Scott,
I remember a loooooooooooong time ago you reviewed a couple seasons of Oz on DVD and though I had never seen the show, I always had the show in the back of my mind based off these reviews. I finally got around to it on Netflix and have been blasting my way through all the seasons. I'm currently up to Season 4, but I was wondering if you ever got around to reviewing the rest of it. I find it very much like 24 in that it keeps you thoroughly entertained with all the twists, turns, and deaths, but if you start thinking about it your head will hurt.
Damn you United Statesians with your awesome Netflix streaming. The Canadian service is totally worth $8/month still, but there's way better stuff available down there. Still, thanks to Netflix I'm just wrapping up the second season of Buffy and WHY DIDN'T I WATCH THIS SHOW BEFORE?!? Although any spoilers for the finale of season 2 or beyond will be met with stern anger from me because I have no idea what's upcoming and I'm loving it.
Anyway, I only ever did the first two seasons of Oz, although (and I think I mentioned this recently) but just last year my wife was really into prison reality shows so I suggested watching Oz and we also blasted through the entire series in a couple of weeks. Which was great because I hadn't watched it since the original airdates and I had forgotten all the crazy twists aside from some vague memories (like Robeson's education on the new definition of "spooning" and who killed who and where), so it was like a whole new show again. Plus, and I've also mentioned this before, there's a MILLION storylines that could easily be adapted for wrestling, because Oz is as close to the pure form of male soap opera as our-so-called-sport is.
Pretty sure he's getting the discs, HBO shows aren't available for stream on Netflix for the most part (if at all?). That's what HBO Go is for...and that's awesome!
ReplyDeleteOz and The Wire are by far my two favorite HBO shows. Oz has tons of great twists and lots and lots of character development. Beecher is the character Zack Ryder should have been.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I loved Oz...up until the 5th season (actually about halfway through the 4th season). Shit started getting weird, and I never got past the 2nd episode of Season 5. Worth finishing?
ReplyDeleteI still think that the riot episode is the best thing that's ever been on TV, ever. Any word if it's ever coming back? They pretty much promised it at the end of the last episode.
ReplyDeleteThis is my email and thanks for answering, Scott. I work from home so I've just been blitzing my way through the show. It's the first show I've watched where there's no main character(s) who are in every episode. Sometimes you won't see Beecher at all (or maybe for 1 non-essential scene) for a couple episodes or Said will disappear. But when they show back up, it doesn't skip a beat.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe they got so many known actors to go full-frontal. Speaking of known actors, I think the makers of every long-running dramatic series of the 2000s watched Oz because it's just an endless barrage of "Hey it's that guy from that show!" They certainly had a huge collection of talent to work with. I've seen people from Law and Order, Dexter, the Sopranos, Lost, 24, and Rescue Me and that's just off the top of my head.
Last note on the show: I only knew Dean Winters from 30 Rock (as Liz Lemon's deadbeat ex) and the Allstate Mayhem commercials before I started Oz. Dude is a phenomenal actor, equally terrifying and hilarious and switching back and forth with ease. How is he not a star??
I was gonna say the same thing. HBO isn't letting their properties on the streaming service.
ReplyDeleteEASTBOUND AND DOWN!
ReplyDeleteBut yes, Oz is and was my favorite drama of all time. until season 5. the shark jumped.
Ryan O'Reilly is one of my favorite tv characters of all time. Always thought he would have made a fantastic Max Payne.
ReplyDeleteOz was my all-time favorite HBO series, even more so than The Sopranos. It held back nothing in its entire run. They were literally no redeeming characters on the show, as even the priest and the nun had secrets or faults. True, there were sympathetic characters, but at the end of the day, you understood completely why they were where they were. But there were a few people who played characters that would be huge in wrestling. Imagine a heel as badass as Adebisi...he'd be the biggest draw you could have. And if the "Gang Wars" during the Attitude Era had half the edge they did on this show, Vince could have gone public in 1998 and bought an NFL to to ruin.
ReplyDeleteMy only gripe came when they did the aging storyline. I won't spoil exactly what it entailed for those watching through now, but I just couldn't buy into it. I highly recommend it on DVD because Winters on commentary adds a layer to the show you don't get with many dvds.
Last I heard, they were no serious plans to bring it back due to the changing attitude at HBO towards making shows based on what's hot now. It's probably on that shelf next to the episode of The Sopranos that will explain what the hell the last five minutes of the series was.
ReplyDeleteYou've barely gotten into Buffy? Man, you have truly yet to live, Scott...and yes, our Netflix is pretty awesome, as well as our WWE.com Classics service.
ReplyDeleteYOUUUUUU ESSSS AYYY! USA! USA! USA! USA!
HOOOOOO! b(^_^)
On a sort of related note, I got up this morning only to find a Megan's Law notification in my mailbox. Yeah, finding out that a convicted child molester just moved into the neighborhood is a great way to start the day. Why the fuck are they even letting these people out of jail? Give em' the death penalty, and none of that quick and painless shit, something slow and painful that's fitting for a scumbag that rapes 8 year old girls.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely chore through the beginning of that season, because pretty much by the end, everything is wrapped up in an acceptable way, and the event that ends the series is pure Oz.
ReplyDeleteWell Netflix Canada doesn't offer the disc service at all, only streaming, so there's just another reason the US version is better.
ReplyDeleteHere's a random bit of hilarity: Thanks to this thread, Adsense is currently showing me an advertisement for a VPN service to access Netflix US from Canada. Can't say Google doesn't target their audience.
Not only have I been eagerly awaiting the continuation of the Oz rants for the last decade, I've been waiting for more than one chapter of the Oz parody, DrOz! Well, mainly because I was the one who originally requested that way back in the Ask 411 days.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking I just may need to finish. To get so far and just not end it... Kinda did the same thing with Deadwood...loved the first season, but never finished it.
ReplyDeleteI get the white cards in the mail with the mugshot and the details of the conviction and new address. My first impulse is always to drive over and "welcome" them to the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteWhy would they have to explain the last five minutes of Sopranos? It made sense to me.
ReplyDeleteSemi-related, I always thought a perfect ending to a shitty time travel show like Lost would be for a character to walk through a door right into that restaurant. You wouldn't even have to have the rights since there's nothing inherently illegal about shooting Gandolfini, Falco, Siegler and Eiler sitting together in a restaurant as long as none of them say anything or actively act "sopranos-ish".
We actually did that when I was younger. 25 kids on your porch with various blunt objects telling you that you might want to find a new place to live sends quite a strong message.
ReplyDeleteLive in the country.
ReplyDeleteTA-DA~!
Well feel free to shoot me an email explaining to me since I must not have gotten the subtlety obviously involved. Though I always thought a good idea for a Sopranos movie would start it with Tony going on trial, and have the whole movie be centered on witness testimony detailing the few loose stories.
ReplyDeleteTo preface: I'm not suggesting it was a GOOD ending. Just that it made sense.
ReplyDeleteThe whole series was based on the idea that you're only seeing a portion of these peoples' lives. In between the seasons they would have the characters develop but never show it. One season they come back and AJ has a girlfriend and Meadow is already gone to college, you just don't see any of it. The same thing happens with virtually all of Christophers descent into addiction, you only see the consequences, very little of the actual build-up. Same with Pauly's obvious bromance with Tony, etc. etc. etc.
I think that ending was shot like that for two reasons: 1) To hammer home that none of these stories are wrapped up in a pretty bow, it's supposed to be real life and 99% of the time we never get to learn the end of the real life story and, 2) They had no fucking clue how to end the greatest show in TV history without disappointing people anyway.
And to nip any argument in the bud, I don't consider it the greatest show ever just because of the acting and the story but also because without Sopranos you don't get any of this other amazing fucking TV we've got over the last decade.
To preface: I'm not suggesting it was a GOOD ending. Just that it made sense.
ReplyDeleteThe whole series was based on the idea that you're only seeing a portion of these peoples' lives. In between the seasons they would have the characters develop but never show it. One season they come back and AJ has a girlfriend and Meadow is already gone to college, you just don't see any of it. The same thing happens with virtually all of Christophers descent into addiction, you only see the consequences, very little of the actual build-up. Same with Pauly's obvious bromance with Tony, etc. etc. etc.
I think that ending was shot like that for two reasons: 1) To hammer home that none of these stories are wrapped up in a pretty bow, it's supposed to be real life and 99% of the time we never get to learn the end of the real life story and, 2) They had no fucking clue how to end the greatest show in TV history without disappointing people anyway.
And to nip any argument in the bud, I don't consider it the greatest show ever just because of the acting and the story but also because without Sopranos you don't get any of this other amazing fucking TV we've got over the last decade.
