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Apparently the show's creator is up for a second season, and while nothing is official yet I'd be up for that. I'd be interested in seeing how hermetic sorcery and future science knowledge effect the civil rights movement, at least. :v
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Oct 19, 2020 17:43
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Stayed away from this thread to avoid spoilers, but godamn I loved this show. It wasn't predictable, and presented really tough issues in such a creative way, but recontextualized a lot of things to make them more powerful. Although for my wife, her favorite part was how Hippolyta was handled within the story. Someone already mentioned that moms usually get sidetracked as 'emotional support' and don't really get to do much. But in this show she gets to go on a grand adventure, and when given the chance, names herself "mother." That really appealed to her. I am almost definitely giving this show a re-watch once I get moved into my new house next month. For anyone that may have read it, how was the book it was based on?
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Oct 19, 2020 18:01
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This show is clearly not in the realm of realistic fantasy TV that has been in vogue for decades now. It's a fun anthology show with an agenda. I'm glad it's not mindless TV, and I feel like my worldview has grown a lot. I don't think I'd be too excited about a second season for this show, but I'm also pretty sure I'll give a couple hours of my time watching whatever Misha Green comes up with next. Anyways, it was cool closing out the show last night. It was pretty far from my favorite episode (it might be my least favorite episode?), but all things end, right? 1) Tic's story arc was pretty cool. Him accepting his death was pretty cool. The talk about uh... monster vs. hero is a bit weird, but uh, I guess accepting your death is weird too. 2) Tic leaving Montrose in charge of his kiddo as a do-over for fatherhood was interesting. Will Montrose be a better father? Who knows? Is the ambiguity part of the story? IDK. But it was probably the most interesting way to end Montrose's (or anyone else's) story 3) Jiah's story was over after Daegu and she clearly was supporting cast here. Is she human? Is she not? Is she cool w/ hanging out w/ Tic's baby mama? Or does she just not know how to deal w/ those feelings? 4) The Leti, Ruby, Christina triangle is actually upsetting to me. Leti didn't learn anything, Ruby was actually a good sister the whole time, Christina killed Ruby but also still... loved her? IDK, this poo poo was a mess. 5) Dee seems like she's supposed to be cool and inspire kids even tho, idk, yeah her being the one to kill Christina is hosed I'm having way less fun talking about this episode than other ones, but if someone wants to chime in and change my mind, that'd be cool.
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Oct 19, 2020 18:16
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So, something fun was that The Book of Names was never something white people had in the first place. Episode 4 essentially says that Titus found the book on one of his colonial expeditions, and likely stole it from a native population. Then he translated it by kidnapping another Native woman and forcing her to decode it for him. Then he used that magic to enrich his own life at the sacrifice of other lives, a tradition carried on by future generations of his order. Meanwhile, Hannah's family instead used the book to craft a single spell, passing it from black matriarch to black matriarch across almost 200 years, with each person willing knowing that they would never see the benefit of their work. And that spell is finally completed by a man willingly sacrificing himself to protect others. That's why the magic in the book wasn't evil to that family, because the intent of their Black Magic was always one of sacrificing oneself for the next generation, and ultimately that's a much more powerful spell than the short-sighted and greedy tantrums of the assorted white wizards that came before. EDIT: I love that after 10 episodes of this, people still don't understand why Dee did what she did. A cool robot arm does not erase the trauma of a history of violence. A cool robot arm doesn't bring Emmett back, or put his killers in jail. Anonymous Zebra fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Oct 19, 2020 |
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Oct 19, 2020 18:17
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Overall I was disappointed both in the ending and the show, I was expecting more Lovecraft and horror and less fistfights. I think my biggest disappointment of the finals was that they spent a whole season building up the Ruby and Christina relationship only to just abandon it. What exactly was the point? I will watch a season two if they make it, and if they just make the protagonist less awful then that would solve the biggest issues the show has.
