I have a lot of problems with this episode. The writing on this show just feels like it’s gotten way too loose.

The reveal that Joe is Zeke is because he has “Obadiah S.” written on a ziploc bag containing his father’s ashes? Who labels a bag like that?

Riri’s sneak into the base requires her to swim around under water and find a vent? And then cut a lock using a laser underwater? I know we already tend to just ignore the fact that real life lasers don’t cut things like this, but now we’re doing underwater lasers? She just found that, cut it, and then went in like she doesn’t need to breathe any more. How’s she even seeing shit? She’s got no goggles!

And then she sneaks into the guy’s lair and is just trying to discretely cut a piece of a a guy’s clothes with a high powered laser!? How does that work? It’s like the least discrete thing ever! He’s just walking around talking to this billionarie and she’s blasting off this lock cutting laser everywhere, except for some reason now it takes longer to cut through leather than it does steel. The guy should be cut in half and on fire and everyone screaming.

Why are there all these people-sized vents that are covered by openings that are taped on? They don’t even screw that on? Why design a gate that traps people in the vent? Why not just put a permanent obstacle inside your vent? Why wasn’t that their break-in plan? That was effortless? But the labs have no fire escape. The most obvious requirement for every lab. But she has no trouble getting out of the vent. We don’t even see how she gets out, she just kind of gets trapped and then we see her leave.

And this business tycoon expected him… and then wrote a check? And also planned to have the security system entrap him but never considered the idea that the guy who broke him might just physically attack him? And also what are you doing, dude? Why are you gardening at night waiting to be attacked? Go home! And a hire a body guard!

And what is with these motherfucking contracts? I get that it’s probably an allusion to Mephisto, but those contracts are worthless. So someone signs a paper promising to give you money. Where do you actually get the goddamned money? Where did they get the physical cash they’re throwing around? Did they go to a bank and say, ‘I’d like to withdraw $100,000 from my bank account. You’ll find I have the money, because I got a billionaire to sign a contract promising me this money.’ Like… think how fucking stupid this is. There’s a reason why no one holds rich people hostage for a signature. They can do it for crypto. That’s actually a real thing that is happening a lot these days. But a paper contract? It’s meaningless! You have to actually get someone to execute it! And that’s impossible because (A) you can’t do that anonymously, you’d have to identify yourself and (B) contracts signed under duress are invalid. They’re a legal concept, not a magic wand! This is so goddamned dumb.

Also, why the fuck is Zeke trusting Riri? Because she promised? They’re not friends, and have no basis of trust at all. She’s like, ‘You have my word.’ And he’s like, ‘Okay, be sure not to get me arrested for life. Here’s a priceless …’ also what the fuck is that “bio-mesh”? Literally what is it supposed to be? It’s like… organic? And how did she make it a metal detector cloak in 10 minutes? And why and how did he have an enormous bone-deep gouge in his arm? And why would you have blueprints for any of this? Blueprints are how they used to sketch out buildings fifty years ago. Was he drawing the dimensions of a new metamaterial with a ruler and compass? Writing out its dimensions? Like what is any of this? This feels like it was written by a 10 year old and ChatGPT.

This story makes no sense. I want to like it, but this is DUMB.

I’m just reminiscing, man.

That’s there take. I think context and audience makes a huge difference, so I’d rank it higher.

I remember the experience. I watched it at the Rave Cinema at the Baldwin-Crenshaw mall, in Leimert Park. And let me tell you: the theater was so fucking amped. This theater was built by Magic Johnson in a part of LA that hadn’t had a nice theater, and it’s held up well. The neighborhood has really come up around it, too, so when Black Panther played, it was filled with folks dressed to the nines. There was LA street fashion, Panafrican garb, kids grown-ups, elders… The movie was good to start with, but it was just hard not to get caught up in the energy in the air. It truly was an event.

I’ve gotta say that MCU armor peaked around Iron Man 2. And I’m disappointed that they didn’t take the opportunity to finally return to greatness.

I don’t mind high-tech armor, but I was so disappointed that we see her donning high tech shiny self-assembling armor in the first few minutes of the show.

I miss the gantry. I miss the sense that it was a physical thing. Imagine the prop artists preparing the parts of Riri’s suit that weren’t pure CGI. The casting and the polishing and the fingerprint removal before she put it on. How about this? Actually design a suit. Imagine you had a high enough power source to power it and repulsors exist. What would it look like? Imagine something like Andrea Piccinno’s exo frame with some plating and a motorcycle helmet. Remember the Mark 1? Remember watching the firmware boot up on an old CRT monitor while Yinsin sacrificed himself to buy Tony time?

