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Trash Trick posted:Absolutely not. The story could not have been told any other way. The people who were focusing on the sci-fi elements and hoping for some explosive universe hopping shenanigans totally missed the point. The show was always about the relationships between the characters and how they were influencing one another's lives above all else, from the very beginning. The Lost argument, except Lost actually made you care about the characters from the beginning and made an effort to make it's characters more than one-note ciphers with a maximum of maybe five minutes total screentime devoted to their character-building
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Dec 30, 2016 00:42
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This show is like seeing how a cult is formed.
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Dec 30, 2016 00:48
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RizieN posted:I guess we just don't care about weakness and trauma and cyber bullying and trannies and hot topics I felt like the way the show dealt with Buck was a pretty big missed opportunity. In a way it was kind of cool that they didn't make a massive deal out of him being trans, but at the same time there was no real tension in the "if we can't deal in this house, you can't get your hormones" and seemingly no consequences for the guy who needed the good character reference for the scholarship. The point at which I got really hosed off was when instead of resolving the multiple plotlines they had going, they decided to have the scene where "mum" hits Prairie and "dad" says Prairie left a note which he kept secret from "mum". There was already more than enough going on and these new developments didn't add to the story for me in any way. I agree the story Prairie was telling was a lot more compelling than the actual series story. Like I said earlier, viewing the series as a whole it is interesting what they did, but it doesn't make for satisfying TV watching. On the whole I didn't mind the movements, and I thought the scene where they heal the police man's wife was really cool, but yeah the school shooting scene was crass beyond belief. I was actually getting invested in the characters outside of the captivity stuff but all of their developments felt kind of half baked. The FBI counsellor is definitely one of the most intriguing for me. Would probably watch season 2 for him, only to be horrifically disappointed again. I enjoyed reading this article after I finished it. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/12/what-is-the-oa-actually-about/511145/
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Dec 30, 2016 01:10
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The mom actually hid the note from the dad
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Dec 30, 2016 02:02
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Trash Trick posted:How was it a wet fart? That line of thought makes me so sad. gently caress milquetoast focus-grouped lowest common denominator endings. As I said, it drives home the themes of the entire series. How traumatic circumstances and isolation destroy individuals and those around them. How talking and getting a window into one another's lives heals us. How it isn't easy.. the dance was painstaking and required sacrifice and dedication to complete. No other ending would have done the story justice. Give me a loving break. If you want a show that actually does those things well, watch the leftovers. The problem with this show has nothing to do with lowest common denominator. The problem is that it's sloppy as gently caress in trying to force feed its audience a completely unearned ending that mascarades as deep. In case you didn't get that the OA is an unreliable narrator, they have a scene where the loving FBI counselor is there in her house to spell it out for you. It makes no sense that he would be there, and it makes no sense that no one would bat an eye that he would be there, but there it is. In case you didn't get that the teacher bought into her story, you have the scene with her bribing the thugs from the other school. It makes no sense that that would work, that no one at the school or his parents would notice that he is back, but there it is. In case you didn't get that hap really was a mad scientist, there is a scene of him with the other scientist that comes out of nowhere because prairie certainly wasn't the to see it. And just in case there wasn't enough ambiguity for ambiguity sake, you have the Amazon scene. Just like the school shooter, all these scenes have no antecedent or consequence, and are just there to make sure you get how "deep" this show is.
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Dec 30, 2016 03:09
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Plus, the movements were deeply stupid.
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Dec 30, 2016 03:12
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Just finished it and loved it. For me it was the idea of death and losing someone and wanting to think or believe that there is something more, that you'll see them again. It''s goofy and strange and the interpretive dance was just that. I fully understand some people don't see it this way, it's not the story they were looking for. The whole idea of fiction or spirituality is the idea that there is something more, and the idea of scifi is trying to make sense of that, wanting to make sense of it.
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Dec 30, 2016 05:16
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It's ok to like the OA. But this insistence that people who didn't simply didn't get it, were looking for something simpler, or didn't like that sort of story to begin with is laughable. I believe that the best show of all time is the leftovers. The leftovers not only deals with the afterlife, but has something that would sound just as goofy as this joke of a show: a character is seemingly brought back to life through karaoke, where he sings homeward bound at a hotel lobby.. And I loving cried at that scene. Because that is a show where the characters feel like real people that you can empathize with and are built over multiple scenes. As opposed to "we need one scene here to explain why this character would go along with this insanity." So we find out that the bully is going along with this because really he just wants to be loved. And we find that out through perhaps the most stilted teenager dialog in the history of television: the bully asks the girl to be his girlfriend, and she replies that she is only loving him because she wants to become really good at sex for when she finds someone she really loves.
