Deadwood V

last watched: s3e12 

i had a dream recently where i had some ore with gold in it that i was showing to others. is this because i've been watching deadwood? maybe. i found out after watching basically all of these people and locations were real? look at the god damn stache on the rl seth bollock

compared to the deuce - and i'm drawing this comparison because it's the only other multi-series drama i've watched on this blog - deadwood was much better. it's a cliche probably but what elevates a show above just being 'good' is having characters that are interesting and that you enjoy watching no matter what is going on in the plot/scene. that's why the sopranos is such a great show. i think deadwood had this going for it and but deuce did not. a good plot can only carry my interest so far before i inevitably just think 'who cares'.

some brief reflections on the cast of deadwood:

al swearengen

up there with the likes of rust cohle and tony soprano as a fantastic memorable character

jack langrishe

what the fuck was the point of this character/storyline

cy tolliver

cy tolliver is a bastard, maybe even more so than george hearst

joanie stubbs

i liked her but i couldn't get over the stupid hat that she always wore

seth bollock

i thought he was going to play a more important role in the series but he kind of just devolved into a proud little sheriff boy who would pop in the plot when necessary. it sucks his kid died or whatever

charlie utter

probably my favorite character in the show after al

final thoughts: 

• finale was a little underwhelming but great show overall
• maybe i'll watch the movie
• why do they call the chinese people 'celestials'

"if those are your last words here on earth, you tell the lord you went out stupid"- cy tolliver, deadwood s3e12

Deadwood IV

last watched: s3e06

almost done. haven't been good about watching frequently of late. i do need to pick it up or i'm going to be falling behind. hbo keeps producing more and more content and i'm starting to fear i'll be stuck finishing a series just as a new one is released, caught in an endless cycle, like sisyphus rolling his stone up the mountain.

"It's my family luck over centuries to get repeatedly fucked up the ass."– steve, deadwood s3e01

Deadwood III

last watched: s2e07

a list of things they do in deadwood that you can't do anymore:

• smoke inside restaurants
• beat someone's ass in the middle of the street
• shooting a fucking hole in the ceiling to get everyone's attention
• say the n word

"the world ends when you're dead. until then, you've got more punishment in store" - al swearengen, deadwood s2e07

Deadwood II

last watched s1e12

lots of parallels in this first season with the real world right now (there's a plague going around, everyone hates the chinese). well maybe just those two things. so far this show has exceeded my expectations. maybe once i get some more under my belt i'll put up a power rankings in the sidebar.

one didn't expect in this show was to see young kristen bell. she's only in two episodes before she get shot to death, but still.



also, everybody in this show spits on their hands and them shakes them when they seal a deal. it's vile.

"i'd rather try touching the moon than take on a whore's thinking" - al swearengen, deadwood s1e06

Deadwood I

last watched: s1e05

take HBO's westworld, swap the robots for real people, swap the convoluted plot for a comprehensible one, add in some prospecting, some schemes, a bunch of people calling each other cocksuckers, and you've got deadwood.

It is 1876 and the richest gold strike in U.S. history draws a throng of restless misfits to an outlaw settlement in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Welcome to Deadwood--a hell of a place to make your fortune. Timothy Olyphant and Ian McShane lead the cast in this drama series about the surly inhabitants in this dangerous frontier town.

betting.. whores..  small business.. drug addiction.. am i watching the deuce again? just kidding. little HBO humor there. did you know if you play craps correctly you can cut the house edge down to just 0.6%? something to think about next time you see dummies placing bets in the center of the table. anyway, this is one of the shows i had been meaning to watch for a while because i'd heard it referenced so many times. they have really unique slurs for people like 'squarehead' and 'celestial'. sorry if i'm not supposed to say those words.

