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anothergod posted:Are people always concerned about having likeable heroes? I generally feel like most TV I've watched for a while has heroes w/ obvious flaws that are overcome by likeability. Tic seems like completely the opposite. He's very likeable up front but his flaws eat away at that. I feel like that is intentional. It's not like Tic is forgetting to put the milk back in the fridge, he keeps making very bad choices and the pace of the show doesn't give the characters much time to reflect on those actions. So Tic and Leti just kind of act like assholes much of the time. Nobody wants the protagonists to be perfect, they should have flaws, I just generally don't like shows where I don't find the protagonists sympathetic. I find both Ruby and Hippolyta to be more interesting and sympathetic.
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Oct 8, 2020 17:04
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anothergod posted:Spoilers for this last episode: I want to believe it's because she cares about Ruby and wants to connect with/understand her on some level, but in my heart, I know she's evil. Also, Tic did Ji-Ah incredibly dirty, like she showed up to help you not die because she cares about you. Don't be an rear end in a top hat.
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Oct 8, 2020 17:20
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GreenMetalSun posted:I want to believe it's because she cares about Ruby and wants to connect with/understand her on some level, but in my heart, I know she's evil. I think she did it simply because she was curious how it might feel. I mean, the guys she paid to do it even quipped "who'd *want* to die like that?"
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Oct 8, 2020 17:29
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BIG HEADLINE posted:I think she did it simply because she was curious how it might feel. I mean, the guys she paid to do it even quipped "who'd *want* to die like that?" They even ask her if she "has done anything like this before", which is a weird question to ask someone who ask you to kill them, unless you know she is not going to die. For a moment I was trying to figure out if they were some kind of Order goons, but they just looked and behaved like randos.
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Oct 8, 2020 17:32
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Oasx posted:I find both Ruby and Hippolyta to be more interesting and sympathetic. I've been kinda falling out of Ruby's story lately and I want the show to go back to Tic and the cult. Hippolyta's story also fell flat to me. More artistic than exciting. I feel like the only coherent storyline right now is Diana and the cops, or even moreso just the evil sorcerer cops.
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Oct 8, 2020 17:48
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Didn't all the sorcerer cops get eaten? I figured that was how Diana gets out of her jam, if the guy who cast the curse on her dies then she's probably free.
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Oct 8, 2020 18:09
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GreenMetalSun posted:I want to believe it's because she cares about Ruby and wants to connect with/understand her on some level, but in my heart, I know she's evil. Yeah, Ji-Ah traveled all the way to the USA to warn Tic and he just shouts at her and treats her poorly (though I don't get why was Leti upset as well, did Tic ever say that he hadn't dated anyone before her or something like that?); I'll be sad if that's the last we see of her on the series.
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Oct 8, 2020 18:33
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I think Leti is pissed cause Tic never mentioned anything about this, including the fact that he knew the supernatural was real from the get go.
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Oct 8, 2020 20:00
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radlum posted:Yeah, Ji-Ah traveled all the way to the USA to warn Tic and he just shouts at her and treats her poorly (though I don't get why was Leti upset as well, did Tic ever say that he hadn't dated anyone before her or something like that?); I'll be sad if that's the last we see of her on the series. And the thing that frightened him was that he was translating the symbols and they spelled DIE or something and that was enough to ask her "How did you know???" This whole death vision thing is a bit clunky.
