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I loved where they went with Bash this season and I'm actually really glad that it non-resolved the way it did. Having one sexual experience with a guy and drunkenly opening up to one friend was never going to be enough to cut through Bash's absolute bone-deep TERROR at the idea of being gay. It's possible that nothing ever will.

I actually just finished rewatching season 2 with my roommate, and she asked me if I thought Bash and Florien had ever been intimate. I always… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 12:01 PM on August 25, 2019

I'm curious about other peoples' reactions to Jenny's monologue about the Cambodian genocide. I wound up full-on weeping at it, but someone else told me they found it totally hamfisted.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 5:51 PM on August 26, 2019

Overall, I thought this season was very good but felt disjointed. In some ways, that was clearly by design. The first two seasons were all about becoming a team and trying to pull off this crazy project together, while season 3 was about what happens after that initial "we got this!!" spirit fades. But some of the disjointedness didn't feel like it was meant to play into that message. It just felt weird. Like how Cherry's gambling problems were addressed and dispatched in a single… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 6:03 PM on August 26, 2019

Oh hey also, Keith? I love you dude but I thought "what about adoption" immediately during that argument scene, how did it take you multiple months to get there?
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 6:04 PM on August 26, 2019

I just now realized that I read the first few of these comics! My college BF was a huge comics reader and I'd casually read some of his stuff. I remember not being turned off by the violence per se, but by the tone of "this is PRETTY FUCKED UP, HUH??" It just seemed to lack nuance.

I sort of want to give this a shot, but (despite knowing it will have zero impact either way) I also sort of want to protest Amazon's cancelling The Tick and then turning around and making this.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 7:54 AM on July 30, 2019

This sounds great - I'll be picking it up!
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 7:22 AM on July 30, 2019

In forth or fifth grade I did a class presentation about this book that I wrote as a debate between Charlotte and Evil Captain Guy, with me playing both parts and hamming it up by jumping back and forth between the podiums. It's one of my earliest memories of writing, performing, and tapping into the class clown energy that would sustain me through middle school. I'm really looking forward to rereading this.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 11:51 AM on July 22, 2019

Anyway, I'm just gonna say it, depowering a character is a bullshit plot point.

I saw a very plausible take on this somewhere: it was never really about raising the stakes in the final battle, rather they had to depower her so that she wouldn't be able to look for Hopper and establish definitively whether he's alive and, if so, where.

They also raised a point that never would have occurred to me - last season, in the sister… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 11:04 AM on July 8, 2019

You know, I'll give some credit to the show because this didn't occur to me at the time, but a friend just brought it up and now it's bothering me: HOW FUCKING QUICKLY DID THEY BUILD THAT SECRET UNDERGROUND BASE? Based on the season's first scene and later conversations with the poor dead Russian guy, it seems like the Hawkins base wasn't even planned a year before the events of this season. I don't care how many corrupt local politicians you have in your pocket, I don't… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 2:41 PM on July 8, 2019

And now we get a Final Season that starts with Eleven and Will hanging out somewhere other than Hawkins

Is it confirmed that next season is the last?
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:23 AM on July 9, 2019

When I first started listening I just started with the most recent episode, but then after I decided "yes I like this" I went on Youtube, found a playlist compilation of excerpted bits, and listened to it on shuffle.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 7:49 AM on July 3, 2019

I fell behind on the last season while it was airing, and then after seeing the reactions to the last episode I decided to just hit pause, enjoy the first season as its own thing, and wait to see if season 3 was a step in the right direction or if it doubled down. Worth jumping back in now?
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 12:24 PM on June 27, 2019

I read this yesterday and loved it. The immediate comparison that came to mind is that it feels like Jeff Vandermeer crossed with Joanna Russ. (This is definitely one of those "it's obviously SF but literary fiction wants to claim it because it's 'too good to be SF'" books.)

To actually talk about the book, what are people's opinions about the plot? Is David really inhabited by a soul he wasn't born with, or is the entire thing born out of Carla's… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 7:44 AM on June 25, 2019

Side note: I spent the entire book thinking "why on earth isn't this called Rescue Distance," then discovered that the original Spanish title was exactly that. Fever Dream seems like a weird and uninteresting change to me.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:11 AM on June 25, 2019

I would love to reread Tomorrow, When the War Began.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 6:51 PM on June 13, 2019

I just watched these first four episodes last night, and I'm really enjoying the show so far. I'm susceptible enough to the classic tropes of horror filmmaking they use that I've been making the cat sit with me so I can hug him when it gets Too Scary.