"when a man wets his end in nebraska pussy his life is changed forever" -  cy tolliver, deadwood s1e05

Generation Kill II

last watched: s1e07

when i was in the third grade i was wild about playing gameboy, as were most kids during the time. i remember one day i got a new game, some lego adventure game, and i just couldn't put the thing down. the next day i feigned illness so i could stay home from school and play it. my mother obliged and, because i was too young to stay home alone, took me to work with her at a montessori school. they happened to be going on a 'field trip' that day to a library, where i could silently tag along and enjoy my new game. while we were on the way to the library, mohamed atta and friends were on their way to crash two boeing 767s into the world trade center.

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it's somewhat (funny? refreshing? surprising?) watching a show where characters call things "gay" and "colossally retarded." the dialogue, paired with the songs that the marines sing (avril lavigne, nelly) really transport you back to the early 2000s.

my only complaint with this show is james ransone as ray. having been familiar with him from the movies IT 2 and sinister, it was tough imagining him as a hardened recon marine. i mean just look at him lined up against fruity rudy when they play football in s1e07.

final thoughts

• dudes rock
• most enjoyable series i've watched so far
• what if the iraq war... was bad?

"the point is we get to kill people you dumb fuck"- ray, generation kill 21e06

Generation Kill I

last watched: s1e04

Get ready to see the new face of American war. This seven-part HBO miniseries focuses on the first 40 days of the war in Iraq as seen through the eyes of an elite group of U.S. Marines who spearheaded the invasion. The result is a vivid account of the soldiers and of the forces that guided them in an often-improvised initiative.

good news. i finished the spreadsheet to keep track of my progress. i'll keep the sidebar updated with the % complete, but you can also visit here for more in-depth data. couple things to note.

1) there are still some shows that are currently airing, which i will update once they are finished.

2) i am excluding the following shows from my journey:

• last week tonight with john oliver
• vice
• real sports with bryant gumbel
• real time with bill maher

the reason for this is twofold. first, while they are technically classified as 'series' on the hbo website, they are, at their core, news. the second and more important reason is that with these shows, new episodes are constantly being added and old ones removed. it would be a sisyphean task to include these.

that being said, generation kill rules.

"that song is straight homosexual, country music, special olympic gay"- sgt. brad 'iceman' colbert, generation kill s1e02

The Deuce IV

last watched: s3e08

pretty good show overall. i do think it could have been told in two seasons. it started to drag a little i thought. below i have ranked the sex workers whose names i can remember in order of most to least tolerable.

1. darlene
2. bernice
3. loretta
4. melissa
5. ruby
6. ashley
7. lori
8. candy
9. shay

i also noticed some things i'd like to draw attention to in a new segment called 'HBO connections'

HBO connections

• emily meade, who plays lori madison, is also jill's friend aimee in s1 of the leftovers
• in s2e04, a lady that takes abby to task in a women against pornography meeting is also in s2e02 of high maintenance

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at the end of the final episode, we see vincent in 2019, flipping through the channels of a hotel television (one of which is playing the game of thrones theme song, because of course it is). after this, he reminisces with the bartender in the hotel bar, and then walks around the streets, seeing and interacting with dead people from his past.

final thoughts:

• they should have called this one 'sex and the city'
• last scene was stupid
• franco, who was accused of sexual misconduct with his students, plays a character that dates a girl who, in s1e01, sleeps with her professor

"no gingers. freckles fuck me up it's too irish" - rudy pipilo, the deuce s3e04

The Deuce III

last watched: s3e01

pop quiz: do you recognize this goofy motherfucker?

that young man is michael gandolfini, son of james gandolfini. soon to star as tony soprano in the upcoming film The Many Saints of Newark.

i'm not sure the writers of this show have ever interacted with actual kids. the dialogue for the children in this show is so bizarre. maybe part of that is the delivery too, but every time candy's kid talks it's just weird. (is it 'wrong' to call her candy still instead of eileen, since she's a respected director now instead of a prostitute?)

"so go on bitch. no one here gon' pimp you"- al polite, the deuce s2e09

The Deuce II

last watched: s2e03

in s2e03, we overhear someone talking about a porno they're filming saying "it's a parody of westworld, but instead of cowboys and indians, it's sex robots." hbo really just can't help it can they? they are such whores for cross-promotion (see: mildred pierce reference in the past post).

maggie gyllenhaal's character kind of irks me. i don't know if it's her accent or her stupid porno ideas. something just rubs me the wrong way.

