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McShane is just such a perfect casting for Wednesday I still can't believe its real  Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Same, but I also read the book like 16 years ago so it was before I knew who Ian McShane was. I always pictured Wednesday as Brian Cox. I pictured Wednesday pretty close to McShane when I read it, personally, maybe a bit fatter. I had kinda figured out early on who he really was and I think that kinda influenced my view of him. Speaking of, the show doesn't seem to be even trying to play coy with it. The marketing for this show has straight up spoiled the name and identity of each major character. I guess its hard to make that a secret anyways in the modern day, but it seems kinda weird to me. Diverting from the book?
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May 1, 2017 04:29
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tin can made man posted:Yeah I'm genuinely curious if people who went into this show cold picked up on it. I'm also surprised we got that full opening vignette, curious to see what others are planned for the adaptation. Also I read American Gods back way before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a thing. Loki is now a household name and a beloved character by many. I was a big nerd of Mythology, so I picked up on Low Key pretty fast, but I dunno how many other people did. But nowadays? Its hard to hide that... Seems like the show just avoided saying his name, maybe I missed it. But the marketing straight up spoiled it.
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May 1, 2017 04:39
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Shadow Moon is a great casting too, pretty much exactly how I imagined him in my head reading the book. And Loki was actually great too. And that whole intro bit with the vikings? Haha, awesome. Axel Serenity posted:Goddamn that was a great first episode. I don't think I could have imagined such a great adaptation for a book as out-there as American Gods, but leave it to Fuller. The casting is fantastic. I didn't even realize Sweeney was Pornstache in OITNB until I looked him up. My only complaint is that some of the effects seemed a little unfinished for a Starz production, but that was minor. He was also one of the dudes in The Wire which is what I keep imagining him as when I watch OITNB
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May 1, 2017 04:45
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Cojawfee posted:Why doesn't Odin have any ravens? Nevermore. Give it time 
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May 1, 2017 04:58
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I wonder if Bilquis' part is going to be expanded. I imagine so, since they already blew through what I think was her only moment in the book?Doresain posted:The first season will end just before the House on the Rock , per the producers/Gaiman. They've expanded the roles of some of the female characters to make it a bit less of a sausage party. Yeah she'll probably show up for this part. GonSmithe posted:"This book that has to do with Gods has a guy named Low Key Liesmith that's such a regular name, I'm sure it doesn't mean anything!" Like I said, before the Marvel movies nobody knew who that person was.
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May 1, 2017 05:19
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Seluin posted:Audrey totally stole her scene. Loving the portrayal. I am trying to get my dignity back here!!! Yeah the rambling hate mixed with sorrow mixed with grief mixed with sympathy was really well acted.
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May 1, 2017 05:25
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KilGrey posted:I found the ending to the episode a bit jarring too but I really enjoyed the episode. Ian McShane is amazing, I expected that, but I'm really pleased with Mad Sweeney. I loved the barroom brawl. Same thing was the case for Preacher, can't imagine what that show would be like for people who have never read the comics. My biggest compliment for the first episode is that the cast seems to have real chemistry with each other. Shadow and his prison buddy, Shadow and Wednesday, Shadow and Sweeny, Shadow and Audrey, They all played off each other really well. It bodes well for the coming episodes.
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May 1, 2017 05:36
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this is to people who haven't read the book. You kind of just have to have faith 
and go along for the ride.
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404notfound posted:One more thing I liked: In the viking prologue, once the fighting starts, you can see the arm holding the sword breaking the letterboxed frame. Fun little touch. Yeah I was like, what is this, super mario brothers?!
