What are you watching?

[FlameBlade]

Ah. Just getting started on Jessica Jones season 2.

[mimekiller]

[Bonefish]

I am struggling to watch Sons of Anarchy.

[Phoebe]

Lord knows that is a struggle. I was a passive listener to it. Ughhhhh. But it wasn't as bad as Deadwood or whatever that was. That was like the single worst show on the face of the earth, I couldn't even believe how bad it was. I'm still mystified. All I remember is waking up at 2 in the morning and someone is saying c********* c********* c********* about 400 times in a row and then someone is pulling another person's eyeball out or chopping their arm off and it's not clear whether it's to harm them or benefit them through medicine.

[mimekiller]

[Phoebe]

That's an accurate account.

[WillyGilligan]

I liked the first couple of seasons of SOA. I dig antiheroes, it had a Hamlet-like set up of secrets and betrayals and I thought it had some good moments where the Bad Thing was the Necessary Thing, and that's pretty compelling. But yeah, the Edgelord factor took over pretty quick.

It did really help me appreciate Breaking Bad, though.

[mimekiller]

TONS OF TV now but I do miss the heyday of THE SHIELD, SOPRANOS, THE WIRE, BREAKING BAD.....

[mimekiller]

Finished Jessica Jones season 2, lacking the AMAZING big bad of season one I found the entire season fairly mediocre, not IRON FIST AWFUL but just mostly ok.

[Iantha]

I finally got to West Wing and holy hell am I glad I did. I'm halfway through season 6 and while it's definitely not as good after Sorkin leaves, it's still pretty good.

[Bonefish]

Oh yeah, watch Altered Carbon. Shut up, just do it.

[Phoebe]

Wild, wild country. Holy shit is this messed up.

[Phoebe]

[mimekiller]

well yea I think that's the lie we tell ourselves, that yea were smart and those country bumpkins or "dumb" people that join cults well my goodness we would never do that.

With the right person and right message I bet we all would.

[Phoebe]

Dude I'm in one already! But hopefully mine is not evil. A friend of ours lost a child - who had a science PhD - to a cult and resulting death, and initially it was inspired by a gentle desire to live well and retreat from bad things in the world. Extremely intelligent, nice, rational people can be susceptible to this type of thing. But these Oregon people were largely NOT good, as the show makes very clear. They're awful! But interestingly the opposing people around them were willing to break the law left and right to go after them. A whole schmear of badness.

[mimekiller]

I'm not sure that "breaking the law" is on par with ya know, trying to poison a entire town but it certainly shows how fragile the framework of "laws" are in the face of someone trying to pervert them to achieve goals.

[Phoebe]

Well of course they're not on a par! But yeah, it's interesting to see how they bent the rules once they decided on this objective. This is the part I found edifying since it's something most people have to grapple with every day on some level. Procedures and rules can protect you but they can be manipulated in all sorts of ways. I see very different kinds of people at work in this regard. Some are sticklers for the rules in a way that seems to go beyond pragmatic objectives, while others are always railing against them a little bit. Some use the rules as a shield, or a guide, or as a system to be ignored or manipulated for personal gain. So it comes back to the people and their motives, but it also illustrates that there are better and worse systems of rules which have to be constructed with this reality about how they'll be used in mind.

[Phoebe]

Yet another way time spent delving deeply into "silly" RPGs gives us some insight into practical realities of human life.

[buckett]

I thought Wild Wild Country was great, but it really glossed over the poisoning and assassination attempt in an effort, I saw, to make it seem more even-handed. That said, I saw an interview with the directors that they wanted to focus more on the clash of cultures and the constitutional aspect than the more salacious parts of the story.

[Phoebe]

Agreed. They seemed sort of fascinated with the main cult characters they interviewed, and didn't provide context that would have clarified the gravity of their actual crimes. They also give you only brief glimpses into cult life that seem more designed to be salacious than realistic. Life there was not good, it was not all just boobs. People are enslaved in these situations. That kind of needs pointing out. But nevertheless it is fascinating to see how people tick.