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Oct 19, 2020 18:24
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Be honest - how many of you quit watching Breaking Bad because Walt "wasn't a nice protagonist"? This is still the strangest critique that keeps coming up over and over again in this thread. Maybe I'm a broke brain but I love seeing it when protagonists are believably... human.
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Oct 19, 2020 18:58
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Anonymous Zebra posted:EDIT: I love that after 10 episodes of this, people still don't understand why Dee did what she did. A cool robot arm does not erase the trauma of a history of violence. A cool robot arm doesn't bring Emmett back, or put his killers in jail. Can you explain it to me? The way I see it Dee herself had no reason to murder Christina. She never interacted with her, Christina helped her as much as she could, Christina wasn't going to hurt Dee herself, and as far as I could tell, Dee had no idea what transpired to put Christina in that predicament. The adults clearly left her there, so it's clear that it was their choice to keep her alive. Tbh, I just see robot arm Dee w/ cthulhu dog as a comic book character, something for kids to talk about at school or doodle in the margins of their notebooks.
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Oct 19, 2020 19:06
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anothergod posted:Can you explain it to me? The way I see it Dee herself had no reason to murder Christina. She never interacted with her, Christina helped her as much as she could, Christina wasn't going to hurt Dee herself, and as far as I could tell, Dee had no idea what transpired to put Christina in that predicament. The adults clearly left her there, so it's clear that it was their choice to keep her alive. Holy poo poo dude. Dee has a literal robot arm because two white wizards/cops cursed her in order to interrogate her on the same day of a funeral of her childhood friend who was lynched and brutally beaten and tortured based on dubious claims from a white woman. And those killers were set free by an all white jury of men. Dee is only standing there because her family was there to stop a ritual being carried out by a white sorceress who killed her older cousin (brother?!), but "No hard feelings kid, it's just what needed to be done." But yeah, Dee had NO reason to want to kill Christina. Christina definitely was totally a benevolent force in her life. No harm intended at all. EDIT: All of the characters in this show are fully realized humans, but they're also stand-ins for different aspects of race culture in America. Dee is the representative of the unrealized potential of the black youth (and young black girls specifically) being brutalized before it can even begin to flourish. Christina, as I said earlier, is supposed to be White Women Feminists, who are tentative allies only when it suits them and are happy to pull up the ladder behind themselves when the going gets tough. Christina having the gall to ask for Dee's help once she was put into a position of weakness for the first time in the whole series has a lot of meaning, and so does Dee crushing her throat in response. Anonymous Zebra fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Oct 19, 2020 |
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Oct 19, 2020 19:12
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Anonymous Zebra posted:EDIT: All of the characters in this show are fully realized humans, but they're also stand-ins for different aspects of race culture in America. Dee is the representative of the unrealized potential of the black youth (and young black girls specifically) being brutalized before it can even begin to flourish. Christina, as I said earlier, is supposed to be White Women Feminists, who are tentative allies only when it suits them and are happy to pull up the ladder behind themselves when the going gets tough. Christina having the gall to ask for Dee's help once she was put into a position of weakness for the first time in the whole series has a lot of meaning, and so does Dee crushing her throat in response. If the moral is that violence is okay and necessary to protect your particular race/archetype/representation... well that's interesting. I do support the protagonists being flawed individuals. The show has already shown that fear and violence caused by racism isn't a purely "white people" thing thanks to Tic summarily executing an "other" in Korea. When does that nurse's family come looking for revenge? The scene of Dee looking at the moon with the howling monster in the background took a somewhat sinister turn to me. Like a new age dawning, but one that won't be built on forgiveness and instead on vengeance. Similar to the last shot of Godzilla King of the Monsters which is another great story of monsters fighting monsters.
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Oct 19, 2020 19:27
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The question you should ask is why is the onus always on black people to be the ones that show forgiveness in the face of generational violence?