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May 1, 2017 06:14
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Pan Dulce posted:drat. Bilquis scene was beautiful, but man, that's a brutal way to end an online date. They really make you feel it with him talking about "my kids made me do this", and he was all "hey we can just take it slow" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRYFKcMa_Ek course for a lot of people that's their fetish 
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May 1, 2017 07:15
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Pan Dulce posted:That Shadow Moon/Audrey scene was originally slated as something more. Thank gently caress for Neil Gaiman, who knows how to tell a good drat story. Sounds like the show runners are trying to turn this into Game of Thrones in a bad way  At least they're willing to listen when Neil puts his foot down.That's like "Jaime rapes Cersei on the corpse of their dead son" levels of unneccesary and awkward. However I loved how Audrey pissed on her husband's corpse (off-camera). That's just the right amount of awkward and angry. (Actually showing it would have gone too far)
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May 1, 2017 07:56
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MiddleOne posted:I'm going to be the rear end in a top hat here and say that whoever called that the maneater scene was unfilmable was right. That scene was absolutely ridiculous and not in a good way. I thought they did a pretty good job of it, but it didn't help that they got recognizable comedy actor Joel Murray. And then the general shot of it is just... like... yeah. But I think they pulled it off alright, kinda tense scene. And I liked how Bilquis' appearance shifted throughout.
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May 1, 2017 08:32
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IIRC the book wasn't overly graphic, just that he looked down after awhile and was waist deep inside her, and so on. I don't remember any flytrap 
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May 1, 2017 09:41
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Arist posted:I dunno, they might take it out because McShane is just too affable a presence but in the book that was the moment that made me finally go "man, Wednesday actually kinda sucks." It's important for that reason at least. Cocksucker, have you even seen Deadwood?
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May 1, 2017 19:33
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That added intro bit did make it even more clear, and like I said the marketing seemed to almost spoil all the characters before we've even seen them. Like they were advertising that Peter Stormare is Czernobog which kinda spoils that Czernobog is gonna be a character in the show itself. Not that its any huge mystery, but it still seemed a little weird to me. But we're in the age of the internet where everybody can google things, and with character names being what they are its hard to keep any of that a secret. Still, people not familiar with mythology may not put the pieces together. Cojawfee posted:I don't think it's a spoiler, it's pretty obvious. "What's today, Wednesday? It's my day!" I think you should tag that. Every spoiler is obvious if you already know it. Its less obvious to people who aren't thinking about that because they have no reason to second guess it. But I also think wednesday's identity is way more obivous than lowkey's, as long as they avoid actually saying his name, which so far they have on the show
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May 1, 2017 21:39
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Cojawfee posted:I find it hard to believe that a "huge percentage" of the population has never heard of the meanings behind the days of the week. Stop being obtuse. Most people don't give a poo poo where names came from. tin can made man posted:It's not that these American Gods are the gods of the old world who have become abandoned by the American people, but the versions of those gods brought to the country by its many immigrants. It's not that figures like Wednesday and Mad Sweeny were made in some primordial image eons ago and have to trick others into worshipping them, but rather that their very being was crafted by the perceptions of their worshippers in the New World - and yes, now they have to coerce worship, but their faults and flaws were created in them by the mortals who "created" them. At risk of book talk, The ending of the book makes this abundantly clear. Wednesday is not Odin. He is me, but I am not him. Hence, American Gods. tin can made man posted:The gods in this show aren't universal constants who descend to find followers, but are instead crafted through the very act of "worship". We see this with the unnamed, presumptive "New God" that abducts Shadow. He appears to be representative of technology, but not in the industrial or progressive sense, but the conspicuous nouveau-tech, obsessed with the bleeding edge and the co-option of popular imagery (he's the traditional 'boss' smoking in the back of a limo, his goons are corrupted versions of A Clockwork Orange's Droogs - both are classic images of crime that an adolescent would be obsessed over). And Wednesday's monologue about the airplanes is already trying to highlight this and poke holes in it 
Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 22:40 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 22:34
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Aardark posted:My word, things like that are obvious to you? You must be quite smart. Cojawfee is just an rear end like that. He does it in TONS of threads. He is intentionally obtuse as a form of trolling or something.
