#good omens polling station

[sleepyhead-poll]

LIST OF REJECTED CHARACTER (SO FAR)

Under the cut is a list of characters who, so far, have been rejected. I am also listing the reason on why they are being rejected:

The following list of 5 characters have been rejected for falling more under the category of characters who have been comatose / hibernated / been in a deep slumber:

Aurora from Disney's Sleeping Beauty [NOTE: While Aurora from Disney's Sleeping Beauty herself is not accepted, other variations from the Sleeping Beauty story HAVE been accepted such as Shrek's Sleeping Beauty and Silver from Twisted Wonderland. The reason why this specific version of Sleeping Beauty isn't accepted is because her sleeping was not a part of her characterization- she basically just fell into a magical coma- but the accepted versions DO have sleeping as part of their characterization.]

Cthulhu from The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft

Flayn from Fire Emblem: Three Houses

He Xuan from Tian Guan Ci Fu / Heaven Official's Blessing

Robin from Fire Emblem: Awakening

The following list of 2 characters have been rejected for falling under the category of "one-off joke", i.e., their sleepy trait was a joke in part chapter or episode and not a consistent part of their character: (If I am incorrect and there are multiple instances throughout the work they appear in that alludes to them being a sleepyhead, feel free to send it to me and I will un-reject them)

Crowley from Good Omens, specifically the book by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

Pavel Iwaszkiewicz from Community

The following list of 2 characters have been rejected for being from real life:

Every cat [NOTE: Dude I literally said not to submit yourself or pets from real life. I know not every cat is a pet, but come on.]

The country of Montenegro [NOTE: Okay this was a funny submission but sorry. Not counting real people... or countries.]

The following list of 3 characters have powers that have to do with sleep, but don't seem to be a sleepyhead themselves:

Enmu from Demon Slayer

Faruzan from Genshin Impact

Sumireko Usami from Touhou Project

And finally, the following list of 4 characters are the rest of the rejected characters. I will list the reason why under their name:

Blathers from Animal Crossing. I haven't played Animal Crossing, but from what I can tell this character isn't actually sleepy, they're just nocturnal so have an opposite sleep schedule as the player.

Greece / Heracles Karpusi from Hetalia Invoking my "right to reject any submission". You could not pay me to accept a Hetalia / country personification into this poll.

Jack Townsend from Tales from the Gas Station Seems like an interesting book! But he seems to be an insomniac, which is the opposite of a sleepy character.

Sleepy Dwarf Character from Once Upon a Time (in Space) by the Mechanisms The submitter said they didn't remember their name which is why I said "sleepy dwarf character" instead of Sleepy or whatever their name is because I'm not sure if that is their name. I would appreciate it if you know the name of a character you are submitting. If they don't have a name, chances are that they are such a minor character that I don't think they should count. Not always, but usually. Supported by the fact that when I tried to Google the character I could barely find any information on them except that they sang on verse in one song in this entire album.

[skiesareblue]

absolute torrential rain on the walk to the polling station followed by a bright blue sky when we left 3 minutes later. i'd like to think it's a good omen for the next five years though the current iteration of labour hardly merits a sky that clear

[peakascum]

Reunion

First of all, thank you so much for the feedback on my first fic! Second of all, I am still trying to make the masterlist but Ia m new to this so it will take time. In the meantime, I will put a “peakascum” tag on every imagine so you will be able to find every writing under that tag on my profile. Anyway, hope you enjoy this one!

Polly had smoked half a pack of cigarettes since the beginning of the family meeting. She had come in and sat at the most far out corner and stared aimlessly at the floor. Skin pale as ever, but her eyes held a whirlpool of emotions. She had a look of confusion, perhaps terror. A look the boys had only seen twice in their lives. The first time being when she bid them farewell at the train station before the war, the second time being when she learned the fate of her children. 

Tommy concluded the meeting, dismissing everyone to go about with their work and stared at her intently. “So are you going to tell me,” he paused to light his cigarette, “or am I gonna have to wait until you reach your breaking point?” Polly looked up at him and stood up, nervously fiddling with her hands. “It’s nothing Tom. Just stress.” She said, barely meeting his eyes. “Polly,” he started, clearing his throat, “we both know how you get when you bottle everything up. Now, I’m already stressed enough dividing everybody's jobs and calculating our next move. If this is about our rivals, you have nothing to worry about, but if-“ she gave him a pointed glance and said, “Oh come off it, Tom. It’s not about that. It’s- it’s silly.” The room stilled for a second. Polly kept staring at the window, building up courage, adjusting the words in her mind as to not sound completely delusional.

“I was at the market buying the essentials. Had to go all the way across town for that new tea that Ada likes- and I swear to God Thomas I am not on pills anymore- but I could've sworn I saw Martha.” She looked up at him, the first time since the beginning of the meeting. They both chuckled at how bizarre the idea sounded. “Martha? Our John’s dead wife Martha?” He had to say it out loud. The tone in his voice acknowledging how ridiculous it sounded. “I told you it was silly.”

But it wasn’t. To them, it did sound as if Polly was back on the self medication journey she went on since almost hanging. That was years ago. Since then, John had died, Michael had come back from America, they had moved up to high society, and had struck up new rivals on various spots in England. Life had changed. Clouds no longer lingered on the streets of Birmingham, everything started to matter a little bit more. They all missed John. Polly would pray for his soul every morning and every night. She would pray for his kids, the ones Esme took, pray they were safer and that somehow she would be able to see them again. 

The next family meeting had taken place in the small room at The Garrison. It was a quick one, more so to catch up on the day’s events. Arthur had come in around, whisky glass in hand, stumbling over his words, “So Poll you seeing ghosts now, eh?” He screamed, making the whole room chuckle and look at her expectantly. “That’s enough Arthur. Just an honest mistake.” She said, a grin painting her face, yet it did not reach her eyes. She knew it was silly, but it wouldn't be the first time she had seen the departed.

