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Last Man Standing "Vanessa Fixes Kyle" Season 3, Episode 8 gently caress gently caress gently caress loving gently caress fuckity gently caress! This...this is infuriating. Why can't this show just be cohesive for once in its loving life? Ughhhhhhhhh. This was a great half an episode. It honestly pisses me off so goddamn much that this show can be genuinely hilarious and great for ten uninterrupted minutes, like the writing staff just stumbled on the fact they have a game cast that can be funny if given good material, and decided to actually do their loving jobs. For like a day and a half, before throwing their hands up or something and continuing with the boring-as-poo poo easy conservative diatribes. It's goddamn enraging, is what it is. Why can't this show just be loving consistent? Just be all the way good, genuinely good, from beginning to loving end! I know the people producing this show are capable of accomplishing this task. Why are they? Why? Just...loving...Christ. The episode opens with Kyle still mad at Vanessa from the events of "Pledging". Vanessa, feeling guilt over her quite frankly bizarre and fairly douchey actions, heads over to Outdoor Man and convinces Ed to promote Kyle from glorified gopher to a floor boat salesman. Meanwhile, Kristin has roped Eve into watching her son for her after school. This all sounds pretty predictable, right? To be fair, none of this episode's plotting would blow the doors off structurally, but in practice the writing is taut as hell and the zingers fly fast and furious. I genuinely, unironically belly laughed at one scene in the first half of the episode in particular, which happens so rarely as to be a truly momentous occasion when it does. This episode was helped, in no small part, by the B-plot of the episode seemingly written to specifically make me look like a fool. Specifically, for writing an entire, one thousand word passage about how Eve's character was fundamentally broken in season 3, since the first half of the episode is ruled by "old" Eve; the one that only exists to point how stupid and awful the other people in the show are. One of the first lines she has in the episode even points out a huge complaint I have with the show, which is that we barely if ever see Kristin and/or Ryan parenting. It's like the writer's room wrote this episode to mock me, in particular, which if it produces halves of episode of this quality then I'm fine with that. Mock Occupation more, LMS writers! I'm fine with being your scapegoat if this produces watchable television. But. But. But. Then the second half of this episode happens. It's kicked off once Ed and Mike have a scene lamenting how terrible it is when wives get involved in the husbands' business. You can literally see the show go completely off the rails, as it completely abandons any aspiration of being a better-written show to have Mike snidely complain about Yoko Ono and Hilary Clinton. It's just misogynist garbage after this, as Mike complaining about how much women screw over men's work is proven, of course, true as Kyle turns out to be a terrible salesman, far too honest and polite to be able to effectively close the deal and Mike and Ed's workplace happiness is completely destroyed due to the lack of Kyle to do all of their menial tasks. It's like the show is extending a giant, burning middle finger to its entire audience of women, screeching angrily about how "this is what happens when you leave the kitchen, you dumb cunts." But none of this is particularly novel opinions Last Man Standing is espousing or holds, so who the gently caress cares. I sure don't, and I'm pretty loving liberal. I honest to god wish this women-hating trash was better written. At least I could laugh along with the show then, from the terrible misogynist part of my brain that I work so hard to tamp down but still escapes from time to time, the same part of my brain that can watch, like, The Man Show and enjoy it. This is just fuckin' dull. This is the same song, over and over, with the notes dropped to lower or higher keys. Instead we get this qualitative mess of an episode, an episode that is great until it isn't, and the drop is so precipitous and so jarring I had to rewatch the entire first half of the episode again to make sure that I wasn't just imagining the humor preceding the godawful, predictable, and boring latter half. But the worst part of it all is- I wasn't. The first half of the episode is genuinely good. This episode makes me so god loving drat mad. I'm sick and tired of this show jerking me around and giving me enjoyment only to cruelly snatch it away. Or, to use a racist idiom that I'm sure LMS would approve of, this goddamn show is a loving piece of poo poo Indian giver. Stop making me enjoy myself only to make me regret it ten loving minutes later. gently caress. gently caress this loving show. gently caress. gently caress. gently caress you you loving cunty rear end piece of loving gently caress poo poo fucker you loving fuckshow. gently caress you, gently caress Tim Allen, gently caress whoever showruns this fuckfest, gently caress all the loving fuckers who work on this loving show, stop making me hate myself. Grade: C Random Thoughts:
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Jun 28, 2014 03:42
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 15:33 |
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Dammit Occ, I hate it when you talk me into watching any of this trash. Carry on.
