Ferrum Aeternum

If you're not listening to cheesy Italian power metal based directly on Watership Down, what are you even doing with your life?

Amen brother

Got around to watching this last night. Very intriguing first episode with plenty of unanswered questions. Feels like there's a mystery going on here at multiple levels. The end was genuinely shocking to the uninitiated. A couple of observations: I haven't read the book, but since @Isis points out that it's very faithful I have to say this - Gillian Flynn (between this and Gone Girl) does a phenomenal job of illustrating the actual vibe and atmosphere of "middle America." Not some romanticized or generic version of it. The real shit: Boring landscapes dotted with sleepy houses, farm animals and bland commerce, populated by miserable people kind of fumbling through life. I absolutely love it. It reminds me a lot of how effective season 1 of True Detective was at showing the deep South in all its glory. The mom (Patricia Clarkson, who is awesome in everything) reminded me so much of my own mother that it made me a bit uncomfortable for Amy Adams' character. Looking forward to seeing what is behind that dynamic.

I was on a plane Sunday night so I couldn't watch the premiere. Going to catch up on HBO Go tonight. I haven't read the book either but I quite enjoyed Gone Girl so this really intrigues me.

Melo may be the biggest con artist in the history of the league. Hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain for a guy who hasn’t helped a team win anything of consequence in the better part of a decade.

Kick save and a beauty

Been throwing back hard on Glenn Danzig lately, both his eponymous metal band and his Misfits stuff. He's a total buffoon of a human being, but damn did he ever make some great music.

Fans start to lose interest when the league champion is a given before the season even starts.

Because the Warriors were already great, and KD was still in the prime of his career. Different than superstars joining forces on an existing lousy team and also different than over-the-hill players latching onto a great team as end of the bench guys. KD jumped into the boat with an existing powerhouse team, and in doing so made winning at least one championship a foregone conclusion. There's nothing technically wrong with what he did. It was just a very bad look, particularly for a guy who had spent years elevating a small-market team to contender status.

I did think the Sublime was a half-baked idea all around. Seemed like an excuse to kill off a bunch of the higher profile hosts whose stories had nowhere left to go. Yup, I don't buy that it's "permanently safe" from outside interference. Locked away somewhere, sure, but all machines inevitably fail.

Great finale which will demand a re-watch or three to fully process. The whole season will, really. I'm not going to pretend like I correctly predicted much about how this season developed, but I've thought since early on this year that the series would turn toward an examination of the "singularity" concept, where AI (in this case, Dolores) becomes fully sentient and capable of self-replication, while figuring out that humanity is little more than an obstacle to that process. The interesting twist here is that Bernard is present to act as a balance to that idea, a "moral compass" of sorts which we typically don't see in other depictions of the rise of AI.

I agree, this one has been fun.

This is ridiculous.

Wtf is Panama doing in this field of teams?

Well Sweden ya blew it