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Oct 19, 2020 19:30
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Anonymous Zebra posted:The question you should ask is why is the onus always on black people to be the ones that show forgiveness in the face of generational violence? Oh it's not! They just happened to be the ones in the position of power now. If the point of the story is "we have the power now... they will pay (because why is the onus on us to be the ones that show forgiveness in the face of generational violence)" that's fine. It also promotes "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster" and at the end of the day, regardless of the racial injustice background, this is supposed to be Lovecraftian. So the sinister turn is fantastic if intended. If not intended then it's a puzzling way to end things.
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Oct 19, 2020 19:38
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Anonymous Zebra posted:So, something fun was that The Book of Names was never something white people had in the first place. Episode 4 essentially says that Titus found the book on one of his colonial expeditions, and likely stole it from a native population. I did notice Lettie throwing some clicks in there when she read the spell. Pretty cool. I was not expecting such a definitive ending to this show. So many shows just end up teasing more over and over. Having Jioh realizing her part at the critical moment was a little cheesy, but overall a fun finale - though I do feel there's plenty more you can do with these characters.
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Oct 19, 2020 20:02
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theBeaz posted:Be honest - how many of you quit watching Breaking Bad because Walt "wasn't a nice protagonist"? You can be human without being a terrible person, if the protagonists are just as "evil" as the villains what is the point? I know that i'm in the minority on this, but I need to like the main characters of any show that I watch. It's why I don't watch Breaking Bad/The Wire/Sopranos etc.
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Oct 19, 2020 20:32
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Oasx posted:You can be human without being a terrible person, if the protagonists are just as "evil" as the villains what is the point? Very fair then - that's consistent. It is indeed a dark story and one without clear heroes. I mean, the savior of the day is a soul-taking-sex-murder-demon. It'd be like getting excited that the alien from Under the Skin showed up to steal Christina's flesh. I can't tell if some people in this thread are saying "Ha - justice is served! All is good and right in the world now" or if they see this as a much darker story because they have embraced violent powers themselves. Just so we're clear, I think Christina and her apathetic form of evil deserved to die. It was just strange that it wasn't done in a moment of passion from the people involved in the ritual rather than slowly and coldly by a child. IMO that doesn't make it a bad show - on the contrary I think it shows that people with great power will take advantage when given a chance. Skin color has nothing to do with you ultimately being good/evil. theBeaz fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Oct 19, 2020 |
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Oct 19, 2020 20:52
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Oasx posted:You can be human without being a terrible person, if the protagonists are just as "evil" as the villains what is the point? The point would be to tell a story that is a little more morally complex than a fairytale.
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Oct 19, 2020 20:56
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Madurai posted:I'm not really comfortable with Diana's part in this being to kill a powerless and defeated enemy, for a couple of reasons, no matter how cool her cyborg arm was. It was presented as this big "gently caress YEAH" comeuppance moment, but it sure didn't feel like it. I've been thinking about this, and part of me wanted Dee to use her robot arm to lift the rocks off Christina to let her limp away, in a sort of halfway merciful "leave and never return to bother me or mine again" scene. It certainly would have made me, as a white male viewer, feel more at ease if we had Dee to look forward to as a symbol of a more compassionate black future. But this show never took the easy way out, and it is not here to make me feel good about myself. And that's partly why I like it so much. It's a nice circle back to to the show's original inspiration: H.P. Lovecraft's stories never had feel-good endings either. They always left the reader with a feeling of dread, and if I'm perfectly honest with myself, dread is exactly what I'm feeling when confronted with the thought of a furious vengeful people suddenly unchained and made powerful and out for revenge against those who oppressed them, be it actively or complicitly. It makes me feel unsafe - which, I would guess, is just the most infinitesimal taste of how most people of color feel every day. Dave Syndrome fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Oct 19, 2020 |
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Oct 19, 2020 21:03
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Oasx posted:Overall I was disappointed both in the ending and the show, I was expecting more Lovecraft and horror and less fistfights. To show that just because a person is a White Feminist doesn't mean they won't sacrifice/use black people to get what they want. They sort of do that with Tic and the gay stuff as well, being oppressed doesn't automatically make you sympathetic to other people being oppressed.