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Jun 28, 2014 06:46
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Last Man Standing "Thanksgiving" Season 3, Episode 9 There! Was that so loving hard, Last Man Standing? Let me answer my own rhetorical question: No. It is not that hard to create genuinely entertaining television, one half hour (really, 21 minutes) at a time. It is no herculean feat; I'm not asking for the next Breaking Bad or Sopranos. Heck, I'm not even asking for the next Happy Endings. Just don't be absolutely terrible, put some actual effort into the writing, and the cast can support this show. This show is as formulaic as it gets in the realm of multiple camera comedy, and nobody watching is expecting, or indeed even desires Community. So just make with the laughs. This episode is a genuine riot from start to finish. I was so impressed by the all-around increase in general quality that it literally stunned me, although on reflection I can see where and why this episode is so much better than the normal dreck that characterizes an episode of LMS. Centrally focused on one location (the Baxter house) and never leaving it gives "Thanksgiving" a bottle episode feel, which is to its benefit; focusing purely on the interactions between the performers, giving no real time to exposition or plotting, makes the episode as a whole feel much more streamlined and fluid. The plotting/exposition of this show has always been its weak point, because at best the plots have been forgettable nonsense, and at worst the plotting is downright intolerable conservative dogma. Sidestepping the whole issue entirely in favor of having the (gifted) cast bounce off of each other only does good for the quality of the episode. There's not really a plot of this episode, as I mentioned before; as the title of the episode implies, it's Thanksgiving at the Baxter house, so the episode, instead of a straight throughline, instead has a bunch of interconnected vignettes in the house based off the experience of Thanksgiving dinner. Mike's father, Bud (Robert Forster), visits and tells the family how he's opening a weed shop; Eve goes around attempting to make it so she doesn't have to sit at the "little kid's" table with Boyd; Ryan has placed an ill-advised bet on the Lions to win the game, despite knowing almost nothing about football; Boyd has to go around to his whole family and film them saying why they're thankful this holiday. Again, no real plot to speak of; however, each of these scenes are genuinely funny and engrossing character moments that seek to dimensionalize the characters and show off sides of their personalities without falling into the pittrap of cliche. Again, not earth-shaking stuff but the writing is so taut and clever that I don't care. For the second time in two episodes, we get the return of "rear end in a top hat Eve", the best version of her character; making her a mini-Mike does nobody any favors, but having her go around attempting to force Ed out of Thanksgiving dinner so she doesn't have to sit with Boyd, whom she spends the entire episode in conflict with, is genuinely great. It's such a bare disregard for forced sentimentality that Kaitlyn Dever is much more suited to pulling off, and it lands hilariously. Every part of this episode is on point: having Mike belittle Ryan for his seemingly out-of-nowhere interest in football isn't some tired "liberal" or "You're gay" insult. Instead, we get this: Mike: "Since when did he like football? What, they run out of TED Talks on bees?" Which, quite frankly, blew me the gently caress away by how actually relevant such an insult is, and how uncharacteristically modern the insult was. This was an awareness of 21st century liberal culture that LMS almost never takes the effort to acknowledge, and it was genuinely amusing. Robert Forster, throughout the episode, is a laugh riot; nearly every line out of his mouth is gold, and he delivers each one unbelievably well. (So much so, in fact, that I can see why he submitted his performance on this show for Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for this year's Emmys. Yeah, it's that good.) Plus, the general conceit of the episode- having Mike have to struggle between his conservative dogma and his vaguely misogynist patriarchal loyalty -is some fairly complex stuff. Very rarely does this show deal with the relationship between fathers and sons, so seeing this play onscreen was in turns hilarious and surprisingly deep. Really, this is LMS firing on all of its cylinders, as it abandons saccharine-sweet moral lessons in favor of a much more morally complex and nuanced one -Mike ends up supporting his dad even though he hates pot because Mike feels like he owes Bud (and is generally impressed by the quality of Bud's presentation for why opening a weed shop would be a gold mine). In addition, and strangely conversely, this also trades in the same sort of logical reasoning that the season 2 Christmas episode does- a lot of the characters on this show spend the majority of the episode being absolutely, triumphantly terrible human beings- a running joke throughout the episode is that every character, when on camera with Boyd, is thankful for something absolutely morally reprehensible- Mandy, for instance, is thankful that she has a fake id so she can sneak into bars; Ryan for illegal gambling, Vanessa for wine (to the point where she sounds like an alcholic)...I could go on. Really, from beginning to end this is a great episode of television, not just a great episode of LMS. If you're gonna watch one episode of this show, make it this one, because it fully realizes everything about Last Man Standing that could be great but almost always isn't: a game cast, a morally complex family dynamic, and some outstanding guest casting and main cast performances that make the rarely-impressive writing land. Grade: A Random Thoughts:
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Jun 28, 2014 21:30
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I said it after the Christmas episode review, I'll repeat it here: I theorize that the higher-ups told the writers to crank out a Thanksgiving episode, and without having any orders based on topical politics or Tim Allen's half-mad ramblings about masculinity, they were able to put their talents to work and make something they could be proud of
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Jun 28, 2014 22:16
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It would be interesting to study if the quality of writing is dropping by a significant degree everytime they talk about right-wing politics or if the reviewer's brain just shut's down as soon as it notices a right wing thought on the show. To me S03E07 was one of the best episode's of the season because Kaitlyn Dever kills it as Eve (unless it's a episode about JROTC and boys).
