’t think it went far enough in terms of Jen’s revenge. It was gory enough, sure, but the trailer’s better than the actual movie.

I saw Michael Pearce’s Beast (Roadside Attractions) at Toronto last year, and it was also okay, starring Jessie Buckley as 27-year-old Moll, who has led a sheltered life in a small island community when she meets Johnny Flynn’s Pascal, a stranger who Moll is immediately attracted to. When she learns he might be responsible for murders, she worries that moving in with him might be a mistake.  Ya think? It opens in New York and L.A.

Anton Chekhov’s play The Seagull (Sony Pictures Classic) gets the big screen treatment with an all-star cast that includes Elisabeth Moss, Saoirse Ronan, Annette Bening and Corey Stoll, directed by Michael Mayer (Flicka). Bening plays aging actress Irina Arkadina who visits her brother Pjotr and son Konstantin (Billy Howle, who is amazing in the upcoming On Chesil Beach, also starring Ronan), bringing a novelist Boris Trigorin with her. A young girl named Nina falls in love with Boris but is rejected, and man, this does sound a lot like a Russian play. I haven’t seen it and have no interest in seeing it, but it will open in New York and L.A. if you do.

Gemma Arterton and Dominic Cooper reunite for Dominic Savage’s The Escape (IFC Films), which opens in New York at the IFC Center and L.A. at the Laemmle in Santa Monica. Arterton play Tara, a woman who wants to ESCAPE from her boring and mundane life, something her husband (Cooper) doesn’t understand.  I love Arterton as an actor, and I’ll definitely try to see this one soon, as she can do no wrong in my book.

Timothy McNeil’s rom-com Anything (Paladin) stars John Carroll Lynch as Earl, a widower who moves to L.A. to be with his family who rents an apartment in a bad neighborhood, meeting all sorts of characters include Freda (Matt Bomer), his transgender next-door neighbor. The film also stars Maura Tierney, and it opens in select cities Friday, including a first-run at New York’s Roxy Cinema, which looks to become a player in the city’s thriving indie theater business.

Vaughn Stein’s Terminal (RLJE) looks to give Revenge and Breaking In a run for their money with its tagline “Revenge never looked so good”… and it stars the beautiful Margot Robbie, so it might have a point. It’s about two assassins on a mission to kill a teacher, a janitor and a waitress, and it co-stars Simon Pegg, Mike Myers (where has HE been?!?), Max Irons and Dexter Fletcher. It’s in select theaters and On Demand/Digital HD.

The Japanese Anime film Lu Over the Wall (GKIDS) from Masaaki Yuasa (Mind Game), this one a family-friendly adaptation of the fairy tale about Lu, a mermaid who comes ashore and joins a middle school rock band, taking them to great fame. It opens in a bunch of theaters.

Let’s get to this week’s docs…

Sara Driver’s Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (Magnolia) looks promising, and it’s fairly self-explanatory from the title.  Jennifer Peedom’s Mountain (Greenwich Entertainment) is a doc about mountains… what else?

I can highly recommend Filmworker (Kino Lorber), Tony Zierra’s documentary about long-time Stanley Kubrick accomplice Leon Vitali, who played Lord Bullingdon in Kubrick’s 1975 film Barry Lyndon and then went on to become Kubrick’s right-hand man on films like The Shining.  This intriguing doc is a must-see for Kubrick fans, and it’s opening at the Metrographin New York in conjunction with an 8-film retrospective, some of which I haven’t seen on the big screen. Filmworker will open in L.A. at the Nuart on May 18.

Always at the Carlyle (Good Deed Entertainment) is the new documentary from Matthew Miele, which looks at the Upper East Side institution whose guests have included George Clooney, Wes Anderson, Anthony Bourdain and more. It’s opening at the Quad Cinema in New York and elsewhere.

Other films out this week include Jim Loach’s The Measure of a Man (Great Point Media), based on Robert Lipsyte novel One Fat Summer, about a bullied teen and starring Judy Greer and Donald Sutherland; Pat Kiely’s comedy Another Kind of Wedding (Vertical) starring Kathleen Turner (holy shit! Where has SHE been) and Kevin Zegers; Elissa Down’s The Honor List (L) about a group of teen girls who go on a journey to fulfill their bucket list after tragedy strikes; and Eric Stolz’s teen comedy Class Rank (Cinedigm ) starring Skyler Gisondo, Olivia Holt, Bruce Dern and Kristin Chenoweth.  I tell you, that’s a lot of talent for a bunch of movies that are mainly getting digital/VOD releases this weekend.

This week’s Netflix offerings include its new true crime series Evil Genius about one of the strangest bank heists ever, and the streaming network will also premiere something called The Kissing Booth from Vince Marcello, which stars Joey King as a girl who has never been kissed so she starts a kissing booth.

That’s it for this week… I’ll be back next week with my thoughts on Deadpool 2!

[geekade]

Game of Spoilers 704: The Spoils of War

This episode. This one. This is why I hate Netflix. Because binge watching on Netflix has ruined me when episodes that good leave me with that big a cliff hanger. I can’t be dealing with this “one episode at a time” bullshit. Fuck!

