So we’ve watched 12 of the 13 Daredevil episodes. We’re going to finish the series off today.
When I had first heard that The Punisher was going to be part of the season, there were two Punisher scenes that I was looking forward to watching. The first was “Punisher finds himself in maximum security wing of prison, finds himself in riot, resolves riot” and the second was something like “Punisher finds himself in grocery store as it finds itself getting robbed, resolves robbery”.
This season gave me the first but not really the second (though there was a scene in a diner that came somewhat close). As I sat there watching The Punisher resolve the problem in the diner, I felt my heart leap a couple of times. Bad people having bad things happen to them at the agency of an even badder person. Of course, we, as a society, might have to use law enforcement to do some light cleanup and do some bagging and tagging afterwards… but that’s a small price to pay for the resolution of problems. Perhaps if law enforcement had demonstrated competence up unto this point, it might be different.
But this is a world where The Kingpin manages to capture many different institutions and prevent them from working for their original purpose (including law enforcement and the justice system). Ancient conspiracies with all kinds of resources (from ninjas to billions of dollars to cryptographers) are moving chess pieces around the board… if we didn’t have the whole “one man with a conscience” thing going on, how much worse off would we be?
And so we see such things as vigilantism as an appropriate response to the wrongdoing of bad actors in the face of sclerotic institutions.
The problem with that, however, is that we have a handful of sclerotic institutions in our everyday life in the real world.
And it’s hard to not think something like “man, I wish we had vigilantes” when one hears of something like a grocery store getting robbed.
Anyway, I can’t wait to watch the finale.
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
(Featured Image is āEdisonās Telephonoscopeā by George du Maurier from Punch Almanack for 1879)
Has anybody watched The Man in the High Castle? I just realized it comes free with Amazon Prime.Report
It’s deeply flawed, but very interesting if you just take in the setting and concepts. Some of the characters are thin and uninteresting, I found it worth my time to watch all of it.Report
On the superhero front, I just watched Civil War with my boyfriend.
I think it’s probably the best offering from Marvel Studios to date. I’ve talked a few times about how I think that Marvel is doing something unique and potentially great with their shared universe, and I think this is the movie, more than any other, where the concept of the shared universe really pays off. In a certain sense, this feels as much like a climactic episode of a TV show as it does like a movie.Report
Rereading in whole, for the first time in I don’t know how long, Il Nome Della Rosa. Well, I am not actually reading it in Italian, as i am not a sadist, but it has been quite nice so far, mostly with what I am focusing on now, at 45, vs. what I focused on at, say, 25 or 15. This time it seems to be the religious agruments that are really grabbing me.Report
I thought about reading that, but I’m just not that interested in Alaska.Report
Finished watching 30 Rock. Obsessionally watching 2nd season of Grace & Frankie. Casually watching Con Man. (And yes, Jaybird and I finished Daredevil Season 2. Was good.)
I’m reading a kids’ book from the 60s called _The Apple Stone_ and I really like it. Makes me feel like a kid again. Earlier today I read a verse autobiography by Margarita Engle about living through the Bay of Pigs years as a half-Cuban, half-American with family still in Cuba. It was very well done.Report
Did you like the last episode of 30 Rock as much as I did? I found the “human brain is not properly connected to the human heart” speech genuinely moving, perhaps because it was really Tina Fey telling Tracy Morgan what working with him had been like.Report
Yes, I liked it very much. And that speech was lovely. Really the whole episode was about love and friendship and colleagueship, and it made me happy and resonant.Report
If you liked 30 Rock, you should try “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” .Report
@morat20 LOL. It’s my enthusiasm for Kimmy Schmidt that has had people recommending 30 rock to me so fervently that I finally gave in and watched it!Report
It seems to me that this year’s Kimmy show is funnier: more 30-Rock-like. For instance, the doctor who prescribed the kid tranquilizers was almost Dr. Spaceman.Report
I haven’t watched Kimmy S2 yet, but the best comedy doctor on TV now has to be Andy Daly’s on Silicon Valley.Report
“Your son is a handful. Which is a medical term for how many pills he should take.”Report
Just so I’m clear, what exactly is the 30-Rock comedic reference point?
I mean, who can’t appreciate a documentary about Jack Donaghy and his tireless efforts to help his mediocre staff achieve greatness?
Or was I watching it wrong?Report
In the past 10 days the only TV I watched was 20 minutes of a Scandal episode. I’ve never seen Scandal before, but I enjoyed enough that I’ll put it on the list of things to watch. When I’m not so busy, which is looking like June, then I’m going to watch the second season of Grace and Frankie. I’m so excited! I <3 Lilly Tomlin. šReport
There’s been some solid stuff there, this season (Grace and Frankie). šReport
One thing to think about. Both DD and Punisher have had significant interactions with Karen, which differ in some significant ways. How does she compare them? How does she feel about them?Report
Random question – would there be any appetite for an MD Movie Night? I tried out an app that works somewhat similarly to the Listening Lounge, except in addition to YouTube, you can select content from Hulu, Netflix, HBOGo, and a few other services (obviously we’d need someone with a membership to those services).
I think Kazzy and Will said they’d never seen Blade Runner, and it’s on Netflix (might be the Theatrical Release, though).Report
I’d do it. I don’t have HBOGo, but I have the others.
Also, can we ban Kazzy and Will until they’ve seen it? Seems reasonable.Report
I’ve got HBOGo I assume, since I have HBO; I’d just need to configure it/set it up, I think.
I’ll shoot you a mail later and you can be a guinea pig, just to see it.Report
I would seriously be down with a group watch of Blade Runner! That would be awesome.Report
OK, I will ping you too for testing purposes.Report
@glyph Note that Blade Runner is only on Netflix until May 15th (though it is the director’s cut). I know this because I started watching it last night, because bedamned if I am going to let the opportunity to watch it go by yet AGAIN…
I swear I DID watch it, once, but that was back in the majorly dissociative days, so I have no proper memories of it. (Plz do not ban! š )Report
Hmmm…it says “Theatrical Cut”, and it’s got the Deckard voiceover?Report