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AcidCat posted:I've been enjoying Fringe, it's a fun show especially because of John Noble's performance as Walter. I've also enjoyed seeing who the next random guest star will be, so far Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Jared Harris, a pre-duchess Meghan Markle, and in the episode I just watched last night our favorite Ginger Jedi young Cameron Monaghan. It's one of my favorite shows of the last 20 years. It's certainly not without its flaws, but it captures that sweet spot between serialized and monster of the week stories perfectly, the cast is delightful, and there's this earnestness to the writing and performances that you can just tell everybody was having a ton of fun on the show. It'll always be a classic for me, even if the last season kind of went to hell. Rest in peace, Lance Reddick. 
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May 24, 2023 08:17
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Fringe rules. I'm so glad I finally gave it a try. I just finished Mrs. Davis on Peacock. I had my doubts in the middle of the season but it actually wrapped up OK. It's got a unique absurdist feel, like somewhere between a PG-13 version of American Gods and Dirk Gently with maybe a sprinkle of Russian Dolls. Betty Gilpin (Debbie from G.L.O.W) has to do a lot of heavy lifting but I think she pulls it off. There were a couple of reveals that hit really well I'm thinking about how the initial scene from Ep. 1 featuring the Holy Grail turns out to be an unaired Super Bowl commercial – get it... "super bowl", – and the AI Mrs. Davis starting out as a Buffalo Wild Wings app. I kept hoping it would have subtle deeper insight into tech and religion but by the end it kind of lays all its cards on the table. Pretty decent ending though, and I'd say worth the watch but I'm not sure it will make my top 10.
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May 25, 2023 21:18
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I'm watching Salvation which is also fun because of John Noble. But I swear his accent changes in every episode. He's gone from vaguely sounding Eastern European to upper class English and now Welsh.
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May 26, 2023 01:20
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All this Fringe talk makes me think I need to finally give it a go.
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May 26, 2023 01:47
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Hughmoris posted:All this Fringe talk makes me think I need to finally give it a go. Fringe took most of what I liked about X-Files, removed everything I disliked, and gave it warmth and heart and stakes and comic booky stuff that just rules.
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May 26, 2023 02:40
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Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:Fringe took most of what I liked about X-Files, removed everything I disliked, and gave it warmth and heart and stakes and comic booky stuff that just rules. Yeah my recollection of X-files is that the mysteries were sometimes unresolved or they couldn’t rule out the more mundane explanations while Fringe almost always gave you the goods and double-so for whatever hairbrained thing Bishop would construct.
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May 26, 2023 02:53
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BetterLekNextTime posted:Yeah my recollection of X-files is that the mysteries were sometimes unresolved or they couldn’t rule out the more mundane explanations while Fringe almost always gave you the goods and double-so for whatever hairbrained thing Bishop would construct. I dunno. Some of the best episodes of the X-Files were the ones where it turned out it was just a hungry gator or a dude who lost his marbles.
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May 26, 2023 03:03
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Me and my girlfriend are giving The Stand remake another shot after bailing out after episode 1 when it first released. We are in episode 2. I dunno what I really think about it because I feel like I'm still being introduced to the world.
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May 26, 2023 16:29
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:Me and my girlfriend are giving The Stand remake another shot after bailing out after episode 1 when it first released. We are in episode 2. I dunno what I really think about it because I feel like I'm still being introduced to the world. It's fun and the sets are wild. Feels like every year or so Paramount goes balls out on the set design and casting for some show no one is ever going to watch, and the Stand was one of those things (their current Grease show is another). They're just fun to watch on a pure spectacle level, but the villains -- when they turn up -- were also really enjoyable to watch purely on a performance level. The show's a bit dumb, but eh, had fun.