Finn stood near the door, facing Arthur’s back, laughing and mocking Polly with the rest of them. “I don’t really remember Martha well, but I don’t think you're delusional aunt Poll.” He said in a confident voice.  The room kept ignoring his words, busy with roaring laughter and the sound of their aunt’s voice scolding them all. Finn kept his posture and continued, “Besides, thought I heard John’s laugh the other day,” he mumbled. The room quieted for a moment. Finn looked up realizing they heard him and continued, “but it wasn’t, eh? Obviously. I-I’m not Polly, don’t have any of that gypsy crap with me.” 

Polly, furiously but steadily, stood up, “First of all,” she said making her way over to Finn, “it is not gypsy crap or gypsy bullshit, do not disrespect your roots.” She said as she smacked him in the head. “Now look at me and tell me what you on about boy.” She grabbed his young face in her hands. “It’s nothing aunt Poll. Just like Martha. It’s nothing. Besides, it was a woman laughing Poll,” he stammered and ripped his face from her grip. Polly stared at him, then at the whole table full of very confused Shelbys. 

“I knew it. I can feel it,” she started, earning a deep glare from Tommy.

“Do not mock me. I can feel when the air shifts. I know what I saw.”

“Okay, that’s enough Poll,” said Arthur, no longer laughing. 

The Shelbys had not made another sound, looking at each other, wondering who would be the first to speak up. Their aunt’s statement had steadied them into a haunting lullaby, reminding them of the many gypsy traditions that they secretly carried with them. The good omens, the way the wind suddenly stilled into an ominous glare that same morning; and in a drastic turn of events, the way the hairs on the back of young Finn Shelby’s neck stood up at the sound of what he mistook for John’s laugh. 

____________________

A week had passed after the eerie conversation at The Garrison. They carried on with their business, with bets and the rival gang that had pestered Tommy for months now. They were closing in around corners of Small Heath, leaving threatening notes on their doorsteps and even going as far as killing a Blinder and leaving him on the betting shop’s entrance. This caused the family to carry trinkets of good luck and repeating gypsy mantras to calm their superstitious beliefs that came with their Romanian blood.

It had all led up to the current position they all found themselves in. Thomas had a gash on his brow, causing blood to adorn his features. His gun pointing at the enemy’s face. The Weston’s were known for their brutality, even worse than a Blinders wrath. Arthur held an already dead man in his arms screaming like a maniac, threatening others who would dare come for them. Finn, Isiah, and Michael incessantly beating and battling the other men, all in a row of punches and blood and gore. A scene so obscene that would have made any person queasy. But these were no ordinary people. They were Shelbys. Polly peaked her head through the small room’s door, enough to see the violence unfold. They had been attacked by surprise at their own pub, and she feared for her nephews lives, more so now than any other time. Never taking her eyes away from the scene, she ferociously prayed for a miracle, a gift, a second chance. 

The men grabbed Thomas by his arms, dangling him whilst another pointed a gun to his face. “Mr. Shelby, always have the upper hand,” said one of them with a tantalizing smirk, “but it seems your reign is over and your crown is mine.” The men chuckled and cheered, seeing their enemy half dead in their hands. Tommy looked up and smirked, which turned into a manic laugh, making the Blinders pause their movements. “Brother?” Arthur asked, gulping at Tom’s actions. Tommy looked at them still laughing, “You think you’ll defeat me? Whenever you think you have the upper hand, I will always be one step in front of you,” he paused to spit, and continued.

“It’s my legacy, it’s my family’s legacy. And you have the nerve to barge into my territory and declare war on me?” His smile never leaving his face, blood covering his teeth. All of them looking upon him in confusion. 

The doors to The Garrison opened letting in dust and a cold wind meddle its way in. Footsteps echoed through the current silent pub. Arthur dropped the man that he held between his arms. Finn’s eyes flashed a look of confusion, recognizing the presence that made its way into the pub. Polly’s hands shook against her sides, too numb to move them. The footsteps grew louder, yet the pace never changed. Tommy looked at the men as they noticed also and chuckled, “Do you you really think I would have left my pub unsupervised for you lot to take?” 

There in the middle of the room stood a group of men led by a girl, a girl that was perhaps younger than Finn. Her dark hair gathered loosely by a ribbon, freckles adorning her face and piercing eyes that matched her posture, determined and hard. Their saving grace. Their hail Mary pass.

“Y/N?” Whispered Arthur.

In a split second the Blinders ducked behind chairs and the other side of the bar. Their guns cocked and immediately erupted in a song of metal and flesh and screams. The girl’s face never changed, her body unbothered. Each and every men dropped to their knees with multiple bullets to their bodies. 

The noise suddenly stopped. The Weston’s Leader remained standing, too embarrassed and in shock to move. Y/N made her way over and pointed her gun to his face, “Don’t fuck with the Peaky Blinders.” immediately putting a bullet between his eyes. 

“Holy Jesus,” Polly said as she stumbled out of the room, “Y-You look just like her.”

Y/N turned around and smiled at the woman that stood there, pale as snow, as if she’d seen a ghost. “Hello aunt Poll.”

Tommy stood up with the help of a perplexed Arthur. “Who is she?”, Michael asked breaking the tension in the room. 

“I don’t think any of you remember me clearly, I was just a girl when I left.” She said, a small smile appearing on her face. “This is Y/N, John’s daughter,” piped Tommy, looking at her tenderly. 

“You weren’t delusional Polly, I just couldn't give her cover away.”

Polly made her way over to Y/N and cradled her face her hands. “I knew it,” she breathed out, “I knew it, didn't I? I knew that it wasn't a ghost. You look just like your mother.” Polly breathed out in a shaky voice causing the girl to smile widely.

“I reached out to Tommy. Wanted to be a part of the business, reunite with my family.” She said looking around the room excitedly. 

Polly took the girl in her arms, allowing herself to sob freely. The room warmed up with the Shelby’s smiles. It wasn't Martha, It wasn't John, but it was their niece. A living, breathing piece of John’s heart for them to hold and treasure. 