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May 2, 2017 02:45
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There's a trailer up for the season with clips of more stuff, if you guys haven't seen it yet. Its on their facebook page, can't find it on youtube yet... Escape Addict posted:Some subtext I thought was really great was when Technical Boy's children beat and lynch a black man because it symbolizes how loving racist the faceless assholes on the Internet have become. Yeah I thought that too, the codpieces were just way too clockwork orange. In a good way. Steve Yun posted:What are the Children described as in the book? IIRC they were faceless goons in black suits. Gmen. They kept the faceless thing but changed their outfits to be more polygonal and thus identify with technical boy.
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May 2, 2017 02:53
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ButteryNoodles posted:I'm a dummy. What was with all of the arrows? Just another god keeping those drat Vikings away? Yeah just seemed like the Natives were telling them to gently caress off, this is our land and we'll defend it. I did think it was super awkward though that the Vikings were all "our god is a war god, so lets go to war against each other!" Like... why not try going to war with the Natives? I guess they (probably correctly) figured they were massively outnumbered and had no chance? Reading it as a Native American / First Peoples god keeping them away is kinda fun though, I hadn't considered that. Its entirely plausible.
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May 2, 2017 03:27
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Steve Yun posted:So if someone were to make a second thread should it be the book reader thread or the tv only thread OP of this thread doesn't want spoilers (only just now read the bottom of the OP whoops) so do like Game of Thrones and make a spoil thread and a non-spoil thread. So, basically the thread to make would be the book one.
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May 2, 2017 07:30
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Blackchamber posted:A link to an article on a site nobody likes I'm sure, but it addresses the spoilers in its own advertising: http://io9.gizmodo.com/american-gods-is-spoiler-proof-television-1794754495 That's interesting to read. Maybe the OP should read it It is smart of them though, like I said with the internet trying to maintain any mystery would be a Sisyphean task.
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May 2, 2017 18:05
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El Jeffe posted:I read this book last year in anticipation of the show and did not think it was very good. Great idea, pretty poor execution (except for those chapters that gave some gods' backgrounds, loved those). Anyway I'm finding this show to already be way better. There were so many parts in the book that I just couldn't tell what Gaiman was going for because his descriptions were so lacking. It's awesome to see "unfilmable" parts adapted so well. I'm looking forward to the rest. Book thread is over here buddy Steve Yun posted:BOOK READER THREAD HERE:
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May 2, 2017 21:24
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double nine posted:It's trivial and I shouldn't get hung up on it, but why the hell was Anansi wearing a modern suit? He's a loving god. Also did you miss where he mentioned farming indigo for white men's purple suits in his speech? Wearing the suit was a symbol. He has what they want. He's playing them. He's a showman. It makes all kinds of sense dude. Symbolism.
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May 7, 2017 22:28
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Exactly. It works because its both. Anansi didn't lie to them, he did tell the slaves the truth and he did help free them. But like the one slave asks, "if we burn the ship, don't we die too?" and he kinda hand waves it away and makes them angry enough they don't care, but at the end of the day he didn't save them; they were sacrificed to him. That's Anansi. He's a trickster.