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Oct 19, 2020 22:06
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Doronin posted:Stayed away from this thread to avoid spoilers, but godamn I loved this show. It wasn't predictable, and presented really tough issues in such a creative way, but recontextualized a lot of things to make them more powerful. Your avatar scares the gently caress outta me but I agree. Was it the greatest ending in the world? Nah, but I did enjoy it. Really enjoyed it. Had little quibbles but, as a whole, liked it. Season as a whole was good. Still think episode 2 was just too rushed and felt a bit sloppy but, like I said in the previous sentence, minor quibbles. This show went all out on characters and that was its strength. Cutting white people off from magic cracked me up but you just know they aren't going to like that. Puts a giant target on your bum tho. Still think it was batty that this show is so good at capturing human nature, warts and all. Would not have expected that from this show from the trailers. socialsecurity posted:To show that just because a person is a White Feminist doesn't mean they won't sacrifice/use black people to get what they want. They sort of do that with Tic and the gay stuff as well, being oppressed doesn't automatically make you sympathetic to other people being oppressed. Anonymous Zebra posted:The question you should ask is why is the onus always on black people to be the ones that show forgiveness in the face of generational violence? Yes I did see that movie and liked it. Also like that her "good" Shoggy is black so you know it' good. Also more powerful than the white Shoggoths. Reminded me of this one scene from an old movie that had me dying. Yes I was very high. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxzWzH0bmGw DogsInSpace! fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Oct 19, 2020 |
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Oct 19, 2020 22:37
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Ruby is okay, right? They kept reminding us that Christina had to keep people comatose to steal their faces, and while Ruby's face got that way because of blunt force trauma I kind of think Christina would have just used a spell to knock Ruby out.
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Oct 20, 2020 00:08
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Mameluke posted:Ruby is okay, right? They kept reminding us that Christina had to keep people comatose to steal their faces, and while Ruby's face got that way because of blunt force trauma I kind of think Christina would have just used a spell to knock Ruby out. She's keeping William comatose to repeatedly get material from him. Here's hoping Ruby's ok and it was just a one time transformation.
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Oct 20, 2020 00:17
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Take that white people
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Oct 20, 2020 00:22
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Mameluke posted:Ruby is okay, right? They kept reminding us that Christina had to keep people comatose to steal their faces, and while Ruby's face got that way because of blunt force trauma I kind of think Christina would have just used a spell to knock Ruby out. I think Ruby is dead and that you can take Christiana at her word on this, and that lying about killing would not serve any real purpose. It's purely a "I caught Ruby and she's dead, but I promised to keep you alive." line delivered relatively straight faced, with no verbal follow-up to indicate a deeper purpose or meaning.
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Oct 20, 2020 00:45
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Show worth watching? I remember when it first aired, people liked it, then disliked it after 2 or 3 episodes. I'm not too terribly picky as long as there is some interesting stuff going on. I liked Raised By Wolves, even if the ending was frustrating, fwiw.
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Oct 20, 2020 00:50
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I'm so-so on the final episode. I think the big problem for me is that the show was best on the individual episodic narratives, but the overarching plot never really felt that compelling to me, and the final episode was pretty much entirely centered on that big stuff that was the least interesting to me, and suffered a bit for it. Also man, the Christina actress really can't act. The fight between Ruby/Christina and Leti was also really badly done. At a minimum, even if there's no second season, it was a fun show and I definitely hope Jurnee Smollett and Jonathan Majors get big career boosts out of it.
