Atypical 2.09

Ritual-licious

It's Casey's birthday. She doesn't want a party but Elsa throws one for her anyway. It is supposed to be a secret but someone spoils the secret part of it.

Sam begins Casey's day with one of several birthday rituals. At first it doesn't annoy Casey, too much, but eventually the rituals really start to get on her nerves.

Rick and Morty 3.02

Rickmancing the Stone

Jerry moves out. He and Beth ended their marriage. Morty says goodbye to their father but Summer doesn't won't even look at him as he leaves. Instead she asks Rick to take them on an adventure. They wind up in a Mad Max styled world. They are there to steal a really valuable element, which is Rick's idea, of course.

NewsRadio 3.09

Movie Star

James Caan visits WNYX. He is preparing for a role in which he plays a news broadcaster. He hangs out with Bill but quickly becomes more intrigued by Matthew who demonstrates how weird he can get.

Jimmy has one extra ticket for a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden. Catherine and Beth both want it. Joe tests them to see who is more worthy of it.

Dave and Lisa argue about the value of television. Dave is in favor of it. Lisa is not, until she learns about C-SPAN.

I have a vague memory of this one. It isn't my favorite but it is a fun one to watch. All three stories have their moments that made me laugh.

Cowboy Bebop 1.18

Speak Like a Child

Faye returns from an unsuccessful day spent gambling at a race track. Jet accepted a package for her while she was gone. It was sent COD with no return address. He wants her to pay up, because he paid for it. She thinks it might be from debt collectors, freaks out, and immediately leaves.

Orange Is the New Black 2.03

Hugs Can Be Deceiving

The title is not as cute as it might seem at first glance. There are actually a number of hugs in this episode but it is about more than just hugs. The hugs are ways to link the various plot threads together but it is more like a common language than it is a common theme.

The Phil Silvers Show 1.07

The Hoodlum

Sgt Bilko has to deal with Private Parker, a lowlife soldier who thinks he's a tough guy and just wants to get out of the Army. Colonel Hall was ready to give Parker a Big Chicken Dinner but the chaplain talks him into transferring him to Bilko's platoon. Bilko fools Parker into thinking that they are planning to rob Fort Knox. He keeps Parker so busy that he doesn't have time to sleep. Bilko's plan kind of backfires when Parker is named soldier of the month, an award that Bilko was hoping to win himself.

I thought it started a bit slow but I like how the episode shifted once Bilko started acting like they were getting ready to rob Fort Knox. Pretty good even if it does feel a bit dated.

Atypical 2.08

Living at an Angle

Sam completes his portfolio and submits an application to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). He is very excited about it until he realizes that if he is accepted he will have to move far away, and live on a hill. He misplaces his portfolio and goes a little nuts before he gets a chance to interview for RISD.

Rick and Morty 3.01

The Rickshank Rickdemption

The Federation has taken over Earth. Rick 137 is a prisoner of the Federation. He is being interrogated in a virtual space. They want his secrets. The rest of the family is back on Earth which is now controlled by aliens. Morty isn't fighting back. Summer gets fed up and digs up the body of the Rick that Rick and Morty buried in the back yard.

Cowboy Bebop 1.17

Mushroom Samba

The crew of the Bebop are out of fuel, out of food, and drifting through space. The Bebop gets hit by another ship. The other ship takes off. The Bebop crash lands on Io, one of Jupiter's moons. The suface looks a lot like the desert southwest of North America. Ed and Ein go looking for food while the others work on fixing the ship.

NewsRadio 3.08

Day Dream

The air conditioning is broken in the offices of WNYC. The staff are so hot that they start hallucinating.

• Lisa dreams of winning an argument with Dave
• Bill dreams of making out with all the women at the radio station
• Beth has nightmares about Matthew, with whom she stayed up all night watching horror movies the night before
• Joe dreams of turning everyone else into cyborgs that he can control
• Kathryn dreams that there are other people of color working at WNYC
• Dave dreams that everyone came up with lots of ideas on how to boost ratings
• Jimmy dreams of jumping out a window when he hears where the Dow 30 ended the day
• Matthew dreams of ?