[jasmine-cottage-uk]

Hey Canadians!

Tomorrow - October 21st - is election day in this massive country. 

Click here to see what ID you need to vote!

Enter your postal code here to find your polling station!

Every election is crucial. Every election gives us the opportunity to make choices about what kind of nation we want to be. We live in tumultuous times. It is more important than ever that we elect people who believe in the politics of kindness, of helping one another.

Good Omens showed us that the world is very complicated, but worth saving. Save the world just a little bit. Cast your ballot.

[aion-rsa]

The Best TV Shows of 2021

https://ift.tt/3z5sHBG

And just like that (not be confused with And Just Like That…), another year of television is in the books.

In terms of pop culture, 2021 was never going to be as strange and surreal as when the whole world shut down in 2020. Still, this year of TV wasn’t necessarily the return to normalcy that one might expect. TV changed in the year 2021. For one, it got a hell of a lot bigger. That’ll happen to a medium when Disney decides to throw the Marvel Cinematic Universe its way. Series like WandaVision, Loki, and even Marvel’s What If…? dominated the streaming servers for most of 2021.

Even beyond the Marvel machine, however, it felt like TV regained some of its watercooler mass appeal in 2021. Netflix’s dystopian Korean TV series Squid Game was an absolute phenomenon and rightfully so. A slickly-produced, beautifully crafted race to a tragic end, Squid Game was much more than a meme machine. Don’t discount its importance as “just” that, however. Squid Game and other big hits like Mare of Easttown, Only Murders in the Building, and even Ted Lasso hammered home that TV is better as a medium that we all watch together, even when we’re apart.

All in all, it was a good year for TV, so we’ve decided to honor it. Like we did last year (and plan to do next year unless you all really hate this), we compiled a panel of Den of Geek TV contributors to vote on our 25 favorite TV shows of 2021. We polled our readership as well and folded your vote into our own tally. Believe it or not, this year both Den of Geek‘s writers and readers came to the same conclusion for number one…though it was but a fingernail (two “points” in our internal voting system) ahead of number two.

Please enjoy our choices for the 25 Best TV Shows of 2021, and as always: stay safe and see you in 2022.

25. Guilt

Scotland is quite deservedly having a screen moment right now, and not just because Brooke Shields bought a castle there for Christmas in this year’s festive Netflix hit. That’s where Amazon Prime is filming Anansi Boys, series two of Good Omens, and – rumour has it – the next run of its megabucks Lord of the Rings adaptation. Scotland’s natural beauty and screen sector tax incentives are only the half of it. There’s also Neil Forsyth’s Guilt, one of the best TV shows to come out of the U.K. in an age, and more than worthy of its reputation as the Scottish Fargo. 

The crime thriller’s four-part first series told the story of Max and Jake McCall, two brothers from Leith who’ve taken very different routes through life. When they accidentally run over an old man, they’re thrown together into a tangle of deception, organised crime, and darkly funny revelations. Series two continued Max’s story with equally fine writing and top performances from a cast led by the brilliant Mark Bonnar. Witty, surprising, clever and funny, Guilt is a must-watch. – Louisa Mellor

24. Reservation Dogs

For a medium that debuts roughly 90 trillion hours (fact-check pending) of new content per year, television can at times feel lacking in truly truly new perspectives Thankfully we occasionally get fresh points of view like Reservation Dogs. FX’s half-hour comedy was quite simply sweet fry bread mana from heaven in 2021.

Created by Sterlin Harjo, a citizen of the Seminole Nation, and produced by Taikia Waititi, this slice-of-life series follows four Indigenous teenagers living in rural Oklahoma and getting up to all the creative nonsense that teenagers like to get into. The show’s characters, led by Devery Jacobs as Elora Danan Postal and D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as Bear Smallhill are both very funny and achingly easy to empathize with. Equal parts specific and universal, Reservation Dogs represented some of the richest comedic storytelling you could find on television this year. – Alec Bojalad

23. Station Eleven

Station Eleven‘s relatively low placement on this list is likely due to its unfortunate timing. Not only does this show feature a deadly pandemic, but it also premiered its first three episodes on Dec. 16, mere days before Den of Geek TV ballots were due. The few of us who have exerted our critical privilege to watch all of the series’ 10 episodes know just special it is though. And since the show airs the majority of its run in 2021 (with episodes 8, 9, and 10 coming next year) it’s eligible for this year’s list.

Simply put: Station Eleven is a stunning achievement. Based on Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 book of the same name, the HBO Max drama imagines the world where the apocalypse is only the beginning. Station Eleven depicts the end of the world via flu, and then immediately picks up with a host of survivors years into the post-apocalypse. Lead character Kirsten (MacKenzie Davis) is part of an acting troupe that tours the Great Lakes bringing Shakespeare to the masses. The way the show’s non-linear plot carries on from there is remarkable and mesmerizing. Rarely has the end of days looked or felt so sublimely beautiful. – AB

22. Hacks

After years of scene-stealing performances in prestige dramas, Jean Smart is rightfully fixed center stage in HBO Max’s Hacks, which finds the veteran actress playing Deborah Vance, a Joan Rivers-styled comedian and Vegas mainstay who feels her empire eroding due to time and complacency. When she’s forced to take on an up-and-coming comedy writer (Hannah Einbinder) to freshen up her act, the hardened professional and navel-gazing millennial must overcome their own personal shortcomings to bring out the best in each other. 

Offering plenty of show biz satire, generational gap gags, and acerbic putdowns, Hacks is the rare series based in the entertainment industry that feels relatable. Few comedies debut as sharp and emotionally deep as this and the relationship between the two leads feels completely unique in the 2021 TV landscape. – Nick Harley

21. Hawkeye

It’s no secret that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a bit of an escalating scale problem. The sheer size of the studio’s cinematic offerings seems destined to always grow bigger as the superhero movie arms race grows more competitive. What makes Marvel’s fifth Disney+ series, Hawkeye, so refreshing is how it refuses to engage in that arms race and lives within its own modest means.

