ohtani's jacket

I like the show, but I think it has some serious flaws as a TV series. If I were a casual viewer, I would be confused as heck by the structure of the show. First, it seems like The Corinthian is going to be the main antagonist, then the focus shifts to the Thewlis character, then a whole host of new characters are introduced with the Doll House arc. If this were a weekly TV show and you missed an episode or two, you'd be confused at heck. The main character isn't an active protagonist and is in the background much of the time, and he's not only unrelatable, he's actually kind of an asshole. I wonder if they made a mistake trying to adapt two trade paperbacks into a single series. I understand that it might have been difficult to stretch Preludes & Nocturnes into an entire season, and their aim was to adapt the series in its entirety, which would require being greenlit for more series than Netflix is willing to produce, but perhaps it would have been better to have been less faithful with the adaptation. I can't recall any successful Netflix shows where a story finishes halfway through the season and another storyline begins. I don't think the cliffhangers are strong enough, either. The entire reason people binge watch Netflix shows is because the cliffhangers leave them wanting to see the next episode. I don't get a strong urge to immediately watch the next episode. I did really like the way they adapted the Hob story. That may have been the highlight of the show so far.

Bert Royal passed away. https://slamwrestling.net/index.php/2022/08/20/british-star-bert-royal-dies/

I searched about him in Japanese and apparently the direct cause of death was pneumonia. He spent his teenage years in New Zealand. His band was named after a fast food chain we had in New Zealand when I was a kid.

I imagine a future where Kim is working tirelessly to get an 80 year old Jimmy out of prison on compassionate grounds. Interestingly, both Bob Ordenkirk and Rhea Seahorn believe they continue to see each other in the future.

Peter Gould said in an interview that the Saul stuff was like an actor being recognized for a role they played. He pointed out how happy Jimmy is when Kim calls him Jimmy at the end. I just find it hard to believe that he goes from awful things he does to get the sentence down to 7 years to "Jimmy" without ever straying from the straight and narrow again. I know Chuck says he can change the path he's on, but I can't help but remember Chuck's line about Jimmy never changing. Suddenly, Jimmy making bread goes from a prison sentence in Nebraska to his saving grace in prison? I think, at the very least, he gets that ice cream he wants.

I can't believe it's over. That final scene with Jimmy in the prison courtyard, wow... I liked how they kept swerving us. Gene's gonna do a runner and try to get cleaned, but gets caught inside a rubbish dumpster. Jimmy goes full Saul Goodman in trying to have his sentence reduced, then it seems like he's going to completely screw Kim over, but no, change of heart and he finally confesses to his regrets in front of the judge. I hope he doesn't fall into some Slippin' Jimmy trap gain in prison. He probably will. But at least he won back Kim's approval, and now she has a new lease on life with the legal volunteer work. I honestly didn't think they'd r6edeem Jimmy, but I was kind of shocked by how evil he seemed post-arrest. In the end, we got as a close a happy ending as you could get. 8 years, though. Great show. Bummed that there won't be any more.

Kim is in the final episode. They confirmed that on Twitter.

Well, the All Blacks showed they have some fight left in them to win at Ellis Park, of all places.

How did I not know about Nigerian synth funk legend William Onyeabor until now?

I forgot one key point here. Kim doesn't reveal to Cheryl that Jimmy is still alive. She's leaving it up to Jimmy to turn himself in. I think this is directly related to the guilt she feels about the choices she's made ever since she came up with the idea to ruin Howard's career, including the disastrous decision to not tell Jimmy about Lalo. Watching the telephone scene again, it's Kim's silence that causes Jimmy to flip out. I wonder if that's related to her silence after he tells her to have a nice life after he signs the divorce papers. Rhea's acting in that scene is brilliant. The second time I watched it, I focused on her reactions and you can see the mixed emotions she's feeling and the way she fights to repress some of her feelings. You can tell she still loves Jimmy but hates what he's turned into.

He was a heck of a performer himself.

The images and the soundtrack usually don't match on these trailers. They love messing with us like last week's preview with the cop car. That's Jimmy's old car that they pushed off the cliff in the desert in Season 5. Jimmy didn't discover about Best Quality Vacuum until Season 6, so I'm not convinced that the image and the soundbite match. The image is in color, which would indicate a flashback.

At least he snapped out of it when Marion said she trusted him. For a moment, I thought he was going to top her.

I just want to add that the writing on this show is so brilliant. Like the way Gene used the pseudonym from when they used to pull scams together. He's so confident at the beginning of the call after hearing that Kim asked about him. I'm 99% convinced that he thinks they can get back together.