Orange Is the New Black 2.02

Looks Blue, Tastes Red

No Piper. No Alex.

Tasty gets the flashback spotlight. The episode opens with the first of several scenes in the flashback spotlight. Tasha (Tasty) is a young girl. She lives in a foster home but she's at an event in a park, trying to impress prosepctive adoptive parents. It is there that she meets Vee, the woman who becomes her adoptive mother.

The Phil Silvers Show 1.06

The Boxer

Sgt. Bilko tries to toughen up Dillingham, one of his men, who is supposed to represent the platoon in the company boxing tournament. Dillingham is more interested in flowers than in boxing even though he boxed golden gloves before he enlisted in the army.

This one is okay. It was a little too one note for me. I think a little too much is invested in the scenes where Bilko tries to toughen up Dillingham.

Atypical 2.07

The Smudging

Sam makes a list of the things he is good at for his group therapy. He volunteers to read the list. It is supposed to help him pick a college, but it doesn't. He turns to Zahid for help. Z comes up with a bunch of things Sam didn't think about. Paige suggests that he apply to Bowdoin because that's where she is going. Sam turns to Casey for help but as she points out he needs to decide for himself. He can't just continue to do what other people tell him.

Casual 4.08

Finale

I started watching Casual soon after it first dropped. It was the Summer of 2015. I was out of a job and unemployed. I watched that first season at home during the day. There was something about it that spoke to me. My love for the show has wavered over the years since. I was about ready to give up on it after the third season. I'm glad I came back to it for the fourth and final season.

The episode opens with a dream sequence although it wasn't clear to me that it was a dream, at first. Alex, Val, and Laura were in a church for their mother's funeral. She passed away since 4.06 (Polytropos) when they tried to go and visit her. She really did die and there is a funeral for her but the opening scene is dream that Val had.

Orange Is the New Black 2.01

Thirsty Bird

Piper is woke up and shipped out of Litchfield in the middle of the night. The guards refuse to tell her anything. She is put on a bus with a bunch of other prisoners. None of the other prisoners seem to know where they are going. She is on the bus for several hours. The bus ride ends at an airport. The prisoners are put on a plane. She winds up sitting next to Lolly Whitehall (Lori Petty) who also doesn't know where they are going.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Thanos the Titan comes looking for the Infinity Stones. It is all part of his plan to bring equilibrium to the universe by killing half of all living things. The Avengers are in possession of two of the Infinity Stones so naturally their paths have to cross. He gets one of the stones from Loki, before he kills him and Heimdall. Thor survives the encounter. Hulk, who is also with them, is sent back to Earth by a spell that Heimdall casts before Thanos can finish him off.

Dr. Strange is the next target. Thanos' minions are unable to retrieve the stone from the Eye of Agamotto so they take Dr. Strange and the Eye. Iron Man and Spider-Man unsuccessfully try to stop Thanos' troops from leaving with Dr. Strange but they do manage to infiltrate the spaceship.

Justice League 1.09

Legends

Part 1

The Justice League, minus Wonder Woman, battle a giant robot sent by Lex Luthor. The fight ends with an explosion. The robot and four of the heroes have vanished, leaving Superman and Batman behind. Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Hawkgirl realize that something has changed. They are no longer in Metropolis but in Seaboard City. They meet a group of heroes (Green Guardsman, Tom Turbine, Cat Man, Black Siren, The Streak) known as the Justice Guild who bearing a passing resemblance to the Justice Society from the comic books. They have a young fan named Ray Thompson who hopes to one day grow up and be a superhero.