How to top “The Blip” in Infinity War and Endgame is Kevin Feige’s problem for a later date. In Hawkeye, Clint Barton just needs to be home in time for Christmas. This unabashedly Christmas-y action series is the best work that Jeremy Renner has done as Hawkeye in the MCU yet. It certainly helps that he has the wonderful Hailee Steinfeld to play off of as young archer Kate Bishop. Add in a pizza-loving dog, some tracksuit-wearing goons, and a heaping dose of Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, and you’ve got yourself a low-stakes holiday hit. – AB

20. Superman & Lois

Sdklksdlfkdlskldsf

It’s hard to imagine any show on television that hid its true nature as well as Superman & Lois. The high concept pitch for the series, which sees a married Lois Lane and Clark Kent leave Metropolis to raise their twin teenage boys (!) back on the farm in Smallville seems like it was tailor-made for the CW’s tried-and-true method of couching its superheroics in teen-friendly melodrama. And, to be sure, the show does plenty of that. But what nobody was counting on is how it also brought big budget, almost cinematic action and production values to the table with its family drama, and some big twists and reveals that made even the most ardent of comic book scholars sit up and take notice. 

Read more

TV

Superman & Lois: Inside the Season’s Big Twists and that Finale Ending

By Mike Cecchini

TV

Superman & Lois Season 2: What to Expect When the Show Returns

By Mike Cecchini

The CW’s superhero shows have long proven that they understand how to capture the essence of what makes DC heroes special, so surely Superman was in good hands. But nobody was really expecting Superman & Lois to not only become the best of the Arrowverse shows, but the best live action interpretation of the Superman legend in decades. Not to mention the fact that Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch are the best Lois and Clark since Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder. If you haven’t allowed yourself to be pleasantly surprised by Superman & Lois yet, you’ve still got time to catch up on HBO Max before its second season hits the CW. – Mike Cecchini

19. It’s a Sin

It’s unusual to feel certain by mid-January that you’ve seen the drama of the year, but then Russell T. Davies’ It’s a Sin is unusual. It’s unusually joyful for a show about the 1980s AIDS crisis, and unusually funny for a series that will rip out your heart and make your blood boil while you’re smiling. 

Over five episodes, the drama follows a group of young gay housemates living in London between 1981 and 1991. Escapees from humdrum hometowns, they revel in the hedonism the city affords. It’s on-tap sex, fun, and boys for lead Richie Tozer, who lives a life so vibrant that death seems a ridiculous impossibility. And then, whispers are heard about a mystery virus, and men start to disappear, into lonely hospital wards and smuggled shamefully back to family homes. 

It’s a Sin stands in tribute to those men as both a celebration of their lives and an indictment of the ignorance and cruelty that surrounded their deaths. Peter Hoar directs a dream cast of Olly Alexander, Lydia West, Omari Douglas, Nathaniel Curtis, and Callum Scott-Howells with a script that’s personal, political, beautiful, filthy, angry and bursting with love. – LM

18. Evil

It’s a little ironic that the best, and most unabashedly old school, TV procedural this year didn’t actually air on traditional television. Following a well-received first season on CBS, superb supernatural drama Evil moved to Paramount+. Due to Paramount+’s industry standard black boxing of its viewership numbers, how Evil performed in the streaming world is anyone’s guess. If it took in a significantly smaller audience than its CBS days though, that’s a damn shame. This was some of the most fun anyone could have watching TV in 2021.

Season 2 of Evil maintained the show’s ambitious premise of introducing weekly cases that could or could not be legitimately supernatural. Forensic psychologist Dr. Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers), priest-in-training David Acosta (Mike Colter), and tech specialist Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi) all return to investigate cases on behalf of the Catholic Church. The real joy of Evil is that every week brings the enticing potential of something new – whether that means an overtly sexual fire demon, or an entirely wordless hour on the grounds of a monastery. Like the best procedurals, however, Evil also knows how to weave a compelling series-long story through all the episodic madness as well. – AB

17. The Other Two

We expect a lot out of our TV comedies nowadays. Ever since the Emmys decided to consider anything 30 minutes or under a comedy by default, the genre has become stuffed with shows that are thoughtful, interesting, and creative…but not always funny. Those who wanted to experience the sublime joys of an old school, well-oiled laugh machine on television in 2021 were in luck thanks to The Other Two.

After airing its first season on Comedy Central way back in 2018, The Other Two made its way to HBO Max and lost absolutely nothing in comedy translation. The series follows Cary (Drew Tarver) and Brooke (Heléne York) Dubek, two siblings who are overshadowed by their famous pop star younger brother Chase Dreams (Chase Walker) and their talk show host mom Pat (Molly Shannon). The Other Two uses this premise as a jumping off point to put through Cary and Brooke through all kinds of inspired and hilarious Hollywood hell. The show’s second season was relentlessly, uncompromisingly funny and culminated with a joke in the its final three seconds that may have been the best gag on TV in 2021. – AB

16. Shadow and Bone

Netflix’s Shadow and Bone may be based on the first book in Leigh Bardugo’s “Grishaverse” series, but the success of the adaptation is that it transcends the “chosen one” trappings of its source material. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty to enjoy about the story of the sun summoner, Alina Starkov. The girl with undiscovered powers comes from humble beginnings, but when her abilities manifest as she crosses a continent-spanning curtain of darkness called the Shadow Fold, the intrigue of those seeking to exploit her, help her, or eliminate her chances of dispelling the deadly barrier is quite compelling.