Tony is with his family, who has stuck by him after the other "family" is all gone. Tony's enjoying the simple pleasures in life in New Jersey, something his depression has always pushed him away from. Tony's being hard on AJ but he realizes AJ is actually learning from the lessons he teaches, in his own way. Tony and Carmella are enjoying each others company and listening to a song that would have been popular when they were still a young couple. Meadow is outside the restaurant, on her own, independent, but still a part of his family regardless of the choices she makes. But everywhere Tony looks, he's on guard. He's suspicious of all the people around him, including the man who walks in the door.
ReplyDeleteIt's all symbolism. People were looking for a big dramatic soap opera tie-up-loose-ends ending, like that Russian that Christopher and Paulie lost in the woods coming back and killing Tony or something. That's not what The Sopranos was ever supposed to be. Maybe the ending was supposed to be in Tony's head. Maybe he's in purgatory. Maybe they're all dead except Meadow. We'll probably never know, but it's supposed to be open for interpretation. It all symbolized Tony finding some peace with his real family.
He's a little hard to look at, and he tends to play "creepy" roles. He is great, but not everyone's meant to be a star.
ReplyDeleteScott, it has long been my opinion that Buffy season 3 is one of the finest seasons of television in any genre. In other words, keep going.
ReplyDeleteSpoiler, season six and seven were the shits.
ReplyDeleteThe wire is the best televised drama ever
ReplyDeleteUh, what?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, that's what you honestly think? Beyond the stupidity of the death penalty, pedophiles are sick, and sick people need help, not death.
1) the Wire is the greatest HBO series (or any other network series) of all time.
ReplyDelete2) Scott, Buffy is good until the end of season 5 then it's sort of meh. I have a recommendation but I worry that would be a spoiler.
Not really interested in an Oz revival though unless you do a full-on reboot: Beecher managed to get out of jail at long last, Ryan finally ran out of luck and was killed for his bullshit (was murdered in such a horrific fashion that the gruesome nature of his death and photos of his corpse became a meme when the media reported it), Alvarez finally killed himself, and everyone we remember inmate-wise either died or moved to a new prison or got let out.
ReplyDeleteStaff-wise, get rid of everyone and start fresh ala the inmates. Even get a new Governor to replace the old one. Brand new era to go with the brand new series.....
I always liked Oz, and have watched the whole series a few times, but that show requires even more suspension of disbelief than wrestling.
ReplyDelete"The Emerald City" experiment would have been deemed a failure and shut down by the end of the first episode. Murder was an almost daily occurrence in Oz, and the perpetrators were rarely caught. In the real world, that whole administration would have been fired, and the prison would be on permanent 24 hour lockdown.
That aside, it's a good show with alot of interesting characters and storylines.
Yeah, I do. We're not talking about some crackhead who would be better served with rehab instead of prison. And I agree that the death penalty is stupid, to me, death over a life-long prison sentence is getting off easy. But the only help these rapist fucks (be it with a child or an adult, rape is rape) need is to help them into the path of a moving semi truck.
ReplyDeleteConsidering how often they repeat their offenses, I think if death isn't the answer, life imprisonment without parole should be the default sentence.
ReplyDeleteYou may not agree with the death penalty, but just because you think it's stupid doesn't make it so. And, pedophiles are sick and may need help, but they should not be allowed to step foot outside of some type of permanent encarceration.
ReplyDeleteJust watched Buffy, Angel & Firefly (plus Serenity) in couple month marathon because the ladyfriend is a big Joss Whedon fan - we finished Angel just in time for Cabin in the Woods & Avengers! She still hasn't read the Astonishing X-Men book I loaned to her, though... grumble grumble.
ReplyDeleteI like the overall premise of the Buffyverse, but oh my GOD did I hate almost every single one of the characters. Between the two shows, Giles & Fred were the only characters I found myself never wanting to punch in the face. I would've put Spike on that list, but... well, wait until season 6 (or 7? I can't remember, too much entertainment in too short a time).
Oz was the shit for the first 3 1/2 seasons, and I don't even hate the 2nd half of season 4 & season 5. The cracks were definitely starting to show. By season 6 though, holy shit...
Amazing that Oz & Buffy BOTH had musical episodes in their last seasons, and they both suck.
Agreed 100%, and I'd go higher if I could. For me, the show just kinda died after Season 3 (tried watching Season 4, didn't finish it, not my cup of tea). Season 3, however... dear God. SOOOOO good. The character development, the wit, the twists, and DAT FINALE! Thumbs way up for that one, though I have very fond memories of Season 2 as well.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I should revisit Sunnydale once I'm done with Firefly...
Until I saw one of those Allstate commercials on a movie screen, I had NO IDEA that was Dean Winters - usually I just ignored them when they came on TV, everybody just told me they were kinda funny sometimes.
ReplyDeleteWatching Oz before seeing certain other shows has ruined many a character for me, as it's impossible for me to see some actors and not think "Oz." Why is Adebisi stranded on an island? I've seen Christopher Meloni piss into a bucket on camera, what the fuck is he doing in a commercial on the Nick Jr. network?!?
Firefly. There's a show I could watch over and over and over until the end of time.
ReplyDeleteQuite similar to 24. If you actually stop and think about it, it's ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI think they should get life imprisonment in a decently livable prison and be the subjects of any and all medical studies to find a cure for pedophilia. They shoud have no choice in participation and hopefully we'll make some headway on how to identify it earlier.
ReplyDeleteScott, you will not be disappointed with Buffy until about the middle of season six, and even then it comes up with a stand alone classic every few episodes. Easily one of the best episodic action adventure series ever (sorry, Michael Cole). Everyone thought I watched just because I thought the women were hot, but it's one of the smartest, wittiest shows I've ever seen. And if you can withstand the first few episodes of its spinoff, Angel becomes just as good but in a different way altogether. Joss Whedon really could do no wrong for a 5-6 year period. Once the initial glibness and cynicism subsides and the characters settle in, Whedon's shows are amazing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for mentioning that show. The Wire jumps into the action right away, but as soon as you get your bearings as a viewer, you're hooked. As soon as McNulty had his kids tail Stringer at the market during an early episode, I knew I was hooked. As a former journalist and current teacher, I found the last two seasons just as riveting as the early ones, too.
ReplyDeleteI burned through the whole series really quick years ago so I'm like Scott in that I've forgotten a lot of it and plan on watching it again someday. I picked up the entire series from Best Buy a few months back at $10 a season so I'm all set when that day comes. I also plan to pop into BB every now and then to see if they've dropped The Wire down to $10 per season (it was the only major HBO show that wasn't on sale).
ReplyDeleteSeason 4 of Buffy has it's stronger points with "Something Blue" and "Hush." And "Restless" is an awesome mind-trip. And I actually find the Riley character pretty cool (and he gets a crap load of depth in Season 5) as I could relate to him. Anyway, I highly recommend Season 5 (it's right up there with Seasons 2 & 3 but with a less interesting Big Bad), so feel free to skip some of Season 4 if you have to.
ReplyDeleteI'd throw Dollhouse up for a recommendation here, too. The first six eps are kind of a morass, what with Fox's meddling, but the last season and a half are pretty consistently solid sci-fi. Victor and Sierra are Whedon's most underrated great pairing.
ReplyDeleteI didn't hate Firefly, but watching Buffy & Angel IMMEDIATELY before jumping into "SPACE WESTERN!" probably wasn't the best idea. I was a little tired of watching Joss Whedon get all Joss-Whedon-y.
ReplyDelete"Women kick ass! YES, even if they're literally whores who add nothing to the plot! I'm a "feminist," here's some FEET! Lemme kill a mildly important, very likable character!"
Well, many studies so far have been done and although there seems to be something off in the brain, most experts agree that it's not curable. The problem is way too many of these fucks are let out time and time again. It's old news. I have zero problem with the death penalty applied to these a-holes and it's ok to disagree with my pov, doesn't mean I'm wrong. BTW, the only time that the death penalty is up in a trial is if they also commit murder or murders.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed (is that really the right word?) Oz for most of it's run, but good goddam, the body count on that show was beyond ridiculous. After a few seasons deaths became pretty much meaningless because they happened so often. And nobody ever got in trouble for them! You'd think at least the warden of a prison with a murder rate worse than New Orleans might have some trouble holding on to his job.
ReplyDeleteDisagree. Season three was Buffy's peak and it never really recovered. You will save yourself a lot of pain and hassle and plot holes and blotched storylines if you stop with the end of season three.
ReplyDeleteMOB JUSTICE YAY!!!
