#he likes things to be predictable and if he doesn't know what's up with Simmons

[quadrantadvisor]

My headcanon about Richard Simmons is that he has a few beliefs that he struggles with, including, but not limited to: toxic masculinity, puritanical ideals about work and worth, internalized homophobia, general queerphobia, etc., etc. And that trying to reconcile those beliefs with his own feelings of inadequacy and his place in the wider world causes him constant mental suffering for many, many years. And that dealing with that suffering and trying to compensate for his own self-loathing and hypocrisy makes him act like an absolute ass.

And then one day there's enough evidence, there's enough understanding of the people in his life, there's enough budding respect for himself that the switch just. Flips. And he's like "wait none of that fucking matters."

The thing about Simmons is that he doesn't do anything halfway, when he believes in something he gives 100%.

What I think is funny about that is, from an outside perspective, one day Simmons is trying (and failing) to do """locker room chat with the boys""" and the next day he's read 7 books on queer theory and he's haughtily telling people that their gendered language is reductive. Like everyone knew he was in denial but there were NO SIGNS that he was getting over it whatsoever, he is Just Suddenly Like This and trying to pretend that if he ever said something that wasn't socially progressive no he didn't.

Like he's still overcompensating for something and he's still kind of an asshole about it but now it's even funnier. To me and maybe also Donut. For the rest of the cast it is the most confusing day of their lives.

[rubykgrant]

A funny "Flowers didn't Die" concept-

(and seriously, I think he just kept faking his death and then peacing-out to go do whatever, but for the purposes of this, he just stayed in Blood Gulch the whole time)

-Still keeps being way too cheerful with no concept of personal space and is also incredibly intimidating. Church thinks the guy is like, in weird serial-killer-love with him, and expects Flowers will invite him for dinner someday, and if he went, he'd wake up in a room from a Saw movie

-Tucker also finds him mildly creepy, but enjoys getting compliments all the time, and Flowers is at least pretty organized, so him as a leader is fine (also, Flowers targets most of his weirder attention on the unknowing Alpha, so Tucker's like "Hey dude, Flowers isn't so bad", to which Church responds "He watches me SLEEP, man! And he keeps asking if I feel human today, whatever the hell THAT means!")

-Tucker does pitch a fit when Caboose arrives, because now they are BOTH "rookie blue". Flowers decides to compromise and trades Tucker his fancy aqua armor, and Flowers gets a new set for himself (still blue, but now it has different highlights, etc). Tucker feels like he's the favorite because he gets the cool armor, and Church thinks he's the favorite but in a BAD way

-Caboose is actually more welcomed by Church this time. He needs SOMEBODY to be a Flowers-buffer, and boy oh boy, does Caboose rise to the occasion!

-Church doesn't have to act like the leader anymore, but Flowers encourages him to "show initiative", and this usually means being the one to go yell at the Reds. Church is good at yelling (also, Flowers knows how to sort of "trick" Church into accidentally coming up with good plans. like, he works backwards by presenting a stupid idea, letting Church pick it apart, and then Church comes up with an oddly good strategy. y'know, like somebody who could create highly advanced scenarios and predicting outcomes)

-Sarge gets fixated on Flowers, because the guy never gets directly involved with any of the fighting, so this turns into a Captain Ahab and the White Whale situation (but the whale is actually Blue). Sarge also hates him because it is impossible to have an argument with Flowers; he turns every insult into a compliment. It's actually kind of a perfect rivalry

-Simmons wants to personally murder Flowers, because he heard Simmons say something to Sarge about having a father-son relationship, and offered to let Simmons call him "daddy". Simmons isn't sure if that was just a miscommunication, spiteful mockery, or a freaky flirtation, but HE DID NOT LIKE IT. Grif doesn't even say anything about it specifically, but every time they see Flowers, he just loudly chuckles in mean-spirited glee

-Grif didn't really care about Flowers at all one way or the other... until the guy made references about knowing Grif's family and stuff that isn't even in his files. So yeah, he agrees with Church, Flowers is CREEPY

-Donut totally didn't get that this guy was the actual Blue Team leader at first, and he kept going back to the "store" to buy "supplies". Flowers just... gives him things. When they finally realize what's been going on, the Reds are confused about why Flowers didn't just kill Donut, and the Blues are ticked that Flowers gave the Reds their cereal. Eventually, Flowers and Donut have more conversations together, and nobody likes how it SOUNDS

-When Tex arrives, she genuinely doesn't recognize him. Agent Florida didn't speak to her much, and his armor looked different. She's kind of annoyed with him though. Stop flirting with her boyfriend! Or ex-boyfriend! Or whatever Church is!

