Month: December 2016

The Man in the High Castle Season 2 Episodes 1&2 Recap: Three Castles

~ Metacrone

The Tiger’s Cave & The Road Less Traveled

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Time to catch up with Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle! We finally meet the man himself, Hawthorne Abendsen, and, not surprisingly, he’s a little nuts. The “castle” appears to be a giant warehouse full of alternate reality films. Metamaiden doesn’t like him. She’s confused about where these films are coming from, and how the supernatural aspect plays into the full picture of the show. I (metacrone) think he’s high strung from having seen so many potential future disasters, and he’s weighed down with the possible impact of his choices.

All three factions in the show’s world now have access to information about the alternate realities (and, consequently, have their own man in a high castle). The Resistance and the Nazis access it through films brought to Abendsen and Hitler, and the Japanese through Trade Minster Tagomi’s mystical abilities. Both Abendsen and Tagomi seem to have figured out that Juliana is an important, lynchpin character in some way. Tagomi appeared to feel that her locket was too important as a talisman to offer back to her, even as they were both staring at it in his house. I’m not clear about whether Hitler’s specifically trying to have her killed, but Smith has certainly been keeping up with her status and whereabouts.

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It Can’t Happen Here: Unless It’s Aliens or Has Orange Hair (Audio)

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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On October 24, 2016, 2 weeks before Election Day, we both attended a local staged reading of the play It Can’t Happen Here, based on the 1936 novel by Sinclair Lewis. The novel, and the play, describe the rise and rule of a charismatic, dogmatic, conservative politician who is eventually elected president. He promises a return to traditional values, but reneges on his promises soon after he takes office, turning the country into a totalitarian regime within a period of a few months. Anyone who doesn’t offer complete, unquestioning loyalty to the new regime is imprisoned or executed.

This may sound like a drastic scenario, something that “can’t happen here,” but Lewis wrote the novel originally because he was watching this very thing happen in Nazi Germany at the time. The original stage adaptation was created the following year. The original 1983 TV miniseries about an alien invasion,V, was also based on It Can’t Happen Here (and the later reboot series). V’s creator, Kenneth Johnson, was inspired by Lewis’ work, but the network executives at NBC thought the story would be more interesting if the American fascists from the book were turned into aliens for TV.

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CNN Commentator Receives Trump-Style Pat Down by TSA

~ Metamaiden

She’s Not the First, She Won’t Be the Last.

Metamaiden:

I wouldn’t be surprised if this happens to me at some point. TSA sometimes decides it’s “policy” to pat me down and search all my stuff because I ask them to hand check my external electronic medical devices, so they don’t get ruined by the x-rays. I still walk through the metal detector, and the rest of my stuff goes through the x-rays. They don’t consistently pat me down, it depends on the airport and who’s working that day. Sometimes they argue with me about whether the devices need to be hand checked at all, instead, which is my right according to their own policies.* They’ve spent 10-15 minutes trying to force me out of an inspection that takes them 2 minutes. TSA basically likes to go on power trips, as far as I can tell. This is a perfect example of that. This poor woman.

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A Brief History of Romantic StuckyNat Part 2: 1945-The Winter Soldier

~ Metacrone ~ 5 Comments

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This is the continuation of my 5 part headcanon series about StuckyNat (Steve, Natasha and Bucky). Part 1 is HERE. This series tells the story of what would be going on in the minds of Steve, Natasha and Bucky if all 3 were in love with each other. It follows the timeline of the 2 Avengers movies and the 3 Captain America movies. It is canon-compliant.