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Oct 20, 2020 01:05
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Did not really enjoy the finale as much as the last three or four episodes. Verified that Ji-Ah was a total pointless addition to the source material and the vagueness of the magic spell macguffins caused me to lose interest. As an Asian American I知 reflecting on the use of Asian/Asian Americans in this show and Watchmen and I知 not able to put it in words but I feel... some type of way. I知 not offended and I appreciate both shows as an opportunity to educate myself but I feel disappointed I guess. However I did enjoy the show overall. I really encourage anyone who has not read the book to go check it out. The differences between the book and show mean there are some great aspects unique to each.
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Oct 20, 2020 04:25
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:Show worth watching? I remember when it first aired, people liked it, then disliked it after 2 or 3 episodes. I'm not too terribly picky as long as there is some interesting stuff going on. I liked Raised By Wolves, even if the ending was frustrating, fwiw. Show is good.
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Oct 20, 2020 05:02
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Late to the party and have been binging Meet Me in Daegu will rank as one of the best tv episodes I have seen in my life. I can稚 get enough of this show. How close is this to the book because I might have to read it after finishing the season?
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Oct 20, 2020 05:19
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Oasx posted:Overall I was disappointed both in the ending and the show, I was expecting more Lovecraft and horror and less fistfights. It was definitely more Dunwich Horror/Shadow Over Innsmouth than Rats in the Walls/Dagon/Dream Cycle. I feel like if they would have done more surreal stories the show would have been boring, pretentious, or both. Instead they did bang em up adventure you'd get out of an Arkham Horror board game. I would like to see both but I don't think the fistfights were that out of place. It'd be cool if these showrunners started doing episode vignettes on the stories instead since I like their style but something tells me this is a two season show and the second season ain't gonna be that.
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Oct 20, 2020 06:10
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My biggest problem with the finale is that it loving sucks to just kill Ruby off-screen. Maybe that'll be undone in the next season though, who knows. The finale wasn't a good representation of the show at its best, but even at its messiest and most convoluted the themes are so strong they carry the experience. I hope if they make another season they can keep it a bit more focused and less schizophrenic - they completely gloss over so many important things happening constantly and often don't deal with the consequences, and if I could have changed anything it would be to slow everything the gently caress down just a little bit. The second half was definitely stronger than the first half, but overall I still think they didn't quite manage to toe the line between the main plot and the subplots that well. One of the most bizarre things is that everyone was just... kind of okay with what Christina was doing until the very end of the season? Like they've known that she is up to no loving good since the second episode and they basically just leave her to it? I get that they have a lot to deal with, but it's just kind of a bizarre dynamic to have the villain of the season take a weirdly passive, mostly conversational role for 90% of it and none of the protagonists actively working against her for just as long. That's a relatively small nitpick though, because the show really landed its themes with absolute expertise. Each episode gives you so much to think about and they cover so many crucial parts of the black experience and history in America that I just haven't seen many other shows or films deal with. What a cool, weird show.
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Oct 20, 2020 10:49
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FastestGunAlive posted:Did not really enjoy the finale as much as the last three or four episodes. Verified that Ji-Ah was a total pointless addition to the source material and the vagueness of the magic spell macguffins caused me to lose interest. As an Asian American I知 reflecting on the use of Asian/Asian Americans in this show and Watchmen and I知 not able to put it in words but I feel... some type of way. I知 not offended and I appreciate both shows as an opportunity to educate myself but I feel disappointed I guess. Filipino dude here, and yeah, absolutely the same. I totally expected Ji-Ah to be a prop character after Daegu, and yeah, it happened. But honestly, Black Asian racial interactions is bigger than one episode or even a whole season for a show that already has a lot on its plate. If anyone has resources to articles or media related to Black and Asian racial interactions, I'm super interested. Does the book go into that at all? I doubt it, but, I'd be interested if it does. To note: Ji-Ah is the only non blood family ally and I think Tic made it a note to call her family. Not even Sammy stuck around, but Ji-Ah was there.