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May 8, 2017 06:38
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ZorajitZorajit posted:This is a bit pedantic, and I don't think it detracts from the show at all, but the very end of Anansi's scene potentially misrepresents how belief and gods work. In the book, we get a number of vignettes of otherwise-normal people coming to America and bringing with them their beliefs. So it struck me as a little odd when the Anansi-Spider crawled off the jetsam being portrayed as his "arrival." Certainly, of course, other people that brought his stories with them too. I don't see any problem with it at all. They DID bring with them their beliefs! The slave on the ship starts begging Anansi to save him of his own will; that's their beliefs, being brought over. The only issue I can possibly imagine you're taking with this is that the slaves died before they reached American soil, but who says gods follow the rules of soil? Dying in the bay and leaving their sacrificed corpses in the Carribean is probably plenty close enough to count as "America". Its not "United States Gods" The spider showing up at the end wasn't his arrival. You're misinterpreting. The slave ship was his arrival. The spider at the shore was just showing that Anansi survived. He got the whole ship to burn down, and they all died, and it made him strong, not weak. That's how the gods work. They can die as long as they aren't forgotten. Cojawfee posted:I really liked Anansi being a mixture of the old version of the god, a tarantula, and a modern man in a suit. I guess I won't comment on what I think about Stomare's character because everyone got upset last time. It's a bit frustrating that it goes so deep into one part of the story but we only get tiny snippets of other people. I'm not really interested in whatever the hell Bilquis or whoever is doing. But I want to know more about Anansi and Gillian Anderson's character. Its only episode 2 dude. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 20:23 on May 8, 2017 |
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May 8, 2017 20:15
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R. Mute posted:I'm kind of wondering if they're going to do something with the fact that they changed Bilquis from a prostitute in the books to apparently meeting her prey via online dating. Considering the context of the series, changing it from the oldest profession in the world to something as thoroughly modern as online dating seems meaningful. Another goon mentioned before, it feels like they're making her more predatory and less "potential victim" in order to demonstrate that the old gods are just as power hungry and ruthless as the new gods, and I agree. In the book the John she's with is more pushy, where in the show he's really uncertain about the whole thing, he just wants to hang out and cuddle and she pushes him into it. That wouldn't work if she was a prostitute.
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May 9, 2017 19:10
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Johnny Truant posted:The Bilquis scene in the first ep was acceptable. Another one... not so much. I don't think they'll do that too much more, and hope not. They did the one and then they did the second one showing she's been at it, building her power, both with men and women. But now we're seeing her looking at the jewelry, she's moving past it. Maybe she'd gobble somebody as a plot point at some later stage, but I hope not. Dr. Clockwork posted:Maybe I'm just dense but nobody else has mentioned it yet. What was with that scene with Bilquis at the museum? Is her vag-gobbling supposed to be resurrecting her ancient form or something? Or was the scene purely symbolic in that she misses her glory days? Both. You see her actually get younger after she gobbles the first guy, her face looks better. So she's been at it more and she's getting stronger. I don't wanna get into spoilers but you're about right when it comes to the museum, again, both. I mean if you really want, you can google her name and find out about her original mythology, same with most of the characters in this show. How much you know of mythology will kinda spoil a bit, but the show's creators said they don't really care about spoilers in that away since its impossible to keep those things a secret, and instead its more about exploring those themes and seeing them with amazing imagery. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 20:15 on May 9, 2017 |
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May 9, 2017 20:13
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dead comedy forums posted:this episode had a fuckton of awesome but there isn't enough praise for zorya "learning is beneath me" vechernjaja (thanks wikipedia) taking down a bottle of vodka like a boss and her sister asking her to tell Shadow's fortune Your mother died of cancer? You no die of cancer.
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May 9, 2017 22:14
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Normal Adult Human posted:It's not vore you loving idiot it's unbirthing. jesus christ do you even know the difference between a mouth and a vagina? Hope this is ironicposting
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May 11, 2017 07:03
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Dr. Clockwork posted:One thing I never got is that Thor doesn't have an American counterpart. I would think with all the neo-Nazis tattoing Nordic runes and wearing Thor's hammers, you could do an interesting spin on that. This isn't the book knowledge or spoiler thread jackass.
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May 11, 2017 21:44
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vermin posted:Really love this show. Neil Gaiman's fantastic writing, Swearengen's rambling wit, and the goofy rear end art direction of Hannibal may make this a perfect storm kind of show for me. *penis* 
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May 15, 2017 22:53
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achillesforever6 posted:You know another thing I like about American Gods is that Gaiman continues the trope of the Hecate sisters with the Zorya sisters. I also like how Gaiman made up those characters and they have no basis in actual slavic mythology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorya ? Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic myth and legend disagrees with you. He made up the 3rd sister though, that's probably what you're remembering. Mixing the slavic Zorya sisters in with the Hecate sisters or the three Greek Fates.
