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 This is not a work of fiction. https://youtu.be/SDHxie2QcJI Whole season on Prime now.
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Mar 17, 2023 17:33
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Sweet gonna check this out
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Mar 17, 2023 17:40
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So far so good. Love that the whole season is up right away. The audio queues are freaking me out a little bit. Bit like nails on chalkboard. Unsettling.
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Mar 17, 2023 19:20
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Dre is pulling a men in black and only asking for sugar water. Is she a literal bee?
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Mar 17, 2023 20:24
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I knew this show was about obsession and idol-worshiping, from what was shown in the previews, but holy poo poo I didn't see it going in the route it's going.
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Mar 17, 2023 21:02
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Episodes 1-3 were very cool and good but episode 4  I loving love it. Also managed to be totally unaware of one particular cast member in that episode which is wild because I see now it’s all over the internet
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Mar 17, 2023 22:55
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Escobarbarian posted:Episodes 1-3 were very cool and good but episode 4 Episode 4 when that happened I laughed my rear end off. I saw they were in it from the IMDB, but didn't expect that.
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Mar 17, 2023 23:18
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Finished. Pretty drat good show but not amazing. Episode 6 was funny but I did feel it started being too on-the-nose about the show’s themes at the end, but then the final shot was a huge laugh. Finale was excellent, that and ep 4 are my favourites probably. Dominique Fishback is utterly incredible the entire time, holy poo poo, and real good direction/cinematography. I laughed a lot at Malia’s credit being on the episode with the lunatic shotgun-toting dad
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Mar 18, 2023 01:00
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I just paused the show to google “the hive Beyoncé” and the second I unpaused it a screen of google with “what is the hive” pops on the screen lmao. I seriously have no idea what the gently caress is going on in this show rn lol.
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Mar 21, 2023 04:15
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Enjoyed this somewhat. I think the overall style clashed a bit with the narratives potential mostly in the flimsy set up in Ep 1 and absolutely bizarre choice to do Episode 6 as a bad youtube parody skit. just felt like they were trying to lazily recapture the wtf nature of an episode of Atlanta like Teddy Perkins I think it could have been a bit more compelling if told slightly more straight narratively while keeping every single aspect of its visual and auditory style. It gets a little lost in its own sauce. AccountSupervisor fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Mar 21, 2023 |
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Mar 21, 2023 08:27
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Yeah I'd agree with that.
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Mar 21, 2023 09:00
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I was loving this show until the very end and then downgraded it to merely liking it. I adore the perspective shifts and the actual production but think some of the story beats are a bit iffy. Maybe if the episodes were in a slightly different order I'd like it more, especially moving the true crime episode to the end. Still, it's a pretty remarkable show where I don't think I saw a single story beat coming, and Dominique Fishback is a goddamn star.
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Mar 21, 2023 18:18
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I'm honestly still really confused about the true crime episode. Idg the stylistic choice to change all of the actors? I guess the point was just to be confusing and make people think it was a real story?
veni veni veni fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Mar 21, 2023 |
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Mar 21, 2023 18:22
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Overall I thought it had it's ups and downs. All around it was entertaining and had some funny parts. Was surprised at how awful Dre was lol. I thought it was gonna be kind of this anti hero where you sort of root for her, but she is just batshit and I found myself mostly just like "please someone stop this woman". She is supremely unlikable in a way you rarely see from a main character. I don't mean that as a dig on the show or DF, I actually liked that aspect of it. The true crime ep is where it started to lose me too. Felt like the goofy movie thing v2 or something, but was handled in a way I'm not sure worked for me. Weird placement, weird execution on that one. The final episode and ending were just super meh to me. I'm ok with open ended endings but I didn't really like this one. I mean, it seems like the reality of it could only be one thing, but not getting to see it at all was unsatisfying.
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Mar 21, 2023 18:31
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veni veni veni posted:I'm honestly still really confused about the true crime episode. Idg the stylistic choice to change all of the actors? I guess the point was just to be confusing and make people think it was a real story? I mean, yeah, wasn't that a through-line for the whole series with the intros explicitly saying that?