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i've been watching this show with closed captioning on since it helps when i'm multitasking and miss or can't hear a line of dialogue. here's my favorite so far.

"red is a horny color. you ever seen a car commercial?" - candy, the deuce s1e08

The Deuce I

last watched: s1e04

Get into the gritty and decadent world of NYC's Times Square in the 1970s, as the business of pleasure begins its climb to become a billion-dollar industry in this drama series from the creative team behind 'The Wire®' and 'Treme®'. James Franco, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Carr, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Dominique Fishback, Emily Meade, Lawrence Gilliard, Jr. head up a stellar cast.

remember sports? you used to be able to watch them in person or on television. thousands and thousands of fans would come together to cheer on their team and view the game from beside the field. another fun thing you could do, whether you attended or not, was place bets on games. that's how one of the martino brothers (both portrayed by james franco) finds himself thirty grand in debt.

basically, you've got james franco playing identical twins (a technique accredited to lindsay lohan for for her role in the 1998 disney film the parent trap), you've got a bunch of prostitutes, a bunch of pimps, girls banging dudes, dudes banging dudes, girls banging girls, the mob, corrupt cops, etc. a whole lot going on.

here's something fun. so one of the prostitutes has a client who is an old man and just wants company to watch movies with. in s1e03, there's a scene of them watching mildred pierce (the 1945 movie, not the hbo television adaptation). in this mildred pierce, we see veda shoot monte dead. very different from the mildred pierce i watched.

last thing, and i don't want to be mean here - and i realize maggie gyllenhaal's character isn't meant to be a beauty - but wow jake really got all the hotness genes in that family.

"man, fuck the goddamn moon" - larry brown, the deuce s1e04

15: A Quinceanera Story I

last watched: s1e04

A 'quinceanera' is a coming-of-age celebration for a Latina girl's 15th birthday, marking her transition from girl to woman. Throughout four short films, follow five girls from different cultural, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, bonded together by this traditional rite of passage.

so, there's gonna be a lot of stuff that i just have to grit my teeth and get through. this only has a cumulative runtime of 113 minutes, so i figured why not. let's knock this out tonight in one sitting. to it's credit, it was much less 'My Super Sweet Sixteen' (via mtv) than i thought it would be.

these girls in the last one, they do this thing that's like synchronized swimming but on horses. it's a texas thing apparently.

final thoughts:

• less painful than expected
• learned how to spell quinceanera
• when do i transition from a boy to a man?

"she was a little chubby before. but she shaped up for the quince"- aunt, 15: A Quinceanera Story s1e02

Vice Principals III

last watched:  s2e09

while on the surface it is a tale of schemes and power, Vice Principals is a story about two men coming to terms with their love for each other.

i was wrong to judge this show so harshly on my first try. i think i might even rank this above The Righteous Gemstones. in one of the final scenes we see gamby walk into his new job as principal of a middle school and are to a treated to a cameo by steve little (aka stevie janowski). here's the best, in my opinion, stevie janowski clip from Eastbound & Down:



final thoughts:

• dayshawn is the funniest of the secondary characters
• there's a korean lady down the hall from me that yells sometimes and sounds just like russell's mother-in-law
• if you pay taxes you should be allowed to go to prom

"i know what we did was wrong, but i liked it"- lee russell, vice principals s2e09

Vice Principals II

last watched: s2e03

i'm working on a spreadsheet with every series and their total runtime in minutes so i can keep track of what i've watched and measure my progress by %. this requires me to click into every single episode in order to get the length, so it might be a while before i finish this.

anyway, every time the english teacher amanda snograss is on screen, i can't not notice how she looks like a mix of anna farris and kaitlin olson. what do you think? it's tough to justify with just one image each, but if you've seen the show maybe you'll agree with me.