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May 26, 2023 16:35
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Watch Roundup: The Watchful Eye: FUN trash that genuinely kept me guessing the entire time. Pretty twisty, slightly more NY Gothic take on the Only Murders In The Building formula, complete with sudden spooky lightning storms, secret passages, weird architecture, mad women in the attic, etc. but it's also, as a friend pointed out, a Spy Noir except starring a babysitter who blunders her way into a viperous conflict within an old New York incest family. For me, two things made it stand out above the usual thriller: it's surprisingly well plotted, rarely flagging throughout the ten episode run, and the main character is allowed to be surprisingly unlikable AND proactive about it. I really liked her in spite of herself, she's a good character. Classic Canadian casting (so, IMO, solid to good) but with the very reliable Amy Acker and Kelly Bishop rounding out the cast with some strong performances. Recommended if you're into this kind of US Summer thriller. Slasher (Season 5): less good than the previous three seasons, but mostly because they seem to have redirected their gore budget into other spaces for this season. (Slasher's pleasures as a series are that it's basically Scream but with really heavy gore and decent plotting.) There's also some wibbles early on when it seems like the show is trying to be less predictable, but instead sort of comes across as unfocused. It nails it in the back half though, with a strong finale that's one of the few shows to carry through with its class warfare themes. Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies: Maybe this would have worked for me if I liked Grease much, but this is so loving Grease-y. It's also incredibly overproduced, characters can't just sing their soulful "I want" song into the camera, they need to develop musical telekinesis and start flinging themselves all over the school corridor while singing the literal words "I Want" into camera. This is on every loving level; they seem to have exclusively cast dancers as their extras and they all move around the school in deliberately overproduced choreography that draws attention to itself, and it's just so very loving exhausting. Also the plots are generic and the songs suck. Gave up after two episodes. Up Here: Much better musical, which reminded me of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend -- both in its focus on not-really young, slightly lovely people doing musical cringe comedy romance, with a frank take on loving, but also in its sense of humour. Which is great, and doesn't do that (American?) thing where gags need to be underlined, and undermined, by a straight man character who just reinforces how absurd the thing you just saw was. There's a gag early on about an oven that just killed me because everyone's just escalating the entire time, rather than one character saying dumb poo poo like "there's a rat! in your oven! you know how bad that is!?" For a high concept musical, the series weirdly doesn't do very much with its central gimmick. Like, supposedly the two leads are vaguely special for having a chorus of inner voices that dog their every move, literalised by each having three actors following them around and intrusively breaking into song. But they're surprisingly underutilised. Not a bad thing, just odd. There also isn't a huge breadth to the songs here, but they're nice and well produced, and the leads -- Carlos Valdes and Mae Witman -- have great chemistry. Valdes in particular was a huge revelation for me, The Flash loving wasted the dude. But Witman and Katie Finneran are both excellent -- particularly Finneran in her two roles. Primo: Sweet and funny. Made me laugh, which is all I ask from this kind of sitcom, but I also thought the characters were decent and likable. Of course it's on FreeVee so it probably won't be renewed (High School! :shakesfist:)
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May 27, 2023 04:53
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Primo is so good, one of my favourite new sitcoms in a while. You can really see the Mike Schur influences at times, and not just because he’s snuck at least one Infinite Jest reference in there.
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May 27, 2023 07:30
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Escobarbarian posted:Primo is so good, one of my favourite new sitcoms in a while. You can really see the Mike Schur influences at times, and not just because he’s snuck at least one Infinite Jest reference in there. Eight episodes is too short for these kinds of sitcoms. They barely have time to give every character a focus episode and then bomb season over, and most of the characters never get a chance to have anything like arcs or whatever. Not a mark against the show, but shows with large casts, light tones and short episodes don't survive on eight episodes like this. British comedies mostly get by in virtue of smaller cases and darker themes. (And a far less crowded landscape, Black Books would vanish without a trace in current year.)
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May 27, 2023 09:17
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Hughmoris posted:All this Fringe talk makes me think I need to finally give it a go. Really good show. Especially considering it was on a network. I don't listen to the Smartless podcast, but I watched the first episode of Smartless: On The Road because I like all these guys (Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes). It's good and pretty charming. Think it would be better if it were more authentic. Lots of times it feels kind of scripted.
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May 27, 2023 14:41
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I just got through Citadel on Amazon. I gave it a chance because the Russo Brothers were producers on it, but I should have taken The Grey Man on Netflix as a warning. This show is fine if you want a hollow, shlocky spy action thriller to turn your brain off and watch things go boom. But it relies way too heavily on flashbacks and the story is overly convoluted to the point of being parody. For such an expensive show, it looks like a mid-budget network procedural at times. Long story short, this show was like someone decided to make a serious take on the paintball episodes from Community. I have my doubt that's the "spyverse" will take off. But the show ends with a teaser for a 2024 series that will continue it. Citadel: Diana, which also looks super formulaic and riffing off better titles that's already done all this before.