ReplyDeleteOr maybe our justice system needs fixing.
ReplyDeleteActually I lived in New Orleans for several years, and the warden on Oz was punished more than the city officials of Murder City.
ReplyDeleteDollhouse failed miserably because Whedon just not the guy to write the concept. You needed someone like Ryan Murphy, who knows sleaze and fetishes to given the series the sleazy take on prostitution that was needed to make it work. It should have been on FX too, not network TV....
ReplyDeleteThe death penalty is one of the stupidest policies ever invented. There is no rationality to it.
ReplyDeleteHow does our justice system's uselessness relate to people with a prediliction for deviant sexual behavior? I do believe people diagnosed with illnesses that cause them to harm innocent people should be segregated from the community. George Carlin used to tell a joke about setting aside staes to house people with the same problems to keep them only interacting with each other. Even though it was a comedy bit, it has merit.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see some love for The Wire on here. Best show EVERRRR, and a show with some of the best quotes of all time.
ReplyDelete"I'm just a humble motherfucker with a big ass dick." Gotta love The Bunk.
That's actually the best explanation of the ending I've heard, and it does actually make sense. I did notice that everytime the bell rang, he looked up at the door.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe the criminal is the problem.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe pedophilia can be cured, no more than homosexuals can be cured. And no one has ever provided any evidence to dispute that. The feelings can be suppressed but when pedophiles give in to those urges, their victims have very little ability to defend themselves.
Until there's some proof it can be cured, they all deserve to be locked up until the day they die. I'd rather them receive harsh punishment than another child be harmed when it can be prevented.
You think the role of the legal system is to punish people? How does committing murder make a survivor/victim of rape any less raped? How does killing somebody eliminate the violation of their body?
ReplyDeleteI'm not a NAMBLA supporter, but I try to empathize with people, no matter how awful I might find them, if you (rightfully) accept the belief that we have no control over what/who we're attracted to, then imagine for a second if you were a pedophile, imagine being hated and despised for who you like. If treated it as a disease that needed treatment, maybe pedophiles would try to get help and not y'know...molest kids.
All I'm saying is that we should treat their condition with empathy and pity, not scorn.
"Oz" in it's first few seasons is among the greatest shows in television history- great acting, brilliant plot twists, excellented characters, and more. It falls apart eventually (the aging storyline, the never-ending O'Reily is a Genius storyline, the pointless deaths of many great characters- especially in the last season), but it's a great ride for a long time. The whole "show a videotape clip of the guy's crime, along with his number and sentence" thing is the best way to introduce a new character ever.
ReplyDeleteI loved the whole brooding Race War plot, and was disappointed when it never really went anywhere.
The show should've made O'Reily, Adebisi, Beecher & Said all stars, so it's sad that only Schillinger & Keller's actors became semi-well-known based off of it. Though I found it interesting that the O'Reilys were depicted as smart (Ryan) and super-tough (Cyril, despite his relatively tiny size compared to the huge prisoners), seeing as how their brother was a producer on the show- in pro wrestling terms, it's a big push based off of nepotism.
Pedophilia isn't cancer, strep throat, or a broken pinky. As far as we know, there isn't a cure. There's no proof it's a "condition" or an "illness" so until then, we shouldn't treat it as such. We shouldn't treat theories that can harm others as fact.
ReplyDeleteGood fortune, as I happen to agree it is the greatest show of all time.
ReplyDelete"N****, is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy? The fuck is you thinking?"
that does remind me - more TV series rants would be very welcome here - in the past we got some South Park, Simpsons, Dexter, 24, other stuff - more of those pretty please.
ReplyDeletebtw only started watching recently, but am digging Boardwalk Empire.
I think it failed because it had a miscast lead. Eliza Dushku should always be a role player; she just lacks the charisma to carry something compelling on her own.
ReplyDeleteHow is our justice system failing? By locking people up instead of, rehabilitating criminals by giving them actual life skills and maybe figuring out why they commit crimes and treating the root cause of their actions.
ReplyDeleteNo, pedophilia isn't a physical ailment, borderline personalities and pyromania aren't physical ailments either. They're still disorders that are treated by psychologists.
ReplyDeleteThat sort of attitude is ridiculous. With all the medical achievements we have achieved in the last fifty years, you think behavioral therapy can't result in a changed attitude?
ReplyDeleteYou bring up an interesting statement comparing "curing" homosexuality to "curing" pedophilia. You're right, we can't "cure" them and make them straight. But there are ways of eliminating sexual desire. No, it isn't pretty, and I believe that we should give them a choice. Stay in prison or let doctors fuck up your brain.
Keller's actor Chris Meloni only became famous because he was also doing L&O SVU at the same time he did Oz and that show made him famousl and he was quite evasive as far as the fact that he seemed to be ashamed of doing Oz and that it was pretty much NEVER brought up in interviews done by mainstream entertainment reporters (though he was ashamed of the series, he DID manage to not burn his bridges and came back for seasons five and six when asked).
ReplyDeleteLee Tergeson (aka Beecher), careerwise, got out of the show the fact that he was able to escape the typecasting of his time on Wierd Science playing the obnoxious asshole Chet.
Edie Falco was the true breakout star of Oz; supposedly David Chase LITERALLY grabbed her from the show in terms of stealing her from out from underneath the creators in order to get her onto Sopranos.
The only other two that went on to greater things were Anabesi/Augustus Hill. One did movies after Oz and the other did Lost, where they ended up meeting up again.
The guy who played Alvarez still gets work but is mainly secondary character stuff.
As for Dean Winters, he never really was able to capitalize on the success of his Oz character; the circle jerking with his brother probably hurt his career far more than any b-movie or tv commercial.
And the guy playing Schillinger, he considers the Spidey films to be his "big break", not Oz; granted that might be due to the fact that JJJ was one of his first comedic roles and showed that he had far more range than playing "evil skinhead leader".
I believe rape, of any kind, or pedophilia, should be answered with death.
ReplyDeleteThe Punisher is my idol for a reason.
Phrederic, no offense, but it's people like you that see rapists and such let out early, only to rape again. You want to preach things like "everyone has rights" and such, but what about someone who's been raped? Or the family of the person who was murdered? What about their rights? You think it's OK to waste tons of time and money to lock someone up? If someone is caught red-handed, BAM. They want mercy? Death is a mercy.
Our justice system has problems? You're right, it does. We need to instill FEAR....FEAR into criminals, so they don't try and get away with some kind of bullshit. We also need to stop busting people for petty shit like pot.
There's an issue of The Punisher where one of the more well known mob figures, Nicky Cavella, digs up The Punisher's family's remains, and pisses on them. The Punisher then goes on a tear, killing up to 20-30 deserving people a night. So, anyways, at one point in the issue, two kids are breaking into a jewlery store, and one says "Should we be doing this? The Punisher has sort of lost it" and the other one says "He doesn't care about us, he cares about the big guys" to which the other says "what if that isn't true anymore?" and they run.
Fear. Fear is how you keep scum in line.
Bleeding hearts make this world a hell of a lot worse. Because someone who rapes, or molests, or murders without remorse is just going to take advantage of those who cry for them.
You have to give the Wire a full season, at least I did. It's so different, structurally, from anything else on television that you have to retrain yourself on watching.
ReplyDeleteThe fourth season, IMO, is the best 13 hours of television in the history of the medium. Just amazing.
The fifth season suffers because it's shorter and they had to truncate certain plots which made them a little harder to believe.
I've watched the Wire all the way through three times now and have found something new each time.
I will say, Breaking Bad is coming close to matching the greatness of the Wire.
I'm impressed with your restraint. I've stuck with shows that dropped off in quality severely (nip/tuck!) just to see the end.
ReplyDeleteI think the ending is what you want it to be. Word of God says David Chase wanted the blackout to last for five minutes which leads me to believe Tony's killed. Though you could also take it as Tony is alive but will never have any peace (notice how he looks up every time the bell rings). To me, it was always the television equivalent of panning over to a sign that says, "this is not an exit".
ReplyDeleteNot sure where you're from Jabber, but my HBO Canada On Demand has the entire series of The Wire. My wife and I have been blasting through it, best show I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteI have to second the love here for Angel - yes, it's important that you tough out the first half of the first season because the dynamic gets totally turned on its head after that, but overall I found it to be a BETTER show than Buffy because Buffy gets stuck in the high school mentality for too much of its run whereas Angel manages the much tougher task of having important things to say about navigating the pitfalls of an ADULT life, while still retaining every bit of Whedon's trademark wit and charm.