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Jun 28, 2014 22:17
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The stockholm syndrome sets in, I see.
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Jun 28, 2014 22:58
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GaussianCopula posted:It would be interesting to study if the quality of writing is dropping by a significant degree everytime they talk about right-wing politics or if the reviewer's brain just shut's down as soon as it notices a right wing thought on the show. The latter. I've now seen two episodes of LMS and while I don't think its good enough to watch on a regular basis, its a perfectly serviceable sitcom that never gets truly awful. The Neighbors was a bad show. Whitney was a bad show. Mixology was a bad show. LMS is, at worst, an okay show.
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Jun 29, 2014 00:04
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Last Man Standing "Spanking" Season 3, Episode 10 I was beaten like a rented mule growing up. Nope! Grade: F Random Thoughts:
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Jun 29, 2014 00:11
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Ahahahahahahahaha this is the best thread.
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Jun 29, 2014 00:34
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:Last Man Standing Well that shouldn't count at all.
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Jun 29, 2014 00:56
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Brevity, wit, etc
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Jun 29, 2014 01:04
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:Brevity, wit, etc I don't think so Tim.
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Jun 29, 2014 01:08
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Deadpool posted:I don't think so Tim. Arrrrrruuughhhh?
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Jun 29, 2014 01:16
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Would you say Occupation just got... spanked?
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Jun 29, 2014 01:21
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Hello, this is the Occupation Repair Service speaking. Our local rube has experienced some minor technical issues. Maintenance should be completed shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience.
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Jun 29, 2014 01:42
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If this is actually PTSD triggering maybe this is the best he can do.
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Jun 29, 2014 02:06
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Who knows though, maybe LMS will have a deep and thoughtful examination of this controversial issue.
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Jun 29, 2014 02:17
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:Last Man Standing quote:Tension arises when Bud says that, while babysitting, he spanked Boyd once on the rear after he refused to clean up his mess. A day later, Kristin spanks Boyd and blames it on Vanessa spanking her a few times during childhood. But Kristin soon realizes that Ryan's method of bribing Boyd with ice cream is not working either. Meanwhile, Mandy buys Kyle a hat that he does not really want to wear, so Ed and Mike convince him that the hat is Mandy's way of "marking her property". ahahahahahahaha holy gently caress you have to fully review this pile of poo poo.
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Jun 29, 2014 03:55
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I had to look up synopses of upcoming episodes, and yep, this show is definitely going to continue loving with Occupation's sanity. I want to read the review of a particular Eve-centric episode.
Lycus fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 04:05
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:Last Man Standing I appreciate this. I kind of can't believe that spanking is even up for argument as remotely tolerable, because it isn't.
