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This show really could have benefited from introducing the BCR earlier.
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Nov 18, 2019 04:47
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| # ? May 6, 2024 22:48 |
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LinkesAuge posted:The very end also kinda confuses me in regards to its message. So there are now people coming from all alternative universes to their world? Why would they pick that one? Isn't that like one of the worst choices you can make? You can only go to another universe if your alternate is dead/never existed. The camps and wars purged a ton of people. This is them coming back. While possibly not making literal sense, it's a storytelling way to show that the terrible history is being undone. edit: unrelated: I love how Smith has a moment of introspection each episode, but continues to do the wrong thing and gently caress everything up. Mike the TV fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Nov 19, 2019 |
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Nov 19, 2019 22:41
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Just finished episode 3 and i really enjoyed the Inglorious Basterds vibes from the assassination plot. All the black communists should have been around way sooner.
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Nov 20, 2019 13:39
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beanieson posted:Just finished episode 3 and i really enjoyed the Inglorious Basterds vibes from the assassination plot. The reddit discussions have all centered about the BCR being so dumb and the writers just being 'woke' as the show already had the Resistance that they could've done this plot with - forgetting that the Resistance was incredibly boring for 3 seasons and the BCR is instantly more fun to watch.
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Nov 20, 2019 14:43
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I could have sworn, based on what Himmler was saying at dinner, that it was going to turn out the BCR were being backed by the Nazis for the purpose of doing the initial legwork of getting the Japanese out of the way in North America. And/or that Childan, with his thing for fake artefacts, would notice "hey guys, your 'Chinese' weapons are replicas made somewhere else" (i.e. The Reich)
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Nov 21, 2019 00:01
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This was a good yarn, I quite enjoyed it. thanks Bezos.
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Nov 21, 2019 03:31
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Not sure I understood the ending. Even if all the dead came back to life they are literally in the nazi reich now, so - well done? And the bombers are still enroute to attack the west coast.
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Nov 21, 2019 18:30
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Sekenr posted:Not sure I understood the ending. Even if all the dead came back to life they are literally in the nazi reich now, so - well done? And the bombers are still enroute to attack the west coast. Bombers were called off and the new guy in charged tore off his Nazi poo poo.
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Nov 21, 2019 18:45
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I think my favorite part about the ending is John Smith being undone by his own family. I always enjoy Rufus Sewell getting work.
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Nov 21, 2019 19:02
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In one of the multiverses Childan is an otaku blogger and John Smith is an avid collector of nazi memorabilia.
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Nov 22, 2019 02:57
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The scene between Helen and Jennifer, the oldest daughter, was so powerful and gut-wrenching, a high mark for the series. It just reenforces that the Smith family should have been the center of the show all along, instead of wasting time on three of the dullest leads in television.
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Nov 22, 2019 09:49
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clown shoes posted:The scene between Helen and Jennifer, the oldest daughter, was so powerful and gut-wrenching, a high mark for the series. It just reenforces that the Smith family should have been the center of the show all along, instead of wasting time on three of the dullest leads in television. God. Yes. It's disheartening that this show waited so long to give Helen anything to do. The banality of evil stuff with the Smiths is probably the most important thing the show touched on, the boiled-frog ease with which this American family embraced the Reich. And the daughter loving killed it in that scene, I agree.
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Nov 22, 2019 20:49
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I enjoyed this season but felt the ending was pretty lame. I guess the creator wanted the viewer to interpret who the new travelers are, but it fell flat for me. This show could have been so much better than it was. That said, Rufus Sewell did an amazing job, I genuinely loved every scene he was in all while feeling dirty for it.
