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alexandriao posted:They would benefit from starting season 3 with a top down view of the empire type deal, Gall sitting down and explaining how Psychohistory was a revelation to her, person of interest style "we have this information on people in the empire and we have so much of it we now have formulas that can predict, on the order of hundreds of years, where people will flow, how their mass actions coalesce into aingle actions", etc. It feels like the writers actively resent the idea of psychohistory and are much more interested in exploring what impact individuals has on history though. I'm kinda baffled by a lot of the choices they have made. We're never in the actual Foundation - we spend more time on Trantor or in dream states or flashbacks. Then there's the Cleons, Gaal/Salvor/Seldon, Mallow, Bel Riose and the Priests - so 5 plot lines which don't really affect each other and are more like 5 separate stories. It's weird - why not just explore the Foundation as it struggles to grow and the empire as it slowly decays?
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Aug 18, 2023 23:11
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I thought the origin story of 2nd foundation was not bad. "Young" Saldon with a Philip Seamore Hopman haircut was hilarious. Richal House went from pouring water down Gaal's face to bonding to letting Gaal control the faith of her tribe in speedrun mode is hilarious. Richal House feels like a character actor I should know, but apparently she is a voice actress and I have never seen any of her acting. stephenthinkpad fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Aug 18, 2023 |
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Aug 18, 2023 23:47
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LinkesAuge posted:The whole "magic" of predicting patterns in Seldon's story is the cringe inducing way (stupid) writers like to portray intelligent characters. Is that really the best idea you had? He can "predict" the exact spot where space animals are running through? Come on. Fuckin gun kata rear end poo poo lmao
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Aug 19, 2023 00:12
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stephenthinkpad posted:Richal House went from pouring water down Gaal's face to bonding to letting Gaal control the faith of her tribe in speedrun mode is hilarious. I mean it's typical abuser stuff mixed with confusion induction hypno type stuff — Seldon literally calls this out, she is keeping Gaal off-guard in order to better manipulate her
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Aug 19, 2023 01:24
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I still say Michael Caine would've been a better Hari Seldon in the world of this show
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Aug 19, 2023 03:50
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I still say Michael Caine would've been a better Hari Seldon in the world of this show Long before this show was ever a thing, I always pictured Hari Seldon as Alan Arkin in my mind.
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Aug 19, 2023 04:46
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I think this show is so far rather more faithful to the themes and arc of Foundation - the whole series, from Prelude to Foundation through to Foundation & Earth - than this thread acknowledges. The show has made significant concessions in order to maintain a recurring cast and a brisk, violent plot, but it nonetheless hews (so far) to the general structure of the first three crises. Consider the first crisis: Anacreon threatens domination; the Empire makes a failed, perfunctory show of support; Foundation is reborn as a political entity in delicate, techno-hegemonic alliance with Anacreon. The tension between the pragmatic mayor (who in the book also insists that "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent") and the encyclopedic establishment is preserved. The external and internal aspects of the crisis and its resolution are preserved despite extensive amendment and abridgement. My perspective may be colored by my own imagination's insistence on reconciling the two tales. But perhaps your perspective has been colored by a part-remembered, deeply personal experience of the books (most of us read them in adolescence, after all). The first book was a laconic series of short stories. It left galaxy-sized lacunae to be filled by the reader's imagination. It was also pretentious, founded as it was on an invented and plausibly (but not actually) intellectual science. This show should not be faulted for leaning into the campy aspects of that pretension. Mentalics are, after all, very silly. And both works mention Wenus (hehe). wode fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Aug 19, 2023 |
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Aug 19, 2023 07:51
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wode posted:I think this show is so far rather more faithful to the themes and arc of Foundation - the whole series, from Prelude to Foundation through to Foundation & Earth - than this thread acknowledges. The show has made significant concessions in order to maintain a recurring cast and a brisk, violent plot, but it nonetheless hews (so far) to the general structure of the first three crises. The arc, sure, but the themes, not so much. The core conceit of the books was that the individuals who take the roles history demands aren't that important overall. Even a conscious, thinking replica of Seldon in the Vault wouldn't have predicted and demanded "Hober Mallow." Someone was inevitably going to do that. They even reversed the whole point of the Mule: in the books he was an unforseeable disruption of the Seldon Plan that could only be dealt with because the Second Foundation was there to react to, not just predict, problems. And in the show he's a foreseen crisis. I'm generally pretty good with the show, even most of the changes. The Cleons plot is fun, and it's fine to replace the book style Mentalics entirely with mutant psychic powers. But the shift to chosen individuals is still a pretty big thematic one, and not strictly necessary. Visual media is full of "happen into greatness because someone had to do it" stories, and those aren't incompatible with an active living/simulated Hari Seldon still bumping around to give Jared Harris more screen time. I don't particularly mind that either, but it was absolutely a creative choice and not a practical concession.