ReplyDeleteActually, there isn't a proven way to "cure" pedophilia, even chemical castration doesn't always work.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big believer in rehabilitation (and think before you go beating the shit out of someone for getting a white card you should consider that maybe it was some drunk idiot who peed on a playground at night) but pedophilia is an outlier.
If you are anti-social or borderline there are combinations of medication and cognitive behavioral therapies (as well as strict monitoring with anti-social) that can allow people suffering from these conditions to be productive members of society. The recidivism rate in pedophiles is ridiculously high. Meagan's Law is an imperfect fix, but I personally believe they should either be LWOPed or sequestered from society.
Maybe it can, maybe it can't. Until they figure that out, I'd rather the innocent be safe from their kind.
ReplyDeleteMy brother met Wendell Pierce! Apparently he's a super nice guy! Another great wire quote: "a life, Jimmy. It's what happens while you're waiting for moments that never come".
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one who liked Angel WAY more than Buffy?
ReplyDeleteHBO GO on Xbox Live is the best thing that has ever happened.
ReplyDeleteScience has also discovered a way to treat those disorders. As far as I can tell, the same can't be said for pedophilia. So until that time comes, let's stop the behavior via punishment so the innocent are protected. Disorder or no, destructive behavior is destructive behavior.
ReplyDeleteYou're better off watching Boardwalk after all the episodes have aired, so you can crank through a season quickly. As much as I like the show, it gets really really slow and dull at times (especially in Season 2), so this way you don't have to wait a full week for something to actually happen.
ReplyDeleteI know it wasn't premium cable, but if we are talking about crime dramas can we please get some love for The Shield on here?
ReplyDeleteSorry, but no. Yes, season 3 is probably the strongest season, but if you stop there, you never get to see such great episodes as The Body, Hush, and Once More With Feeling.
ReplyDeleteYeah, after you finish with 3 and start 4,you'll be dissapointed with the severe drop in quality (other than Hush, is there anything worthwhile about that season?) But I thought Season 5, and especially Glory was great.
What don't you like about Once more... ? I thought it was generally regarded as one of the better episodes of the show?
ReplyDeleteAh, Restless! One of my posts above was trying to remember if there were any eps of worth other than Hush.
ReplyDeleteYou know what I hated about 4? The first ep with those fucking college vamps and more importantly, the destruction of the umbrella. That was such an awesome moment of S3, that I hated to see it destroyed.
So with all the talk about Whedon, have you seen/are interested in seeing the Avengers Scott? I thought it was fantastic, and somewhat impressively, a Whedon movie through and through(though granted, that might not be a good thing depending on how you feel about the guy)
ReplyDeleteI've watched through the entire run 3 or 4 times. Just fantastic. Michael Chiklis, Walt Goggins, and CCH Pounder are just phenomenal.
ReplyDeleteI'm working my way through The Shield now, and holy crap is it good. I would compare Mackey to Tony Soprano. He does bad things, but to him there justified because he does them to better his family and does seem to care about the shit going on that's wrong. I'm on episode eight of season 2, and I just have to see how it all plays out for the Money Train robbery. Luckily I got all 6 seasons as a gift, so I'll have the chance.
ReplyDeleteI'll give you an example I have seen recently involving a good friend and a neighbor as to why I think our system is useless in its current state. I have a friend who develop a bad addiction to Oxycontin. He had a clean record until one night, desperate to get a fix, he steals a lawn mower out a yard and sells it. First crime, he gets a 2 year sentence. Now, 11 months ago, an apartment in my complex was raided, and it was discovered a guy we thought we knew well was making Crystal Meth in his apartment. In the paper, it was noted he had three previous drug convictions, but was believed not to be a user, and strictly sold his wares. He does five months, and is released to a 30-day rehab center, then gets to go home on probation, despite the fact he was not a user. Our system is broken, plain and simple.
ReplyDeleteI didn't believe my wife for the first several episodes when she kept telling me Vic was the guy who played on The Commish years ago. I was like "nah, that guy was goofy, sweet, and fat." I haven't looked to see if he won any awards for The Shield, but he surely deserved them from what I've seen so far.
ReplyDeleteIs this just rhetoric on your part or do you go spend time in jails and actually are involved in this cause? I find many people that have your point of view only have it because no one near and dear to them has been murdered or have gone through something with a pedophiliac.
ReplyDeleteCorrection, Pedophiliacs are sub-human and the world would be better off without them. Care to argue THAT point?
I'm pretty sure the first season both Chiklis and the show either won or were nominated for some Emmys and Golden Globes.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think Season 5 was the best season though.
Greatest show ever.
ReplyDeleteJust FYI, there were seven seasons.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I loved most about "The Shield" was that it was so incredibly well-acted - every single person on that show, from the main characters to the one-off perps, could act. Considering that so many shows will often cast a mix of talented actors and untalented models (for instance, I loved "Prison Break", but the lead actor, Wentworth Miller, is an awful actor), I really have to give props to the show-runners of "The Shield" for never compromising talent for looks. Jay Karnes ("Dutch") was always my favorite on the show, that guy was phenomenal.
And just wait until Forest Whitaker shows up... hoo boy, he just helps take the show to a whole 'nother level.
I watched the entire run of "The Shield", but I did think that the show was a bit of a roller-coaster in terms of quality. The first two seasons were absolutely phenomenal, the third season (to me) was pretty boring, the fourth was decent, five was back to being phenomenal, six was pretty good, and seven was really good.
ReplyDeleteI own the first two seasons on DVD, but have no interest in owning the rest - those first two seasons actually make a pretty good story on their own, where you see how the team operates in the first season, they all come together for the big heist in the second season, and then you can kind of leave all of the characters' fates open to interpretation.
Scott has reviewed "Dexter"? Weird, I don't remember that at all.
ReplyDeleteThe thing with the Winters brothers is that neither of them are really good actors. They were great on "Oz", but they've both done a lot of other things, and (IMO) never excelled in any other roles.
ReplyDeleteTo give a pro-wrestling comparison, I don't think anybody would say that Matt Hardy has great mic-skills, but I think most would agree that his run as "Version 1.0" in 2002 was fantastic. Dean and Scott Winters both happened to do a great job in one very particular role each, but they've come up short in everything else they've done.
Another wrestling comparison: This might seem odd, but the heel "Skip Sheffield" character (during his "Nexus" run) actually reminded me very much of Adebisi - remorseless killers that were more intelligent than their barbaric exteriors would first suggest.
Chris Meloni is a fantastic actor, and I was always amazed at how well he could simultaneously play two such different characters.
ReplyDeleteHe's also not afraid to try new things for fear of ruining his rep. There was an episode of SVU where his cop character had to go undercover as a charismatic pedophile - one would think that he'd basically just play it like "Keller", but he played it completely differently. Plus, he was in the "Harold & Kumar" movies, playing ridiculous, over-the-top "stoner comedy" characters.
"I can't believe they got so many known actors to go full-frontal."
ReplyDeleteIt's very hard not to be jealous of Jaz Hoyt, it's down to his fucking KNEE!
I've never cared for shows/movies that end in a way that's "open to interpretation" - to me, that's very unsatisfying, it's like the writer/director couldn't think of a satisfying ending and instead decided to go with something "artsy" so that they wouldn't have to actually think of something more concrete. The onus shouldn't be on the audience to come up with an ending, that's the job of the people TELLING the story. That'd be like reading a kid a bed-time story, but skipping the last page and saying "you figure it out".
ReplyDeleteNot that I'm saying that the show should have ended with everything spelled out in big bold letters, but there's no reason that the show couldn't have ended in practically the same way (Tony eating dinner with his family), but instead of the sound of a bell and a quick cut to black, it could have been Tony attempting to enjoy himself, but discreetly eyeing up everyone else in the place, before Carmela snaps him back to attention and we slowly fade to black on Tony looking nervous. That would have conveyed the same message of Tony trying to find peace while still running from his sins, without the ambiguity. The bell and the cut were just red-herrings, deliberately added just to fuck with the audience.
I mean, the last minute of "The Shield" didn't take you by the hand and show you exactly what was going to happen in the future, nothing had to be shown or said, but the audience still understood where it was going. Same with something like "Inception", where it wasn't necessary to explain which plane of existence the surviving characters were actually inhabiting at that moment, all that was necessary was to show that they couldn't be sure; that in itself was the message, not that they needed to know for certain where they were, but if they could accept not knowing.
Ryder as Beecher is a FANTASTIC idea!
ReplyDeleteI rest my case.
ReplyDeleteI'll grant you the Dushku criticism, but MAN, did the rest of that ensemble elevate that show around her. And Evil Olivia Williams? All The Buys.