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Mar 21, 2023 18:51
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Yeah but if the whole point was deflection, they didn’t do a very good job because a. It was obviously scripted and b. It’s on Amazon so when you pause it x ray mode comes up lol. I don’t even think that episode would have been great regardless but I think just using the same actors would have worked better.
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Mar 21, 2023 20:01
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I had a friend who asked me how real it was lol. But yeah it is funny how when you pause episode 6 it tells you who plays Loretta
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Mar 21, 2023 22:08
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veni veni veni posted:Overall I thought it had it's ups and downs. All around it was entertaining and had some funny parts. Was surprised at how awful Dre was lol. I thought it was gonna be kind of this anti hero where you sort of root for her, but she is just batshit and I found myself mostly just like "please someone stop this woman". She is supremely unlikable in a way you rarely see from a main character. I don't mean that as a dig on the show or DF, I actually liked that aspect of it. Yeah, I was impressed at how committed they stayed to that. The early episodes in particular managed to keep her thoughts really distant and unnerving. Like in Episode 2 when she's just moving from point A to point B without any real plan and we're just stuck on the outside watching the mayhem. Having just finished it, I think it was pretty decent, but it also feels a little off because it peaks hard in Episode 4. That's the spot where the stylistic stuff and the plot beats just line up perfect and it's a great ride from start to finish. And then it just kinds of winds down with Episode 6 being a weird one and Episode 5 being a little drawn out. It's kind of interesting to do 6 as a true crime homage/parody. It's a decent one, but maybe the little jokes only work if you've watched or listened to enough shoddy True Crime shows and podcasts. I got a little smirk out of "Oh, they're doing a badly filmed from across the street interview" "Now it's time for the super animated parking lot phone call" "Oh, the detective is trying to make herself memorable to get an Investigation Discovery show out of it" but that was about it. Not sure how it landed for anybody who wasn't on that wavelength. And also it doesn't do too much beyond that, and True Crime parody is a well-trodden field by this point. I think that the issue with Episode 6 was the lack of meat to it. The Goofy episode of Atlanta had a lot of actual story within it. This one had a few good minutes when it just went ahead and stated the message. That the documentary wanted to write this off as some sad and broken person who was just wrong in the head or doomed, and not wrestle much with the alienation/isolation/hopelessness/desperation for community that also played a big role. It worked well for me that as soon as the social worker told them off, the detective immediately did her "We share the same last name , just think of how her life might have been different..." navel gaze, but also that worked for me because bad True Crime shows love to do those shallow monologues. I also just kind of groaned at the ending of Episode 6 though. The wink and nod about how Swarm was the show Glover was making about the documentary was just too much for me. Pretending that it was based on a real story was strange. I assumed the lead-ins were just a fun Fargo reference until Episode 6 did the changes and went back to a bleeped out Beyonce and Hive. I think the only thing that it actually helped with was the ending. Making it explicitly, "in-universe" canon that this was fiction made the ending a little clearer. In canon, it's Glover writing a weird, what-if fantasy of how Dre rushing the stage would have gone in her dreams. So no arguments about what "really" happened. Fine...I guess. But it still felt kind of off after everything. Still a really pretty, stylish show that was surprisingly brutal, just wish it had a little more substance to it. Parakeet vs. Phone fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Mar 22, 2023 |
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Mar 22, 2023 08:09
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drat, I loooooove Atlanta so much, but I couldn't get through the first episode of Swarm 
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Mar 23, 2023 02:21
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I'd give it until the second episode. Watching what happens to her "friend" Halsey is what hooked me. Went from being mildly amused to very engrossed with wtf energy very quickly.
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Mar 23, 2023 05:15
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Grem posted:I'd give it until the second episode. Watching what happens to her "friend" Halsey is what hooked me. Went from being mildly amused to very engrossed with wtf energy very quickly. drat, thanks yeah, I'm half way through the second episode. This show is cool.
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Mar 24, 2023 02:48
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I like the show. I do feel that episode 6 is placed weird/unnecessary with regard to the whole thing. I liked the meta commentary, and dominique Fishback was excellent. Every episode she moved and behaved differently.