Part of me just wants to stop writing and say, “Just go watch the thing again.” But, alas, I do my duty.

Okay, so let’s start with the enormous dragon in the room; that “battle” at the end. That was not so much a battle as a complete slaughter. Even without Drogon, that would have been a slaughter. The Westerosi army had nothing to stand up to the screaming Dothraki horde in full charge, firing arrows while standing on the backs of galloping horses. The only difference on this battlefield the dragon made was the number of dead (a lot more Lannisters, a lot fewer Dothraki). Bronn's semi-successful scorpion attack continues to have me believing that one of the dragons will not survive the series.

However, Jaime’s idiot charge at the end proves a few things:

While this series (and the books) set itself apart by killing off major good guys every once in a while, they also often fall into the rules of the genre. Jaime should really be dead. But, somehow, Bronn survives, sees Jaime, and has the speed and agility to knock him off his horse at just the right moment before they both get burned. That was kind of groan-inducing.

Tyrion is still super conflicted about his brother. It’s actually much like the conversation Jaime was having with Samwell’s older brother. They are on opposing sides, but only because their queens oppose each other. Otherwise, they would be friends as they used to be. Tyrion doesn’t think Jaime deserves to die. Then again, as Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven, “Deserves got nothin’ to do with it.”

My personal prediction still holds. Jaime has to survive his swim in the river so that he can tell Cersei what the Queen of Thorns said. That will help push her over the edge, and then he will have to kill her to save Westeros, though it will probably make him want to kill himself as well. The Kingslayer will become the Queenslayer.

Back on Dragonstone, we see that Jon has been staring at Daenerys’s “good heart.” I know, Jon. Many of us have since season 1. That could portend a more complete union of the North and South than has been discussed out loud, though many of my friends seem to think this should happen. But, more importantly, Jon says something to her that she has really needed to hear. Tyrion has said it in other ways, but she doesn’t seem to hear him as well as we should want. Jon tells her that, if she uses her dragons to melt castles and destroy cities, she won’t be any different than the terrible rulers who came before her. And he’s right (obviously). He then has that conversation with Missandei, where she says that Daenerys would simply let her go if she wanted to. Is that conversation included to show Jon that Daenerys really is a different kind of ruler, or to foreshadow that Missandei will leave? I think it’s a third reason. See, I don’t believe Missandei. I think that her statement, and the incredulity of Jon and Davos, is meant to foreshadow a situation where Missandei wants to leave, and Daenerys forces her to stay. I’m thinking it will involve Greyworm as well, but I think Daenerys will have to turn toward the dark side in this battle. Power tends to have a corrupting influence after all.

I was kind of disappointed at the whole cave painting scene, to be honest. It was pretty cheesy. In an episode that had so many wonderful conversations - and a battle - jammed into it, this one fell terribly short. It was a ham-fisted attempt to connect this battle to the millennia preceding it, to reenforce the through-line from the Children of the Forest to this timeline of Westerns in their fight against the White Walkers. But Bran’s visions already did that last season. It seemed unnecessary. Much more important in that cave was the sexual tension that started to build between them. Put two people that hot in a room together, there’s bound to be some sexual tension.

Now, let’s talk about Arya’s homecoming. They went to the Gross Pointe Blank joke again. Arya: “I have a list of people I’m going to kill.” Sansa: “You’re really funny. That was a great joke.” But the rest of the scenes show Sansa exactly what Arya has become. Bran knows about Arya’s list. He also gives her a Valyrian steel dagger. This is MASSIVELY IMPORTANT, because Valyrian steel can kill White Walkers. So, ARYA CAN KILL WHITE WALKERS NOW! (and there was much rejoicing) Arya also pretty much kicks Brienne’s ass with her little sword. I think I’ve always thought that Arya and Brienne are kind of similar, but seeing them together really drove that home. They should really hit it off. In fact, that could be a neat little buddy comedy, minus the comedy, and plus a whole lot of bloodshed.

Can Arya kill Littlefinger now? Please? That’s what I want to see. Cause that guy is - as I keep saying - a gigantic asshole. Yuge. I don’t believe he’s on Arya’s list, but he damn well should be. Maybe he’ll make it on there after Sansa tells her what he’s done. Or not. It’s complicated. But he will do something to be a giant asshole soon, and I hope she’s around to put a knife in his throat.

So, right now, here’s what we have. The Unsullied hold Casterly Rock, but have no food. Cersei holds King’s Landing, but, since all of that grain got burned in fiery, napalm-like dragon vomit, she no longer has enough food to support the population for long, and a significant portion of her army is lost. Daenerys essentially controls Highgarden and the reach, because she’s killed all the soldiers, but lacks the food to support her army, having burned it all up in fiery, napalm-like dragon vomit. And, her favorite dragon is injured. Jon is preparing to fight the White Walkers, but he’s still on Dragonstone, refusing to bend the knee (which I don’t blame him for), so the North is preparing for a fight they cannot win, training with useless weapons and hoping that Jon returns with weapons they can use. And now, Cersei has basically gotten the Iron Bank to support her idea to bring in a foreign mercenary army to support her cause.

My God, are a lot of people going to die before the end of this show.