Read more

TV

The Art of Bringing a Shadow and Bone Scene to the Screen

By Kayti Burt

TV

How Shadow and Bone’s Jessie Mei Li Grounds the Grishaverse

By Kayti Burt

But another big part of the show’s success was its decision to incorporate a sub-plot from the later, more critically acclaimed trilogy, Six of Crows, including much beloved characters like criminals-for-hire Nina Zenik and Matthias Helvar. While in the original books, the Crows are hired to retrieve a scientist who made an important discovery, in the Netflix adaptation, they cross the Fold to kidnap Alina and, in the process, learn more about where their own loyalties should lie. – Michael Ahr

15. White Lotus

Upstairs and downstairs. It’s a storytelling convention at least as old as British television. However, Mike White offers a distinctly American and late stage capitalist variation on the concept in his pitch black tragicomedy, The White Lotus. Over the course of six episodes, a sharp ensemble puts on a pleasantly monstrous face while contrasting the differences between the uber wealthy and the chipper help who must smile past every indignity while helping the guests’ island fantasies come true at a Hawaiian resort.

Filming in an actual slice of paradise, writer-director Mike White amusingly avoids travelogue images for most of the series, instead focusing on the petty slights and intimate manipulations of his characters. Some of the guests seem well-intentioned or sweet-meaning, others are in a perpetual state of calling for the manager. However, they all take and take, and take, and give nothing back, except a reason for Murray Bartlett’s Armond to give a sure-to-be legendary demonstration of a concierge in meltdown. There are rumors there’ll be a second season in a new location, but it’s hard to think we’ll ever forget our stay at the White Lotus. – David Crow

14. Only Murders in the Building

In a year of turbulent times and appointment viewing, comedy has had a much bigger chance to shine, but Only Murders in the Building still seemed like an outside prospect despite its intriguing cast of veteran heavyweights like Steve Martin, Martin Short, Nathan Lane, Tina Fey, and Jane Lynch. It’s hard to launch an original show that isn’t based on an already-popular bit of IP these days, y’know? The premise for Only Murders is at least fairly simple to wrap your head around: there’s been a murder in an affluent Upper West Side apartment building, and several of its residents get wrapped up in solving said murder while channelling their findings into a true crime podcast. 

What really makes the show work is its effortless balance of silliness and insight when it comes to its characters, with Selena Gomez’s standout performance as the mysterious “straight man” the cherry on top. Over 10 episodes, the series spun a good old fashioned murder mystery around the kind of hilarious physical comedy that so few actors are truly able to achieve, with Martin and Short still seemingly at the top of their game after all these years. Plus, not only did Murders stick its landing, we came to really care about those we met during its run – a magnificent achievement considering how little buzz there was surrounding the show before it began. – Kirsten Howard

13. I Think You Should Leave

Two seasons in, Tim Robinson’s I Think You Should Leave has already cemented itself as the most important sketch comedy series of the streaming age. The show is a meme factory that could single-handedly sustain Twitter for years. As most sketch series are, I Think You Should Leave can be hit or miss, but Tim and Co. seem to hit more often than not, and when they really connect, you’ll be left convulsing in laughter. 

Season 2 brought us Dan Flashes, Coffin Flop, Jamie Taco, and Karl Havoc, among many other singular, brilliant bits of bizzarro comedy. The driving concept of the show’s humor is the same as ever — an eccentric person overcommits to some idea, refusing to acknowledge the reactions of those around them — but the execution is always fiercely unique and explosively funny. The show also manages to take weirdly poignant turns that take you off balance, just so the next joke can topple you over even harder. Hopefully Netflix and Robinson continue until the well runs dry. – NH

12. Dickinson

Autumn 2021 belonged to Hailee Steinfeld, who turned in stellar performances across three of the year’s best shows: Hawkeye, Arcane, and Dickinson. It’s that final one that deserves particular attention, though. As the passionate and determined Emily Dicksinon, Steinfeld has anchored the Apple TV+ series for three vibrant, clever seasons that follow Emily as she comes of age in 19th century Amherst, Massachusetts. Intentionally anachronistic in its dialogue, music, and occasional time travel while historically faithful in fashion and representations of real-life figures and events, Dickinson makes the period feel modern and the modern feel timeless in Alena Smith’s poem of a show that is never afraid to let sentiment lead structure.

The first season of Dickinson introduced us to Emily’s fight to be a female poet in the small, patriarchal world of 19th century New England. The second season saw Emily struggling to decide if she even wanted public attention for her poetry. The third and final season sees the onset of the Civil War, and privileged Emily’s efforts to have a positive influence on a broken world. Every season follows the deeply romantic relationship between Emily and best friend Sue, a love story that inspired many of real-life Emily’s poems. All of it is driven by Dickinson’s own verses, a reminder that this was a thinking, human feeling we are lucky enough to have in our literary history. Long contextualized as a passionless hermit despite her fervent writing, Dickinson has recontextualized one of America’s greatest poets as the deeply artistic, innovative writer and thinker she was. A gift of a show. – Kayti Burt

11. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow

Do you remember the sheer level of fun syndicated sci-fi/fantasy shows in the late ‘90s and early 2000s? They were over the top, featured tons of action, and often had a lot of heart. Legends of Tomorrow is the true successor to that unique genre of television. The show is absolutely bonkers and it knows it, yet that high-level of humor is always cut with just the right amount of drama.

Read more

TV

Legends of Tomorrow Delivers its Best Action Scene Ever…and a Musical Moment

By Jim Dandeneau

TV

Inside DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Episode 100

By Mike Cecchini

Legends is a show you laugh with because you care about each and every one of these weirdos as much as they care about each other. It’s also unabashedly a queer show, with multiple confirmed queer characters. There was even a queer wedding that saved the world! Any show, superhero or otherwise, with that is an instant must-watch. – Shamus Kelley

10. Loki

Wandavision was good. Falcon and the Winter Soldier was… not good. Loki was the Disney+ Marvel show that would tip the scales definitively in one direction… and it was great! Tom Hiddleston returns in the role of Loki, proving that the character can carry a story all on his lonesome. Set shortly after “our” Loki stole the Tesseract at the Battle of New York: Endgame Edition, Loki follows the trickster as he’s picked up by the Time Variance Authority (TVA) for messing up the timeline. 