ReplyDeleteDidn't care for most of the songs, and almost nobody in the cast could actually sing. Sarah Michelle Gellar is fucking AWFUL, and on top of that the episode happens right in the middle of the Spike hearts Buffy thing which I hated. Thankfully, Joss got much better at writing musical numbers by the time Dr. Horrible rolled around. "Once More..." - good idea in theory, not so much in practice.
ReplyDeleteEverything Anya did in that episode was awesome, though.
"Fear. Fear is how you keep scum in line."
ReplyDeleteFear... and boners.
I'm sorry, man, this whole rapist/pedophile conversation has been fun & all but to call a FICTIONAL CHARACTER (the Punisher, of all characters) your "idol?" Jeez. I've enjoyed myself some Punisher books over the years, but even at his best the character is the very definition of "one note."
Couldn't you have gone with Gerry Conway as your idol, since he created the guy? Shit, even Dolph Lundgren would make more sense.
Dude DID go on to do porn & marry Tera Patrick...
ReplyDeleteAhhhhh....good to see the sterotypical knuckle dragging wrestling fan is alive and well
ReplyDeleteI've spent my time and money to combat the death penalty. It's barbaric and pointless. Your free to agree with it but people were free to keep blacks from voting and burn books that had sex in them also.
ReplyDeletePedophiles are people btw, you might despise them but you sound like an idiot when you defy people to prove they are not subhuman.
It's kind of funny to hear a bunch of wrestling fans going "daarrrr take em behind a shed and shoot em"
I hope your more enlightened than that
Surely Sons of Anarchy has replaced Oz as the best male soap opera out there?
ReplyDeleteActually, Adam Carolla is my true idol. And, it's the idea, the spirit of The Punisher I look up to.
ReplyDeleteAll super-heroes are one note, if you want to be honest. Good guy fights bad-guy, good guy wins. That's it. I think The Punisher is the most interesting, because of the fact he isn't a typical hero. He does what the other heroes don't have the balls to do. He makes the sacrifice of his soul in order to keep things a bit more safer.
I don't know if you've read the books that Garth Ennis did, but they're incredible. The Punisher at his most real, and greatest. That's The Punisher I'm most familiar with, so that's why I feel he's the most interesting, because of all the things Ennis did with him.
Take for instance when he pissed of Captain America in the Civil War series. Captain America beat the shit out of Frank, and he wouldn't raise a hand to him. He wouldn't fight him because he knows that Captain America is the greatest example of what a man should be, a true symbol of what America has tried to stand for, the ultimate good guy, and not someone you raise a fist to. It's things like that that make The Punisher my favorite. That and seeing human traffickers being burnt alive gives me a total joy boner.
jobber123
ReplyDeleteSo let me get this straight, you're equating me agreeing with putting a murdering, raping, pedopyhiliac with the civil rights movement and burning books? Wow, what an obtuse analogy.
A pedophiliacs actions no longer gives them the right to live within our society and those acts are simply not human. Raping prepubescent girls and boys are not the behaviour of a human person.
BTW, I'm not sure what being a wrestling fan has anything to do with it. I happen to be a professional, with a college degree that happens to love wrestling. Condescend much?
Instead of spending so much energy on the death penalty, maybe spend every day with the families that have been affected by these sick fucks and just go around telling them all how human they are.
Finally, it is not pointless, it is punishment and accountability.
Nick Saikley
Ahhhh....good to see the stereotypical condescending liberal caring more about the criminal than the victims is alive and well.
ReplyDelete"...none of that quick and painless shit", that's just stupid. It's a crime to touch kids, as it should be. They are punished severely as they should be. Going to prison for years and being labled as a sex offender till the day you die is good enough for me. You are seriously saying we should kill someone for a future crime they might commit, that's absolutely idiotic.
ReplyDeleteAnd this guy who started the thread and the other idiot who made up the fake story about "welcoming them to his neighborhood" are living proof that really dumb wrestling fans exist, and shit like that makes me embarassed to be a fan
Well, I don't agree with it not being quick and painless. I agree with the death penalty for pedophiles and murders and not for future crime, but actual crimes. Not sure where you got that.
ReplyDeleteGoing to prison for years and being labled as a sex offender till the day you die is good enough for me.
1. You obviously don't have kids of your own.
2. Maybe they can all come live in your neighborhood.
The way I see it, if your ok with them still being out on the streets after they serve the jail sentence, you should put your money where your mouth is and invite them to your neighborhood via craig list. Maybe you can rent a room out to them even if you have younger kids in the house. The thing is, you wouldn't. You're probably just a hypocrite that has this ideological view of the world; but in reality, would never agree to do these things.
I hope I'm wrong and tomorrow you advertise for a new pedophiliac roommate.
@ flair4dagold, your wanting to put someone to death for a future crime (they might go touch another kid), when that person paid his debt to society. He did time, is labled as scum forever, and if he repeats he will be punished even more severely. You do realized that these people are spending years and years in prison (rightfully so). But you want them dead so they can't do it again. Why not extend your theory and kill young violent criminals like juvenile gangbangers, they have much higher recitivism rate? What if that pedophile you killed would have never done it again after 6 years in prison? Really, Jr should still die? Congratulations. Your as bad as a book burners.
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming you want a pedo dead because they might do it again in the future, thus punishing someone for a future crime.
ReplyDeleteYour right I don't have kids but if I did it wouldn't change my opinion.
I live in downtown San Diego, in the Strata building by petco park. During baseball season thousands of people walk right by my building, I'm sure some are rapists, pedos, kidnappers, who knows. Doesn't bother me. As far as living in my neighborhood I'm sure some do, and if they could afford the rent I could care less if they lived in my building although you have to pass a background test to live here but I would not care if one did. I absolutely wouldn't be hanging out with him but i would not act like he couldn't move in. So if any pedo is reading this I wouldn't care one way or another if you move in my building
Dude, this isn't Minority Report. You get caught having raped 10 year old boy and girls and it is proven without a shadow of a doubt in court, you get the death penalty. Not future, it's for what they did. Not that hard to understand.
ReplyDeleteAs for you not having kids and thinking it won't change your mind...lol, you're funny.
Completely disagree with the death penalty under any circumstances. Especially when the victim isn't dead, but under any circumstances its wrong to kill someone. Btw society agrees with me not you, and I'm guessing most congressmen have kids.
ReplyDeletejobber123
ReplyDelete"
Completely disagree with the death penalty under any circumstances. Especially when the victim isn't dead, but under any circumstances its wrong to kill someone. Btw society agrees with me not you, and I'm guessing most congressmen have kids."
One, if you don't agree, I'm cool with that. I don't feel the need to call others "idiots" and "knuckle draggers" or whatever insults you threw when you disagreed.
Two, there are plenty of states where the death penalty is legal, so I guess it depends of where you live (not only in the US; but in the world).
Three, just because society agrees with something, it doesn't mean it's right. Would you like me to pull out your civil rights example? Or the book burning one?
Oh I totally agree, the hard cut to black on Sopranos was like some first year film school shit. Still, I like the idea that the show ended on a relatively normal slice of life rather than Tony's death or something else dramatic like that. And anyway, if Tony was ever going to die on the Sopranos, he should have killed himself.
ReplyDeleteStill I agree with you about the laziness and stupidity of non-endings. I nearly got kicked out of my senior English class in high school when we read "The Lady or The Tiger?" and I went on a rant about how stupid it was that they couldn't even write the ambiguous ending into the story: they just broke the 4th wall and told the reader flat out to answer the question. That'd be like Quentin Tarantino appearing on screen after The Bride puts BB to bed and just saying direct to the camera "Ok, go on the internet and talk about whether or not you think she killed Bill."
@flair
ReplyDelete1. The guy who started this thread and the guy who tried to impress people with his made up story about possing up and attacking a pedo are 100% morons and sterotypical stupid wrestling fans that make people like me look bad for liking it. I didn't mean to imply you were on there level at all btw. Your opinion on this issue is jnsane and unjustifiable but I will say I think your an intelligent guy, and I don't lump you in with them.
2. I only meant society agreed with me on no death penalty for pedos. Which was my response to your I don't know cuz i don't have kids things. Most people in this country are in favor of the death penalty, I'm in the minority on that.
Since I made the "welcoming them to the neighborhood" comment, I feel I should explain why I feel that way.
ReplyDeleteI am a chef. If you've ever worked in a kitchen, you know that because most stand-alones that aren't part of a larger corporation they sometimes don't drug-test or do background checks. They also are sometimes more willing to hire ex-cons because most are on parole and have to hold down a job, so the chances of them not showing up are slimmer than most.