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Aug 19, 2023 08:21
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If you are only watching the show and have not read the book or wiki, can you describe what the show "foundation" is? It's still math related or some kind of genetic superpower?
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Aug 19, 2023 09:46
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Killer robot posted:The arc, sure, but the themes, not so much. The core conceit of the books was that the individuals who take the roles history demands aren't that important overall. Even a conscious, thinking replica of Seldon in the Vault wouldn't have predicted and demanded "Hober Mallow." Someone was inevitably going to do that. They even reversed the whole point of the Mule: in the books he was an unforseeable disruption of the Seldon Plan that could only be dealt with because the Second Foundation was there to react to, not just predict, problems. And in the show he's a foreseen crisis. The show is in conversation with the books' themes, at least. Someone was inevitably going to be key to the first crisis - Seldon intended Dornick, but got her daughter. In the books, the Mule and (to a lesser degree) the Mentalics are a necessary foil to the impersonal inevitability of Seldon's plan. The show explores this theme from the start, and with greater credence. But it is still counterpoised against psychohistory. With regard to Hober Mallow: it seems to me that the vault-Seldon is able to actively observe the Foundation - witness his murder of the mouthy Warden. The plan predicted and called for a dashing rogue salesman. It's an archetype which would inevitably appear within the techno-religious-mercantile spider that is the present Foundation. When the time came, vault-Seldon simply observed that a man named Hober Mallow epitomized the required type, and requested him.
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Aug 19, 2023 10:22
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stephenthinkpad posted:If you are only watching the show and have not read the book or wiki, can you describe what the show "foundation" is? It's still math related or some kind of genetic superpower? I don't think I fully understand this question, but if you're asking what the show is about : Foundation is the show about Hari Seldon, an advanced mathematician who's calculated societal trends and has observed with a near total certainty that galactic civilisation will collapse into dark age barbarism. This cannot be avoided. However it may be shortend, but only if a very specific series of actions are taken during a variety of predetermined turning points, or "crises", so named because they represent particularly fraught periods within Galactic history. To this end he has established a scheme involving an organisation, The Foundation, supported by a second observational organisation, The Second Foundation, in order to keep the first group managed and on track (due to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle or similar pop science reasons). His plans have recently ("recently") been thrown into disarray, resulting in a failure to establish his Second Foundation as per his pre established timeline, and he is currently racing to rectify this state of affairs in order to prevent the total collapse of his plan. In addition to this problem there are a number of threats to this schema, however, both internal and external. Empire is the most overt current imposition, and they seek their own perpetuation of the status quo via a genetic clone dynasty -- though their plan is flawed due to personal failings and genetic contamination. Secondly, Hari has done a deal with a mysterious woman, probably a robot of some kind, in exchange for power and technology, which will present its own issue down the line. Finally, Hari is a personally flawed individual whose extreme utilitarian view of history comes into conflict with the individuals around him, and whose mind has begun to struggle under the weight of infinite life. Those people, his daughter-in-law Gaal and her daughter Salvor struggle with whether his conception of historical determinism is either true or moral, but they are still persuaded to act because they understand the potential dangers the galaxy faces. The questions of whether he is right, and whether he is moral, have yet to be determined.
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Aug 19, 2023 12:16
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I dunno why but I can accept that FTL spaceships apparently powered by genetically engineered animals “work” but a math equation being able to exactly predict the path of 1000 individual animals in a herd is just too much. Feels like the show writers should have spent less time reading the Wikipedia page on quantum entanglement and spent a few minutes reading about Brownian motion or chaos theory, or even about “mathematical rounding and truncation errors.” Prolly cause they don’t try to explain the former, but they explain the latter by just saying “trust me bro it’s in the math” but like the math doesn’t work that way. At all. Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Aug 19, 2023 |
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Aug 19, 2023 12:49
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Open Source Idiom posted:I don't think I fully understand this question, but if you're asking what the show is about : I think they were actually asking for a description of "the seldon plan" and wrote "foundation" by mistake. Edit: Or "psychohistory"? I dunno man. Weird question. Rephrase it or look up wiki articles on those terms. Snowmanatee fucked around with this message at 13:03 on Aug 19, 2023 |
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Aug 19, 2023 12:56
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Boris Galerkin posted:I dunno why but I can accept that FTL spaceships apparently powered by genetically engineered animals “work” but a math equation being able to exactly predict the path of 1000 individual animals in a herd is just too much. Feels like the show writers should have spent less time reading the Wikipedia page on quantum entanglement and spent a few minutes reading about Brownian motion or chaos theory, or even about “mathematical rounding and truncation errors.” I can't remember if you're a ~~~~book reader~~~~ or not, but the  from Asimov himself actually followed your reasoning. Seldon's point was that small numbers of people were unpredictable and there couldn't be an exact solution to their behaviour, just as there's no general exact solution to the three-body problem. Asimov was scientifically literate, so he likely (wikipedia seems to support this) was channeling the thermo-dynamic revolution of ensemble theory; once there were enough human beings, and the Galactic Empire is said to consist of at least hundreds of trillions of people, it became possible to fashion a theory of psychohistory. But a lot of the drama in the novels comes from exemptions to the axioms of his mathematical theory. The Mule is an aberration due to his abilities, and the Second Foundation is explicitly meant to be a guiding force, to make the human gas flow in a certain way if you will.