I can't remember if it was this episode or the last one, but I was surprised and delighted by the scene where Captain Hubris' wife goes to the Royal Navy to beg them to look for her husband. You really haven't been set up… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:53 AM on June 10, 2019

Wikipedia has a really interesting rundown of this, actually:

In the 5th edition of the of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1815), "a gentleman is one, who without any title, bears a coat of arms, or whose ancestors have been freemen." In the 7th edition (1845) it still implies a definite social status: "All above the rank of yeomen." In the 8th edition (1856), this is still its "most extended sense"; "in a more limited… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:57 AM on May 21, 2019

Oh, awesome! I had no idea he had a second book out. Picking this up ASAP!
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 1:56 PM on May 20, 2019

For those saying "this character's turn to the dark side, although telegraphed from super early on, was so bungled in execution that it kinda retroactively ruins the whole character arc for me" - welcome to the angst Buffy fans felt in season 6! We're glad to have you!
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 10:55 AM on May 13, 2019

I just watched this entire series over a long weekend, after hearing Griffin Newman guest on MBMBAM. I totally loved it. I watched both previous series as a kid and this version captures the same bizarre manic humor, while also having an actually-compelling long term plot arc.

Incidentally, I asked my roommate if she'd ever seen The Tick or wanted to check it out, and she said "nah, I'm not into all that superhero stuff." Which kind of stunned me, because in my… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:34 AM on May 6, 2019

Anyways, I could go on about all the different things I liked about this show, but I keep coming back to Superion.

I used to date a guy who was a huge Superman fan, and so (having discussed it with that guy) I both totally understand why Superman is compelling to many people while also personally finding him utterly boring as a character. In general, he's just too perfect and decent to allow for much nuance - and yet, on the flip side, most "new takes" on the… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:45 AM on May 6, 2019

(Also I <3 DangerBoat and I sorta kinda hope they just go there and have Arthur date him by the end of the series.)
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:48 AM on May 6, 2019

Also, are we certain that's really the Ghost? I was playing solitaire and maybe missed something.

I assumed she must be, because of her reaction to being apprehended - she didn't seem even slightly surprised.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:55 AM on May 3, 2019

After this episode (which I did generally like), I'm kinda on the lookout for what I like to call the Breaking Bad Season Five effect. That's when you start to worry that your bad character is becoming TOO bad for the audience to find palatable, so you throw some EVEN WORSE bad guys at them so that the audience can blamelessly root for your bad character to kill them. (Since we're talking about it, Hannibal is an example of a show that managed to avoid this trope when it could have easily fallen… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:44 AM on April 22, 2019

I didn't actually think V killing the boy was in character -- not that she would object to a mercy killing, but I don't think she would have bothered in this case.

He was dead the moment she told him "I'm going to see my girlfriend in England," wasn't he? She didn't just kill him because she felt sorry for him, she killed him because he knew too much about her.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 6:49 AM on April 22, 2019

Btw, I laughed uproariously at "yeah, well, your parents are dead" right as my roommate was coming home. It lost something in the explanation.

In general this show has a lot of what I once heard described as "sharp spiky moments of humor" - lines that just come out of nowhere and catch you off guard. It's not objectively the funniest show I've watched recently, yet it has made me laugh out loud the most, because of the unexpected ways the funny lines are deployed.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:34 AM on April 22, 2019

I was pretty surprised by Ned's decisions here, but then Clint made the excellent move of lampshading his dumb choices during the confrontation with Boyd. That made me more willing to buy that it was a series of choices made out of panic by a guy who was backsliding into old, bad habits. And of course, it will generate a lot of interesting plot developments, given that there is zero chance Ned explains his way out of this.

Also, I think Duck is 100% correct about the aliens.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 1:46 PM on April 12, 2019

I rewatched the whole series in March and I'm just now seeing this recent discussion. I definitely agree that the #1 reason for Ashford's decision was "because it will make things harder for Our Heroes," which is never great writing. But I don't agree that it was completely out of character for Ashford.

Yet his actions in this episode were neither idealistic nor pragmatic.

I think they were both.… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:41 AM on April 1, 2019

I think Griffin did a really good job of pacing the adventure this time (by correctly accounting for how much time the boys would waste).

Also, this is possibly the first time in the new campaign that I've seen a live show pop up in the feed and felt more "wait but what's happening in Amnesty though??" than "YAY MY FAVES ARE BACK!"
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 4:08 PM on March 8, 2019

I hadn't seen it either but your post made me google it. WOW.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 6:59 PM on March 8, 2019

I had to go back and marvel at that suit photo again, at which point I realized that I often am inadvertently cosplaying as Lesbian Griffin McElroy
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 1:16 PM on March 10, 2019

"I don't care if I have to wait two more years, I WILL pull one of these assholes through a portal" - Griffin McElroy
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 6:30 AM on February 23, 2019

The idea of Beacon as a belt with a mouth is about 9000 times funnier than I could have ever imagined.

