Augustus

That's what I meant by saying Jimmy provided Chuck with a lot of cover, with which to dress up his real motivations. Jimmy was making a real effort to go straight. He put in his time in the mailroom, he did correspondence courses with likely the only "law school" he could get into, and whatever he did it was sufficient to impress Howard enough to offer him a job with HHM, but Chuck torpedoed that, and we saw what Chuck's real motivations were when he broke down on the stand in that hearing and he went off big time about his parents' "precious Jimmy." The writers deliberately had Kim accuse Chuck of being Jimmy's "creator." Just because you can make a persuasive case that Slippin' Jimmy with a law degree could have potential to go badly, that doesn't mean that's the real underlying motive, and in Chuck's case it wasn't, and that was made plain to us. The juxtaposition was interesting. At heart, Jimmy wasn't really a bad guy, but Chuck was.

Watching Anne Hathaway sing I Dreamed a Dream can stir up some emotions.

And semantics aside, I think trying to prevent/derail someone's career is villainous. Especially when the motivation is pure insecurity.

Jimmy was an antihero, not a villain. He really did have a conscience, despite his con-man lifestyle. Chuck didn't have much of one. And you're right, it's semantics. And I think we all knew what Derka meant when he called him that.

Chuck's whole purpose in the show to oppose the show's protagonist, and his motivation is pure jealousy. Jimmy gives him a lot of material with which to dress up his motivations as noble, responsible, etc. But it's clear that no matter how brilliant and successful he is, at heart he's full of rage because his parents loved Jimmy more (in his perception). Of course he's a villain.

Did any of you watch this? It's from a few years ago but I'd never even heard of it. It's three episodes of about 1.5 hours each. Created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. I stumbled across it looking for something to watch on Netflix. It's an adaptation of Stoker's novel, though it makes some big changes. I found this pretty enjoyable, though I imagine audiences would be divided. I think most of the stuff Gatiss has a hand in is pretty well done. I had never heard of Claes Bang, who portrays Count Vlad, and I couldn't understand why, because he was entertaining as hell as Dracula and he wasn't a really young guy so I figured an actor like that would've had a good career. It turns out the reason for my confusion is that his English accent is so perfect I had no idea he's a Danish actor and most of his filmography is Danish films/TV. The actors in the main roles do a really good job, the story is interesting if weird/unexpected at times. I'm not sure how many people will buy the ending but it had to end some way and they clearly wanted something original for that, so they came up with something nobody would have guessed. I'm gonna check out some more of Bang's work, because he was just overflowing with charisma. Not hard to understand why he's a star in Denmark. Also, I kept thinking that the actress playing Mina looked incredibly familiar, and it took me a while to realize it was Galadriel from Rings of Power.

I was surprised that Jack White riffed on the opening to this song in Another Way to Die, the Quantum of Solace theme. Speaking of that movie, I watched recently after enjoying Casino Royale again, and it wasn't that bad at all upon rewatch. I remember a lot of people were disappointed with it as a follow up to such a great film.

I thought they did better than okay. I thoroughly enjoyed it. But I'm not one the Tolkien zealots who knows all the material inside and out. Few adaptations are every going to please that crowd. I do really enjoy watching the Nerd of the Rings videos. The volume of material is just astounding.

I'm a few episodes in on Season 1. Does this get better? It's been pretty formulaic so far, to me. Chase the terrorist, barely miss him, keep chasing him, etc. I've heard people praise this show, so I'm wondering the this or future seasons get more interesting.

I was furious when they ran over the homemade spike strip and destroyed the tires, then lost the truck and all the supplies. They had JUST GOTTEN the damn thing, and that kind of gear is priceless in that world. Holy fuck that pissed me off. Like many, I'm sure, I was yelling why are you driving into the downtown area of the city?! If you have to backtrack to your starting point then fucking do it. But I knew the answer why, of course. Still maddening.

I guess I owe Derka an apology, because when he was blasting every episode of House of the Dragon, I asked him why on earth do you continue to watch something you clearly don't enjoy? But here I am, unable to look away.

I am genuinely impressed with how awful this is. There is still no coherent plot. It's a convoluted mess. At this point I'm watching out of curiosity to see how bad it can actually get. When the post-credits recap started with whatever-her-name-is, I thought, "I can't believe you're discussing this episode with a straight face." It was incredible to me that somebody could speak about what we saw unfold on screen as if it could be seriously discussed. "Dany kind of forgot about Euron and the Black Fleet" is much more enlightened commentary than anything that can be said about this...this....thing.

Charlie don't surf! Came across that on Prime last week. Loved it. And my God Billie Eilish is delicious.

45 stories

I may go down in flames, but I'm clinging to my prediction that he's not Gandalf. Gandalf specifically stated that he never ventured into the east. They could have this go wizard go anywhere. If he's Gandalf, why send him to the one place he made clear he'd never been? He's a blue wizard. I'll eat an extra serving of crow, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

It's looking like this season will end with Spencer arriving at the Yellowstone, setting up the looming war with Timothy Dalton and Bronn of the Blackwater.

Also worth noting that even if they had been in India, nobody called Bombay "Mumbai" in 1923.

They were leaving from Mombasa, not Mumbai. They were in Africa, not India. So they had to sail northeast to get around Somalia before sailing up to Suez.

Only thing I can figure is when the captain expired the tug circled back but that would've been a lot of sea to cover in a short amount of time. I'm loving this show but that was just a little bit silly for me. Plenty of ways to capsize the tug without running across the ghost ship, *twice* on the open ocean, in a very unlikely fashion.

I was surprised by the casting decision, as well, but I'm pretty impressed with how she's handling the American accent. She played Lady Jane Grey in the miniseries Becoming Elizabeth and she was flat out creepy in that role.

I think she was a pretty normal looking kid. She's just gotten a little puffy and probably headed to fat.

The episode made me curious if any ghost ships were still floating around and I came across this. Back in 2018 a cargo ship had to be abandoned by the crew (rescued by the coast guard). The thing is, this ship was sailing from Greece to Haiti, and about a year and a half later it wound up getting slammed against the rocks on the coast of Ireland. That is far out. Here's the article about that vessel and other ghost ships: https://www.surfline.com/surf-news/ghost-ships-haunt-the-seas/78374

Jesus, in the middle of the goddam ocean you can't stop crossing paths which an abandoned ship? Or was that a different one? I can't see how they'd come across the same one, given they had an engine and were moving in a different directions for hours.

Man, I hope to bloody hell that priest gets got. And I hope it's the Indians who get his ass because they had pretty creative ways to slowly kill a man.

LMAO Good point.