1945- The Original Avengers Assemble

Bucky Barnes was shocked when he woke up at the bottom of the ravine to find himself not dead. His body was a mess. He could barely think through the pain. He lay in the snow falling in and out of consciousness, wondering if he was hallucinating being alive. He didn’t have any clear thoughts, memories or feelings for decades to come after that. His body and mind weren’t his own.
Steve Rogers stayed in the back of Bucky’s mind through the whole 70 year long ordeal, a small kernel of hope and love that helped keep Bucky’s own identity alive and compartmentalized, no matter what they did to him or made him do. Even when they told him Steve was dead, something in him kept burning against all odds, buried so deep it was almost lost, waiting for the right time, the right trigger to break free. Until he saw the man on the bridge.
There were a few times that Bucky briefly came to the surface in the decades before Steve broke the Winter Soldier’s programming for good, like when he was forced to kill Howard. When he met and trained Natasha Romanoff in the Red Room, she brought him back to himself for a while. But his handlers were quick to squash his awareness as soon as they noticed it, and wipe every bit of memory that surfaced or was newly created. The longer he was the Winter Soldier, the more his handlers preferred him to be an automaton. Holding his leash too tight ended up allowing cracks to show through. Steve and Natasha slipped through those cracks and broke them wide open.

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 2 Episode 1 Recap: Where Is Josh’s Friend?

~ Metacrone

Welcome back to Crazy Town! I mean West Covina, California! Let’s take a moment to review where we left off last season. Princess Jasmine and Aladdin Rebecca and Josh finally hooked up at the wedding that they both just happened to be attending. Or at least Aladdin thought it was a hook up. The Princess thought they were probably well on their way to being engaged. The carpet flew and everything. Josh must be really good in bed.

Greg, Rebecca’s actual date for the wedding and sort of boyfriend, got passed out drunk and had to be poured home by our resident patron saint of clean living and patient friendship, WhiJo (leaving Rebecca free for her hook up). Rebecca, fearing Paula’s disapproval, had hidden that she was back with Greg again. Paula found out and absolutely snapped, since she’d heavily invested her considerable talents and energy into Rebecca and Josh’s fantasy relationship. Rebecca screwing that up by falling for Josh’s best friend was not part of Paula’s plan for her daughter’s best friend’s life. Greg and Paula are currently having a few issues with priorities and control. Daryl and WhiJo continue to be the cutest couple on the planet.

And, that’s what you missed on CEGF! 😍

We open the new episode just after the end of the season finale, with Rebecca desperately trying to convince Josh that she didn’t think they were engaged or any creepy stalkerish stuff like that. The flying carpet has knocked her off her gaslighting game, but Josh also isn’t the brightest, so they end at an uncomfortable stalemate.

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Mozart in the Jungle Season 3 Review: Why Are There So Many Dramatic People?

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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My husband and I spent Friday and Saturday evenings this weekend binge watching the new season of Mozart in the Jungle. God, I love this show. I don’t think there’s any other show currently on TV that makes me hit the pause button repeatedly as often  during an episode so that I can sit there and just laugh for a few minutes. And it’s often just because of a reaction look from one character to another. Of course, that reaction has been set up over three well-written seasons now, and played beautifully by the stellar cast, but still. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the only other show that comes close. (Shameless plug. Go watch it if you don’t already.)

This season finds the symphony in the middle of an ongoing strike/lockout, with the characters scattered around the globe. Hailey is touring Europe with Andrew Walsh, the egotistical cellist she slept with last season. Rodrigo is in Venice to work with Alessandra, also known as La Fiamma, an opera diva who suffers from severe anxiety, depression and stage fright, but is trying to make a comeback. Gloria and Thomas are having an affair, while Thomas continues composing and Gloria tries to keep the symphony from bankruptcy. The rest of the characters have taken on various odd jobs, some musical, some not, while they wait out the lockout, or figure out what to do next.

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No Tomorrow Season 1 Episode 9: No Truer Words Recap

~ Metacrone

This Is What You’d Call an Ironic Episode Title

There’s an epidemic of fibs, little white lies, and straight up, bald-faced lying going around Seattle this week. Everyone is hiding something. It could be something large or small, or something ultimately meant to protect themselves or someone else, or for less selfless reasons, but everyone has at least one thing that they’re hiding. Most of the characters have multiple secrets.