Two years ago, the executive chef I worked for made the unpopular decision to hire a convicted sex offender. He was convicted of statutory rape of a 13 year old girl. Nobody wanted him there, but we had no choice. Over the next several months, he proved to be a hard worker, and we started warming up to him. That summer when we closed for July 4th, we had a restaurant-wide picnic. He wasn't able to attend because children were going to be there.He drove by, and a few of us met him in the parking lot of the park, so he wouldn't feel completely left out. Someone later noted he spent most of the time staring in the direction of the park, but we just chalked it up to him being sad he couldn't join us.
He didn't show up for work the next two days. His parole officer came by to see if any of us had heard from him. The next day, he was found in a motel with a badly beaten and abused eleven year old girl barely alive. He also was suspected of two other attacks that had occurred recently. They occurred less than a mile from the room he was renting. We felt like idiots because we knew what he had done before, and we let our guard down and didn't really pay any attention to his personal life. Some of us felt had we watched him more closely, we could have prevented those attacks. When I say welcoming to the neighborhood, I don't mean beating that person up. I mean getting a good view of them, seeing their area, so I can be vigilant and do my part to protect innocent people. I have a ten year old son and a wife who spend a lot of time alone at home because I work long hours, and I work late. I want to know who's around, because it's my duty to protect my family. I wanted to believe this guy had changed, but in the end, he just showed us that you can never forget and let your guard down. Being a wrestling fan has nothing to do with my feelings. Being a husband and father do.
Most was him giving his opinion in various rants, especially in his "what i"m watching now" rants he did for awhile when he wasn't doing much current wrestling.
ReplyDeleteI'm just putting this here because it's near the bottom, but this isn't a direct response to flair4dagold:
ReplyDeleteThe problem with this whole Megan's Law idea is that it stokes somewhat unnecessary fear in people. An extremely low rate of child molestation/rape cases, like under 1% I'm pretty sure, are cases where a child the attacker didn't know was kidnapped and abused. The overwhelming majority of child molestation cases are committed by a friend or family member preying on a child they are familiar with. So, I mean, good, Megan's Law tells you who your new neighbor is and you know to avoid them. That doesn't mean that the stereotype of "riding around in a van trying to snatch unsuspecting kids" is worth the overreaction our culture has toward it. Young children have parents who never let them out of their sight, never get to go play unsupervised, and in some extreme cases have parents who take their pictures every day before they leave for school, so they have a current photo in the clothes they're wearing for if they get kidnapped. All this culture of fear is doing WAY more damage to kids than is necessary. So it's fine, hate pedophiles, but people need to stop worrying so much about their kid and strangers.
The best fantasy booking Jesse Baker ever had. I'd fully sign on for a rebooted Oz.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I've never seen The Wire, but it seems highly recommended. Can someone give me a quick intro for the show so I know what it's about before I buy the season sets?
ReplyDeleteJK Simmons, who played Schillinger, has made more money being the voice of the yellow M&M than anything.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the majority of Season 4 of Angel is unbearable, you're definitely right about a lot of things here. The Angel characters mature and become more open-minded/caring or become jaded--the arcs are very realistic. I still go back and forth on which one I like better, but Buffy tends to win out more often (Giles, Anya, Faith, and Spike could make me laugh on a regular basis).
ReplyDeleteIt's weird, the end of Angel was rushed and could've used an additional 10 episodes or so (after a tremendous 5th season); and the end of Buffy was too prolonged and could've used a more focused truncated season (say, 13 episodes).
SOA is better at being a crime show than Sopranos at its peak. Sopranos was more artistic but SOA is a brilliant show that ties in causes, effects, consequences, and personal dramas that mirror crime-life dramas like nothing ever before. I kinda hate that people who don't watch it don't give it credit because it's a biker show, but that just means that lot of people who normally wouldn't watch a show that deep will be enjoying it, so it's a fair trade.
ReplyDeleteAlthough if they don't FINALLY kill Clay next season I'm going to think that they planted storylines they won't pay off. I'm glad that there was finally some consequences with Opie agreeing to trust Clay again after the Donna situation.
I dont know if your aware of this or not but other felonies like robbery/gang violence have much much higher recitivism rates. Repeat pedo activity is quite low comparatively
ReplyDeleteDisagree with your disagreement. Season 4 was a transitional year, much like the transition one makes when going to college. It loses it's way just a little bit about halfway through the season. By Season 5, they are clicking on all cylinders.
ReplyDeleteEpisodes like Hush, Restless, the Spike-centric Fool for Love (my favorite ep), Once More With Feeling, The Body, The Gift, Storyteller, Lies My Parents Told Me, and Normal Again all feel like their own mini-movies between the script, acting, and cinematography. And they all happened after Season 3. Yes, I had to look some of those episode titles up.
So let's say for the sake of argument you didn't just completely make up that self serving story. Do you think that one experience justfies you and your "friends" to go around attacking people who have already been punished for their crime?
ReplyDeleteAnd whose going to protect your wife and kid if you go to jail for assaulting someone for no reason
Okay two things.
ReplyDeleteMy edit at the end was that I made the second comment on this thread in which I said when I get those warning cards in the mail, my first THOUGHT is to welcome them. I realized after I posted that you were talking about the comment from the guy who went with 25 people and blunt objects to actually do it. You're right, needlessly assaulting people is not the correct way to handle any situation. But in defense of my family if they were being threatened, no man would sit back and let harm come to them.
Second, i don't believe my post was self-serving. I felt you were calling me out for what I felt, and I wanted to clarify I have a semi-personal reason as to why I feel that way. Now, I realize who you were actually commenting on. And if I could sit at a computer and type up that story from my own imagination, I wouldn't spend all day sweating over a stove for a paycheck, I'd be sitting at a typewriter drinking scotch and waiting for my next royalty check.
100% my apologies I confused you with that other guy. If he had come up with that story it would have been self serving. But obviously he's not you, my bad. Totally sorry about attributing that to you
ReplyDeleteI got excited when they brought Alexis Denisof in for the second season. He's probably one of my favorite Whedon alums besides David Boreanaz, and he had a small part in the Avengers, although you wouldn't have noticed considering he was heavily in makeup
ReplyDeleteDon't know that I'd agree. Shield was very much a character-oriented show, rather than an action oriented one. It's not the Money Train that was exciting, it was seeing if Mackey had run out of all his cards yet. And that ending? Perfect. Perfect.
ReplyDeleteEh, I've respected Spider-Man more for his totally opposite stance to the Punisher. Murder is wrong, and he refuses to do it, even when his most hated villain kills the woman he loves, he won't go over the edge. Even when that same villain comes back and knows all his secrets, he'd rather put the guy in jail than go own that path.
ReplyDeleteIt's more noble.
IMO SOA does storytelling as a whole better than any other show. Stuff that happened in Season 1 still matters in Seasons 3 and 4, which isn't true for 99% of shows. They don't cop out too often when they come to a crossroads.
ReplyDeleteSOA has never been on the level of the Sopranos, and I quite like SOA. But The Sopranos is another beast entirely, the sheer artistry of that show is nearly unparalleled. I've never cared about the characters on SOA half as much as I did with The Sopranos.
ReplyDeleteOz is amazing though. One of my favorite shows ever, have gone through the whole series maybe 3 or 4 times and it never gets old. But I have no clue how you'd expect to adapt storylines that revolve around things like murder, rape, drugs, etc to wrestling.
Agreed. Possibly the best series finale ever.
ReplyDeleteAnd a major part of it was (very sadly) inspired by Benoit.
Wow, didn't know that.
ReplyDeleteNOOOOOOOOOO WHERES THE SPOILER WARNING?....lol
ReplyDeleteSorry I just finished Season 2 and now during every episode I'm gonna be wondering which guy did the Benoit deal(I'm guessing one of the main guys).
That shot at the end of season 2 where their standing around the big pile of money laughing, then they sorta look at each other with an" oh, shit, what do we do now" look. I'm starting Season Three tonight after work.
Absolutely the best series finale ever. The pen-ultimate episode...I won't name any names, but the ***SPOILER ALERT***
ReplyDeletethe "confession" scene...holy shit! Incredible!
I marked out SO HARD at the Season 3 finale.
ReplyDeletejobber123
ReplyDeleteFair enough. BTW, I'm not a fan of getting into these discussions on the net. Too many things can be misinterpreted because there's no context of voice or sarcasm, etc.
Good to see that 2 people can disagree and still be civil about things. :-)
Jesus H. Do you ever have an idea that doesn't suck? No, that was mean. Let me rephrase....what is your creative process?