Loki is faced with a choice: help the TVA save the timeline from a greater, mysterious threat, or be erased from existence. Of course, this wasn’t just Hiddleston’s Loki’s tale. Loki benefitted from an ensemble of talented actors, including Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku, Owen Wilson, Sophia DiMartino, and Jonathan Major, rounding out this timey-wimey tale about the choices we make and the love we—for better and worse—find along the way. -KB

9. The Beatles: Get Back

Peter Jackson’s restoration of nearly 60 hours of archival footage shot for the Beatles’ infamous break-up documentary Let It Be, cut and compiled into the three-part, six-hour plus documentary Get Back, is simply miraculous. If Get Back only managed to offer new insights on the interpersonal dynamics and creative process of history’s most important band in their final year together, it would be more than enough, but Get Back also manages to tell a complete narrative, offering wonderful character arcs for figures like George Harrison, a blossoming artist fighting to be heard between the 20th century’s most prolific and successful songwriting duo, or Paul McCartney, a man who’s entire adult life has been spent being a Beatle, trying to keep the machine roaring on. 

Get Back is the closest thing we have to a time machine, and it allows us to be a fly on the wall while pop culture touchstones like “Get Back” and “Let It Be” are pulled out of thin air in real time. The runtime also means that we get to witness the sometimes-maddening songwriting process, where goofing around or diving into your old influences can lead to a creative breakthrough. There’s a full smorgasbord for Beatles fanatics, but something for sociologists, historians, creatives, musicians, and documentary fans too. Like the Beatles catalog itself, there’s something for everyone. – NH

8. Invincible

Though Marvel’s Disney+ offerings Loki and WandaVision are both inventive and superb, Amazon Prime’s Invincible might be pound for pound the best “pure” superhero series of 2021. Based on an incredible comic book series from The Walking Dead‘s Robert Kirkman, Invincible brings a sense of unabashed, unpretentious joy to traditional superhero storytelling. This animated series just positively loves superheroes from their garish costumes to their silly names to their awe-inspiring Godlike powers.

Invincible takes that love of superheroes and superimposes (pardon the pun) over it a touching coming-of-age tale for young Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun), son of a Viltrumite and the most powerful hero on Earth Nolan Grayson a.k.a. Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons). Though Invincible is built upon its wholesome love of the genre, those who have watched all eight episodes of the show’s brilliant first season know that this is decidedly not a family-friendly affair. The series loves the physics of superpowers just as much as it loves the heroes themselves. That means fights on this show produce oceans of blood, torn out spines, and crushed-in skulls. It all culminates in one of the most jaw-dropping sustained scenes of familial violence ever captured in fiction. God bless this bloody show. – AB

7. What We Do in the Shadows

Staten Island’s favorite vampires traversed a huge arc during What We Do in the Shadows season 3. After the aftermath of the theatrical bloodletting of the Vampiric Council, Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak) and Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) took over leadership of the New York Chapter. While they spend an inordinate amount of time playing musical thrones, they finally come to an agreement: to disagree on just about everything. Nadja is a ruthless, literally heart-wrenching sovereign, while Nandor, who was a warlord before getting the bite for blood, goes through a mid-eternal-life crisis, and decides his best option is to sleep it off in a Vampire Super Slumber. Their familiar-turned-bodyguard-but-still-treated-like-a-familiar Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) sees himself as a Machiavellian vampire whisperer, who really should speak up.

It would seem Laszlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry) is happy enough in his newfound access to a treasure trove of the rarest pornography in the known world, but it turns out he is hiding true depth. The whole season builds up to energy vampire Colin Robinson’s (Mark Proksch) 100th birthday celebration but the finale drops a bundle on viewers. Whatever the future brings, and it just might bring about the calamity of introducing a baby into a sitcom, What We Do in The Shadows brings mirthful mayhem, physical comedy, and a supernatural pace. The stakes are always high, the jokes are not afraid to go low. – Tony Sokol

6. Ted Lasso

In Season 2, Ted Lasso still managed to be a balm for our aggressively depressing times while also getting deeper and darker. By exploring the limitations of Ted’s optimism, the series showed the importance of erasing the stigma of openly discussing mental health in the sports world, something that we saw play out in a nonfiction context during this Summer’s Olympics. The show offered great insights on toxic relationships, codependency, and workplace insecurity while deepening fan favorite characters like Rebecca, Roy, and most importantly, Nate. 

However, it wasn’t all serious business; the warm-hearted kindness that made the AppleTV+ series a pandemic breakout is still integral to Ted Lasso’s appeal, and it’s never been more joyful than during this season’s standalone Christmas episode. While a weekly release schedule tested the patience of die-hard fans, Ted Lasso still managed to deliver a smart, uplifting season that’s poised for even greater success in Year 3. – NH

5. Mare of Easttown

Once you get over Mare of Easttown’s title (‘Mare’ like a female horse? A pun on ‘mayor’?) and learn it’s just the name of Kate Winslet’s no-nonsense, beer-from-the-bottle, unpreened Pennsylvania cop character in this HBO whodunnit, it’s plain sailing from there. This is detective drama as it should be: involving, character-led, and gradually building week-on-week to the point that you find yourself missing your bus stop and overboiling spaghetti because you’re pondering murderer theories. 