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Oct 20, 2020 12:49
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Doltos posted:I would like to see both but I don't think the fistfights were that out of place. It'd be cool if these showrunners started doing episode vignettes on the stories instead since I like their style but something tells me this is a two season show and the second season ain't gonna be that. Those fist fights gave me a Buffy the Vampire Slayer vibe and not in a good way. Highlight of the season for me was the sheriff following them out of Ardham only for him not to give a poo poo about the county line anyway. Real, grounded horror that the show never really managed to capture quite as well again. My second favorite moment was probably the whole exorcism scene in the house which was just beautiful, gory schlock.
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Oct 20, 2020 12:49
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This show was an uneven mess. There were some good episodes and some great performances, but overall it was a complete loving mess.
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Oct 20, 2020 13:29
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anothergod posted:Filipino dude here, and yeah, absolutely the same. I totally expected Ji-Ah to be a prop character after Daegu, and yeah, it happened. But honestly, Black Asian racial interactions is bigger than one episode or even a whole season for a show that already has a lot on its plate. If anyone has resources to articles or media related to Black and Asian racial interactions, I'm super interested. Does the book go into that at all? I doubt it, but, I'd be interested if it does. She does not exist in the book and we don稚 see Korea in the book. Tic is still a returning vet in the book, with that background used to show how he is a victim of racism even at the hands of white veterans.
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Oct 20, 2020 13:53
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I actually kind of dig that the show was a weird mess. I'm so tired of watching the same old poo poo with the same story structure. It didn't always work, but it kept my interest the whole time. When did people catch the Christina-Ruby switch? Ruby joining in on the Sh-Boom car singalong after bombing on it in the first episode was a nice small signal. The next time she appeared on screen I yelled "She's Christina!" and my wife gave me the biggest eyeroll.
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Oct 20, 2020 13:57
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Slamhound posted:This show was an uneven mess. There were some good episodes and some great performances, but overall it was a complete loving mess. I found the show to be interesting, and overall I'd say I liked it, but I have a hard time disagreeing with this.
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Oct 20, 2020 14:03
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Tokelau All Star posted:When did people catch the Christina-Ruby switch? Ruby joining in on the Sh-Boom car singalong after bombing on it in the first episode was a nice small signal. The next time she appeared on screen I yelled "She's Christina!" and my wife gave me the biggest eyeroll. My partner and I got paranoid in the graveyard scene so when it happened later we were already second guessing ourselves.
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Oct 20, 2020 14:58
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I have really loved the show all the way through so all I needed was for the end not to completely poo poo the bed, and I'm happy to say the ending worked for me. I agree it was a little rushed and a little all over the place, but I was still really moved by it. The show as a whole is for sure messy, but that's what I like about it. It kept me off kilter the entire way through and that really opened me up to learning and thinking about things in new ways. The word I keep using about the show is "audacious". Some shows I respect more than I like, but this one I equally enjoyed it AND respected what it was doing.
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Oct 20, 2020 14:58
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Similarly I didn't care for the main plot but individually I liked the characters/performances and the genre shift for each episode. The journey was more rewarding than the destination. I have no idea if season two is on the table but I honestly don't need it. If it does happen I hope they delve more into cosmic horror now that white people are bound from practicing magic.
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Oct 20, 2020 15:03
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Master_Odin posted:I think Ruby is dead and that you can take Christiana at her word on this, and that lying about killing would not serve any real purpose. It's purely a "I caught Ruby and she's dead, but I promised to keep you alive." line delivered relatively straight faced, with no verbal follow-up to indicate a deeper purpose or meaning. I think she's alive. You can see her in a coma during Ji-Ah's vision at the end. I mean, Christina could have shoved a pillow over her face after she got what she needed, but I don't think so.
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Oct 20, 2020 15:12
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Are we done with the source material, or are there other stories to be told from that? If there's a season 2, will this be like Handmaid's tale that the show writers just riff off of where it all left off?
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Oct 20, 2020 15:19
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