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We’ve got questions, and you’ve (maybe) got answers! With another week of TV gone by, we’re lobbing queries left and right about lotsa shows including Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, 1923, Days of Our Lives and Gossip Girl!
1 | When trying to lay low in Athens in Season 3’s early episodes, couldn’t/shouldn’t Jack Ryan have changed out of his trademark dark henley, maybe slip on the occasional baseball cap? And on a more serious note, how eerie was Season 3’s Russia/Ukraine storyline?
2 | How jarring/entirely avoidable was it that Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was set in May 2020, during a “mandatory masks” phase of the pandemic? (Did that early scene with masks at the dock serve any greater purpose?) If you read about how Kaley Cuoco sought the Kate Hudson role, doesn’t it seem like she would have read a smidgen too young to have professionally soared and crashed like Birdie Jay? Did you happen to notice the (spoiler alert!) deft switching of the drink glasses as it happened, before it was spelled out in flashback? And do you think the Louvre will try to cover up the loss of a masterpiece?
3 | 1923 fans: The most likely scenario is that the woman who was treated badly at the superintendent’s office is Teonna’s grandmother, right?
4 | Days of Our Lives viewers, were you surprised when Bonnie pointed out that REDNAX is merely Xander spelled backwards? Or did you already figure that out? (Be honest!)
5 | How soapy do you think the Fire Country rescue will get next Friday? After Bode is revived, will he and Gabriella kiss? Maybe more??
6 | Did José Andrés and Family in Spain make you hope that maybe Discovery+ might pick up Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy Season 3?
7 | Did you think Encanto at the Hollywood Bowl‘s dancing donkeys during “Surface Pressure” were the best… but then the dancing donkeys in tutus showed up and you realized they were the actual best?
8 | The Circle fans, who are you rooting for this season?
9 | Even though it’s called The Best Man: The Final Chapters, doesn’t that ending feel like there’s potential for more story to be told?
10 | Did any eagle-eyed Gossip Girl viewers notice two of the show’s executive producers — Joshua Safran and Stephanie Savage — in Zoya’s contacts?
11 | It’s a lazy joke — “I don’t know who any of these dancing ‘stars’ are!” and all — but did NBC’s The Wheel in several instances genuinely set a lower bar for what a “celebrity” is?
Hit the comments with your answers — and any other Qs you care to share!
I kind of think the mask scene was to show how out of touch celebrity culture was with masking. They even masked up outside. In the early days of the pandemic, we were told that we could do outdoor gatherings maskless to prevent the spread of the virus.
I also think Kaley Cuco would not have been half as good as Kate Hudson was in the role of Birdie J.
We know Kaley Cuco can play ditzy (8 Simple Rules) so it’s not too far fetched she could have played Birdie.
Avoidable yes, but also they wouldn’t want to because backdating it allowed the use of the Lansbury and Sondheim cameos.
I just didn’t get why they included the pandemic at all, since it was made irrelevant early on. (And we’re supposed to believe they solved the vaccine problem in May of 2020, and the guy that wanted to be known for changing the world just kept that fact hidden?)
Or the guy that wanted to be known for changing the world didn’t actually have a solution and just didn’t want to deal with it so had his guy go out and spritz ’em and say “you’re all good now”. Notice how absolutely evasive he was when questioned about it.
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As for the pandemic, I think at least part of it was to show their personalities – Birdie throwing the party but it’s okay because “they’re all in my pod” and then showing up with that mesh mask because she doesn’t actually care but wants to pretend she does, her assistant and Blanc wearing masks properly because they’re following the rules, governor lady wearing hers under her nose because again she doesn’t really care but does want to be seen in the proper light with her constituency, Cobra Tate I mean Joe Rogan I mean Drax I mean oh forget it and his girlfriend not even bothering… it all shows us what kind of people they are really quickly.
As for the Mona Lisa everyone pointed out online and on Tv Tropes France gave Miles a fake copy of it while the museum secretly kept the real one.
1. Because likely John Kraskinski has had it pointed out to him when he and his family are in England, that baseball hats pretty much scream American. Also, Ukraine was only kind of mentioned, the country at issue was the Czech Republic. My actual issue is that apparently the show doesn’t want to bother with subtitles or thinks the audience won’t like them because, I mean, sure in the current timeline you could see that when Russians were speaking to Russians, that English might actually be better to delay translations and I guess I got over that, but then we went back to the soldiers and and the scientists originally working on the Sokol project, they’d be speaking Russian.
Yeah, I figure “Jack Ryan” is playing by “The Hunt for Red October” rules, where Sean Connery starts off with a few words in Russian, and as the camera spins around him, it segues into all-English. (NOT to be confused with the “Hogan’s Heroes” rule, where English-speaking prisoners impersonate German officers by… speaking German-accented English?)
I think I would have been okay with “The Hunt for Red October” thing, which I thought that was what they were doing for a minute because the waiter that said “23” to Jack in the first episode said it in, I forget what country they were in now, but they subtitled it. But then like the next foreign country scene was either Kovac’s father before we knew who he was or the Defense Minister’s office where they were not even greeting each other in Russian or Czech.
The only show I think executed this perfectly is Warrior. There’s Zero confusion about which language(s) all the characters can and/or do speak.