-Church "dies", and Flowers is a little freaked-out by the fact that the Alpha AI didn't instantly present itself as a holographic avatar. Did it just... stop existing? How bad did her screw this up??? Oh, never mind, Church is a "ghost". He keeps offering to "share his body" with Church (knowing perfectly well how it works to have an AI hang out in your head), WHO DOES NOT CARE FOR THAT WORDING, NOPE

-Omega gets loose, and this sucks for Flowers. When the AI is with Caboose, there is a combination of two sources of anger in there, and now Flowers has to listen to VERY specific and ominous threats for a change. He's getting bullied

-Flowers finally gets known as a Freelancer when Wyoming shows up, and he's kind of mad about it. He had a WHOLE THING GOING, he was COMMITTED TO THE ROLE, and now it is RUINED. Also, Tex is embarrassed she didn't figure it out

-After the whole "getting exploded to the future" thing happens and they return to Blood Gulch, everybody decides to ignore Flowers. Like, they literally play the "Did you hear that? Must have been the wind" game when he talks. He hates this! He needs ATTENTION! Simmons runs away to be a Blue, and Flowers wanders off to sulk (so, the stuff with the cave, and him getting Omega for a bit still happens. now, instead of him randomly getting shot and killed, he winds up knocked-out, and later fakes like he has temporary memory loss for everything that has happened recently. he's still officially "reported" as being KIA)

-Kai shows up, and she won't stop arguing with him. Flowers doesn't get snippy very often, but Kai contradicts everything he says, and he gets harmlessly frustrated

-After the big finale of Blood Gulch, Flowers INSISTS on being the who relocates Church. When Wash shows up looking for them, Flowers expects Wash won't recognize him just like Tex, but Wash DOES, and the bit is once again ruined

[infinitetelevision]

Romancing the Egg

Wild Cards. Season 1, Episode 10.

Hmmm. I expected a betrayal. I expected something to do with Ellis' brother changing Max's mind. Got both of those, and not much else. I held out some hope for the show because I liked some parts of it, but not these parts. Season 1 is a fun, mindless watch if that's what you're looking for - just don't think about the plot points too much.

Show so far: ⭐⭐

Episode: ⭐⭐

-Ace Analyst

More spoilery talking points under the cut:

We're just going to walk through the plot points one by one here:

Max has a plan to betray her husband we didn't previously know about. Okay. Sure. No issues with that plot. Kinda nice that it ties in with the random mansions, and kinda cliche that there's an unexpected husband, but no issues with this idea.

Max gets the local police involved in the plan. Okay - what? The local police get informed that an international thief is going to be in town, hear Max's plan to catch him with just one of their own and go, okay, sure? Let's not call Interpol or someone else? Weird, but forgivable in the context of TV logic. They're really trusting her with this one.

Max expects Husband to run and plans for that. This was fine. Made sense. Glad to see that there were actually other police there besides Ellis, even if it was just literally the only two other cops in the whole show.

Max actually stole the real egg before Husband and replaced it with a fake. This, too, is fairly predictable, and fine. In fact, I expected it so much that the flashbacks to her doing so were incredibly boring. I didn't actually care how she got it done - they've been feeding us lines all season that she's a good thief, I believed it, didn't need to see it.

Ellis discovers Max's plan. Predictable, fine, whatever. Liked that he grew suspicious after trying to reach both her and ... whatever the other guy's name was. A little weird that the $33 million evidence was just easy to check out and investigate on his own.

Ellis goes to confront Max. This was... bad. Sure, it makes sense with what they've tried to tell us about how close these two are, but then he just... goes home? Doesn't tell anyone? Is the broken egg still on his desk. Are the authorities aware that Max has betrayed them at all? What was Ellis planning to do - pretend he didn't know? Tell them later? He literally checked out the evidence!

Max discovers something in the audio tapes and changes her mind about leaving. Again, I saw this coming. It's fine but predictable, as was her conversation with Ellis on the boat.

All in all, that kind of sums up the show - fine but predictable. Nothing interesting or exciting happened in the finale. The plots were occasionally engaging, but the characters weren't. There was potential, but they were cliche and one-note. After ten episodes, I still don't know who Max and Ellis are. Max cares about her Dad, smiles a lot, and is good at crime. Ellis cared about his brother, wants his job back because his dad was a cop, and is a rule-follower - except for when he isn't.

There was a moment, in this episode, where they talked about always having each other's backs, but it didn't feel earned to me. We've had ten episodes. The first few was just them settling in together, and between that we've had plenty of mistrust. I didn't get that closeness.

I saw someone say that the most intriguing thing about the show was the side characters, and I don't entirely disagree. The hints of Simmons' past partnership with Ellis was interesting. Max's friend was neat. Even Yates grew on me, though for some reason she just stopped insulting Ellis halfway through the season. The writers were good at subtext with these things, but the actual text wasn't as engaging.

