Ozark on Netflix

[Grandpa's Spells]

Will inevitably be compared to Breaking Bad, and almost inevitably come up short, but that's the best series premiere I've seen in a long time.

[Shapecharge]

We're going to start watching it. Mrs. Shape watched the first two episodes and said we needed to jump on this. After this Sunday's final for GoT we'll start it.

[buckethead]

Saw the first three so far. Very good

[baffled]

Watched it. Loved it. Breaking bad sucked, by the way.

[Yes I Have Balls]

This was a really good show. I'm glad Netflix ordered a Season 2.

[Herv100]

Is this another show where the protagonists are crooked scumbags caught up in the world of vice?
How original.

[Yes I Have Balls]

Is this another show where the protagonists are crooked scumbags caught up in the world of vice?
How original.

You could watch it, but it's not a 1/2 hour cartoon, so you might have a difficult time following along.

[Cave Canem]

I'm trying but I'm not getting drawn in. Up to episode 7 I think and still wondering when more shit is going to happen. Opened strong but doesn't make me want to drop everything to binge watch.

[Bram]

Watched the entire 3rd season between yesterday and this morning.

Started strong, got a bit caught up in a particular sub-plot for my taste, finished strong.

[aussie luke]

Watched the entire 3rd season between yesterday and this morning.

Started strong, got a bit caught up in a particular sub-plot for my taste, finished strong.

Watched it over the last couple of days.

Spent the whole season waiting for the thing that happened at the end to happen.

Hope there’s going to be more.

[SubClaw]

This third season was wonderful!

It just keeps getting better and better, the same way Breaking Bad did season after season.

[Hanglow Joe]

Just got through episode 5 and 6, it's SLOW right now.

My only complaint is COULD YOU PUT SOME LIGHT IN THE SET?

It's so dark. The Langmore kid hooking up with the old lady was hilarious.

[SubClaw]

Just got through episode 5 and 6, it's SLOW right now.

My only complaint is COULD YOU PUT SOME LIGHT IN THE SET?

It's so dark. The Langmore kid hooking up with the old lady was hilarious.

Let's be thankful for that.

[Hanglow Joe]

I didn't love the season. I know I'm in the minority. I did just finish Narcos Mexico. I enjoy that MUCH more. Love the hot Latina women

[Shapecharge]

Alright Joe, let's talk through this. We have time. I will not call you names or ridicule you. Tell me/us what it was about this season that didn't work for you. I'm genuinely curious since my wife and I thought it was awesome. No homo.

[motherjuggs&speed]

It just keeps getting better and better, the same way Breaking Bad did season after season.

This was sarcasm, right? Because BB got terrible at the beginning of 4 and got worse by the episode.

[Shapecharge]

MJS, come the fuck on! How can you say that? The second-to-the-last episode (episode 15, I think) of the last season (season 5) titled "Ozymandias" is considered by some critics as the best single episode of dramatic television ever filmed. How did it get worse? 'Splain please.

[motherjuggs&speed]

I will try to do a better job of this later, but for now I'll say that many things weren't remotely plausible or made sense within the bible of the show. I'll separate these:

1) Plausible. There are some conventions I accept in a given genre. I'll buy into warp drive and stuff in a sci-fi show, and the bad guy announcing his arrival in town in a Western. But Breaking Bad takes place in a real world, our world, and certain things don't make sense. Take the train jacking: how can they possibly know the car they need will be exactly at the bridge? The plan depends on it being there, but there's no way to know where the crew will stop the train. They could have stopped it 300 feet earlier. In the first season it makes sense for Walt to seek out Jesse since Jesse is the only person he knows who could help him cook. But later on, if Gus knows Gail, and invested money in his schooling, why fool with Walt and Jesse at all? It also doesn't make sense that Hank would be that oblivious about Walt, or that no one else at the DEA noticed anything. They could also have the train crew identify Kuby and then he's toast, so he'd roll on everyone to not take a charge of felony murder over that kid getting killed. Too many implausibilities. I buy Walt cooking with Jesse and that they'd make a lot of mistakes. But for Walt to go from Ned Flanders to a gangster to a psychopath to a simpering little bitch, that makes no sense.

2) Sensible in that world. For example in Farscape there was zero chance that Aeryn wouldn't kill Rygel the first time he looked like he was thinking of selling them out, I mean she literally killed people for a living. It's a flaw in the fabric of that universe. In BB, a major character element is how careful Gus is, so controlled, so measured, and then he kills Victor right in front of two witnesses? Why kill him at all? For shock value -- not for Walt and Jesse, but for the audience. Makes no sense that he would do that. It also makes no sense that if Saul is such a fixer, if he knows people who know people, why is he in a storefront defending drug dealers and also doing personal injury work? That might fall into category one as well, since only in a small town is a lawyer likely to do both of those.

I'll try to unpack this more when I'm not tired. To be clear, I was hooked in season one and was riveted to each episode through that overpowering end of season three. But then, yikes. I can relate to fans of Castle wanting the show to get cancelled so it would stop getting worse.

[Shapecharge]

Okay, I had a feeling this was where you might be going and I can't fuck with you on that. My willingness to overlook a few things is/was a bit more expansive than yours. Excellent episode, the train hijacking one to make your point. You did finish it though, right?

[motherjuggs&speed]

I watched every episode and was disappointed at almost every twist and turn from season three onwards. Ozymandias suffers from something that I had not noticed in some shows or was willing to overlook: drama for the sake of drama, even when it makes no sense. I get that it's a drama and that things have to be condensed, simplified, added, and so forth, but I only accept that to a point. I'm willing to buy in. I want to. I love to not only suspend disbelief but to throw it so far out the window that I hit the guy across the street with it (what the fuck, dude?!?!). But at some point the stupidity or implausibility breaks me out of it.

