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TV Tuesdays Free Talk
Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
Just finished season 2 of Severance which ended last week. Anyone here watch it? Liked it much more than season 1, which in my opinion ended mid-climax (though several people online disagree with me).
But I dislike that there are still sooooooo many questions left unanswered:
Major spoilers here
what's the deal with Mrs. Cobel? Seems like she created a lot of the stuff that Lumon is behind?
what's the deal with Burt? He was taking people somewhere, then had a change of heart or something and wanted to sever himself to forget? This part confused me a bit.
lots of discussions online seem to think that Helena was the one that took over at the end there to convince Innie Mark to stay, since Helly would have wanted him to go and be free of Lumon for good. Not sure I 100% buy this.
seriously what the fuck was with those goat people? (perfect out-of-context sentence for anyone who hasn't watched the show before)
what's Lumon's ultimate goal? Especially with Ms. Casey/Scout. Seems like it was to help her forget her infertility issues, but if so, what's up with the car crash and the secrecy?
Still though, incredible cinematography throughout. Very eerie scenes and great soundtrack. Just wish season 3 was out already so I could get answers to these questions already!
did you also listen to the podcast? It was an excellent companion. The discord is also pretty good. Lots of obsessives in the theory chat. Pales to the days of LOST, but still fun.
Didn't know there was a podcast. I'll check it out!
its fun. There are some ads read by Stiller and Scott -- but I think they're 60s each, so easy to skip.
praise Kier.
I like Severance. I really do. And I appreciate the benefits of a slow burn. I won't question the fact that it makes for a better, more engrossing experience. And if you tell me that it gets better and the payoff is totally worth it, I will absolutely believe you. That said, if someone happened to make an edit of that show with 5 minutes off each episode, and made it in sensible and tasteful fashion, I would watch the hell out of it.
Ya know, normally I'd agree with you. I dislike when shows are slow for no reason and would rather them just cut to the chase rather than try to be all cinematic and whatnot. But for Severance I think it works. And I think it's because the whole vibe of the show is this uncanny, cultish, liminal space sort of aesthetic. So the slow parts serve to add some tension and unease.
Unrestricted length is a challenge to artistic self restraint. I think they go too far. So far that, even removing a few minutes from each episode, it would still be just as cerebral and very much a slow burn. An improved focus might drive the show's theme and mood even further, increasing its cult status. The Leftovers is slow burn done right in my opinion. Because it was before streaming was everything, it was forced to conform to a reasonable pace. And it was still 100% a moody, cerebral, and engaging slow burn. Another interesting comparison is between Black Mirror on Netflix and how it was originally on the BBC, with much shorter runtimes. And yet, many will say that the BBC episodes are better.
Severance is a good example of how a lack of time constraint can be a bad thing.
I finished re-watching Dr.Death season one (on peacock) and watching for the first time, Dr. Death season 2.
I'd say both are good. Season 1 is based on the Wondery podcast, which I thought was phenomenal. For anyone that is into crime drama or true crime, I recommend it. It has a niche of dealing with medical topics and narcissistic behavior. Season 2 has Mandy Moore in it, whom I have been enjoying as an actress. It's less...interesting, in my opinion, but decent.
I don't know where to post this, but I need to get it out of my system and I hope someone else can bond with me over it lol, spoiler for season 1.
spoiler
this is the most deranged fucking email I have ever read, full text of the Duntcsh Email. Read first if you don't want spoilers of the full email.
This is something I could verbatim see Elon Musk writing, and I mean that literally. It is so deranged and even worse than what is even shown on the series.
I find it curious that we still do not have an answer to the big question, was he incompetent or intentionally malicious? I personally think it's the former, I think he does not view any of the post complications as true problems (including death), and he certainly does not take responsibility for anything that is demonstrably bad practice. I think because of his obsessions with regenerative medicine and the research side of things, he convinced himself that all progress comes at the expense of experimenting on people in real time, and that means some people will die or have "non ideal outcomes", for the greater good.
The email, however, made me really question the intentionally malicious theory. For the most part, prior to reading the whole email, I was like, "narcissists never think they are doing anything harmful, so how could his purpose be to intentionally inflict harm if he doesn't think he is inflicting harm?" But the email has lines like:
This suggests he does know what he is doing is wrong, so, I dunno. If anyone else has watched, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.