I feel like what I’m saying is straight-up CRAZY to the people who make these shows. But PLEASE: if you must, work up to the fancy polished CGI stuff by the end! Let us see something that looks a kinda real. Let her impress us by showing us stages of development instead of literally starting with a product that is finished and capable of cross country flight!

Bring back a gantry. Or let us see her step in and tighten a harness! I feel like if these people were in charge of Top Gun, everyone would get in planes by just running onto an air ram in street clothes and getting launched into the cockpit while the plane is flying. ‘Flight suit? Ladder? No, audiences will be bored.’

It really disappoints me that this show is dismissing this opportunity. We got a glimmer of it in Wakanda Forever, but oh well.

My understanding was that she used up the grant money and/or overextended the term of her scholarship without graduating.

It was a little hazy, tho

Seconded.

I really liked the garage suit we saw in Wakanda Forever. I didn’t care for the upgrade later on the film. I wish so hard we could see more of a truly hacked together suit in this show.

Personally, I think it’d be cool to show power armor that is far less powerful, too. Daredevil is no where near as strong as Spider-Man, but he’s still cool. I hate the power level game comics always play. I like believability. Give me a character with 5x strength and super jumps instead of 500x and supersonic speed. That’s a way more interesting character to me.

But hey: if we get bulkier suits and leave the nanotech at home I’ll call it a win.

Huh! That’s very interesting. And good points.

I think that over time, my tastes and Disney’s have seemed to diverge. That can cut both ways. It’s possible for Disney to release what they think is the new hotness and for me to be underwhelmed (hot take: I thought Thunderbolts* was mid), but also for them to release a project that doesn’t fit well into the big narrative arc that I happen to love (hot take: The Eternals was actual cinema and it’s a shame people didn’t appreciate it).

I think you’re right. If it was good, they would’ve released it. They’re probably going to try and hope that Ryan Coogler’s recent success (Sinners) can carry it, but it probably is a bloated mess. Still: if Dominique Thorne has talent and shows it, I’ll consider it a win. People dissed Wakanda Forever, but overall I liked it and thought she has promise. She was cocky as hell, and I liked that.

Fingers crossed.

Can you elaborate?

Do you think it’s going to suck, or just die from lack of promotion?

I think it looks pretty good. But this is the first trailer I’ve seen. I’m kind of hoping it’s just really good, and turns out to be a sleeper hit. I’m a fan of the character and have been looking forward to this since Wakanda Forever.

I don’t know what you mean. Can you elaborate?

Yeah, I’m on team “They’re no Avengers”. I love the fact that it was immediately ridiculed in-world.

Jesus. Is anyone actually supposed to take John “Formally Captain America” Walker seriously as an Avenger? Spider-Man had to hustle for that kind of cred, and he was a well-liked homegrown hero with actual powers. Are we all supposed to start calling these folks that just because he, Congressman Winter Soldier, and an group of unfamiliar but suspiciously darkly-attired supers were labeled as such after they happened to appear during a cataclysm that coincided with a desperate press conference by a disgraced CIA director?

No fucking way. Those are not The New Avengers. Those are “the new Avengers” or the Notvengers or the B-vengers or Bucky’s kids or anything other than a straight faced “New Avengers”. I expect them to likely stick with Thunderbolts, honestly. It would clearly be better than one of the sarcastic derisive nicknames.

I really liked this movie, but I feel like it had the opportunity to rise closer to the quality of Captain America: Winter Soldier that it missed.

To get this out of the way, it was very good. It did a lot of things well.

That said, I feel that it embraced certain widespread bad habits in superhero movies that it could’ve overcome, and which would’ve made this one of the great Marvel movies.

Principally, characters just show up in costumes sometimes for fights that don’t make great sense, talk, and then reappear long distances away after an unspecified-but-short amount of time at the next key location.

Sometimes, a bit of effort is made to provide a bit of explanation, as is the case when Alexi overhears Val in his limo. But let’s be honest: the director of the CIA riding around in an unfamiliar limo (driven by a former Soviet spy!) having sensitive conversations with one clearly conflicted lackey is more Venture Bros. than All the King’s Men.