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May 28, 2023 20:53
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BetterLekNextTime posted:Fringe rules. I'm so glad I finally gave it a try. Fairly amusing but ultimately forgettable seems to be the gist of it for Mrs Davis. It firmly stays in its lane throughout, always opting for quirky over clever and silly over funny and never getting caught in cringe or delving deeper in any of its major themes than required by its plot, which, like a well performed magic trick, is a dazzling execution of a few very straightforward ideas. I watched it two episodes at a time which felt like a good rythm for not getting too bored with gimmicks and still wanting to find out what happens next. I hope it leads to more work for Betty Gilpin because she really shines in this. e: Primo is really good. Grounded, uncomplicated, light-hearted, wholesome, fun. I could watch it all day, every day. Meatgrinder fucked around with this message at 18:16 on May 29, 2023 |
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May 29, 2023 07:58
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Now that Barry and Succession are over... RIP I found a show called Gryphon on Prime. It has subtitles, but it is ok so far. Fantasy, magic, in modern times.
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May 31, 2023 02:46
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I knew that The North Water was AMC riffing on their success with The Terror. I did not know it was also an erotic thriller.
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Jun 3, 2023 14:14
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Open Source Idiom posted:I knew that The North Water was AMC riffing on their success with The Terror. I did not know it was also an erotic thriller. Does anyone hang dong?
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Jun 3, 2023 17:42
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Watching black spot on Netflix. Another twin peaks lite that could stand to be more twin peaksy.
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Jun 4, 2023 03:56
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Hughmoris posted:Does anyone hang dong? Not so much so far, about halfway in, but you see Farrel's hairy arsecrack. And it's Andrew Haigh so it's all shot well and the performances are really strong. I'd say it's actually better looking than The Terror, believe it or not.
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Jun 4, 2023 04:14
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Just started watching The Other Two and I’m really digging it. Odd mix of whimsy and wit. I don’t think it really needs any of the more emotional beats it tries to hit though. They’re falling a bit flat to me, but not enough to really detract from the show in general. Also Ken Marino is in it so I’m pretty much stuck watching every episode of it. Don’t know what it is about the projects he picks but even at their worst they’re juuuuuust good enough to keep me watching. Or outright great with Party Down.
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Jun 4, 2023 05:53
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Robobot posted:Just started watching The Other Two and I’m really digging it. Odd mix of whimsy and wit. I don’t think it really needs any of the more emotional beats it tries to hit though. They’re falling a bit flat to me, but not enough to really detract from the show in general. Season 3 is firing from all cylinders and is going all in with the magical realism. The most recent episode is about capitalist pinkwashing on the fence and it's literally about the company Disney.
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Jun 4, 2023 07:29
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cant cook creole bream posted:Season 3 is firing from all cylinders and is going all in with the magical realism. The most recent episode is about capitalist pinkwashing on the fence and it's literally about the company Disney. It's bonkers. There's been a couple of episodes that one article I read properly referred to as Looney Tunes, not generically, but as literally cartoon-like. The episode where being in "the business" literally impacts who she can and can't see was brilliant, with a couple of sight gags almost worthy of the invisible car from Atlanta.
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Jun 4, 2023 08:17
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Mr. Funny Pants posted:It's bonkers. There's been a couple of episodes that one article I read properly referred to as Looney Tunes, not generically, but as literally cartoon-like. The episode where being in "the business" literally impacts who she can and can't see was brilliant, with a couple of sight gags almost worthy of the invisible car from Atlanta. I was a huge fan of going off script Pleasantville. "That judge is at the very bottom of IMDB."
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Jun 4, 2023 08:27
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Both of those eps are so loving good lol
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Jun 4, 2023 08:41
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The Watchful Eye is very bingeable: I had to pry myself away from it every night to go to bed after a couple of episodes. It's fun but not camp, which is surprising with the supernatural stuff getting mixed in, and always builds its reveals around showing a bigger picture without falling into the unreliable narrator trap, or trying to outsmart its audience. Just an entertaining watch, overall. Sadly, I was thinking it'd wrap up neatly at the end but it's more like early Lost in promising answers next time, and I cannot see that ending well. Barry was mad. I don't know how they kept up this type of quality over the series, given that so many shows poo poo the bed at some point. The production, the visuals, the storytelling, it's all still amazing and I keep asking: who knew Bill Hader had this in him? I mean, sure , the guy is chums with the President of Hollywood so I guess he got the best people for the job, but still: what an achievement! I can now only hope that we will get a spin off in a few years called "Lilly". Marvelous Mrs Maisel is another show that recently wrapped up its final series. A musical fairytale with great actors and production values, its main character was merely a device, mostly, to show slices of past lives, and it's had a lot of filler over the years, even from the start, and this final series is no different. It's art over matter, dresses and set pieces to complement a talent for showmanship but also to hide that there is very little going on behind the curtain, it is much more of the same repeated over and over again until, finally, it stops. Its initial premise of being frank about hardships was only a foil for a lot of glossy theatrics and it never went back on that. Having watched these last two series of these last to shows I will say: I loving hate timeskips and I hope it is not a fad and if it is, I hope it dies a horrible loving death real quick.