ReplyDelete"
ReplyDelete1. You obviously don't have kids of your own.
2. Maybe they can all come live in your neighborhood."
1) I do, but they're not helpless. I taught them early how to deal with predators. Parenting - it works. (My kid has not been raped yet, might I add. Nor was I.)
2) No problem with that, my special brand of suburbia could use the color.
But I believe this brings up the larger question of redemption. Does it exist or doesn't it? If it does it exist, then logically the potential exists for everyone (that's the point of redemption, by definition.) and for any crime. (Again, it's part of the definition.) So...does it exist or not?
What I liked in Angel was I think season three where it stopped the monster of the week format and just went to a straight story, that was a great time to have the whole season. I think I blew through all 20 some episodes in two days. Plus Angel was a great character in his own series but was the broodmaster general whenever he crossed over to Buffy.
ReplyDelete"
ReplyDeleteproven without a shadow of a doubt in court,"
Well, as long as we're talking fantasy...
I mean, videotape...sure, that's beyond a shadow of a doubt. But we just found out we legitimately executed an innocent man in Texas in 1989. That completely shatters any notion I ever had about Capital Punishment. I frankly don't think anyone should be executed, for any crime, ever, whatsoever. Hitler could have used a good lifetime in solitary. Death Penalty? Sure, if murder's your thing.
"
ReplyDeletemost experts agree that it's not curable."
I know exactly what you mean. Look at all the experts that told the Wright Brothers that they were insane. Or the experts who believed schizophrenia was not controllable. Or the experts that believed cancer was an automatic death sentence. Or the experts who believed that homosexuality was a mental illness. Or the experts who...
You get the idea.
Hate to say the same thing as everyone else but... i'm going to anyway. Season three of Buffy is the last one where you can watch any episode and it's great. Four starts off slow then gets good as they bring in the new characters to replace Angel, Cordelia and Wesley but then starts to suck again on the last several episodes. Five and six are hit and miss when it comes to the episodes and with the exception of the last episode, season seven is a painful watch. I still maintain Firefly is the best thing in the Whedonverse and that is because it wasn't around long enough to start sucking as all shows inevitably do.
ReplyDeleteAlso, kinda curious, as I was a political science geek in college...but, honestly, I've pored over the Federal Constitution...and I can't find anything in there that gives the State the authority to kill a citizen. Nowhere. Not even implied.
ReplyDeleteThe closest you come is the 10th Amendment, which states (in layman's) that unless the Federal Const. prohibits it specifically, or grants it specifically, the states are allowed to make their own rules. That's as close as it gets.
On the other hand, you have the 9th Amendment, which states (again, in layman's) that you have more rights than the Constitution lays out. To wit, you're not limited by the Constitution in your rights.
So, not even sure where the legality of Capital Punishment came into play...
flair4dagold
ReplyDelete"Raping prepubescent girls and boys are not the behaviour of a human person."
Exactly. Just ask Aristotle.
"
ReplyDeleteI don't believe pedophilia can be cured, no more than homosexuals can be cured. And no one has ever provided any evidence to dispute that."
Define "Self-fulfilling prophecy?"
...
ReplyDeleteWho, precisely, is innocent?
You're not Catholic, are you?
...as someone who has had several professional conversations with Mr. Carlin - that bit you mention? About him bordering off the midwestern states for inmates? And selling the video rights to PPV when the fences open? Yeah...that joke was on you, not criminals. George was poking fun at those of us who believe in the death penalty. The joke is "Oh, you think electric chair is cute? Let's see how committed to this idea you REALLY are."
ReplyDeleteThen again, this is the internet and of course my story is bullshit. (I don't go around taping convos with my colleagues...though it has made Paul Provenza alot of money.) You don't have to believe a word of it...but trust me, that was the thrust of the joke.
"
ReplyDeleteAs far as we know"
Bingo. Glad you said it, because honestly, it ain't much. Psychotherapy as a form of healing is barely 100 years old. Our knowledge of the brain is limited to studies within the past 100 years. Sorry, I'm not about to judge human nature, when we have a history that goes back about 15,000 years, but we only have data for 100.
I don't see how that's all that bad. The alternative, if they ever brought back Oz, would be what? They killed everyone off during the original run. A prequel? Even if it still had McManus and Toby Beecher, you'd still have to fill the prison with new prisoners anyway.
ReplyDeleteBut now that you do, try ever NOT picturing Vern Schillinger when you hear the yellow M&M.
ReplyDeleteThe red M&M is, I'm pretty sure, Billy West, aka Stimpson J. Cat and Phillip Fry.
The Alternative?
ReplyDeleteDon't bring back Oz. Create a new prison drama. It ain't hard.
And yeah, I was feeling my jerk juice when I wrote that. I'm not above admitting when I'm an asshole.
Me too. Like, literal standing up and cheering in my living room. I felt like a dumb dildo but it was SO cathartic to finally see Opie get some comeuppance from the Donna situation and for Stahl to get shot in her bitch head.
ReplyDeleteBut my point was, SOA is better at being a crime show. The Sopranos kind of had that Mafia "omerta" thing going on where even though you saw certain deals and such, you really didn't get as clear of an idea as to who did what and how the money was made. Tony lived in a giant mansion and seemed to be able to wave anything away by tossing money at it, yet all you really saw in terms of actual money making crimes was the occasional robbery or drug deal. The scope of the criminal activity was never really the focus of Sopranos, but it kind of felt like a cop out that they didn't get into it.
ReplyDeleteSOA weaves the realities of living an outlaw life into their stories of the really strong characters. Different strokes for different folks and all that, but to me I had a harder time caring about certain Sopranos characters because they were either intentionally written to be obnoxious (Janice, Livia) or were one-note mob stereotypes who somehow had to have actual human interactions (Paulie, Silvio). Then you had the seasonal "character who was always around even though we've never seen him or heard about him, no really, this guy's a big player" that got killed at the end of the season (Richie, Ralphie, Tony B.) Other than that you just had Tony's core family, and even amongst them I never really cared for Uncle Junior's confused old man routine, AJ's self conscious dumbness, Meadow's brattishness, or even Carmella's materialism. And of course Christopher, but all his negative qualities were what defined his character. I know all of that was intentional in the Sopranos, and I'm sure you could say similar things about SOA, but in the end I feel more kinship to the SAMCRO crew.
Yeah, as a fan of Carlin's, I know almost everything he "suggests" is usually him taking a sociological viewpoint and going overboard with it as a way to out out the ludicrous levels we can go. And I think the bit also tied into a rant he did first on people's insane wanting of more prisons as long as they weren't in their neighborhood. But my point was setting aside communities where people who suffer the same weaknesses for acts of criminality that would endanger others, is not inherently a bad idea. I don't really care one way or the other if sexual offenders are born that way, if their parents let them watch porn at 3 years old, or if pigtails just do it for them. If we want to seriously give them a chance to live outside a prison, then put them in an area where their tendencies aren't pushed everyday. If a man has a defective gene that predisposes him to be dangerous around children, give him a place to live where their aren't children to trigger him. Just as when a convicted drug user is released, his parole officer makes sure his home isn't adjacent to a crack house, or he doesn't get a job as a heroin quality control inspector, as much for his benefit of attempting to rehabilitate, as it is so that he doesn't go on a drug-induced binge and kill ten people at a Taco Bell because they forgot the green onions on his gordita. No, I don't have the answers on how to make that idea feasable, I'm just pointing out there are points to consider.
ReplyDeleteAnd, now I have to go google Paul Provenza to figure out the story behind the second half of your comment.
Paul does a great show on Showtime called The Green Room. 30 minutes, 4 comedians, bunch of shop talk.
ReplyDeleteHe also did that wonderful movie about the art of stand up, called The Aristocrats. NOT for the faint of heart.
Kill Clay next season and where do you go with 6 & 7? He's integral. Cut him out and you're cutting out 40% of the drama. (And 50% of the Hamlet.)
ReplyDeleteWe can only go by what we know to be true.
ReplyDeleteSo because experts were wrong about some things, they're wrong about everything. Gotcha. Beautiful point. Disregard all the things experts are correct about, which is why they're experts. Nah, let's judge them solely by the exceptions.
ReplyDeleteSure. But then don't close the door on potential discoveries that you couldn't imagine. Guess what, if you say something can "never" happen, 98% of the time you're right.
ReplyDeleteEver hear of a slippery slope argument? It's a rhetorical tool, usually considered to be one of the lower ones. Mostly because it deals with histrionics and doesn't really follow logic as set out by the argument. In this case, you assumed that I obviously meant the extreme sense of my point (again, histrionics) When I really didn't say anything more than "Experts have been wrong before."