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Oct 8, 2020 21:31
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Considering they had a whole entire episode dedicated to ji-ah I feel like they HAVE to have more for her to do, but we're kinda running out of eps arent we? The closer we get to the end with no real feeling of building towards anything is making the scenes of tic and leti fussing about stuff feel a lot more like wasted time. Im most invested in Ruby, shes a pretty deeply flawed character who still remains interesting, and her arc actually seems to have some movement in it. The main characters seem to have stalled out a bit, except for (maybe) the very end of this last ep. I see Christina as a weird maladjusted robot lady who might have (unexpected) genuine feelings for Ruby and seriously misinterpreted what Ruby was saying she wanted Christina to understand/feel and went way too literal. So far I've done a decent job picking up on Christina's story beats so I hope that's the case. She never seemed like that much of a "main villain", the magic cops seem like they're filling that role more, both individually and as a looming background threat that no one is safe from. I mean just saying "magic racist cops", I can't think of much worse than that. Come to think of it I feel like the magic cops are the only group that's had a consistent rising threat level against pretty much any/all characters. Idk, Im eager and wary of what the last 2 eps hold, I really hope it ramps into an entertaining finale, it definately has the potential to, but some of the pacing choices have me worried. Im 100% going to watch it though, for any flaws the show has, im totally invested in seeing every episode. Even when its frustrating and dragging it has enough to keep me waiting for more.
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Oct 9, 2020 14:45
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untzthatshit posted:Didn't all the sorcerer cops get eaten? I figured that was how Diana gets out of her jam, if the guy who cast the curse on her dies then she's probably free. I'm guessing Hippolyta will show up to save her somehow, since I think her last words in the previous episode were about leaving to protect Diana instead of staying to become like those other beings.
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Oct 9, 2020 17:33
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Bismuth posted:I see Christina as a weird maladjusted robot lady who might have (unexpected) genuine feelings for Ruby and seriously misinterpreted what Ruby was saying she wanted Christina to understand/feel and went way too literal. I feel similarly about her. Mostly, I read her as a white feminist who doesn't really understand racism. The patriarchy discriminates against her as a woman - the Sons of Adam don't take her seriously, etc. - and she thinks that puts her on a similar plane with Ruby as a POC since hey, we're BOTH disenfranchised by the power structure here! But obviously their situations are not the same, and her "gently caress the rules, take what you want" philosophy comes off like a "pull up your bootstraps" screed. She's a white lady with access to wealth and literal magic. She has the means to say, 'gently caress the rules.' Ruby can't get a job at a department store.
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Oct 10, 2020 01:40
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I think she's supposed to be more played like she wishes she was a guy, or that she wishes she had the privilege's guys have. Not so much that she doesn't understand racism since that's obvious for a woman of her time. It's more that she thinks she has her own struggles to deal with and she doesn't understand why Ruby isn't like oh yea that's as bad as I have it.
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Oct 10, 2020 04:28
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Doltos posted:I think she's supposed to be more played like she wishes she was a guy, or that she wishes she had the privilege's guys have. Yeah, they're queer and a woman, but also rich and white. It's a complex interaction that I don't think the show has given us enough pieces to understand.
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Oct 10, 2020 05:01
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She also gives me vibes of some kind of social disorder beyond white privilege, like she genuinely doesn't understand other people very well, or how to deal with her own feelings when she has them. That could be from her upbringing though, considering her dad didnt seem to treat her like a person
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Oct 10, 2020 17:30
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anothergod posted:Are people always concerned about having likeable heroes? I generally feel like most TV I've watched for a while has heroes w/ obvious flaws that are overcome by likability. Tic seems like completely the opposite. He's very likable up front but his flaws eat away at that. I feel like that is intentional. Are you surprised by the idiosyncrasies of tv iv anymore? These are the same people that think the use of slurs is condonement of those slurs by the writers. I would disagree that Tic isn't likable though. That's why he's dangerous. He fucks up constantly but he's really trying. But tragically it's not enough. I don't know if the story is actually a tragedy in that Tic is going to get everyone he likes killed but it sure seems that way right now. But I still don't dislike him.
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Oct 10, 2020 21:37
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Wow ok episode 9
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Oct 12, 2020 05:34
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I had to catch up, so I watched 8 and 9 last night, and drat they were good. The show feels like 100% better than the early episodes right now.
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Oct 12, 2020 14:15
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Just a show of hands (no judgment), who here was beaten as a kid? We see this a lot in media, and I think a lot of poor/immigrant/etc families make jokes about it, but I have very rarely seen it talked about on any other level than "good/bad/funny". I remember when I was really little (like less than 3), my dad would slap my hand really hard if I did something bad. He's a first gen immigrant, and it was a much different time when he was growing up, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's how he was raised. I've never broached the topic w/ him, but I think he sees it as a bad thing that he just had to stop, and he's never had a reason to bring it up himself. Personally I don't care, but, it's just interesting to think about how things like that change.
