It’s been a busy week.

• Shrinking had their season 4 finale and it really felt like a series finale. Supposedly it was originally planned as such but they decided to do one more season.
• Invincible came in hot this week after a huge episode last week. Quality is just so good.
• The Boys is back for its final season and it kicked off a strong two episode premiere.
• Star Wars: Maul Shadow Lord premiered and is off to a good start. Lots of potential and things to set up, but I like where we’re going.
• The Testaments, a follow up to The Handmaid’s Tale also just premiered. I don’t quite know what story they’re telling this time around, but I like the characters so I’ll stick around.
• The Pitt, as always, is great. This week (today) we get the penultimate episode. Feels like we just started the season, but so much has happened.
• Daredevil: Born Again had an amazing opening scene this week. I feel like we’re still building, but I’m intrigued.

Naw, he’s eating Gummy bears in this case.

Mark (and Oliver) are lucky their beards are nerfed. Otherwise they’d have to learn the Toolock pull, which can’t be a comfy maneuver.

Also Nolan can’t be too surprised by Olivier. He too is a fan of bugs🪲❤️.

Was that a double bluff? Is Conquest really dead? He’s just always out there. Maybe. Poor guy just can’t die.

Go ahead, Ralphie.

The stranger is offering you a treat.

♪ Glove Slap I Don’t Take Crap ♪

Correct!

I wonder if Frank and Bullseye would get along.

Bullseye kept repeating his one good deed phrase, wanting to kill Fisk. Killing the AVTF guys weakens Fisk. But Bullseye didn’t kill the restaurant dog guy. He called it unsanitary, but otherwise left him alone.

I also wonder if Bullseye would have actually killed his neighbor. It seemed like it was just a false threat for Matt. Would Frank take a false hostage? Probably not.

We gotta get them all in a room.

So the timeline for this show is a short time after the end of The Clone Wars, which puts it around 19-18 BBY. The Solo film where we see Maul is around 10 BBY. This show is Maul running Crimson Dawn, although publicly Dryden Voss is the leader of Crimson Dawn.

Which is to say I don’t think the Jedi know exactly what Maul is up to until he pops up on Mandalore in the Clone Wars finale, and even then he’s working with Death Watch publicly, not Crimson Dawn.

if you search Twitter/X, or Instagram, or social media platforms in general, you will come across “Pitt” fans undergoing what seems to be some sort of mass delusion.

If my source is “someone on Twitter” I can prove anything. The Pitt is actually about unicorns, source: Twitter.

I wish I could understand if this is an actual trend or just one person. Hell I’ve had conversations with people in real life about certain shows only to realize they completely missed the point or got stuck on something minor that “ruined” the show for them, even though that thing was just a minor part of it.

Yes, people die on “The Pitt” (it’s set in a hospital emergency room), but it’s not really the type of show to bump main characters off like “The Sopranos,” or, again, “Lost,” which killed main characters left and right

At the height of its popularity ER killed off a main character. One suddenly (with John Carter surviving) and one slowly over the course of several seasons. More similarly to ER we have characters who just leave. Dr Collins was a big character in season 1, in season 2 she’s just gone with a quick mention.

I don’t expect someone to die ever week because this show takes place over one shift. But between seasons? Dr. Al-Hashimi is great this season, but is clearly hiding something. She could easily be gone next season. (Or she could be around for the next 10 seasons.)

Exactly!

Snow covers all. Pure, white snow.

Correct!

Better than season 1? Absolutely.

If you started season 1 then the first episode of that season (and the last, once you get to it) are better parallels to this season.

I don’t think the show (in season 2) has yet found it’s… Place? Yet. I do think we’re heading there. We’re four episodes in and I like everything I’ve seen, and I want to keep watching, and while there have been a lot of solid character moments… It’s been slow.

I think if you’re looking for someone to tell you that you need to watch this show right now. I don’t think you do. Based on the trajectory do I expect to be wrong by the finale? Yes. I think it’s coming together, but it’s been slow so far. It’s still behaving like a first season, finding it’s way, while being the second.

Much like last season where Kamala Khan was “visiting friends in San Francisco” or whatever I’m willing to say the same for Kate Bishop. She’s training with Clint Barton or whatever.

However I completely agree that the (New) Avengers should have an opinion. I guess you could argue that Valentina is keeping them busy since she needs to do whatever illegal arms thing is going on, but why?

Why is Valentina trading in illegal arms? Why is Fisk trading in illegal arms? Even in this episode the Governor brought up with Vanessa. You could do basically whatever you want, why with Fisk? And with Fisk, why deal in illegal arms?

He’s the mayor of New York. He’s gotten laws changed. People love him. Those that don’t disappear. He runs the city.

Honestly just give me a Bullseye show. The intro at the diner was fantastic.

Also this season is the biggest trailer for Frank Castle I’ve ever seen. Allegedly he isn’t in this season since the actor was filming Spider-Man. However I think Frank has been name dropped in every episode so far. I don’t know what his story is or how it fits into this season, but it feels like this season is building up to “Here is what Frank has been up to”. I don’t know if it’s a standalone or a deep tie in.

As for Vanessa. I’m guessing if she died we would have known this episode. Since it lingered I’m guessing hospital bound for the rest of the season.

Hell of an episode, but I don’t really know what we’re heading towards.

So certainly there are potential personal advantages to hiring a black director for a film based on the character Black Panther. Ryan Coogler did an excellent job with the first Black Panther film. The second film struggled a bit more, but he also had to tell a nearly impossible story (with the passing of Chadwick Boseman). However the character of Black Panther was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, two white dudes, or to be more specific Jewish-Americans.

Maybe we say “well that was the 1960s/1970s”. Let’s look at Miles Morales (Spider-Man). Created in 2011 by, Brian Michael Bendis, again another “white dude” or Jewish-American.

I absolutely don’t want to discount the potential a black director might be able to bring to an X-Men series. However it’s not a strict requirement for the X-Men. X-Men storylines are often a mirror of racism and civil rights movements. If the films completely ignored that, then it will probably not be a good film, or at the least not a good representation of what the X-Men are.

Going back to the Thunderbolts, no they do not cover social issues that are key to the X-Men. They are both outcasts, but Thunderbolts deals more with the idea of identity, depression, self-worth, themes like that. Certainly X-Men also deal with those themes, but I they are not the same story. You wouldn’t swap X-Men into the Thunderbolts story, at least not without making some specific character changes.

Thunderbolts tells a good story. I have my complaints, but overall we get a good story. If we can tell a good story with X-Men, then we’re in for a good film.

Serkis will join a cast in Batman II that includes Robert Pattinson returning as the Caped Crusader, Colin Farrell as The Penguin, Scarlett Johansson, and Sebastian Stan as Harvey Dent.

I didn’t realize Serkis’s involvement was in question, but glad to see that he’ll stick around. I also missed or forgot that we had Scarlett and Sebastian.

After the first season of The Penguin I hope we get a second season after this film, and then give him the big bad role as mayor in the third film.

Based on the article and the comments the answer seems to be make the show animated.

The CG for She-Hulk was apparently too expensive? Make her and everyone else animated. A bunch of chuds hated it. For whatever reason Twitter chuds ignore all animated shows.

I don’t think it was phoned in at the end. I think they tried something wildly different and it didn’t land as well as it could have. But they absolutely tried something.

I mean there are a lot of moving parts to a film, if a director can pull those together then yeah they’re the right person.

He directed Thunderbolts which turned out great so he’s a known quantity. If we get a Thunderbolts quality film but X-Men then that’s a win.