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Dec 30, 2016 05:46
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Trash Trick posted:Absolutely not. The story could not have been told any other way. The people who were focusing on the sci-fi elements and hoping for some explosive universe hopping shenanigans totally missed the point. The show was always about the relationships between the characters and how they were influencing one another's lives above all else, from the very beginning. That's just the problem I had with it though, the relationship was totally one-sided. There's the moment in the hotel when she's asking the operator for phone numbers and realizes she doesn't even know their full names, and in the same episode there's the moment after the dinner when it's pointed out that she's told her story to strangers while ignoring her parents. She never cared about saving any of them at all. The series would have been SO much better if she hand selected her team and cared at all about their own trauma beyond helping her get back to her imaginary boyfriend. Instead, she told the first guy she met to bring five people, and sent out a YouTube blast to whoever was watching. She didn't care who showed up, they were just a means to an end for her. I would have loved it if it were about the relationships between the characters, but the main character was too self absorbed to notice anyone else.
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Dec 30, 2016 05:55
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joepinetree posted:It's ok to like the OA. But this insistence that people who didn't simply didn't get it, were looking for something simpler, or didn't like that sort of story to begin with is laughable. I believe that the best show of all time is the leftovers. The leftovers not only deals with the afterlife, but has something that would sound just as goofy as this joke of a show: a character is seemingly brought back to life through karaoke, where he sings homeward bound at a hotel lobby.. And I loving cried at that scene. Because that is a show where the characters feel like real people that you can empathize with and are built over multiple scenes. As opposed to "we need one scene here to explain why this character would go along with this insanity." So we find out that the bully is going along with this because really he just wants to be loved. And we find that out through perhaps the most stilted teenager dialog in the history of television: the bully asks the girl to be his girlfriend, and she replies that she is only loving him because she wants to become really good at sex for when she finds someone she really loves. I'm sorry if it seemed like I was saying people were looking for a simpler story, that's not what I meant. People like different things, I didn't like the Leftovers but I liked this, that's not an attack on you or me it's just my opinion. It's interesting that some people are so vehemently angry about this show and that's one of the things that helped get me to watch it because a lot of the time those are the shows I like the most and in this case it ended up being worth my time. I'd rather people be honest about their opinions so thank you or speaking your mind, we just disagree on this show.
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Dec 30, 2016 05:57
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drat Your Eyes! posted:That's just the problem I had with it though, the relationship was totally one-sided. There's the moment in the hotel when she's asking the operator for phone numbers and realizes she doesn't even know their full names, and in the same episode there's the moment after the dinner when it's pointed out that she's told her story to strangers while ignoring her parents. She never cared about saving any of them at all. The series would have been SO much better if she hand selected her team and cared at all about their own trauma beyond helping her get back to her imaginary boyfriend. Instead, she told the first guy she met to bring five people, and sent out a YouTube blast to whoever was watching. She didn't care who showed up, they were just a means to an end for her. I would have loved it if it were about the relationships between the characters, but the main character was too self absorbed to notice anyone else. This didn't bother me. She's this freak who's had god-knows-what happening to her for the past 7 years, and gets plopped back in town. She doesn't really hang out with the 5- she's got just a limited amount of time each night and they don't really get to chat. She's got her quest and that's all she cares about. I feel like an angel or prophet or whatever wouldn't be a totally normally-adjusted being who's super fun to pal around with or makes easy small-talk. The point when she tries to get the operator to call people she doesn't know was really darkly humorous to me. Regarding her parents, that part was tough but you could see her motivation- she didn't want to reveal anything that might cause her parents to medicate or institutionalize her. Very heartbreaking though- I think as unaware as she was she knew she was hurting them. I think you were supposed to infer more friendship among the 5, but they only really showed that by them sitting at the same table at lunch.
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Dec 30, 2016 06:41
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I watched this and thought it was nice and sweet, but the interpretive dance made me laugh out loud every time they did it. Enjoyable overall though, and it will be interesting to see some of the theorycrafting done down the line. Excellent supporting cast.