Set in a Philadelphia suburb freighted by poverty and opioid addiction, Kate Winslet plays local detective Mare (short for Marianne, apparently). One year earlier, a girl went missing and Mare failed to find her. When another girl is murdered, Mare’s under pressure to get results and so is reluctantly paired up with a hotshot from the city. Over seven episodes, Winslet leads a cast with zero dead weight and stand-out turns from Jean Smart and Evan Peters. Believable performances, clever twists, engaging characters, and a real sense of place raise this murder mystery above the pack. – LM

4. Succession

There’s a reason why people who love Succession can’t stop banging on about it. It’s almost as if we are constantly surprised that a show about a disgustingly wealthy, genuinely awful family, bickering over the leadership of a massive media conglomerate, could possibly be as funny, tense and thrilling as this. Three seasons in and the standard hasn’t dropped, with Jesse Armstrong and his writers’ dialogue sharp as ever and pitch perfect performances across the board to match. Season two ended with a major power play from Kendall Roy which put a final nail in the coffin of his relationship with his dad, Logan, and season three finds us in the aftermath. Kendall’s riding high. Could Tom or Greg really go to prison? Could Logan even go down, and who would take over? It’s never as simple as that… 

Succession sees the Roy family engage in one giant strategy game, forging and breaking allegiances in ways that become more sociopathic as the episodes roll on. It really is just about winning, and season three comes with several dizzying standout episodes – Ep 7 ‘Too Much Birthday’ is a cringe-making show of decadence and desperate childishness as Kendall throws himself the ultimate 40th, while the season finale came with major beats that no one saw coming. Pugnacious perfection. – Rosie Fletcher

3. Midnight Mass

Midnight Mass is obviously a very personal project to writer/creator Mike Flanagan, and that makes all the difference. This is not just another “let’s make a vampire movie.” It means something to him and is all about meaning. It is a horror miniseries but it is steeped in Catholic guilt. The writing is brilliant, the acting sublim – every single performance – and when rumblings of the Jonestown suicides begin to spill over into the Kool-Aid, this hits at every level, even in ways most regular church goers can identify with. Every parish has a Bev (Samantha Sloyan) – self-righteous, head up the priest’s ass, never-had-sex, sanctimonious, pure evil in sheep’s clothing – but they don’t all have the full collection of the works of Neil Diamond, and on vinyl, no less, which works so well as the undertone to unclean wounds.

Religious horror is the scariest. Angel Heart is not for the faint of heart; The Devil Rides Out is not for the weak of faith; Rosemary’s Baby is no lullaby, especially on the crowded floor of a city apartment building, The Exorcist makes you think of crosses in ways you never want to picture in your mind again. In most of those movies, the savior or at least main combatant against evil, is the priest, the father, the living minister to the word of God itself. Father Paul (Hamish Linklater) seems like a godsend to the insular island community of Crockett Island: lame walk, elderly rejuvenate, scabs form. Somebody say Amen. Just not so loud the angels can hear. They don’t look like cherubs, but love young blood. “What happens when we die?” All the answers are here to choose from, but burn up in the morning sun. Midnight Mass (and the film Last Night in Soho) is the best thing to happen to horror all year. – TS

2. Squid Game

Four hundred and fifty-six desperate people are lured into a contest of survival in which they play a series of children’s games for the chance to win $39 million in this Netflix K-drama that took the world by storm in 2022. Unlike many entries into the survival game genre, Squid Game doesn’t bother to set its dystopian premise in a near or alternate future. This is the world we live in, my friends, and creator Hwang Dong-Hyuk is not pulling any punches. 

Hwang’s dire tale of life under capitalism obviously connected with global audiences, who watched as billionaires got richer and vulnerable communities were left to pay the price during the pandemic’s second year. For many viewers, this was probably their first Korean-language TV experience, but with Netflix continuing to invest in the Korean entertainment industry (not to mention a Squid Game Season 2 on the way), it definitely won’t be their last. – KB

1. WandaVision (READERS’ CHOICE)

What is there to say about WandaVision that hasn’t already been said? In the context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it remains a unicorn. While Marvel movies have been accused of being “cut and paste”, the MCU TV shows have had much more room to experiment with what they want to achieve, and WandaVision embraced that in a way that no one saw coming by refusing to totally conform to the MCU formula.

An examination of grief through the lens of a previously-sidelined character in Wanda Maximoff, the show took advantage of its complete lack of fan expectations to draw in a huge audience of people who didn’t know they could care so much about a witch who once fell in love with a synthezoid and couldn’t bear to live without him. This even included some viewers who had no real context of MCU history and just got hooked after having seen WandaVision pop up on their Disney+ app. WandaVision simply stood on its own and delivered a heartbreaking story that pretty much anyone could identify with if they’d lost a loved one in any capacity. 

The only problem with the series’ success was how easy it was to judge every subsequent MCU offering by the standard it set. – KH

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Other shows receiving votes: Cruel Summer, Hometown Cha Cha Cha, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Brand New Cherry Flavor, Sex Education, Attack on Titan, The Mysterious Benedict Society, City of Ghosts, Run BTS!, How To with John Wilson, The Great North, All Creatures Great and Small, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Power Rangers Dino Fury, Maid, Schmigadoon!, Ghosts (U.S.), You, Search Party, Rick and Morty, The Great, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, The Simpsons, We Are Lady Parts, Arcane, Starstruck, Dopesick, Grantchester, The Nevers, The Underground Railroad, Nancy Drew, Lupin, Heels, Doom Patrol, The Long Call, Inner City Smiths, Miss Scarlet and the Duke, For All Mankind, The Shrink Next Door, Star Trek: Discovery, Anne Boleyn, American Horror Stories, Tuca & Bertie, Nine Perfect Strangers, Ghosts (U.K.), Star Trek: Prodigy, Atlantic Crossing, Word of Honor, Bob’s Burgers, Run On, Hellbound, Sweet Tooth, A Discovery of Witches, Doctor Who, Mythic Quest, Castlevania, The Serpent, The Irregulars, The Great British Bake Off, Solar Opposites, Pen15, Resident Alien, Marvel’s What If…?, The Handmaid’s Tale, American Horror Story: Double Feature, Kevin Can F**k Himself

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[ecoorganic]

St. Louis City SC Reveals Its Name; Now Comes Everything Else

With its branding out of the way, St. Louis City SC moves forward on all other avenues before launching its MLS operation on the field in 2023.

St. Louis’s MLS club has unveiled a logo (there’s an arch and a couple rivers in there if you look carefully), a name (derivative) and colors (unique). Now all that’s left to do between Thursday’s release and the spring of 2023, when the expansion team finally takes the field, is just about everything else.