Minor point 1: Didn't like the way this episode was shot. The weird slow-mo's and zoom ins while pulling the 'heist' felt boring and unnecessary.

Minor point 2: Max's husband was literally just there to get caught. That's it. We learned nothing new about Max through the introduction of this character.

Final note. Fun. Boring. No character development. Won't be in a hurry to watch Season 2 if it does end up getting renewed.

[junker-town]

NBA tanking reform doesn't need to be radical to make progress

Incremental progress on NBA tanking is still progress

Back in 2014, as Sam Hinkie deftly built a franchise based upon the power of losing, the NBA considered reforming its draft lottery in a major way. Every non-playoff team would have a shot at the No. 1 pick, and a good shot at a top-5 pick. There would have been less incentive to be truly bad as the odds evened out among the lottery teams.

Still, there may have been an issue with intentional losing further up the food chain, with teams being forced to choose between being sacrificial lambs in the playoffs or gunning for a higher draft pick. There were a good deal of unintended consequences in play.

NBA franchise owners narrowly defeated lottery reform then, backed by a Sixers and Thunder lobbying campaign. Commissioner Adam Silver let the issue lay for a few years, but per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, it’s alive again. The league’s competition committee — a group of team executives and coaches who refer rule changes to franchise owners — is considering a new Silver proposal to reform the draft lottery.

This edition is more mild. Based on Wojnarowski’s report, the worst three teams in the league would have even odds at the No. 1 overall pick, and the odds for the fourth- and fifth-worst teams would increase. One presumes that this leveling of odds would increase all the way down, but perhaps not as dramatically as the 2014 plan.

The upshot is that securing the league’s worst record wouldn’t come with a 25 percent shot at No. 1 and a 100 percent probability of winning a top-4 pick. The odds to win it all would be lower, and you could fall another slot down. This is incremental progress toward decreasing the power of the NBA draft in team-building by reducing its predictability.

Incremental progress is still progress. Given how 2014 lottery reform could have dramatically changed which teams tank -- dropping the incentive for the bad squads but raising it for the mediocre — incremental progress might actually be preferred.

Brilliant former Sixers executive Ben Falk argued that the core problem is the NBA hasn’t fixed its contract rules that make draft picks so valuable. NBA rules allow teams to lock up elite draft picks for four years at affordable rates off the top, with strong preferential opportunity to extend their contracts to 7-9 years total. Falk argues that if rookie deals were shorter or otherwise less attractive, tanking for a high draft pick would similarly be less attractive. He’s right!

But the domino effect from instituting that kind of radical change would be deep, and as such it’d need to come with other big reforms or checks on how teams acquire and retain talent. (I’m not opposed to radical change; we should just acknowledge that none of it is simple.)

What the NBA is now considering should have predictable, even manageable impacts if implemented. Teams at the bottom of the standings won’t gain much by losing one game more than another awful squad. A multi-year tanking plan like the one Hinkie pursued will be even less of a sure thing in terms of acquiring several potential stars.

The treadmill of mediocrity — that zone where teams are too bad to be relevant in the playoff chase for multiple years, but not so bad they can pick up a franchise-changing talent in the draft — will get narrower. Given the NBA’s upward trajectory and the limited overall concern about all-out tanking at this point, incremental progress is enough.

Woj reports the competition committee may consider another rule that may actually be more potent than changes to the lottery odds structure. The potential rule would prevent teams from winning the No. 1 pick in consecutive drafts. If a team won the No. 1 pick, they could choose no higher than No. 4 in the following draft.

This seems like a powerful defense against Hinkieism. However, the Sixers never picked No. 1 during Hinkie’s reign — he had two Nos. 3 with Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor. Philadelphia can claim the last two No. 1 picks, Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz, but a year after securing the pick that became Simmons, the Sixers actually landed at No. 5 in the lottery!

Through a brilliant Hinkie trade with the Kings the Sixers had moved up to No. 3 and then Bryan Colangelo cut a deal with the Celtics to trade for No. 1. It does not appear this rule change would have prevented the Sixers from landing Simmons and Fultz.

The question is whether it would have discouraged Hinkie from pursuing his plan in the first place. Clearly, it would not have. But it would have hurt the chances of a team from tanking out for multiple years and coming away with multiple surefire stars.

Interestingly, the last team this would have truly hurt is the Cavaliers. After drafting Anthony Bennett No. 1 in 2013, Cleveland would have gotten the No. 4 pick in 2014 — not No. 1 pick Andrew Wiggins, who they flipped for Kevin Love.

It’d also hurt the Cavs right now if it were in place. Since the Nets technically won the No. 1 pick last season, they’d be ineligible to win a top-3 pick in 2018, when Cleveland owns its pick thanks to the Kyrie Irving trade. It’s pretty funny that the biggest theoretical victim of an anti-tanking rule would be the team that’s been to three straight NBA Finals series.