1984 (1984)

Starring John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, Cyril Cusack
Directed by Michael Radford

A very bleak view of what is now the past (that never happened) but at the time the book was written (1948) was the future. Smith (Hurt) is a man who like many lives out a very bleak existence in a very bleak world. The world is at war. Citizens on the home front, like Smith, are only given limited information all of which seems to be controlled by a central authority. There are two-way view screens everywhere. Life seems very oppressive.

---

I gave up on this movie after watching about 45 minutes of it. I chose instead to listen to a podcast about it. That's when I learned that this movie a very tough slog for people who haven't read the book. There a lot of background information that is left out of the movie. Having a general knowledge of book isn't enough. The podcast was interesting but not enough to convince me to give the movie another try.

Podcast Link: Natter Cast 256 - Nineteen Eighty-Four

Luke Cage 2.13

They Reminisce Over You

There's a lot in this final episode of the season and the series. It is pretty clear from the way it ended that it wasn't the end that the show runner wanted. He had other things planned. This is not the way to leave things hanging for a character like Luke Cage unless you have at least one more segment of the story left to tell.

NewsRadio 3.07

Halloween

Dave agrees to wear a really dorky outfit for Halloween in order to get everyone else to dress up for Mr. James' party. He dresses up as a woman and wears one of Lisa's dresses. Lisa gets angry at him because she feels that he looks better in it than she does.

Bill becomes very morbid after a psychic tells him he only has 36 years to live. He starts dating a much older woman than himself but ends it when the psychic revises her prediction and tells him he has much longer to live

I Am Not Your Negro (2016)

based on the words of James Baldwin
directed by Raoul Peck

This is based on a book that James Baldwin wanted to write about Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. Baldwin wrote a 30 page piece for the planned book but that is as far as he got.

The story is told through a number of mediums. There are clips of movies from various times in the past. Most of them seem to be from the 1930s to the 1960s. There are clips of James Baldwin talking on film and television. There is a narrator (Samuel L. Jackson) who reads what I presume to be passages of what Baldwin wrote. There are clips of video from the present from events like the protests in Ferguson, MO.

UnReal 3.10

Commitment

Well, I kind of guessed the outcome, or at least part of it, but there was still at least one twist in the tale that I wasn't expecting. I have to say that this season of the show was the most lackluster to date. I get the friendship between Rachel and Quinn but the rest of it felt like window dressing and didn't carry any heft.

Atypical 2.06

In the Dragon's Lair

Elsa and Doug talk to Arlo's parents, Holly and Theo. They used to be friends. They went camping together when Sam was still little. Eventually the two families stopped seeing one another, mostly because Sam was too disruptive. Arlo's parents apologize for what he did, refund the money he got from Sam, and replace his iPhone. Everything is going great until Theo says something disparaging about Sam.

Kick-Ass (2010)

Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Marc Strong, Chloe Grace Moretz, Nicholas Cage
Directed by Matthew Vaughn

Dave Lizewski (Taylor-Johnson) wants to be a superhero. He makes himself a costume and gives himself a name, Kick-Ass. He tries fighting crime. His first time out he gets the crap beaten out of him and winds up in the hospital. One by-product of his recuperative surgery seems to be that he no longer feels pain. So, he picks up where he left off. He has trouble finding any crime to fight until one night he stumbles across three guys beating up another guy. Someone sees him take them on, catches the whole thing on video and before you know he is an internet sensation.

Casual 4.07

All About You

Everything seems to be coming to a head. Two or three of the storylines seem to get wrapped up for the most part, but I'm sure that there will be more in the final episode.

Leon and Leia go to a mediator to help them with their separation or divorce. That gets the ball rolling. There is lots of Leon in this episode but little of Leia. She shows up at the beginning and the end. Leon is obviously torn over their relationship. He wants to have a child. She does not. He can't seem to reconcile staying with Leia and not having a child. Leia breaks the impasse when she she shows up at the end of the episode. Based on what happens next it seems like they are going to stay together, even though they both have their doubts.