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Jun 29, 2014 04:08
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Last Man Standing "Spanking" Season 3, Episode 10 The episode isn't good at all and I actively hated it from start to finish. The plot of the episode deals with Bud spanking Boyd while looking after him and the assorted fallout from the event. Most of the episode deals with the debate about whether or not spanking is an ethical or legitimate way to raise your children. The writing of this episode was subpar. I think that there's a way to make child abuse humor funny and that there aren't any boundaries in comedy, nor topics of discussion that shouldn't be treated comedically; however the episode in question was not written well enough to justify the darker topic that LMS decided to cover, because the topic wasn't treated the way I felt it should have been treated and the comedy just flat-out was not funny in the slightest. Vanessa's character, in particular, was terrible from start to finish. The way she was written throughout the episode was very reminiscent of how abusive children treat their adult children, especially adult children with their own kids, except the episode never itself commented on that fact and expected the audience to agree with her logic and reasoning. The problem is this episode tried to be both a moral polemic on the ethics of spanking and tried to treat the topic of child abuse itself with a light touch, which are mutually contradictory writing goals. As a result it's neither fish nor fowl and appealing to no-one. Bud was also a caricature of an abusive parent, to the point where the episode itself did significant damage to Robert Forster's character and has left it up in the air of whether I really want to see him back or not. The structure of the episode also had a wholly tonally disconnected B-plot about Kyle and Mandy that didn't really go anywhere nor was at all important to the story, so structurally the episode was problematic as well. Surprisingly, the best part of the episode was Mike, as him struggling with his conflicting feelings about spanking and the damage it did in his life was the source of the best (and the only) pathos the show has portrayed, helped in no small part by Tim Allen's uncharacteristically muted portrayal of Mike dealing with his emotional problems as a result of his upbringing. Unfortunately this is all undercut by the end of the episode Mike proclaiming that spanking is one of many alternate, valid ways to raise children, which completely retroactively ruins his arc and places a super simplistic, categorically untrue button on the episode. Grade: F Random Thoughts:
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 18:46
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I keep thinking you've run out of ways to make this thread entertaining and you don't, Occ. 
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Jun 29, 2014 19:09
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No mention of the B-plot and how much creepy PUA biotruth poo poo it had?
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Jun 29, 2014 19:23
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The spanking episode had three highlights worth bringing up: 1. The two younger daughters making fun of the older daughter for getting spanked was cute and funny. 2. The audience cheering when Tim Allen put that little shitstain Boyd in his place. I know goons prefer single cam shows for *reasons*, but a genuine audience reaction like that is one of the oft-ignored benefits you only get with multi-cam. 3. The scene at the end with Jeff and his girlfriend discussing the way he dresses was pretty funny. The guy who plays Jeff does dumb yet lovable pretty well.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:51
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So not only was the creator of this show, Jack Burditt, one of the main writers on 30 Rock for the entirety of its run, but I also just saw his name on Frasier credits as a writer/producer. What the hell happened to this guy?
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Jun 29, 2014 19:53
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Bown posted:So not only was the creator of this show, Jack Burditt, one of the main writers on 30 Rock for the entirety of its run, but I also just saw his name on Frasier credits as a writer/producer. What the hell happened to this guy? He no longer has to write stuff that is in line with the hollywood hivemind?
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Jun 29, 2014 19:56
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Bown posted:So not only was the creator of this show, Jack Burditt, one of the main writers on 30 Rock for the entirety of its run, but I also just saw his name on Frasier credits as a writer/producer. What the hell happened to this guy? When NBC aired a hatefully misogynistic power fantasy called "Bitch Hunter" on 30 Rock, Burditt's name was used prominently as the credited writer.
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Jun 29, 2014 20:22
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Max22 posted:When NBC aired a hatefully misogynistic power fantasy called "Bitch Hunter" on 30 Rock, Burditt's name was used prominently as the credited writer.  Holy poo poo.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:52
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GaussianCopula posted:He no longer has to write stuff that is in line with the hollywood hivemind? Wow you're right, "Hollywood" rules the content of everything with an iron fist, as demonstrated by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5j-H6tK8CE
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Jun 29, 2014 22:18
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http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/30/5858810/community-renewed-for-sixth-season-on-yahoo
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Jun 30, 2014 22:51
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FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
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Jun 30, 2014 23:00
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AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA
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Jun 30, 2014 23:01
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Last day Last possible loving day this could happen
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Jun 30, 2014 23:03
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goldmine
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Jun 30, 2014 23:08
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Hcreight: a real oval office
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Jun 30, 2014 23:09
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este posted:goldmine Hahahahhaha Should have waited. Sorry. It's a lot like the World Cup. Just because a team is winning for 89 minutes 1-0 doesn't mean the game is over. Is this why deadpool kept asking you "finish the reviews" - MODS KNEW. CaptainHollywood fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 23:11
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este posted:goldmine
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Jun 30, 2014 23:13
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This is the greatest mod challenge ever.
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Jun 30, 2014 23:19
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Finding out about Community's resurrection from this particular thread is the greatest moment these forums have ever given me.
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Jun 30, 2014 23:22
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 15:33 |
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Well nothing is going to top this. Thread is officially finished.
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Jun 30, 2014 23:23
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