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Jun 4, 2023 12:55
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Meatgrinder posted:The Watchful Eye is very bingeable: I had to pry myself away from it every night to go to bed after a couple of episodes. It's fun but not camp, which is surprising with the supernatural stuff getting mixed in, and always builds its reveals around showing a bigger picture without falling into the unreliable narrator trap, or trying to outsmart its audience. Just an entertaining watch, overall. Sadly, I was thinking it'd wrap up neatly at the end but it's more like early Lost in promising answers next time, and I cannot see that ending well. Mad. Yeah I agree, this show was heaps fun. Hopefully it gets renewed.
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Jun 4, 2023 14:12
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I'm not sure what television reviewers were watching, because I thought 'White House Plumbers' was excellent. 67% positive seems far too low.
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Jun 4, 2023 14:36
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Eh, I wasn’t into it. Didn’t find it especially funny or well-told. Theroux was incredible, though.
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Jun 4, 2023 14:39
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Escobarbarian posted:Eh, I wasn’t into it. Didn’t find it especially funny or well-told. Theroux was incredible, though. It was worth it for Theroux's portrayal of Gordon Liddy alone. But I thought the whole series was well done. I really liked it a lot.
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Jun 4, 2023 14:54
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i couldnt get through the first episode, didn't like woody harrelson's performance though i usually support actors going HAM and chewing scenery. the scowl he puts on just makes it look like his character is trying to force out a giant poo poo the entire time, and the weird gruff voice didn't help.
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Jun 4, 2023 15:15
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I went in expecting Veep but Watergate and what it actually was never clicked with me.
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Jun 4, 2023 15:28
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cant cook creole bream posted:I was a huge fan of going off script Pleasantville. "That judge is at the very bottom of IMDB." It was incredible. They need some Emmy love. And just the idea of a courtroom drama whose entire conceit is that its star lawyer constantly gets overruled is so goddamned ridiculous and I laughed like an idiot every single time it happened. Dana Delany was amazing too, but she always is.
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Jun 4, 2023 16:11
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Mr. Funny Pants posted:It was incredible. They need some Emmy love. And just the idea of a courtroom drama whose entire conceit is that its star lawyer constantly gets overruled is so goddamned ridiculous and I laughed like an idiot every single time it happened. Dana Delany was amazing too, but she always is. The final punchline completely recontextualizing the whole plot was the cherry on top.
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Jun 4, 2023 16:24
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Mr. Funny Pants posted:It was incredible. They need some Emmy love. And just the idea of a courtroom drama whose entire conceit is that its star lawyer constantly gets overruled is so goddamned ridiculous and I laughed like an idiot every single time it happened. Dana Delany was amazing too, but she always is. I wasn't feeling the third season up until this episode.....which I thought was great.
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Jun 4, 2023 18:37
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I have been watching Mrs. Davis and have a couple episodes left. I can't decide if it is smart and clever or dumb and random, but Betty Gilpin is really good in it, and I like the guy who plays J. Also, the actor who plays Wiley sometimes looks shockingly like Tom Cruise, but that's not really relevant to anything.
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Jun 6, 2023 01:42
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Baskets has gone from "laugh at the sad sack wannabe clown" to "I really hope this guy gets help" and that's a neat journey. Zach G is great but Louie Anderson as Christine just continues to be one of the best and most real characters going. RIP king.
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Jun 6, 2023 14:58
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Ishamael posted:I have been watching Mrs. Davis and have a couple episodes left. I can't decide if it is smart and clever or dumb and random After 3 episodes I settled on dumb and random and dropped it, but ymmv, I know there were several folks in the dedicated thread that really liked it.
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Jun 6, 2023 16:41
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It can be multiple things!
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Jun 6, 2023 17:00
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Its definetly both I found it pretty fun overall but the whole Jesus thing is very dumb and maybe even unnecessary (I think it adds very little to the history), but funny anyway edit: and the whole related holy grail origin story too, though Shohreh Aghdashloo has the virgin Mary was awesome Elias_Maluco fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Jun 6, 2023 |
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Jun 6, 2023 17:13
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