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Nov 23, 2019 15:15
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I think what really made those last two minutes truly stupid was Stephen Root saying "It's happening." Like what exactly is happening? It's a very cheap way of trying to fool viewers into thinking something truly deep and meaningful that we've been expecting was happening but it comes out of nowhere. There are shades of the finales of Battlestar Galactica and Lost in this finale. The thing with Julia's vision and walking into the tunnel is very reminiscent of Rosalin going into the Opera House, and the passengers coming out of the portal is like the inverse of the church scene in Lost. When you weigh this wholly uneven show across its four seasons, I think the gauge still tilts towards there being more good than bad, which to me makes it a worthwhile watch. I do not feel like it was a waste of time. Yeah, it had three weak leads, didn't know what show it wanted to be and reinvented itself some along the way, but in the end the creators didn't let the show and its depictions of atrocities off the hook and that to me is what makes me not regret watching it. The biggest thing for me is that they didn't try to redeem John Smith, which is what I thought the show was building to this whole time. While I think the best scene of the series is the one between Helen and Jennifer Smith (I was so loving choked up), the scene of Helen confronting John on the train just before she got tossed around like a bail of hay also delivered. When Helen tells John that the things they've been a part of have to stop, John gives the most brutally honest answer: "I don't know how." Earlier, Jennifer's incomplete but comprehensible realization of what happened before she was born and what her parents were involved in prompts her confusion as to what they did it all for. Helen's "We didn't do it for this" is a powerful line that brings up an impossible, unspoken answer: what did we do it for? The Smiths lost all three of their children anyway. That scene works on its own but then we get to see Helen looking at the plans for the expansion into the pacific, seeing the numbers, and, most horrifically, seeing how it's going to be done. That is the show taking responsibility for the terrible things it has shown us and made us imagine. A lesser show would have been all about the "what if" without ever addressing the "how" of it all. clown shoes fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Nov 23, 2019 |
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Nov 23, 2019 16:14
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I can't think of any show that had such unlikable protagonists yet incredible antagonists.
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Nov 23, 2019 20:16
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I personally think that the ending loops back to the I Ching hexagram that Ghost Tagomi wrote in the sand, hexagram 64, which represents the incomplete or something nearing the act of becoming whole. The radical characters for this mean "not fording," as in unable to cross (a river). Hexagram 63 is the dualistic couple of Hexagram 64 and it represents the act of completion and what happens afterwards. Its radical characters mean "already fording," as if to cross a river on a journey. I think the ending is the High Castle world metaphysically shifting from Hexagram 64 to Hexagram 63, allowing the doubles of the people that were massacred by the Nazis safe passage to cross the dimensional rivers into that world. I'm also very likely wrong and reading too much into this.
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Nov 24, 2019 00:12
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I read it as the people who were lost in Nazi World returning (fleeing?) from other worlds. But again... why the Hell are they leaving wherever to go to Murderland America? Also, "IT'S HAPPENING" is so dumb and the flashbacks were meaningless. This series was cobbled together with glue and string.
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Nov 24, 2019 03:50
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"Ok everyone we are going to all walk through this portal, its very important you walk around aimlessly, don't emote at all or speak to anyone on the other side."
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Nov 24, 2019 03:54
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If they hadn't done that, it would have been a much better finale. Either find some other way to end it, or have the big happening thing be that the portal collapses
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Nov 24, 2019 04:06
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At least when they come to nazi america the racists are not in the closet about it.
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Nov 24, 2019 08:20
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https://twitter.com/chelahhorsdal/status/1195755868052049920?s=19
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Nov 25, 2019 00:28
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Chelan Horsfall, as Helen, is one of the best things about this show. I know everyone goes on about Sewell as John, but I'd argue that she's probably better.
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Nov 25, 2019 01:47
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ded posted:At least when they come to nazi america the racists are not in the closet about it. Yeah, this is why I can't like the ending we got. Literally nothing is fixed: 1. ~2/3 (or more) of the world is still occupied/dominated by fascist powers. Bring as many good people through the portal into a better world and just keep throwing salted H-Bombs through to Naziland until it's too irradiated to support life. 2. The people in the US have lived under 20+ years of Nazi ideology. Even new boss General Bill Secretly Hatesnazis isn't going to welcome an influx of non-whites into their new society now that they've 'made it work' for so long. 3. Aryan Superman made a deal with *Smith*...once he gets word that Smith is dead and the American Reich has abandoned National Socialism, his first move is likely going to be 'nuke North America before they can retaliate.' 4. Alt-world Helen and Thomas get sublimely hosed over, and all we get resolution-wise is that John is 'cursed.' 5. Kido's arc ended abruptly and stupidly. And there's no loving way all those people on that tiny little boat are going to make it all the way to Japan. 6. Smith's daughters are hosed. One is a demonic cross of Hanna Reitsch and Ann Coulter, the other is going to feel sublimely betrayed because her mother won't be able to help her 'escape' the Reich, or the new regime will claim the BCR did it and she'll drink the new Kool-Aid. Episode 9 was great. Watching Himmler get gassed with Zyklon and Nazi Hoover get cored like an apple was bittersweet, because both of the other men deserve the same fates. The finale just felt *rushed* and like it could've benefited from an extra 30 minutes. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Nov 26, 2019 |
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Nov 25, 2019 03:32
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I agree that the thought that everything could instantly get better was a terrible thing to try to get across. The United States barely accepts black people in this reality, and we have decades of legislation forcing bigots to accept that all humans should have the same rights. No way would a post Nazi America ever integrate. At best, the American reich would quietly ignore the BCR nation
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Nov 25, 2019 03:41
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Open Source Idiom posted:Chelan Horsfall, as Helen, is one of the best things about this show. I know everyone goes on about Sewell as John, but I'd argue that she's probably better. She came into her own with that scene with Jennifer and when she basically buried the knife in John. She was the heart of the show.