ReplyDeleteSee while I really have enjoyed the last four seasons of inter-club turmoil with Clay being the shit disturber, it feels to me like it's a good natural time to move forward with Jax actually trying to make JT's vision for the club happen, and for that Clay probably needs to be dead. I think there's still a lot that can be mined out of the idea of an MC president trying to use his club to bring about change, and how that conflicts with the outlaw mindset and the ways the club has made their money. To this point it's always been Jax making small advances and Clay shutting him down, I'd like to see where it goes with Clay in the driver's seat. Plus it's not hard to imagine Jemma getting in Jax's head and being more Clay than Clay ever was.
ReplyDeleteAlternately, I'd like to see Clay broken down and humbled by the club, and finding a way to make some redemption for the things he's done. He has been, at times, a very sympathetic character, and there is room there for him to see the error of his ways and try to redeem himself.
Also, apropros of nothing, I'd really enjoy it if one season of SOA, or a spinoff miniseries or even a movie, was a prequel showing the original young days of SAMCRO, when JT and Piney & the like got back from Vietnam and founded it. Getting a clearer vision of where the club was supposed to be headed would make Jax's journey feel a lot more personal. Even as a series of interstitial flashbacks cut into next season would work like that.
You're missing the Hamlet aspect.
ReplyDeleteJax (Hamlet) doesn't kill Clay (Claudius) till the end. Opie (Laertes) dies there too. So does Gemma. Tara offs herself in the next 2 seasons.
Listen, they might throw us a curveball, but the story is Hamlet through and through.
Ahh, ok, thanks for clarifying. I remember those, but thought I had missed some actual "rants" he had done.
ReplyDeleteOh, absolutely, the finale was perfect in every way.
ReplyDeleteOverall, though, I did think that the show sometimes fell into the trap of becoming TOO detailed. The allure of the show was in seeing a group of crooked cops doing illegal and immoral things; however, there were several long periods where the group was on their "best behavior" in order to not draw attention to themselves. That was realistic, sure, but also kind of boring.
By the same token, I understand the idea that Vic's big crime in the first episode couldn't just be swept under the rug, but I actually found it somewhat tiresome that pretty much every episode of every season would refer back to it. Again, it was realistic, but kind of boring - every single season was built on some authority figure trying to nail Vic for the same crime. I found it very repetitive.
Vic wasn't much different than Tony Soprano...both were sociopaths. Again, I kinda agree with you (not totally, because I wasn't really bugged by it...it's kinda the nature of episodic television - sometimes, they tread water.) but the focus of the show, I felt, was a character study. Shane wasn't the villain. Mackey was, all along. And Shane's coda to him...nailed it perfectly.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.craveonline.com/tv/articles/182789-sons-of-anarchy-prequel-series-breakdown
ReplyDeleteThe best episodes of Angel are just as good or better than the best Buffy episodes, but the bad episodes were really, really bad. Same with the characters -- Wesley and Gunn are my favorite characters and have much more interesting character arcs than anyone on Buffy, but I got really tired of Cordelia, Lindsey, and the charisma sinkhole that is Connor.
ReplyDeleteI started but never finished watching Oz, The Sopranos, The Shield, and Dexter. I have Breaking Bad and The Wire, but I haven't watched them yet, and I've barely even heard of SOA. I need to spend less time dicking around in the Comments section of some guy's blog and go watch some TV.
ReplyDeleteMy argument is built upon "cold" detachment, yes. I prize myself for being able to look at something horrible and ask why somebody would do what they do.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm trying not to bring Godwin's into this, and I don't have any family who died in the Holocaust, I really don't like the term subhuman, same reason I don't like the word good or evil. They're usually used to justify or excuse doing something terrible. I think pedophilia and rape are horrible crimes, I don't think killing pedophiles and rapists is the answer.
No doubt the system is broken. Look at the punishment for possession of crack compared to the possession of cocaine, that's about the purest proof that racism is alive and well in the united states.
ReplyDeletePeople said the same thing about schizophrenics.
ReplyDeleteWe need Ryan here. But are you familiar with the sex offender island that it's in Florida? I agree that there isn't a perfect fix, but I believe in standing up for the human rights of any person, no matter how awful they might be, card carrying ACLU member and Voltaire fan that I am.
ReplyDeleteNo. It was a masterpiece in writing, every single seasonal arc tied into the next one. Really slickly done, even season four was really well put together, it was just majorly let down by the acting.
ReplyDeleteI've been watching the X-Files recently and even if the metaplot never leads anywhere and all the other stupid shit happens, it's still a really fun show with some legitimately scary moments. Plus, to me at least, it's really interesting to see what is almost the blueprint for most of the television that's followed afterwards: the necessity of Unresolved Sexual Tension in EVERY SHOW, the monster of the week format, the slowly expanding storyline that gets revealed piece by piece. Look at Lost, Buffy, Supernatural and even Chuck, all those shows borrow elements from the X-Files.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's why I like The Punisher. Because he doesn't want anyone else to be like him. He doesn't want anyone else to cross that line.
ReplyDeleteThere's an issue where a cop's wife is gunned down, the guy is out looking for the people responsible, and he runs into the Punisher. He says to Frank "get out of my way!" to which Frank says "Really? Do you REALLY want to be me? Go take care of your wife" as it was, she was still alive.
Then there's an issue where Frank is going to kill a mobster in Hell's Kitchen, and of course Daredevil shows up. Well, Frank uses a sonic sound machine to knock DD out. Afterwards, DD wakes up to find himself chained up, with a gun in his hand, pointed at Frank. The Punisher says "You don't kill me, then there's a death on your hands that you could have prevented. You kill me, then you're a murderer". DD says "What kind of choice is that?!" to which Frank says "the one I make everytime I pull the trigger".
Beautiful stuff.
In reply to Dan below:
ReplyDelete[SPOILERS BELOW!!!]
I felt that Shane and Vic were both villains, with the only difference being that Shane wasn't as smart as Vic; Shane would often try to pull a con, but then be unable to dig himself out of it. Plus, Shane killing Lem trumps Vic killing Crowley, at least in my opinion; Crowley may have been a more moral person than Lem, but Lem was their friend and confidant.
If anything, Dutch and Claudette were the "heroes" of the show.
"
ReplyDeletePlus, Shane killing Lem trumps Vic killing Crowley, at least in my opinion;"
In my opinion, murder was the least of their crimes, really. Vic pulled the trigger on one man - but how many lives did he ruin, directly or indirectly? Did he not have any responsibility in Shane's actions? (Particularly in the finale?) If anything, Vic was the puppet master, with Shane the puppet ...who finally saw the strings.
You nailed it...except one little detail.
ReplyDeleteEarly in the season, Tony and Baccala are fishing and philosophizing. They discuss what death must be like, and Baccala says "It's like nothing. One minute you're there, the next...nothing."
The fact that the screen CUT to black and stayed there for moments until the credits - that, to me, is a call back to the convo. Tony died. By whom? Does it matter? I wouldn't have been surprised if Melfi did it...but that's the point...he DID try to reset, but as they said in Magnolia - "You may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with you."
Just my take.
Except Sopranos was never that kind of show. It was ALWAYS a symbolic wankfest (take that as a good or bad...wankfest isn't necessarily negative in my book. See Freebird.) The biggest problem it had, critically, is that it convinced most mindless viewers that it was a mafia show. With mafia tropes and conventions. It wasn't. It was a psycho-family drama. It wasn't accidental that whole episodes revolved around Tony's dreams. (Or whole seasons...)
ReplyDelete"
ReplyDeleteThough I always thought a good idea for a Sopranos movie would start it with Tony going on trial, "
David Chase, after the finale, was asked (many times) about a movie. His response? "How could there be a movie with the way the show ended? You'd have to do a prequel, maybe with Johnny-Boy."
Yeah but they don't HAVE to follow the Hamlet template. The Hamlet aspect was obvious from the promos before the show ever aired, but in the end if I really want to see Hamlet, I'll just watch/read Hamlet. Or The Lion King.
ReplyDeleteThere's a reason it is the most produced play ever. Ever. And there is a reason it is constantly mined for it's themes. There's also a reason you can do a million different takes on the story.
ReplyDeleteYou say that if you wanted to see Hamlet, you'd watch/read Hamlet. Yet it was those very themes that brought you to the show. (Sorry, never seen any promos. Don't watch regular TV.) So it seems to me, you're saying "I don't want to watch Hamlet" but simultaneously you're saying "I knew it was Hamlet, so I watched..."
I'm confused.