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Oct 12, 2020 15:50
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I was physically disciplined in a standard WASP household. It was mostly early 90s socially appropriate levels of force though occasionally it went a little off the rails if my dad was really pissed. It never crossed the line into a legitimate beating though. It was used sparingly, probably to underscore the threat of force, which was used far more often. We have not continued the cycle. I slapped my daughter's hand away from a hot plate by instinct one time and I felt terrible.
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Oct 12, 2020 16:56
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:I was physically disciplined in a standard WASP household. It was mostly early 90s socially appropriate levels of force though occasionally it went a little off the rails if my dad was really pissed. It never crossed the line into a legitimate beating though. I think slapping a kid's hand away from something hot/sharp/wild animal/otherwise immediately dangerous isnt really the same and you shouldn't feel too bad about it... its a much better snap reaction than the people who think its ok to let the kid touch a stovetop to teach them a lesson
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Oct 12, 2020 18:13
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Oh I know, but look of "Daddy just hit me!?" was heartbreaking and I can't imagine how anyone could consciously do it to a child.
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Oct 12, 2020 18:31
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I was spanked by my dad as a kid, but it was open handed and through my clothes. Not great but it never left any lasting physical or emotional scars. My wife, on the other hand, got the belt and she’s still treated for PTSD to this day.
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Oct 12, 2020 18:45
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I enjoyed this last episode but holy poo poo you've traveled through time via an unstable transdimensional portal. I get that it's sad and tragic but maybe move with some goddamn urgency. Tic was the only one who took it seriously.
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Oct 12, 2020 18:49
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anothergod posted:Just a show of hands (no judgment), who here was beaten as a kid? We see this a lot in media, and I think a lot of poor/immigrant/etc families make jokes about it, but I have very rarely seen it talked about on any other level than "good/bad/funny". You really want to know? It does happen and not just a tv thing. I've been quietly enjoying the gently caress out of this show for a bit. Still think the second episode was not well done but man they keep getting better by the episode. Still find it amusing that this show can convey such fantastic and campy moments but toss in some punches to the guy that JUST GET YOU. Last week's episode was legit frightening and this week's episode was just bloody good. I still miss Courtney B Vance but Michael K Williams killed it. With just a few looks. I was shocked at how hard it hit, watching his face as Tulsa burned. His face remembering his first love. The words they said right before. gently caress me. Powerful stuff. I do find it funny that a few years ago I was telling this one teenager about Tulsa. It was something you passed down from generation to generation. Was shite we said to each other to remind ourselves of what can and does happen around the world. Most of the world liked to pretend these things never happened so we always figured we would try and remember for it. Now Watchmen and Lovecraft Country made it public knowledge. As dark as the world gets at least that is something right?
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Oct 12, 2020 19:19
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GenX’er here - I got the belt as a kid. My dad would tell stories of getting far worse and I’ve never doubted it. If anything it’s been an example of each generation ramping down because we didn’t want to be like that. It’s not just a lib conspiracy - corporal punishment in the old days didn’t mess around.
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Oct 12, 2020 20:18
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I was spanked exactly once, for lying.
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Oct 12, 2020 20:22
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anothergod posted:Just a show of hands (no judgment), who here was beaten as a kid? We see this a lot in media, and I think a lot of poor/immigrant/etc families make jokes about it, but I have very rarely seen it talked about on any other level than "good/bad/funny". I got full on beatings, not so much for discipline / punishment, but more because my dad was a perpetually frustrated ball of rage even without all the booze and cocaine use. It's easy to find similar cases in real life but I can't think of any portrayal in movies or TV off the top of my head that matches my experience. But Montrose's dad telling him to pick a switch brought back memories of my more mischievous cousins being told the same. There's something extra devilish in making a child choose the instrument of their own abuse. And they know they have to choose, because if they don't, the parent might choose something more painful.