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Nov 25, 2019 06:17
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Even the writers can't explain the ending: https://www.thewrap.com/what-does-that-man-in-the-high-castle-ending-mean-nazi-portal-alternate-universe-john-smith/amp/ Spoilers in that link, obviously. I know I wouldn't want emboldened Nazi-indoctrinated chuds "walking freely" into *any* world.
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Nov 29, 2019 19:11
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I thought childans fate was pretty :'(
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Nov 30, 2019 10:27
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There was one thing about he ending that was touching and well: the very end where the man in the high castle gets to go into the other worlds he could never know but from afar, and he can find his wife again. Metaphysics are weird. Dont think about it. Last time I saw a series I liked this much was actually Breaking Bad. The production quality, hard to describe, easier to describe some of the acting because there are famous awards for those. And Yukiko and Childans way was movingly beutiful, agreed.
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Nov 30, 2019 14:08
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Feral Integral posted:I thought childans fate was pretty :'( He finally turned Japanese
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Dec 1, 2019 07:06
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About the ending, I don't get why people are pouring into the "Oops! All Nazis" timeline, or why the portal is open to regular people at all. I thought maybe the goal would have been to shut the portal down so Reichworld doesn't influence other timelines. Like there are still poo poo tons of Nazis and the portal was kind of like their project? It was still a great show, but I wish they had killed off the entire Juliana story several seasons ago and just focused on Japan Francisco and the Smiths.
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Dec 1, 2019 13:33
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Crazy Dastard posted:It really did. Killing him largely off-screen and using his death only as a minor plot point felt similar to how awkwardly Kevin Spacey was written out of House of Cards. That said, Mr. Tagawa's exit from the show must've been much more graceful and planned since they didn't have to delete 2 episodes and badly re-write remaining ones like HoC. I hope someone can find out what went on, I'm not seeing anything on the official sites. The real mindboggling thing to me about it, was that he had just gotten through with telling Kido that he was a traveler from another world. And then Kido didn't seem to be effected whatsoever by it for the rest of the show. Crazy Dastard posted:I kinda felt the same way, I didn't even get why John's successor called off the attack, putting his pin down made me think he either felt awful about killing his own countrymen, or maybe they were saying the alternate America was sending spies into their world as well, with the whole "A portal out can also be a portal in" talk from before. Most likely the former, of course. I suspect that all of the folks they had recordings of who were expressing misgivings about the whole nazi thing, the ones that John Smith told him to keep under wraps for now, were others that were in the room when he de-pinned after Smith Epstiened. The part that I am still scratching my head about, perhaps because the dialogue audio was still shittastic, was when Himler got smothered, and magically all of the germans were killed in the board room, but the one. I just... I just don't get it. Hasselblad fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Dec 1, 2019 |
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Dec 1, 2019 23:03
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Mike the TV posted:edit: unrelated: I love how Smith has a moment of introspection each episode, but continues to do the wrong thing and gently caress everything up. To wit: Yeah, do the carpet bombing thing. 
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Dec 1, 2019 23:05
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Hasselblad posted:The part that I am still scratching my head about, perhaps because the dialogue audio was still shittastic, was when Himler got smothered, and magically all of the germans were killed in the board room, but the one. I just... I just don't get it. He and John planned this, off screen of course so we would all think John was in danger. I’ve enjoyed this show, but it’s so hard to recommend to people because large sections of it don’t make a lot of sense, and even worse, are boring.
