Oh man. Perfectly skewers megachurch culture. Outrageous, over the top characters. Can be surprisingly heartfelt at times but also random dick shots that give you no warning whatsoever. It has a very Danny McBride feel, so if you like his other stuff you’ll like this.

Most people say The Sopranos marked the beginning of the prestige TV era, because it was the first of a cluster of high quality, high production value shows that came out around the same time. But there are some precursors that come to mind, mostly from HBO. Rome and Oz, for example.

You could make a case to go back even further with shows like NYPD Blue (90s) or even Hill Street Blues (80s) as examples of high quality TV with long, dramatic character arcs, though these shows didn’t have much in the way of contemporaries to define them as part of an era.

Did you get that thing I sent ya?

They are semi sentient if I recall. Like they have personality traits of the killed people they are based on but he does need to be concentrating somewhat to bring them into existence. But they can go light years away from him

Spot on

I’ve been watching Blue Lock and really enjoying it so far. I usually watch more fantastical anime like JJK, stuff that involves magic or superpowers. This is the first one I’ve watched where the show isn’t based in anything superhuman, but it’s kind of presented that way. Like eyes flash or players get an aura when they’re in the zone, and it really works. Also some genuinely surprising plot development.

I’m over halfway through the latest season of Fargo. This one is a bit more on the nose with its commentary than previous seasons but it’s still better than most TV. Jon Hamm is just sinister in this.

Just started the latest season of The Righteous Gemstones. I love this show because I came out of a conservative Christian household so all the observations about the hypocrisy of megachurch culture ring especially true for me.

This might not be quite what you mean, but for DC there’s Larfleeze, the Orange Lantern, AKA Agent Orange. His ring operates on the emotion of greed. Because of the nature of greed, he will not let anyone else wield an Orange Lantern ring. This would seem like a disadvantage given that all the other lantern corps have multiple ring bearers, often hundreds to form a corps. In Larfleeze’s case he just made his own corps out of light constructs based on beings he’s killed.

Space: Above and Beyond

Set in the 2050s as mankind has learned to predict and use naturally occurring wormholes for interstellar travel, they are drawn into a war with a new alien species that destroyed a colony. The show focuses on a squadron of fighter pilots in space. One of them is a cloned, enhanced human used to fight in an earth bound war against synthetics and is seen as subhuman by many.

The show had a very good plot, a serialized story but also self contained episodes, interesting moral dilemmas. But it was horribly marketed by Fox so it died after a season or two. The final episode was a huge cliffhanger too.

A coodle doodle do! A coodle doodle do!

It forces the administration to keep looking at the problem. They can’t pretend things are back to business as usual. The administration has to decide how to respond. Will their response continue to alienate students and faculty who have an ounce of empathy? Or will it begin to address their previous mistakes in a meaningful way. Either way, these students are forcing the conversation. Even if the administration does nothing at all, that is in itself a message.

No ads and no extortion of third party apps is a big plus

I’m not a fan of most of the new SW content, but Andor is fucking fantastic and should not be on this list

Helloooo nurse!

Theoretically he should be able to do this. The problem might be landing since he’s not invulnerable or super strong. But then again, we’re talking comic book logic. The speeds at which he travels should have already ripped him apart if he doesn’t have some sort of protection.

I’m not a Flash expert by any means. Does the Speed Force protect him? I know in the Young Justice cartoon Wally wore pads with his costume because he didn’t have as good control as Barry, so I’m guessing it doesn’t fully protect him.

I tried to watch Downton Abbey with my wife. I can appreciate the acting, costumes, and sets, but I could really not have cared less about the minutiae of the lives of 1910s British upper class and their servants

Buttery males

Just finished the latest season of Invincible. Overall I enjoy it, even is sometimes the animation is meh. This season really did a good job of showing the tension between taking a principled moral stand vs practical realities. Sometimes you can be a good person, or you can save the world, but you can’t always have both

Love The Expanse. If you haven’t tried them, I highly recommend the audiobooks. The narrator is fantastic and obviously there’s so much more detail

From the article:

Brian Cullen, an attorney for the school district, said Monday he was pleased with what he called a well-reasoned ruling that affirms that school districts can and should protect students from harassment from adults on school grounds. And he noted that the ruling doesn’t prevent the plaintiffs from expressing their views in other ways.

“It simply prevents them from bringing their protest to the sidelines of a game being played by kids. That should not be a controversial limitation,” he said.

Yes, private organizations can set their own rules. That doesn’t change the basis of this ruling.

If a private club league had their own rules that said (among other things) “We do not tolerate promoting views that exclude on the basis of sexual identity during league events,” then the league would be within its rights to remove anyone violating that rule. Absent that, free speech applies. Especially for wearing something as vague as a pink bracelet.

Re: your example, there are many organizations that exclude on the basis of religion and sexual orientation. The Boy Scouts, for example, still require that members sign a Declaration of Religious Principle saying that they believe in some sort of higher power. This excludes atheists and agnostics. They also used to exclude homosexuals. The Supreme Court ruled in their favor back in the late 90s or early 00s that as a private organization they had the right to exclude whoever they wanted. They changed their stance on homosexuality voluntarily, but the SC ruling still applies. It is public institutions that cannot exclude, not private.

As far as this ruling goes, it’s not about the message it’s about the target and the fact that it was at a school function.