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Oct 12, 2020 20:36
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:Oh I know, but look of "Daddy just hit me!?" was heartbreaking and I can't imagine how anyone could consciously do it to a child. I was spanked ridiculously, with belts bare assed full force up to like 60 times, switches, etc. by my father, mother, grandmother, etc. Raised in the 80s in a black family, and it was something passed down generationally from the South.
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Oct 12, 2020 20:50
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Darko posted:I was spanked ridiculously, with belts bare assed full force up to like 60 times, switches, etc. by my father, mother, grandmother, etc. Raised in the 80s in a black family, and it was something passed down generationally from the South. I liked for as much as they displayed Tulsa as idyllic, it was socially acceptable for Montrose's dad to beat the poo poo out of him in broad daylight. I just remembered that my "limited physical discipline" memories omitted my Irish grandmother's tendency to stealth up to wrongdoing children and box their ears like a septagenarian ninja. You'd never see it coming, just misbehaving when *bam* pressure migrane out of nowhere.
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Oct 12, 2020 21:00
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Darko posted:I was spanked ridiculously, with belts bare assed full force up to like 60 times, switches, etc. by my father, mother, grandmother, etc. Raised in the 80s in a black family, and it was something passed down generationally from the South. asciidic posted:I got full on beatings, not so much for discipline / punishment, but more because my dad was a perpetually frustrated ball of rage even without all the booze and cocaine use. It's easy to find similar cases in real life but I can't think of any portrayal in movies or TV off the top of my head that matches my experience. But Montrose's dad telling him to pick a switch brought back memories of my more mischievous cousins being told the same. There's something extra devilish in making a child choose the instrument of their own abuse. And they know they have to choose, because if they don't, the parent might choose something more painful. Yeah. Same. Well there were corrections from my old man but really it was a mask for his own shite. Fathers and sons are a hell of a thing as this show is fairly good at portraying. Not all family are like that though. Mostly I got whupped because I did something really bad. Like as in either hurt or almost killed someone (maybe myself) due to my carelessness or arrogance. As far as picking switches there is an art to it. As a kid you are scared shitless because you are worried about at what the parent will choose but if you pick? Even worse. Can't really capture the dread proper as you don't want to pick something really bad but if gently caress up and choose something too soft? They will get mad and pick something even worse than you ever could and you are going to get it even harder. Had a friend whose Pops liked to wear white disco belts from the 80s and he was a master at taking that belt off in seconds and brandishing it like the hand of god. I know some of the guys in this thread are shocked but there is a difference between full out abuse (my father when he was hosed up) and me getting my rear end beat because I nicked some rando from the local mart or lit something on fire. I was a stubborn arsehole bad kid, even at 6 years old, and time outs or cross words would not always penetrate. I give props to the family that did care, even if they spanked. Still don't think spanking should be totally haram; just make sure the person doing it only uses it when you have to and hates doing it. In my experience the full on balled up fist punchings is not a correction thing at all. Knew this one kid whose parents ignored him until they were hosed up and the dice rolled a certain way and then they just loving hated. Hated everything. He'd hide out until it was calm again and they stopped caring. That's another thing: nobody is ever a monster. My dad was no monster, no diabolical villain, he just had trouble handling life. The 90s weren't all sunshine and poo poo would get to him and you roll the loving dice. Some days he could be fun and wanted to take you somewhere. Other days you could tell he was fighting tears. Some days he got mad. It became something you watched out for. Worst thing was... some days they knew. It was like they knew they hosed up their life and hurt yours and they were genuinely sorry. I heard they call it lucid moments. Those were the worst. I used to get this one part of a Dylan Thomas poem stuck in my head "And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Whitest, most posh thing ever right? That was in my head from the very first time I heard it as a kid and would pop up when I looked at him. That one part still goes *pop* every time I think of my Dad. These things happen. Don't feel weird about it if you didn't know and didn't have it happen to you. We all lead different lives and that is what makes this world stronger when we band together. I will say Tic and Montrose capture some of those relationships well. Montrose especially makes that silly rear end poem sound in my head. So yeah.... be nice to your kids if you have them and forgive your parents of their sins, while not forgetting their mistakes. gently caress... didn't mean to natter on like a Gram.