Deirdre has the biggest secrets that we are made privy to, since she’s been hiding a hot ex-husband (Broadway star Will Swenson), a dancing hobby, and several dance championships. Hank and Kareema go under cover to discover what Deirdre is hiding and lying to Hank about. They attempt to compete with Deirdre and Pete, but the plan backfires when Deirdre agrees to marry Pete for a third time after they win another championship together.

Deirdre is obviously going for the safer choice with Pete. She knows exactly how he’ll break her heart again, and she’ll be ready for it. She tells Hank as much. Hank would require too much risk, and after he didn’t put himself out there for her during the strike, she’s no longer willing to go for it. Hank’s going to have to work hard to win Deirdre back. She was crushing on him for a while before she found a safe way to approach him to begin with. She’s obviously got a history of heartbreak, and has learned to protect herself. Hank can’t half-ass their relationship the way he does a lot of things in life and expect that’s going to work. On the other hand, Deirdre’s clearly in love with Hank, and Pete isn’t really going to cut it any more. I’ll be shocked if she goes through with the marriage.

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Paula Proctor, Mom, Wife, Friend, & Best Stalker in West Covina

~ Metacrone

paulasturn

A Character Analysis of Rebecca Bunch’s Best Friend and Partner in Crime

Paula, Paula, Paula. I love her so much, I know her so well. She’s one of those middle-aged women who followed the rules and did what they were supposed to do. They got married, had kids, sent them to school, worked at an ok job to help support the family, married a decent guy, and it was all fine. She didn’t have much in common with her kids, but she loved them. Her job wasn’t fulfilling, but they needed the money. She loved her husband, but life was too busy for them to actually connect much anymore. And as she reached middle age, she felt like life was passing her by, like she needed something more, just for her. Happens to us all right around 40. But she didn’t want to admit that to herself out loud yet, didn’t want to be selfish and upset the family order. Enter Rebecca Bunch, exciting young single woman, the potential daughter she never had, with an exciting life Paula could live vicariously through.

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For Your Viewing Pleasure: Avengers Fireside Holiday “Yule Log” Videos

~ Metacrone

 

From Marvel and Coca-Cola, a peak inside the Avengers’ apartments during the holidays as we hang out by their fireplaces.

These Marvel Fireside Heroes videos are like a Yule log video, but instead we’re sitting in Steve Rogers’ apartment, listening to swing jazz versions of Christmas carols for an hour as we watch his fire, or on the Guardians of the Galaxy’s spaceship watching Baby Groot dance next to the fire. They’re filled with tiny details, like the pictures of Bucky, Peggy and his mom that Steve has next to the fire, and his original USO tour shield hung over the mantel. One chair leg is held up by a stack of books, because Steve is still a thrifty Depression era guy at heart. The apartment furnishings look like they could be straight from the forties, just like Steve himself. It’s a lonely looking place, from a lonely time in his life, but we could totally join him and make it better, right?

Captain America’s Brooklyn Apartment Fireside video. The close up version is above:

Under the cut: Thor, Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, the Guardians & Deadpool

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 2 Episode 7: Who’s the Cool Girl Josh Is Dating? Recap

~ Metacrone

This week, we all learn some lessons in relationship maintenance and proper pet care. Neither exes new girlfriends nor pets should be followed too closely with a car.

Mostly random observations and meta this time, because most of my week has been taken up with musical theater fun (Hedwig!). Next time, a review and analysis of the first half of season 2. I’ll try not to linger on Greg’s departure too long, or embed every song he sang.

Josh is really needy, desperate, and looking for love. He’s in awe of Anna, who just might be taking advantage of the fact that he thinks she’s out of his league. I still don’t trust Anna, even if she’s not a drug dealer. What does she need from Mexico? But she’s Brittany Snow, who I’m preprogrammed to want to keep around as long as possible, so this sets up mixed feelings about their relationship in my mind.

Poor kitty. Bad owner, leaving the door open.

Frida Kahlo foam drawings. Coffee made from mixing individual beans. I think my son goes to that coffee shop. The metawitches drink more tea than coffee. We’ll compare chai blends with you anytime.

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