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May 16, 2017 02:57
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the_american_dream posted:IM surprised how much I like Pablo Schreiber in this. I havent cared for him in anything else ive ever watched him in I've always hated him, but he's always played roles where you're supposed to hate him and he's really good at that. I think he's a good actor, if a one trick pony.
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May 16, 2017 08:32
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:You weren't supposed to hate him in The Wire and he was good in that. Really sold a man slowly drowning without hope of a life raft. Maybe he's just playing assholes lately because that's what he has the pat fun doing. Ehhhh I dunno, he made a ton of bad calls in The Wire. I mean yeah they do show that its not just black and white, same with the corner kids. But at the end of the day he's still a bit of an rear end in a top hat in The Wire. (although not as annoying as Ziggy) But man, he was SO loving evil on Law & Order as the rapist, and he's perfect as Pornstache, and ... where else have I seen him... Jerusalem posted:Then he gets thrown a liferaft (for his girlfriend and daughter too!) and chucks it away because his identity is so tied in to the idea of the docks and what they used to be/mean Exactly, he has outs and he chooses crime.
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May 17, 2017 22:49
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double nine posted:Huh, I didn't notice wednesday carefully avoiding being seen by the cameras on first viewing. Neat little detail. I noticed it after Shadow kinda tried to hide his face and kept seeing cameras, going "gently caress" and then it cut to a shot that was perfect, where Wednesday is right behind Shadow's shoulder kinda covering his face, to avoid being seen. Shadow gets seen but Wednesday uses him to avoid being seen. Metaphorical, that.
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May 17, 2017 22:51
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Soysaucebeast posted:I read that less as a suicide attempt and more as her getting high and not really caring if she died in the process. She likes danger and was just THAT bored. Nah that was definitely supposed to be suicide and she changed her mind halfway into it. If she was getting high she'd just do it upstairs with a paper bag or something. You don't lock yourself into a small chamber like that unless you're trying to suffocate. She wasn't hot boxing.
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May 23, 2017 20:48
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Ersatz posted:Her request to Shadow for more bug spray implied that this was an on-going thing. I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that she was getting high and wasn't too worried about the risks, or that the risks enhanced it for her. Nah that was a symbol that even with Shadow her life still wasn't complete and she still contemplated suicide. Which then was confirmed by what she said directly to him, about needing to do the heist. He was happy, with her he didn't need anything else. She felt for him... but it wasn't the same. Cojawfee posted:Oh, I see you have a hot tub. Do you mind if I huff some bug spray in there real quick before we do this annihilation? 
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May 24, 2017 04:58
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Caufman posted:The worst thing Laura did was leave the TV on when she went to work. No amount of depression with suicidal tendencies excuses that complete waste of electricity. I'm glad somebody else thought the same thing.
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May 24, 2017 05:00
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JawnV6 posted:Cool, sorry to interrupt the perfect thread with a trepidatious conciliatory question. In the future I'll just go frame by frame through every previous episode instead of asking. TVIV goons really are pretty bad about that poo poo. Like guys you can just say "hey you missed that bit in the episode where" rather than "oh my god how are you so bad"  Most shows I watch, I'm doing something else at the same time. So sometimes I miss a thing, or I forget it. Big whoop. (But American Gods has my full attention when its on )
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May 24, 2017 23:41
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Entropic posted:It's been ages since I read the book, but Audrey barely showed up at all, she was just mentioned in passing, right? This isn't the book thread, but there is one and you should ask this question there https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3819132
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May 26, 2017 09:31
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TV dog Wishbone of PBS posted:They even got Bowie's mismatched pupils right Yeah I was like  when I noticed thatEntropic posted:It saddens me that people think of him as Pornstache and not Nicky Sobotka. And William Lewis on SVU! 
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May 29, 2017 06:45
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