I seem to be different from most in this way: I think that good drama comes from well-drawn characters who come into conflicts which are not ginned up (a guy bursts in and holds everyone hostage) but emerge from who these people are and what the environment is. For example in Eastenders there is a scene where Bianca sees her boyfriend Ricky kissing his ex-wife Sam and then goes home, takes all his stuff out of their flat, puts it on the sidewalk and lights it on fire. That's exactly the kind of thing Bianca would do, go off half cocked without even asking him what's up (Sam actually kissed Ricky in a little sentimental moment but leave it to B to not bother with the details). There is another development where Michelle hooks up with her arch enemy Grant and in another show it would have been pulled out of the writer's ass. But the episode was set up with Michelle saying to Grant, "I want a word with you", and half of the next ep was spent on the two of them airing their grievances with each other over many glasses of wine and several hours. They say the kind of things to each other that those people would say and have not really said despite years of sniping at each other. As she's leaving, Michelle kisses Grant in a sentimental way, basically like a little hug, but then lightning strikes. They both feel it, they see that the other sees it, and we end. The next day there's a great subtle moment which I'd have missed if I hadn't taped it and watched it a few times: By chance they see each other in the square and Grant says quietly, "Shell," which only her close friends and family call her. To me that's drama. There was another moment where something that had been alluded to for years comes out in the open when David and Frank Butcher are arguing about the car lot fire. It would take too long to describe it but the payoff was really intense. On The Mentalist, the most compelling moment to me was Rigsby and Van Pelt having a too honest conversation without either of them actually wanting to. It felt like a real moment, a moment those two would actually have. Whereas Jane and Lisbon getting all cute and cuddly is absurd, it's not who they are. Their relationship would be constant mind games, they'd be bored otherwise. And the endless Red John thing, I mean those writers should be banished to wherever the Chinese put the remaining Tibetans.

Ok, Ozymandias. I don't buy any of it. Why would Walt tell Jesse about Jane? What would Marie care about what Walt Jr. does or doesn't know? I don't remember the details of the battle in the desert but I didn't buy that either. There were many set pieces which I don't object to but to me they have to either be really well done or make sense, preferably both. That's why I don't like Unforgiven. Yeah, I know. Everyone loves it, but those Dramatic Moments lacked drama to me, they're just "the scene where Gene Hackman . . .". Didn't do much for me.

When I looked up the episode on IMDB to refresh my memory I saw that there's a movie called Ozymandias. For that movie's featured image some joker put a pic of Hank in the desert.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3865294/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[Hanglow Joe]

I found it to be so SLOW, and unrealistic. I love Ruth, she is highly entertaining. I hate the way it's filmed, it's SO dark you need a candle to watch the TV. When Laura Linney went back in to the packie to get more Vodka, she wasn't staggering? Bullshit.

Where were the cops after the explosion?

I'm not saying I didn't like it, it was fine, just felt like a chore to watch. Last episode was satisfying.

[Hanglow Joe]

I found it to be so SLOW, and unrealistic. I love Ruth, she is highly entertaining. I hate the way it's filmed, it's SO dark you need a candle to watch the TV. When Laura Linney went back in to the packie to get more Vodka, she wasn't staggering? Bullshit.

Where were the cops after the explosion? What happens to Frank Jr with no repercussions?

I'm not saying I didn't like it, it was fine, just felt like a chore to watch. Last episode was satisfying.

[motherjuggs&speed]

Most people here probably don't have my enthusiasm for kitchen sink dramas so I'll unpack this a little with more action oriented dramas.

Chato's Land. Far from being a boilerplate Western, this is a character study, not of Chato but of the posse. These guys say insightful and incisive things about each other and the mission they're on. This adds a lot to the tension of their group and also to Chato's situation.

To Live and Die in L.A. The car chase is spectacular but it's also both a plot element and an examination of the differences between Chance and Vukovich. The chase, like the rest of the movie, is very well written and acted with subtleties that add to the action, like John having to integrate his shadow to operate in that world.

Runaway Train. One of the things that make this so good is the feeling that they're on a runaway train before they even bust out. Manny's speech is epic but there are also smaller details, like the way Manny talks to Rankin near the end. The way he calmly and almost casually says, "I am free, Frank. I am free". His sudden departure from their formal roles as rebellious convict talking to the evil warden makes this more human and thus more real. Also note the way the warden says, "What about that punk and the girl?". He has more respect for Manny than he will admit to, and far more than he does for Buck, who is just 'that punk' to him.

Deliverance. Something that gets overlooked is that the events can be seen as Ed's deliverance.

Hooper. Yeah, I know, this is more of an action comedy but Hal Needham was a stuntman and wanted to show some of that world. People who think this is just an excuse for a bunch of stunts are missing a lot of the picture. Roger not caring if Sonny and Ski get killed doing the jump as long as he gets his shot, the tension between Sonny and Ski, the way Sonny is held together by tape and grit but he has to do this to be who he is, there are many details that make this a great movie. It's a fun comedy and it's filled with great stuntwork and there's compelling personal drama and many of the stunts have dramatic impact, not just "here's a scene for the kids to talk about for the next three weeks", which we did, BTW.

[Bram]

Binged Season 4, Part 1 in a day.

Thought the first episode was whatever, although I had a friend over and we were negligibly paying attention (were we banging each other? I’ll leave that up to your imagination). He left and then I got totally drawn in. I don’t care how implausible any of it is, I loved it and am hyped for whatever comes next.

[Grandpa's Spells]

Guy playing Javier is completely believable. The chef's reaction to Darlene and Wyatt's relationship killed me.