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Dec 30, 2016 06:50
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Mu Zeta posted:There's no way this was meant to be a one season show. There's too many cliffhangers like what the hell Elias was doing at the house at night, how the hell Steve was back at school with nobody caring that he was back and somehow not in the military place, and the whole part about if Homer is even a real dude. Maybe it's not cliffhangers Maybe it's just bad writing/directing
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Dec 30, 2016 08:56
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I saw this a week ago or so. I thought the majority of the show was pretty good, but the finale was less successful. I don't think the issue with the finale was the ideas in it, it's just the execution was off. In that last episode there is a real dissonance between how the characters are feeling about things and how the audience does. The characters go pretty quickly from hardcore believers to doubters, and so does the narrative, but it's not very convincing (there actually isn't really much to back the idea that the story is fake), and so we as an audience are just left in this annoying limbo. Then the shooting thing is ambiguous, it doesn't really resolve the mystery either way for the audience, but the characters appear convinced. So again, the audience is left in this weird limbo and it doesn't really seem intentional. It's an issue of how to get the audience to buy the beliefs of the characters they're seeing so they go on the same journey, and it didn't do that well in that last episode. Actually, it never did it well, but it didn't matter too much earlier because most of the runtime was spent on the flashbacks. It reminds me of how annoying it got that Jack on Lost didn't believe in the island's magic even though it was clear the island was magic.
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Dec 30, 2016 14:15
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Pedro De Heredia posted:I saw this a week ago or so. The reason the followers go from hardcore believers to doubters is perhaps the dumbest, most unearned part of the season. So she has a book on Russian oligarchs, Homer's Illiad and some stuff on NDE and that makes them finally think she is making stuff up? How the gently caress do you go from A to B there? If I tell you I was born in Brazil, had a friend named Tom, and my father had cancer, would you think I was full of poo poo if you went to my house and found out I had a book on Brazil, a copy of Tom Sawyer, and resources on cancer? You can see the writers at the last minute going "wait, lets make this story more ambiguous!"
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Dec 30, 2016 18:04
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Yeah if you're looking for a show about near death experiences and spirituality then watch The Leftovers. Season 2 is masterful television with amazing acting and writing. Damon Lindelof actually hit a home run for once.
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Dec 30, 2016 18:25
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I guess I had a different reaction from a lot of people? The first episode (maybe the second too) annoyed the hell out of me, but there was just enough keeping me interested that I stuck it out. I pretty much felt like it got better and better as it went. I think it was really great at representing what it feels like to be a complete fuckup, and the "is it real?" aspect of the plot puts us in the same position as the 5 newbies. As far as the characters deciding she was lying, I think they were kind of looking for an excuse the whole time; they were never able to find evidence for any significant part of her story, and that seemed pretty suspicious the whole time. They're all outcasts, and a huge part of the reason they're so into meeting with the OA and each other is that it seems to exist separately from the depressing real world they know. Once society invades that space and they're forced to acknowledge it in front of their parents and stuff, I can totally imagine a bunch of kids having that reaction of giving up and being convinced that they were being stupid. The books were just the easiest way to confirm what they were already feeling. Also I think Betty's plan to rescue Steve completely made sense if you accept that she was maybe the most die-hard believer among them, and that she believed they only needed Steve to be safe long enough to accomplish the mission. It's not that it would work long-term; it's that they absolutely needed to all be together very soon in order to accomplish something incredibly important.
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Dec 30, 2016 18:52
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BetterLekNextTime posted:I think you were supposed to infer more friendship among the 5, but they only really showed that by them sitting at the same table at lunch. I get that, and ultimately I think 90% of the problems with the show would have been solved with two additional episodes set between the finale and the one before it. In episode 7 OA realizes that she's neglecting her friends, but the scene where she tells BBA about totems and hugs Steve through the pencil stabbing show her making some real connections. She starts to open up to her parents, and her parents admit their own issues with the note. All of these things happen very close together, which to me implied that her own relationships and recovery were emerging as the main theme of the show, and it bothered me immensely that all of it was dropped for a gratuitous, unconnected finale. I don't think it even works to have the real theme be about the relationships between the five--it actually bothered me a lot that in the cafeteria all of them were back with their old cliques looking just like they did at the beginning of the show. Even having them argue the evidence for a few minutes when they all see the books would have helped bridge the transition, instead of just reacting like "well, that's over then".