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Aug 19, 2023 13:38
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Open Source Idiom posted:I don't think I fully understand this question, but if you're asking what the show is about : When I say the show "foundation", I didn't mean the show plot. I meant the central technological breakthrough each scifi book or franchise has in the core that the writers use to imagine an entire new world and a different society based on the central premise. I should have phrased it better and used the word "psychohistory" instead of "foundation". But your post pretty much answered it. I wonder if the show still focuses on Seldon's original goal of "avoiding the dark age". It's something discussed at length in s1 but barely discussed in s2.
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Aug 19, 2023 13:56
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Rappaport posted:I can't remember if you're a ~~~~book reader~~~~ or not, but the Even in the books, psychohistory was able to predict individual events with a reasonable degree of accuracy. They could predict with 77.2% probability that Gaal would not receive a sentence in the Imperial trial, and that he had less than a 1% chance of being executed. Seldon also predicted that the Chief Commissioner would exile them to Terminus, although he couldn't be certain, and no specific probabilities are mentioned. Psychohistory requires large populations to approach certainty, but it seems like it can do around 75% predictions for individuals shaped by social forces.
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Aug 19, 2023 14:22
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Latest episode: so do we think Hari is actually dead? Seems like it’d be stupid to give him a body only to kill him off so suddenly. Or is this like Gaal is seeing the future and will stop it kind of thing?
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Aug 19, 2023 14:24
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stephenthinkpad posted:I wonder if the show still focuses on Seldon's original goal of "avoiding the dark age". It's something discussed at length in s1 but barely discussed in s2. I’m not sure what your relationship is to the books or show, but if you’re this invested in it you should just watch it. In the latest episode alone they talk about how their plan with the foundation/second foundation is to save everyone, brought up in the context of if “everyone” includes mentalics, and other characters discuss the distinction between their faith/belief in the Seldon plan.
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Aug 19, 2023 14:24
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Oh poo poo that was Jessica Hyde off Utopia. That shot of Trantor framed through the rings of the spaceship made me wonder whether Trantor's new orbitals will allow it to jump. Hope Hober Mallow seduces the Spacer Queen and steals FTL travel away from Empire through the power of his libido, that would be hilarious. stephenthinkpad posted:I wonder if the show still focuses on Seldon's original goal of "avoiding the dark age". It's something discussed at length in s1 but barely discussed in s2. The Magicians mentioned it just this episode. latinotwink1997 posted:Latest episode: so do we think Hari is actually dead? Seems like it’d be stupid to give him a body only to kill him off so suddenly. Or is this like Gaal is seeing the future and will stop it kind of thing? I assume this is setting up a reveal that Hari has a Demerzel style body. Open Source Idiom fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Aug 19, 2023 |
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Aug 19, 2023 14:46
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Open Source Idiom posted:I assume this is setting up a reveal that Hari has a Demerzel style body. I was thinking the same thing. Maybe not exactly like hers, but thats hes now a robot or android or whatever. Tellem could read his mind but some parts of it she couldn't so that could have also been a hint but how does a mentalic read a robot's mind at all? SPACE ROBOT.
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Aug 19, 2023 23:11
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Is this season good at all beyond Cleon? I loved the first 3 books, but the first season was a big disappointment
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Aug 19, 2023 23:27
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They keep hinting at interesting things happening with each set of characters before immediately reverting back to boring poo poo the next episode.
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Aug 19, 2023 23:29
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Mr. Nemo posted:Is this season good at all beyond Cleon? Yes!
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Aug 19, 2023 23:49
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Mr. Nemo posted:Is this season good at all beyond Cleon? Amazingly, yes it is. Like, not 100% good but I'm not hating myself watching this season, actually looking forward to fridays. God knows the effort they had to go to to change that up.