Does it ruin the movie? Of course not. But it’s representative of the tropes. Where did Bucky get those anti-humvee grenades?? And why the hell did he use one on an unarmed civilian vehicle in the middle of the United States?!? How did he even get them to the gas station? Did they walk because he blew up their car against all reason!?!

Bucky just shows up to superhero. He enters the nightmare dimension that brutalizes you with your worst crimes and flippantly jokes that it’s unpleasant. It tries to sidestep context that would actually make it richer!

For instance: what if after Bucky blew out the tires on those trucks and flipped one the way he did he was followed up soon after by a convoy of state highway patrolmen to take those soldiers into custody? That would’ve ruled. It makes the story bigger! What the fuck did Val tell those guys to get them to carry out orders that fucked?? The tension goes up! This isn’t happening totally out of sight! People are going to hear about Bucky getting tangled up in this, and hear stories about black ops vans live-firing on domestic soil with unclear authority! What??

And would it have killed the writers to have Bucky enter Bob’s attic screaming violent threats in Russian before collapsing to the floor gasping though sobs? To have him just utterly break down and remind us that he was forced to commit atrocities and kill Innocents and people he loved? And then try to compose himself and focus on his mission in the midst of what is clearly a barely managed panic attack?

And then have Yelina point out that it can get better for Bob, because Bucky – and all of them! – are proof that Bob IS NOT ALONE IN HIS PAIN???

Aggh! That would’ve been AMAZING! They could’ve done more with this if they didn’t do the comic-book corner cutting. The corners are where the true greatness often comes!!

Why, because they spoke truth to those who didn’t want to hear it?

This article is true and uniquely human in a way that is rare in the ai slop era.

Bob is a super dangerous sadboi puppygod. He’s a confused, traumatized sweet-hearted disaster with floppy dark hair, bipolar disorder and abs that can destroy the world if he gets too sad, and no one cares about him… except YOU. The article speaks the truth.

And good for them! Whatever the gen-alpha equivalent of a Tumblr girl is, they need this.

I don’t really know much about him, and I can’t dispute your personal gut feeling. But I’m not familiar with anything that gives me this feeling.

For what it’s worth, I think in general that if you say, “I just don’t quite trust <name>. I didn’t know why, but they creep me out,” about pretty much anyone in public political life you can probably find a basis for that over a long enough time scale.

He is a former Marxist?? I find that bewildering, hilarious, and doubtful.

I think it’s great when people have open enough minds to radically rethink their beliefs, but I hope I’m never so brainrotted as to somehow strawman my own former beliefs.

This meme doesn’t work because a conservative literally bought me a copy of that book and it’s infantile.

This book is titled “Basic Economics” because Sowel is a troll, and the economics in his book are largely correct but incomplete to the point of misinforming people. This is an incredibly “conservative” book through-and-through.

This is essentially what I was going to say (though more poetic).

I’m of two minds. I admit that i cringe a bit that he would even call this “good trouble”. John Lewis’ “good trouble” was nearly getting beaten to death. How Booker can apply such a label to an act of protest that didn’t even meaningfully delay any noteworthy business is frankly amazing to me.

But also, he did fucking do something. He specifically articulated that we should all be alarmed, and he declared that he intends to not cooperate with or normalize what is happening. Low bar? Yes. But we all have to start somewhere.

I actually like Cory Booker. He was my third or fourth pick among the 20-something candidates that ran in 2020.

I’ll say this: this act is not enough to convince me that elected Democrats are going to do anything meaningful in the next two years. But the absence of it would’ve made me far less likely to expect it. Good for him.

The headline is kinda mean (but fair).

One thing I like about Jackson is that he very candid and self aware.

I remember years ago in an interview on the Colbert Report, Colbert asked him what his level of success is like, and he laughed said something like ‘Well… I’m supposed to say it’s no big deal… But it’s a pretty fuckin big deal!’

I don’t recall his exact words, but it didn’t feel boastful, more like this recognition that his wealth and fame afford him incredible privilege and he greatly enjoys that. I admire the candor.

This is kind of weird timing, because “No Other Land” just won an Oscar.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/09/no-other-land-film-shared-palestine-solidarity

No offense, but that’s conspiracy nonsense.

There are plenty of real conspiracies. You don’t need to l look for the goofball ones.

Honest take? A lot in the short term, but probably quite little beyond that. Maybe Harris won and a Nazi would win after that, or Vance would win on a similarly radical platform. But this won’t pass until we identify a replacement. But there’s no simply avoiding what we’re going through.