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Oct 12, 2020 21:38
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This episode's theme was very much about how men let their trauma and toxic masculinity get in the way of just talking to each other. Tic has a lot of reasons to hate Montrose and basically won't let those go, so he can't really see his father and the pain that he too is going through. In the same way, Montrose refuses to break his hyper-masculine attitude long enough to show his hurt to his son. It all comes together in that alley when Montrose finally cries and admits that he is a gay man that still loved Tic's mom and loves Tic too. And then Atticus goes out with that bat and looks directly at young Montrose and says, "I got you kid." basically showing that he finally forgives his father and willing to see him as the scared human that he is. It's loving beautiful. EDIT: Someone on Twitter pointed out that these guys managed to travel back in time and not gently caress-up the timeline one bit. The Tuskegee Airmen of time traveling.
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Oct 13, 2020 00:01
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My dad gave me my first concussion when I was 9 or 10 with a sucker punch, so yeah...I was in my feels on this last episode. Because my dad's upbringing was pretty much -exactly- David Allen Coe's "If That Ain't Country". He died last year and that unpacked a lot of trauma that I had just buried the last 25 years, made for a good mental prelude to 2020. This episode brought to mind a lot of the thoughts on generational trauma and the cycle of abuse I had churning in my head all of last year and most of this one. Hate-O-Tron fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Oct 13, 2020 |
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Oct 13, 2020 01:41
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I love sci-fi and fantasy and horror, but sometimes I hate them. Because lots of times you just get the same old tired plots and events and ideas and you have to content yourself with focusing on the characters and their quality actions and reactions to things that you can easily predict or expect. Or other times you get both the same old tired plots and the same old, tired characters too. When I first started getting into fantasy back in high school, everything was insanely mind-blowing, awesome, and new. But not anymore. It is rare that I get some truly new, innovative idea and even rarer that I see some truly great characters that react and act themselves in believable, heart-wrenching ways. This episode has both the new ideas and the awesome characters. Aunt Hippolyta decides to take a detour from coming back from Boston and becomes a FREAKIN' AMAZON WARRIOR-PRIESTESS SPACE WIZARD. Tic travels back in time and saves his own gay dad. Leti reacts completely believably to being able to WALK THROUGH FIRE because everybody else still gets burned to death. And this was all foreshadowed and built up and not teased but thrown in our faces at a breakneck pace its still mind-blowing. This would be 5 seasons of any other show. Heck they could have drawn out Dee's true closest relative for half a season in a lesser show. What did it take in this one, 5 whole minutes? This is the best show on television.