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Dec 1, 2019 23:14
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Hasselblad posted:The part that I am still scratching my head about, perhaps because the dialogue audio was still shittastic, was when Himler got smothered, and magically all of the germans were killed in the board room, but the one. I just... I just don't get it. I don't remember entirely (all nazis look alike) but I think he was the guy that showed up and hinted that he was going to be replacing Smith as America's fuhrer. They both realized that it would never work. Many Americans were content or apathetic about being ruled by nazis, especially because the nazi ruling them was an American. Replacing Smith with a German nazi might cause unrest. Himmler likely couldn't see that and only saw that Smith was dirty (even though all of them were dirty). Not to mention all the constant expansion Himmler wanted to do. So Smith and the other nazi conspired to kill the rest of the leadership off so they could shape their own respective reichs in the way they saw fit. After all, Smith seemed to be fine with fascism, and a lot of Americans were fine with it as well. A semi-independent ally is better than a resentful colony. I guess they just didn't factor in that the loyalty to fascism at the top of the American reich was paper thin and the people that one guy had assembled were more than ready to take the reigns. That's the problem with authoritarian regimes like that, when you give yourself enough power, it only takes a few bullets for someone just below you to also have that power to do things their way. Did the show ever address what happened to Russia? Maybe I missed it but I'd be interested to see what happened in the rest of the world.Even if the nazis did win in the US, I have doubts that they still could have pushed very far into Russia. Fascists and Communists are mortal enemies, so maybe they just nuked the rest of Russia off the map or something.
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Dec 1, 2019 23:30
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The book or the show never cover the full details of WW2 just that FDR was assassinated and the US was in bad shape as a result. In reality even if the US had stayed out of WW2. Germany was not going to win that war even if they attacked the soviets earlier and weren't bogged down in the snow after the initial attack. Even if Germany could have taken Moscow the war wouldn't have ended. It would have still become a war of attrition and Germany would have lost just like they did in reality. I'm guessing in the book\show reality the Germans develop the bomb much sooner then even the US did and are able to wipe out the soviets with it and then use it to take the US. So in answer to that question about Russia. It's no doubt a nuclear wasteland and the rest of population would have been killed off or worked to death in labor camps. The ending of the show would have been fine if they cut out the last five minutes of it with the stupid portal. The portal should have collapsed instead for the end.
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Dec 2, 2019 04:03
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"There is much I have to atone for" Joins the asian mafia.
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Dec 2, 2019 19:25
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Feral Integral posted:I thought childans fate was pretty :'( I think I sneezed and missed a shot of him on the boat going to Japan. I assume he was there? It kind of sucks that, although I really liked this show, I don't want to recommend it to people because of some of the boring or stupid choices they made throughout. Juliana, Frank, and Joe were *so* uninteresting. I think the only time I applauded something one of them did was when Juliana sliced Joe's throat. Otherwise, they felt like needless #NotAllWhitePeople apologism, as if we needed a liberal white audience surrogate to make it clear that "Yes, We Agree The Nazis Are Bad." It really sucks that it took so long to bring the BCR into it, because they made way more sense for a Resistance plotline. There's a genuine existential threat at the core of their story, not simply Juliana's offended sensibilities. Which is clearly something the show realized at the end: ultimately, people like Juliana or Childan could assimilate and survive in the JPS if they wanted to. In the Reich, the Smiths not only didn't suffer after the war, but thrived under Nazi rule. These people were the central protagonists, but also had relatively little to worry about in this terrible situation. The Smith family plot in S4 is phenomenal. Because the flashbacks to the end of WW2 make it look like the end of the world. But obviously, it's *not* the end of their world. While people like John's friend Daniel were killed for being Jewish, the ambient white supremacy in American society dovetailed more neatly into the American Reich than any of us want to believe. There was still a chair with John Smith's name on it somewhere.
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Dec 3, 2019 00:38
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He basically gave away his expensive things to get his girlfriend on the boat, but the soldier claimed that his papers from the princess were faked and he ended his story sitting on his suitcase on the dock. One thing I didn't like was that there didn't seem to be any Japanese Americans in any of the resistance movements. If anything, the Japanese Americans who didn't speak Japanese would be totally screwed. Everyone in the US would hate them because they look like the oppressors, and they can't go back to Japan because they'd be ostracized and looked down upon for not speaking Japanese. Not to mention that they wouldn't have any connections and wouldn't know anything about With Japan leaving, they wouldn't have anywhere to go.
Cojawfee fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Dec 3, 2019 |
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Dec 3, 2019 00:43
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There’s a scene with Childan getting onto a small tug boat after giving all his possessions to the Yakuza boss. The boat is so small though we can assume he died at sea.
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Dec 3, 2019 00:48
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Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I guess it was so stupid to think that a small boat like that would make it that I forgot it happened.
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Dec 3, 2019 00:49
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