It was getting laughable at the end that everyone, especially the inner circle at the Kremlin, were all speaking English. Doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it, it just made me chuckle that the people in the Czech Republic, Russia and all the other countries spoke English.
8. I’m rooting for a new casting director.
It was more weird because in March 2020 everyone was being told NOT to wear masks because the virus wasn’t supposed to be airborne. Everyone was told it was spread by droplets on surfaces so you were supposed to wash your hands obsessively.
Also, in 2020 like the rest of the EU, Greece was pretty locked down and it was probably quite hard to even go there from the USA.
They should have made it March 2021.
The movie was set in MAY 2020, and late May at that. I think it said like, May 26th, so by the time they go to the island, it’s June
The movie isn’t set in March 2020 though. It was set in May 2020 and by that time, everyone did know to wear masks. As for setting it in 2021, he wrote the movie in 2020 and maybe he didn’t want to try and predict what would happen with a pandemic in the future?
2. The open mesh of Birdie’s mask was likely the sight gag sought by the scene, and wearing masks situated it in the present. “Jarring” is a bit overstated–many of us are still masking when in close quarters with others, inside or out, especially when forced to be close to others.
It also leaned into the next scene, where the “billionaire genius” shot them with something that made them completely immune, as if such a thing existed and would only be made available to friends of the powerful. Seemed a complete allusion to the idiocy of believing that ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine–or injecting household cleaners–would be a panacea for all things COVID.
11. Completely unwatchable. 60 minutes where the one or two celebs that I like don’t even get a question, because they only ask 7 or 8 questions total (that’s about 1 question every 8 minutes). When they introduced that tiger lady as a celebrity, I was outta there.
I think the mask scene’s purpose was only there to showcase the individual characters behaviour. And of course who the idiot is.
Totally agree. I’m really not understanding why people are so bothered by the inclusion of the pandemic and masks. Besides everything, covid still exists and is still evolving.
But before I get carried away with that tangent the scene with the masks was used to showcase little idiosyncrasies of the character. Party girl wearing a useless mask, governor invested in their public image knows they need one but doesn’t want it as evidenced by wearing it on her chin, and the scientist who was practically doubled up
8. Chaz or Sam right now, but I know my allegiance is gonna switch when Shooby comes back next week.
The masking showed character personalities, a bit of a jab at millionaires having access to things we ordinary mortals didn’t (a cure). I rewound to see the glass and gun reveals in real-time. And I believe the Lourve, like us, thought Miles was too stupid to know an excellent copy from the original, and the original was safely stored at the Lourve.
#2- Everything in the Glass Onion is A Clue or makes a specific point about the players including the costuming. The mask scene, imo, is very deliberate. Benoit is smart, he’d wear a mask and it would be both functional and stylish. Lionel is a scientist so he would wear the best mask of all. Birdie is all about appearances so she is wearing a mask, but it can’t inconvenience her in anyway and must be fashionable so of course it is bedazzled mesh. Duke of course wouldn’t wear a mask at all because he thinks it is all fake. And then of course we needed a demonstration to prove they wouldn’t need masks anyway — so we have them get administered the most completely ineffective but appropriately high tech-looking spray that is supposed to protect them because of course that is what a billionaire “genius” would come up with to reassure his guests they’d be fine.
This is the best, most on-target answer. Well done, EvaBaby!
I second that
I third that EvaBaby. Excellent on point answer.😁
Excellent recap, thank you!
I’m pretty sure the scene they get the “cure” was just for rewatch knowing how dumb miles was that it was dewormer or bleach or something like that. it was a clue
If Fire Country had the guts to actually kill Bode that would be something truly buzz worthy..
Jack Ryan….I kept saying at least grab a baseball cap. lol
Absolutely screams American which is the last place he wants to be acknowledging as a spook (analyst).
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I just have to say that when you have Ryan, Greer and November together, no matter how dire the situation, that it’s going to be a great ride.
2) Yes, I caught the switching of glasses right away (and replayed the scene for my wife, who’d looked away for a moment). I was not at all surprised when Duke keeled over.
11. Carole Freakin’ Baskin, that’s all I’m sayin’!
In Glass Onion the Mona Lisa is too big!
That was my thought as well. The real one is smaller in person. If the real one is actually on display and not a copy. The real one is probably in a safe somewhere.
2) Kaley Cuoco is a day older than Janelle Monae and is 3 years older than Kate Hudson was when she founded Fabletics, so I don’t think she’s too young
In addition to what has already been said, the “masks on the dock” scene also introduced Duke’s pineapple allergy
That was my thought too.
The point of the vaccine on the docks was for Duke to drop the clue that he can’t have pineapple. (And yes, I caught the drink hand-off in real time)
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“Does it have pineapple in it? Duke doesn’t do pineapple!”
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Everything was pretty heavy-handed in the movie. No real mystery.
But still super fun and enjoyable, don’t get me wrong!
There’s an interview with Rian Johnson in Vanity Fair that talks about the masks. They’re symbolic of the characters. The governor’s is beige. The scientist has a proper N95. The yahoos aren’t wearing any. The dapper detective’s matches his outfit.
The Disney Hollywood bowl special made me convinced that encanto is going to be Disneys next big Broadway show. If frozen can be adapted for the stage why not Encanto?