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Oct 13, 2020 02:50
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Well that certainly was a hosed up episode
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Oct 13, 2020 05:22
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This is going to be really self-indulgent and I get it if nobody gives a poo poo. The Confederate monument featured in this episode is in the city I live in. Pretty sure this whole episode was shot here. The monument is one of those mass-produced Daughters of the Confederacy shits. There's another Confederate monument two blocks away. Earlier this year, the city council finally got the necessary votes to have it moved. It's in Georgia, which has a pretty strict monument protection law, but there's a nearby Confederate section in a historic cemetery, and it's hoped that site would fulfill the law's requirement of a place of "similar prominence and respect" or whatever the language is. The Sons of Confederate Veterans group--which ostensibly is supposed to be about preserving Confederate gravesites--now has it tied up in court, presumably to argue that they cannot maintain a respectable enough site themselves. In the meantime, it continues to be the city's premier toilet for canines. This is the second time an HBO show has done a pivotal flashback episode focused on generational trauma where I recognize the streets and buildings and the landmarks (Watchmen's fifth episode is the other one). And it's not like I'm offended or anything; I already know a thing or two about this city's racist history and it's not like my pride is punctured. But it's loving surreal. Like, I know that alleyway. I don't just know it, but I know some poo poo that happened there. I know how this very downtown used to have a lot of thriving businesses, white and black, until a poo poo-gently caress mayor in the 60s-70s turned the whole goddamn thing into an economic black hole with a curfew and cops who were encouraged to shoot to kill. This downtown gave y'all Little Richard and Otis Redding and a slew of soul musicians. Southern rock and especially the Allman Brothers happened here too. This episode is about dads? One of the small gifts my dad gave me is that he taught me who all of those people were before I could ride a bike. And loving poof. A buddy of mine who's much older and spends way more time at the library did the numbers. Before that mayor's curfew, there were 20-something black-owned businesses in downtown Macon (and we're talking about a four-by-five block grid, something like that). It wasn't anybody's utopia, but after? Only in the last ten years has this area been somewhere people actually want to go. They built malls everywhere else while gutting the heart of the city's black economy, convinced everyone it was a "high crime area," bought up the loving property, and turned them into lofts, one of which I'm typing in now. The remaining facade of the Capricorn Records studio was incorporated into an apartment building. I was born in this region and have lived most of my life here, and the last 5-10 years is the only time in my lifetime when anyone has had any optimism about this neighborhood at all. It's not like they flew a plane and bombed the city, but they loving might as well have. It's still just racism all the way down. It's not like a lot of the new businesses or bars are black-owned. Anyway, I feel like I'm on acid during these kinds of episodes. Real history is colliding with portrayed history is colliding with fiction. I don't know if this is old-hat stuff for people who live in commonly-filmed locations, but it breaks my brain in good way.
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Oct 13, 2020 07:14
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:I enjoyed this last episode but holy poo poo you've traveled through time via an unstable transdimensional portal. I get that it's sad and tragic but maybe move with some goddamn urgency. Tic was the only one who took it seriously. People don't always act rational when exposed to massive trauma. Also Tic has training and a lot of recent experience on how to keep functioning when exposed to massive trauma. Vorgen posted:This is the best show on television. You better loving believe it. Unless they gently caress up the ending something awful next episode this show will have been the best TV show of 2020 and it wasn't close. Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Oct 13, 2020 |
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Oct 13, 2020 08:49
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Orange Devil posted:People don't always act rational when exposed to massive trauma.. I don't disagree, but it's less meaningful if that irrationally doesn't live in the context of the story. The show sets the task and the stakes, the characters are aware that they have to get the book under time pressure. They fail to accomplish this difficult task because they are overwhelmed and the price they pay for their failure is nothing because Hippolyta kept the portal open through superhuman effort. The screenplay that disarms the bomb at the literal last second is a subjective pet peeve of mine that pulls me right out. If Hippolyta suffers some cost besides a dye job for their lollygagging I'll happily withdraw my criticism. Also, it's useful to know that Leti's protection spell follows the Tag Base rule where anything she is touching or is touching her is also protected.
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Oct 13, 2020 09:11
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Excellent. No comment on the episode, except to say that I've missed seeing Regina Taylor on screen. Irrelevant aside: the more I think about it, the more that it's obvious to me that this show isn't remotely interested in adopting the tone of Lovecraft's work. I think that put a lot of people off from watching an excellent show. *shrug* Their loss.
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Oct 13, 2020 09:49
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AtraMorS posted:This is going to be really self-indulgent and I get it if nobody gives a poo poo. Thank you for writing this out, it was a good read and fits with the last few pages. This show is something pretty special. It feels like what the promise of 'prestige television' should be. It's not the clinical masterclass of early GoT CGI or eloquently written Sopranos television, it stumbles around a lot and I still get whiplash from some of the pacing. But the idea's it dabbles in and the performances are superb. It's not playing a single note perfectly, it's all over the drat scale and it's just awesome to watch. Like a few others have said it sprints past themes and storytelling that would take other shows full seasons in single episodes. I really hope it sticks the landing.
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Oct 13, 2020 14:23
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