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Mar 27, 2023 12:52
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Whaaaaaaat the fuuuuuck. Just finished episode 7. Crazy. Episode 4 was the best.
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Mar 31, 2023 03:44
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Donald Glover material is Monty Python meets David Lynch. 100% works for me. Fun show for sure.
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Apr 3, 2023 01:49
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Episode Four is the good poo poo.
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Apr 4, 2023 06:08
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Catching UP Episode Five: We're meant to be wondering whether Dre killed Marissa, right? Certainly the parents seem to think so. Also, yeah, I knew there were queer vibes between the two of them. Been thinking about the idea of being a consumer and obsessive consumption; I think the show goes there with the bite and with Dre's love of fast food, and the way that her identity is so tied to the culture she consumes that she feels personally attacked every time her idol is criticised, but I'm wondering if some of this isn't reaching diminishing returns on the concept. Fantastic acting from Fishback during her monologue about her fantasy of being a make-up artist. And great loving lighting throughout. Episode Six: This cop lady's weirdly, self-aggrandizing documentary is meant to be suss as gently caress, yeah? I've been tooling around the internet about it and it seems like most people are taking the entire show at face value, but I dunno... Like the bit where the connection between the original murders and the stripper incidents is confirmed through an obviously faked phone conversation insert. Generally don't trust a lot of information that's being delivered here; e.g. the foster mum talking about how much she and her husband cared for her kids, but the implication that they were regularly locking the original Dre in the attic, or this cheerleader coming in and telling a story about a 'harmless' sleepover prank that resulted in her getting stabbed. Or this killer piece of evidence:  And then it ends on a bunch of people laughing at this girl as she delivers a perfectly fine highschool quality performance in a highschool talent show -- nothing really worth laughing at, all things considered -- and all I'm left thinking is that she was probably an easy target for victimization.
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Apr 18, 2023 02:49
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I did a little writeup on my thoughts earlier, but the documentary episode, I think, isn't meant to necessarily be suspicious. Things like the faked phone calls and reenactments are just spoofing bad True Crime shows and kind of pushing back on common tropes from them. There's a reason that the conversation with the social worker is the emotional peak for the episode. Like I said earlier, they nailed the idea of "This cop thinks she's getting her own show on Investigation Discovery/hit podcast if this works out." I don't think that they did an amazing job with it and I wondered how it would track for someone who didn't have a lot of experience with those types of shows/podcasts. But it's meant to be an exploitive documentary within the canon. But, I'd assume the information is mostly "true" within the setting. But also, yeah, it still presents a picture of someone who was very isolated, mocked and rejected so you kind of understand how she ended up latching onto a fandom like that. The point about the food seems right. Borderline compulsive eating, especially of junk food, is usually a sign in TV of someone trying to feel something or fill the emptiness. So it tracks.
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Apr 18, 2023 20:38
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Releasing a show on Amazon Prime seems to have the same effect as throwing it into the back of a drawer somewhere. Swarm was great, deserved way more attention.
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Apr 23, 2023 14:05
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You ain’t kidding. Prime are loving poo poo at promoting their shows. Even worse than Netflix.
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Apr 23, 2023 14:28
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Enjoyed the first few episodes, but it soon felt icky to watch. The turning point for me, maybe, was learning that Dre was abused and potentially special needs. It made me question the whole premise of the show. The show calls out this array of injustices -- predatory men, racist progressives, toxic fandom, bad foster parents and white feminist cults. But it doesn't have anything to say about them. They seem to exist purely as boogeymen so we can justify gawking at the macabre violence of an intellectually disabled person. I got nothing out of seeing Dre slowly choke out her girlfriend. It just felt plain gross to watch. It feels dumb saying this because I watch dozens of TV shows and movies every year where there's a dumb amount of violence. But the viscerality was something else here.
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Apr 28, 2023 23:21
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| # ? May 9, 2024 21:26 |
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Escobarbarian posted:You ain’t kidding. Prime are loving poo poo at promoting their shows. Even worse than Netflix. I feel like Hulu is the worst, I had to find Only Murders via the search feature when it first came out.
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Apr 28, 2023 23:40
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