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Aug 19, 2023 23:52
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Mr. Nemo posted:Is this season good at all beyond Cleon? If you go to a restaurant and get served a diarrhea sandwich and piss lemonade is getting just the piss lemonade on the second trip good? Really not worth drinking 64 ounces of iced piss but the situation has definitely improved. It's better than the first time I guess.
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Aug 19, 2023 23:58
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Last episode was fine. It’ll be really surprising if Seldon doesn’t do a robo-jesus. I also enjoy the flying priests adventures. I think the visual worldbuilding is great in this show, with a few misfired here snd there - think the Cleon’s throne room and the First Foundation planet. But then we get the cool Colosseum and the nifty spacer space ship - neat!
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Aug 20, 2023 00:21
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Latest episode was boring as gently caress.
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Aug 20, 2023 01:18
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Mr. Nemo posted:Is this season good at all beyond Cleon? It's been great.
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Aug 20, 2023 01:38
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Mr. Nemo posted:Is this season good at all beyond Cleon?
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Aug 20, 2023 06:31
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Mr. Nemo posted:Is this season good at all beyond Cleon? Cleon stuff hasn't been nearly as good as last season I think, while still being better than the other plots, but the Gaal/Salvor stuff has dramatically improved and its added two other plots which are also much more interesting than the non-empire stuff was last season. latinotwink1997 posted:Latest episode: so do we think Hari is actually dead? Seems like it’d be stupid to give him a body only to kill him off so suddenly. Or is this like Gaal is seeing the future and will stop it kind of thing? He stabbed himself with the knife after getting his body so they could go for the incredibly stupid idea of having his data ghost get a body for two episodes, re-upload a copy to his data-knife, die and come back as a ghost again. But he's probably a robot.
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Aug 20, 2023 11:12
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Open Source Idiom posted:That shot of Trantor framed through the rings of the spaceship made me wonder whether Trantor's new orbitals will allow it to jump. That wouldn’t make a lot of sense, because the jump drive creates a singularity kinda thing in the middle of the rings. It seems like it would obliterate Trantor. But making the technology behave in a consistent way hasn’t really been a strong point of the show, so maybe!
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Aug 20, 2023 13:01
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Open Source Idiom posted:That shot of Trantor framed through the rings of the spaceship made me wonder whether Trantor's new orbitals will allow it to jump. maybe it'll just roam the galaxy eating other planets for fuel while the Gaal and Salvor go on adventures to find the Matrix of Leadership so they can destroy Trantor
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Aug 20, 2023 17:38
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Is it implied that the Foundation developed their jumpships by reverse engineering the Invictus?
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Aug 21, 2023 03:45
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The latest episode was a lil bit too much of the more boring parts of gaal and salvor's existence with a lil too little of the party monks, hobor, and the cleons. Hopefully this ends up being the lowest point in the season because I'm gonna be real bummed if the show nosedives in the latter half again. I like the idea of that necklace that keeps you connected to loved ones echoing the idea of superposition; it's a neat way of combining the ultra-nerdiness of the show with something romantic. It's a shame Jared Harris's wig looks awful. Lastly, Constant being turned on by the Spacer is Grade A adorable.  That actress is brilliant.
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Aug 21, 2023 11:06
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DaveKap posted:The latest episode was a lil bit too much of the more boring parts of gaal and salvor's existence with a lil too little of the party monks, hobor, and the cleons. Hopefully this ends up being the lowest point in the season because I'm gonna be real bummed if the show nosedives in the latter half again. Her trying to come up with a non-problematic way to compliment the spacer for her "exotic" looks and stumbling from one awkward line to another was a 
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Aug 21, 2023 12:46
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Hmm i didn't make the connection earlier for some reason, but surely the spacers are actual old time spacers on the downlow? Of some funky bee hivemind variety ofc.
Threadkiller Dog fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Aug 21, 2023 |
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Aug 21, 2023 13:03
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DaveKap posted:It's a shame Jared Harris's wig looks awful. Objectively incorrect. Hottest bowlcut that ever was.
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Aug 21, 2023 17:53
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I am almost loath to admit that I've been enjoying this season and actively look forward to it at the end of the week now. I think the Clarics and more Jared Harris have helped tremendously.
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Aug 21, 2023 21:13
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When there was almost no forward movement of the cool plot lines and then they actually flashed backwards in time for the last 15 minutes, I was not pleased. But I’ll keep watching this garbage
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Aug 21, 2023 21:54
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Older party monk’s monologue was quite moving, however
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Aug 21, 2023 21:55
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