There was a lot going on during the telephone call scene, as well as the scene where they signed the divorce papers. Gene clearly wants to reunite with Kim, but Gene, or Saul, if you will, is a gross caricature of the man she loves. She tries to appeal to him as Jimmy, not Gene, Saul or Viktor, which causes him to flip out and begin attacking her. He goads her into confessing, and somewhere between the telephone call and her arrival in Albuquerque, she decides to do just that. I thought it was brilliant the way she switched back to being Kim when she returned to Albuquerque. As a former lawyer, she knew the affidavit wasn't enough to get her charged for any crimes, so she went a step further and confessed to Cheryl. When Cheryl threatened to take everything that Kim has, it was clear that for Kim, her "Miracle Whip" life in Florida didn't amount to much. When she told Gene that he can't be living much of a life and that he should turn himself in, she might as well have been talking about herself. That said, she deliberately chose that life in Florida so that she wouldn't hurt anyone anymore. She probably would have continued with her mundane routines if Gene hadn't called her, and may indeed return to it. The call was the catalyst for Gene going off the rails in Nebraska, and whatever his final outcome is, and Kim finally confessing, and was the crossroads moment we saw in the previous episode. Kim's confession also implicates Jimmy in the crimes (if that's the correct verb), but I don't think she cares by this point as the Jimmy she loved is gone. I suppose she has to feel some guilt over that as it was her decision to leave Jimmy that pushed him over the edge. but their relationship was already strained by their opposite reactions to Howard's death. It's interesting that she protected Jimmy at Howard's memorial, but is now making an effort to have even more charges laid against him.

I don't think Kim is enjoying her life in Florida at all. She's punishing herself over Howard's death. She doesn't act like the Kim we know in any of the Florida scenes. It's not until the conversation with Jimmy, and the return to Albuquerque, that we see a glimpse of the real Kim. And finally she has that beautifully cathartic moment on the bus where she bursts into tears. I definitely think Kim's life in Florida is meant to parallel Gene's life in Nebraska, and we're supposed to remember her line about the reason she stayed with Jimmy was because she was having too much fun. If Kim had been happy in Florida, I'm not sure she would have returned to Albuquerque to hand in her affidavit.

That episode was brilliant on so many levels.

He only wrote the first series.

This may be the worst All Blacks team of my lifetime. I've seen bad All Blacks side before, but they weren't losing by record margins.

Haven't got to Night Force yet.

I also finished Hellboy: Wake the Devil. I still don't get the appeal of Hellboy. I'm sure it gets better later on, but the writing isn't very strong in the first few series.

Finished Daredevil: End of Days. I'm not sure if this book is still canon. It was at the time it was released. Anyway, Daredevil is killed by Bullseye in the first issue, and Ben Urich goes on a long crusade to uncover the meaning of Daredevil's final word ala Jerry Thompson in Citizen Kane. The series has some ugly, but visual striking, artwork by Klaus Jansen and Bill Sienkiewicz. Unfortunately, the meaning of Daredevil's final word isn't that interesting, but it's a decent coda to Bendis' work on the character.

I finished reading the complete 1960s Doom Patrol run. It gets a bit inconsistent towards the end, as most runs do when they're coming to a close, but remains a much beloved series. I still maintain that the backup origin stories are better than the lead features. In fact, I'm not sure the lead stories ever live up to their true potential. I'd be hard pressed to name the best story over the course of the entire series. They all blend together into a stream of wacky Silver Age goodness. In that respect, I don't think you can compare Drake's work to what Lee & Ditko or Lee & Kirby were doing. It's clearly a better series than second tier Marvel, but it's the characters that are the hook more so than the stories. Kirby's OMAC starts off with a brilliant first issue, tapers off after that, and goes out on an absolute whimper. That first issue is phenomenal, though. Fleisher and Aparo's Spectre is a lot of fun waiting to see what gruesome way the Spectre will kill the bad guys this month. It's a shame that DC didn't have the balls to keep publishing it. Make sure you check out the Wrath of the Spectre series to read Fleisher's final three stories. I read a couple of Gene Colan projects from the 80s. The 80s wasn't really the best time for Gene Colan work, but I was hoping to find some gems. First up was the Phantom Zone mini-series he did with Steve Gerber. I'm not entirely sure what the point of having a Phantom Zone mini-series was. It's entirely unrecognizable as a Gerber story, aside from some of the mystical elements. Superman is strangely aggro once he's released from the Phantom Zone. There's even a scene where he laments the fact he has a code against killing. It was interesting seeing Colan draw Superman, and some of the other DC superheroes, but largely pointless. Nathaniel Dusk seemed like it had more potential, as a pulp detective story is right up Colan's alley. It was okay, but I didn't like the coloring. The Shadow is not Bill Sienkiewicz' finest work. There's a reason why people don't talk about Bill Sienkiewicz' Shadow work. In six whole issues, there were only a handful of panels that impressed me, and the story is confusing as hell. Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such is much worse than the first Vertigo Jonah series. Felt completely pointless to me. I didn't appreciate the crude humor at all, even if I'm sure the West was more than likely full of it. Truman's version of Jonah is really ugly. There are times in the Fleisher run where Jonah would get filthy, and was in need of a bath and a shave, but he was never as grimy as Truman's Jonah. But again, it's an aesthetic they were going for. I did love Truman's old 1800s style photographs, though.

The All Blacks play South Africa tonight in Mbombela. It's the first time New Zealand have played in South Africa since 2018. Ian Foster has allegedly been told the All Blacks need to win one of their two tests in South Africa for him to keep his job. It's rare that the All Blacks are this big of an undog against the Boks. Frankly, I think we're on a hiding to nothing.