At least there’s time.

The stadium site, which eventually will be home to a 22,500-seat arena, training complex and team offices, sits just to the northwest of the city’s well-known Union Station and presently is “a massive hole in the ground,” according to St. Louis City SC owner Carolyn Kindle Betz. Workers also found a natural spring, she said. Perhaps that’s a good omen.

The stadium remains on track to open in the summer of 2022. That would’ve been midway through the club’s inaugural MLS season, but last month the league announced a one-year delay impacting three of its four expansion teams. Charlotte FC now will enter in 2022, and St. Louis and Sacramento Republic will join up in 2023. (Austin FC still plans on coming aboard next year).

The extra year “has given us a lot of time to really work with our corporate sponsorship. That announcement came out and they called us to re-engage in those conversations. Our stadium site is on schedule,” Kindle Betz told Sports Illustrated. “It’s a construction project, so who knows? But we’re COVID free, so [when we open] we’ll have a couple months to host watch parties, break in the stadium and see what needs to be [done] so everyone will have that epic first-match experience in March [2023], and that’s very exciting.”

Besides building the stadium and club complex, St. Louis City has to design and fill out its corporate structure and front office; identify and assign roles and appoint a technical staff; figure out what to do about a reserve team and academy; and start marketing season tickets. Kindle Betz was awarded the team last August, and by this spring, there was a sense in MLS circles that St. Louis might be falling behind. Now with an extra year to prepare, the task list doesn’t seem as daunting.

“We’ve really only hired one person,” she said, “and that was Dennis Moore, our chief revenue officer. I think we’re a ways away from [defining a technical and business structure]. So, honestly, it was probably the right time if that decision [on the delay] was going to have to be made, especially in an unknown pandemic. So again, for 10 minutes you’re kind of upset about it. … But after really thinking through it, it was probably a blessing in disguise. It’s allowing us to do things more on our terms as opposed to working on a timeline set by someone else.”

Another executive Kindle Betz considered hiring was long-time U.S. Soccer Federation CEO and secretary general Dan Flynn. He left the USSF last summer, he’s a St. Louis native and he played for the NCAA powerhouse Saint Louis Billikens in the 1970s. It might seem like an ideal fit, but the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement—one source said it was a question of how much control Flynn would have—and negotiations ended.

“I think after having a year under our belt to see how this works, we learned quite a bit,” Kindle Betz said regarding Flynn. “Obviously, Dan is a wonderful man and he’s done great things for the sport of soccer. It’s just that the ownership group had a different philosophy about how to run a club, and so I think it was just better to mutually agree to part ways. He’s still very supportive of us.”

From a technical perspective, St. Louis City is still a long way away from hiring a coach or signing players.

“I think what we would really like to do is bring a chief sporting officer on board and kind of work with them on their vision. You don’t have a vision, hire somebody and say, ‘Here’s our vision make it work,’” Kindle Betz said. “Having that extra year actually helps us because it gives us more time to make sure that we have the right fit.”

The club intends to build an academy system “that is the best in the region,” she said, but it doesn’t currently have a plan to work with Saint Louis FC, the city’s USL Championship team that launched in 2015. Saint Louis FC owner Jim Kavanaugh is a minority investor in the new MLS club.

According to the USL, Saint Louis FC has until the end of this month to commit to playing in 2021 because U.S. Soccer’s sanctioning deadline is in September. If it bows out, there conceivably could be no pro soccer in St. Louis for two years. The franchise rights theoretically could be moved or sold.

“We’ve never had an official formal relation with Saint Louis FC, not to say that we’re not very appreciative of all of their efforts, their supporters group, players, coaches, fans, staff—everything they’ve done for the sport,” Kindle Betz said. “Any kind of decision has to really be made by Saint Louis FC management and ownership over there.”

So for now, St. Louis City is a hole in the ground, a name and a logo. That’s not nothing, however. Both took a lot of work to put together (the previous stadium effort in St. Louis failed under different prospective ownership), and they’re now the foundational building blocks of a club that has more than two years to put everything else in place.

Regarding the name, St. Louis City, Kindle Betz said she hopes it’s something that’ll bring the community together while providing her hometown with the international presence it deserves. City was among the most popular of the approximately 6,000 submissions and suggestions the club received, and in the end it beat out United, Gateway and Stars among “the four names that kind of kept coming back up,” she said.

United is suggested in every poll in every market by fans who think every soccer team should be called that, while Stars was the name of St. Louis’s only other recent top-tier outdoor team, the NASL outfit that played in 1967-77.

Gateway would’ve been the most original and locally relevant choice, but for Kindle Betz that would’ve been a bug rather than a feature.

“You wouldn’t understand Gateway, necessarily, if you don’t live in this region,” she said, adding that the term could be misappropriated and used in phrases like “gateway drug.”

“We want to be an internationally recognized club and Gateway wouldn’t have done it. But City will,” she said.

As for the bright and distinctive pinkish-red that dominates the new badge, the hue is an homage both to Kindle Betz’s favorite color, pink, and the red of the St. Louis city flag. While the vast majority of MLS clubs try to be as bland and indistinguishable as possible in their uniform choices, Kindle Betz insisted, “I didn’t fight for this color to not wear it on the field.”

Kindle Betz said she hopes the upcoming year will bring about the same sort of robust community and commercial engagement encouraged by the naming process.

“I think we definitely have to have some name rights and some founding partnerships solidified so we have some time to really build up the excitement around those,” she said. “We need to really work on getting our season tickets sold and evolving that plan. We need to get our supporters group ready, get them involved in the community, help them start thinking about our mascots and our nicknames. I would say the next year is more engagement on every level. So corporate, fans, supporters, youth engagement, starting to think about what we want our academy system to look like,” she said. “[Next year] will be more people focused than product focused.”

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[fellshish]

I would love to know your headcanons

[fellshish]

Now THIS is very interesting @skelligiri