This also perfectly answered my questions of 1. how Beacon coils up and 2. how Duck carries Beacon around.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:50 AM on February 11, 2019

While cleaning my house this weekend, I re-listened to the first arc of Amnesty. A couple big things jumped out at me.

First off - the Green Bank Telescope (which the biker bar massacre took place near, and which "Gregor" was reading a brochure for) is a real thing that was specifically mentioned by Griffin in the setup episode, in a way that makes me think it's going to be central to the resolution of the whole campaign (not just this particular arc).… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:56 AM on February 11, 2019

I've said it before, I need to go back and relisten to this arc from the start because it's been a little choppy with the interruptions for live shows and such, so I don't feel the continuity with it I had for Balance, so I suspect a review will help a lot.

I'm now mostly done with a re-listen (after this weekend I just kept going). I definitely think the choppiness has led to the non-Griffin guys failing to follow up on a lot of dangling plot… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:46 AM on February 13, 2019

This episode took me all the way to Chicago
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 6:00 AM on January 28, 2019

Haven't finished this yet but feels like a real weird vibe. Not bad, just muted compared to a lot of their live shows.

I kinda felt that too. It makes sense to me though - most of their live shows are specifically MBMBAM events, but this one was part of a bigger event, so the proportion of huge MBMBAMheads to casual MBMBAM listeners to people who are only vaguely familiar with MBMBAM was probably way different.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:29 PM on January 22, 2019

I used to work in international development, for an ngo that collaborated closely with various UN agencies, and this episode was so spot-on that it had me laughing til I cried. I have been in more rooms than I can count where privileged, educated dogooders spent hours hammering out the criteria to select a committee to conduct research for the purposes of releasing a position statement which would then be presented at a conference after which etc etc etc.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 1:14 PM on January 12, 2019

Hey, Mindy's fate makes a little more sense in the grand scheme of things now. She had this plan that was massively point-getting on paper and then died before any of the unintended consequences could occur.

Presumably her sister, who actually put Mindy's plan into action, accumulated the negative points from all the unintended consequences and then promptly got sent to the Bad Place, which, yipes.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 11:39 AM on January 13, 2019

It would be more moving to me if Michael really was just a demon who Learned To Care, though.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 12:04 PM on January 17, 2019

someone there made a really nice gifset showing all the character growth from S1 to this episode.

Awww, the Janet one almost made me do an approximation of human crying
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:26 PM on January 22, 2019

Janet is up to something. Listen to what she says when she oh-so-casually offers to create people for the experiment: "If the Judge restores my powers in the Medium Place, I can do it." I don't think she just offered to help because she's helpful. I think she's seizing an opportunity to shore up her defenses in order to protect her friends.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:56 PM on January 18, 2019

Also may I say - the Michael suit concept that Shawn cooked up is genuinely horrifying. I had no problem believing Michael's resulting panic spiral.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:19 PM on January 18, 2019

No, they meant the very first scene - and yes, you can definitely see him and hear him fly by. I watched the episode a second time and since I was keeping an eye out for this, I noticed it immediately.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:05 PM on January 20, 2019

Pretty much every time someone has ever asked about that on the podcast, the response has been that it was on the page.

I seem to also recall that they sometimes have multiple options for lines, get the actors to read them all, and then pick the best one for the final product.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 7:44 PM on January 22, 2019

Poor Duck. I LOVE the skateboard, though. And the generally pissy new attitude.

Current theory: Aubrey's mother was either descended from, or literally was/is, Sylvane (as in, the spirit or whatever from within the crystal). Aubrey's ultimate destiny as a child of both Sylvane and Earth will be to save both worlds by repairing or stabilizing the rift between them somehow.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 10:22 AM on January 11, 2019

No way Ned's version will look that neat
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 10:05 AM on January 18, 2019

At this point I trust these guys to balance their characters on the show with their actual family dynamics. I don't think "dunking on Travis" is anything more than an in-joke at this point.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 1:10 PM on January 16, 2019

It occurs to me (especially with the sweetly vicious portrayal of The Good Place's good people fresh in my mind) that "going to war" with your backwards-thinking government boss means that this season might be more overtly political than past seasons. I'm eager to see how the show handles it!

As a New Yorker, I sometimes have to watch this show with the mindset that it takes place in an alternate universe, where the NYPD is the most lovable… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 2:08 PM on January 13, 2019

I've been seeing lots of subway ads for this movie, but I was absolutely certain that it was another one of those Mortal Instruments movies. That's some bad marketing.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 12:50 PM on December 19, 2018