Currently, the perverse incentives of the NBA draft are such that some team executives build bad teams with the purpose of securing better prospects, and that some teams, facing irrelevance after a slow start, boost their odds of losing with roster and rotation decisions that result in less competitive basketball. That’s worth addressing without flipping the league on its head. This package of reforms from the NBA seems to do that.

If franchise owners aren’t willing to take even this mild step toward weakening the magnificent power of the NBA draft, there’s no hope for remaking the league’s talent pipeline as the true reformers wish to see. If nothing else, this vote should let us know what’s possible in reforming the draft system: something real or nothing at all.

[infinitetelevision]

Strangers on a Wave

Wild Cards. Season 1, Episode 4

Another fun episode, another twist I didn't see coming. Maybe I'm just not that great at solving TV mysteries (very plausible), but I'm impressed again that I (halfway) didn't see the reveal coming. A few bits remained a little too... bland? Cliche? Predictable? Full of TV logic? Not sure the right term. But I enjoyed the episode and the growing relationships between the characters. We got a big dash of Ellis' backstory here, and his relationships with some of the others in the precinct which was nice.

Show so far: ⭐⭐⭐

Episode: ⭐⭐⭐

-Ace Analyst

More spoilery talking points below the cut:

Specific talking point number 1: The mystery. Chilly being guilty followed along with the show - the cops suspected him from the start, after the drug thing, so not that big a leap. The Trip guy also immediately jumped out as an idiot, but that was obviously a red herring I didn't pick up on. Instead, he died solely for the fact that he was irritating Kathy, the real mastermind. I liked the twist, didn't love Max falling out of the vent right in front of them (or taking a phone call right above them - they really couldn't hear that?).

Specific talking point number 2: Ellis' backstory. Glad it was expounded on some more in a way that seemed organic. We know by now that Max is inquisitive, and she's fond of Ellis, so it makes sense she'd prod that point until she got some answers. I liked Simmons more this episode too; he's been given a bit more character so he's not so two-dimensional anymore. There was a moment or two where you could see the history between him and Ellis without the show needing to spell it out, which was nice. (Yates... not so much.) I have a feeling we'll get back to Ellis's brother's murder though. Probably the season 1 finale, the way these types of shows usually go. I also kind of agree with Li on demoting Ellis, at least based on the evidence we have.

Minor point 1: Robin seems to use they/them pronouns. I'm not exactly keeping track, but another point for the show in terms of casual queer diversity.

Minor point 2: For as irritated as Ellis is with Max sometimes (if fondly irritated more and more), he only ever introduces her as a consultant, not a criminal. Granted, he needs to keep his credibility, but it's nice he doesn't spill her life story to others.

Minor point 3: Threats and danger. Based on Max's 'kidnapping' - and Ellis's standoff last episode - this seems like a light-hearted procedural show that's not interested in dealing with real danger. If characters do ever get injured, they're likely to be fine again the next episode. Not knocking it if that's what you like, just recognizing the genre.

Minor point 4: The opening sequence seems too long, particularly because there aren't even any credits over it.

[rubykgrant]

Do blorbo bleebus for grif

Grif is barely "intense", but boy oh boy is he complex! He has a fairly tragic backstory... him and Kai being orphans is questionable, they definitely had parents, but those parents weren't very caring or dependable. He's like, kinda been involved with violence and such, but isn't especially motivated to kill, so I hesitate to call him a "murderer". I have so many little things in common with Grif, it is both funny and sad. He's friend-shaped, the braincell-haver of Red Team (Simmons would HATE hearing that, but... yeah). He sits pretty much dead-center on a lot of scales, because he's actually capable to go in either direction; he can be focused on one single thing for an extended period of time with no other thoughts, or have TOO MANY thoughts all at once. Lots of people complain about him, but also can't help but like having him around. He's oblivious and stupid in some subjects, but almost a genius in others. However, he is very much Just Some Guy in a down-to-earth way. He's only slightly bad company when he's just defaulting to being selfish (but has a caring side he doesn't like to show). He can actually figure a lot of things out, and knows how to use what's around him to his advantage. Grif has sooooo much trauma. So MUCH. When he isn't trying to act too cool to care, he's surprisingly nice. He's at peace with life in a general way, but in a LITERAL way he's an enemy of god. Also, f*ck the rules! Like most of the characters, I like imagining scenarios where bad things happen, but then it gets nicer. Less trauma for this man, but please let him have some romance already. Some SPECIFIC MAROON ROMANCE (I know, I'm predictable). He has a family and friends, but I'd like to see the realization that they all REALLY love him. Grif gives me lots of inspiration for art and writing, so he filled that row almost all the way up.

Thanks for asking~