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Dec 30, 2016 19:47
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Pedro De Heredia posted:I saw this a week ago or so. I think this is my problem with it. It obviously can't all be made up because of too many reasons to count, but the tone shifts so abruptly to make that ending work that you're wondering if you missed a few scenes. It felt really forced and made the characters seem like dumb fucks. In that scene where they're trying to corraborate her story all I could think was "sheriff and wife missing new england" "football star homer injury" "football star homer missing" "crazy doctor found dead, torture lab" etc etc
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Dec 31, 2016 02:55
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Wolfsheim posted:I think this is my problem with it. It obviously can't all be made up because of too many reasons to count, but the tone shifts so abruptly to make that ending work that you're wondering if you missed a few scenes. It felt really forced and made the characters seem like dumb fucks. In that scene where they're trying to corraborate her story all I could think was "sheriff and wife missing new england" "football star homer injury" "football star homer missing" "crazy doctor found dead, torture lab" etc etc I think is kinda of implied that they did try to find those stuff, but never did found anything. The OA herself did found a video of Homer, but she is supposed to be an unrealiable narrator, so who knows And by the time French find the books, her story became so unbelievable and absurd that it just needed a little tip for then to became doubters. That and the fact they believe her in great part because her charisma, so when they stop seeing her every night it falls apart. I worked for me as a watcher cause I felt much like they: while I really wanted to believe her incredible story, by halfway through the season I was kinda expecting a disappointment. So when the books appear, I was "oh, of course". Just like the kids I agree that they could have taken a little more time to show that, and specially I feel like the 5 should have been developed more, they get too little screen time (except for Steve). This is my biggest criticism of this show. But for me this show is also about faith, and doubt, reason and miracle. At the end of it, we have this strange person telling an amazing and absurd story. There are reasons to believe her, and reasons not to. There's a simple rational explanation for the whole thing (a traumatized and mentally ill girl making up stuff as a way of coping - or not coping - with her issues), but it is incomplete (it cant explain her sight). And there's the supernatural explanation, if you really can believe in angels and that bizarre dancing can resurrect people and open portals, but there are no proof at all of any of it. And finally, there is the fact that it all had 2 important and real consequences: 1- their sessions healed and improved everyone involved 2- the crazy dancing ends up saving an entire school from a tragedy And again, there are rational and supernatural explanations for both too Elias_Maluco fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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Dec 31, 2016 13:04
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I was in it till the last episode and it felt like we just time traveled to the 90s and we care about columbine again for no apparent reason other than to give the show extra emotional weight it didn't need.
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Dec 31, 2016 19:22
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Invalid Validation posted:I was in it till the last episode and it felt like we just time traveled to the 90s and we care about columbine again for no apparent reason other than to give the show extra emotional weight it didn't need. You dont care about school shootings anymore? In any case, the ending really seems to be a love or hate thing. To most people here seems to think it was awful and ridiculous, to me it was sincerely one of the most beautiful scenes Ive ever seen on a TV show. To me it was amazing like they could make such a ridiculous situation, 4 teenagers and a clumsy old teacher dancing like maniacs in front of a shooter, to have such a strong dramatic energy. Im not much of a crying person and I coulndt control myself, I cried like a baby
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Dec 31, 2016 20:38
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If her whole shtick was about saving the world from bad things a school shooting would make sense. It just comes out of nowhere just to be controversial. The show never does anything to ask for its viewers to accept that kind of a payoff. Honestly all they had to do was make one of the kids the shooter and it would have worked just fine. Invalid Validation fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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Dec 31, 2016 21:31
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Looking on reddit, it seems like there was some foreshadowing of the shooting, but it was pretty subtle. a couple of other shootings mentioned on the radio in the background, and in one of the scenes with the old woman in the afterlife, OA eats a metal bird while the soundtrack is footsteps and shots. Also, some people believe that the shooter changes his appearance, and at one point looks like Steve, but that the dancing caused him to become some other kid Apparently I liked this show enough to join reddit, so there's that!
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Dec 31, 2016 22:27
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I liked this show a lot, yeah the school shooting bit made me go hmm but it still gave me chills. Loved the interpretive dancing, it's so strange and intricate.
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Jan 1, 2017 03:06
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So do we think the FBI guy was in the house planting those books? They were basically new, unread books, I feel like they were a plant
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Jan 1, 2017 03:53
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Elendil004 posted:So do we think the FBI guy was in the house planting those books? They were basically new, unread books, I feel like they were a plant That's definitely a popular theory. I'm not sold that the fbi guy is actually FBI- I think he might be working for Abel. I also think there's a decent chance that much of the town timeline is made-up in OAs head, so it could be a manifestation of her self-doubt .
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Jan 1, 2017 19:09
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I know the asylum theory is a prevailing one, the idea I guess being it's all happening inside an asylum (or at least the Hap captivity was all in a legit asylum) but that feels like a real cop-out of an idea. I am sure we'll get a second season but I really wish we wouldn't, I think the rather open end works perfect, OA's gone, her part is done, and the new 5 have better lives because of it. I do find it a little funny that the boarding school guys just take the 50k, the kid goes home and his parents aren't like "hey aren't you supposed to be at boarding school? Season 2 spoilers: 
Elendil004 fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Jan 1, 2017 |
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Jan 1, 2017 21:00
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Elendil004 posted:I know the asylum theory is a prevailing one, the idea I guess being it's all happening inside an asylum (or at least the Hap captivity was all in a legit asylum) but that feels like a real cop-out of an idea. My assumption about (finale spoilers) is that his parents believed he was acting out due to the negative influence of OA, so when they discovered the secret meeting they decided it was okay to not punish him
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Jan 1, 2017 21:21
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This show wasn't that great. I had the sinking feeling we were getting 'lost'ed from about episode 4 i don't understand everyone is so concerned about where the books under prairie s bed came from but a better question is where the gently caress did the violin case in the closet come from? She was shown to be abducted with it. So many dumb moments just added to give the illusion of the show being deeper than a wet fart bubblewrapsky fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Jan 1, 2017 |
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Jan 1, 2017 21:39
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bubblewrapsky posted:This show wasn't that great. I really just hope they don't do a second season. It's just vague enough that you question a few things, and trying to explain it would lead to nothing but disappointment no matter what the "True" answer is. But if they do make a second season, I can only hope DANCE NUMBERS IN EVERY EPISODE!
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Jan 1, 2017 21:55
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bubblewrapsky posted:This show wasn't that great. That's your opinion yes. I loved this and I loved Lost, that's my opinion.
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Jan 1, 2017 22:12
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I don't think I've seen a show so far up its own rear end than this. The worst part is there could have been an interesting story salvaged from this, but the writers and director just weren't good enough to pull it off.Elendil004 posted:Season 2 spoilers: Ugh, even this promo shot seems full of itself. Big fan of the Blackhawks hat though.
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Jan 2, 2017 02:00
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bubblewrapsky posted:This show wasn't that great. I don't think the violin case is the same one you see in NYC. The one in the closet is likely the little one she played when she was a kid. Then she somehow got another one that she played in the subway. Maybe??
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Jan 2, 2017 02:09
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Solice Kirsk posted:Ugh, even this promo shot seems full of itself. Big fan of the Blackhawks hat though. It's hardly a promo shot, it's obviously just them loving around for an instagram or something. Please show me on the doll where this show hurt you.
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Jan 2, 2017 02:40
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Elendil004 posted:It's hardly a promo shot, it's obviously just them loving around for an instagram or something. Obviously. What with all the smiles and what not.
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Jan 2, 2017 02:49
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This trainwreck gave me serious M. Night Shaymalan vibes in the worst possible way.
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Jan 2, 2017 14:53
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I couldn't even get through the pilot. And skipping through it, I didn't see Steve arrested or killed? I mean come on
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Jan 2, 2017 15:29
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Well this just blew my mind. type what OA typed into you tube and you get as the first video a Homer Simpson clip where he eats the fugu (sea creature) and goes through the 5 stages of grief. The video clip was posted in 2014, after production of OA started
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Jan 2, 2017 21:13
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Lilikoi posted:Plus, the movements were deeply stupid. This. I have plenty of other problems with this show, but them dancing at the shooter in the last episode was just the dumbest fuckin' thing I've ever seen. Very deeply stupid.
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Jan 2, 2017 23:11
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