"you break the law, i fuck you raw. that's a gamby promise" - neal gamby,  vice principals s2e02

Vice Principals I

last watched: s1e05

everyone keeps asking me if i've seen tiger king and i keep having to tell them, no, i don't have time for such things. i have premium television to watch.

Danny McBride (HBO's 'Eastbound and Down') and Walton Goggins (TV's 'Justified' and 'The Shield') team up in this HBO comedy series about two high-school vice principals who forge an unholy alliance to take down the school's new principal.

danny mcbride caught lightning in a bottle with kenny powers in Eastbound & Down. the unfortunate consequence of this, coupled with the fact that mcbride is a one-note actor, is that everything he does after will be compared to it.

we once again have mcbride playing a character that works at a high school, is seen as a joke by others, and is driven by a clearly defined goal (to become a star pitcher again vs. to become the principal).

i first watched Vice Principals when it was originally aired in 2016. because of the similarities above, i found it to be a watered down, less funny version of EB&D, and gave up after one or two episodes. however, maybe due to the time away from it or the soul-crushing loneliness of being quarantined by myself, i'm finding it more enjoyable this time around.

"i'll see you on monday you little horny dog" - lee russell, vice principals s1e03

Mildred Pierce II

last watched: s1e05

i have been informed that kate winslet was in fact the star of james cameron's 1997 blockbuster Titanic. i'm sorry i forgot this.

hmm. not sure about this one. i can only handle so much old-timey mother/daughter drama. i'm thankful this was only five episodes. as neither a small business owner, nor a woman, nor a mother, nor a daughter, nor a california resident, i found it difficult to relate with the main characters.

between episode three and four, the plot jumps ahead four years, and the daughter veda is replaced with another, older actress. fans of hbo's westworld (and what a mess that show turned into) may recognize her. how do we feel about time jumps like this?

the series closes out with veda running off to new york with monty beragon (who was dating midlred, but secretly started sleeping with veda). mildred and her husband (who she just remarried? they divorced in the first episode) say to hell with her and pour themselves some bourbon. the husband raises his glass. "lets' get stinko" he says. "let's get stinko" mildred replies through tears. they sip their drinks. roll credits.

final thoughts:

• would've liked to see more of the 'business empire' side of things instead of the domestic affairs
• there are more sex scenes between mildred and monty beragon than there are episodes
• the phrase "pie wagon" was thrown around a lot and i'm not sure if it was a euphemism or an actual thing (mildred baked and sold pies) 
• what the hell is "let's get stinko" l m a o

"[veda] is snake, is bitch, is coloratura!"- italian man, mildred pierce s1e05

Mildred Pierce I

last watched: s1e03

i wanted to choose another short (read: one season) series to do next so i can keep the momentum going. i also wanted to choose something i had never heard of. enter Mildred Pierce.

Academy Award® winner Kate Winslet stars in this riveting five-part adaptation of James M. Cain's classic novel about a divorcee struggling to survive amidst the Depression. Led by her fierce determination, Mildred Pierce begins to build a business empire while maintaining complex relationships with her insatiable daughter and the indolent men in her life.

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what the hell has kate winslet been in recently? she's of those names that i recognize but i couldn't pick her out of a lineup. actually, i don't even know if i could name any movie she's in without going to her imdb.

towards the end of the pilot, mildred is eating at a diner when one of the servers catches another stealing tips from her. they start yelling at each other and the owner fires them. moments later they continue their dispute in the kitchen with the other servers involved and mildred walks in. they owner asks "are you here to work?" and she says yes and starts working that day. in what fucking world does this happen?

"from now on, i'm a businesswoman"- mildred pierce, mildred pierce s1e02

The New Pope II

last watched: s1e09

chekhov's pope states that "if you show in the first episode that there is a pope in a coma, by the end of the series arc he absolutely must wake up." The New Pope delivers on this promise in its seventh episode "seventh episode".

today i have finished The New Pope, and it was more or less what i expected. not a bad show, but not something i'd run off to tell others about. also, i will admit that i majorly fucked up by not watching the young pope first. not only does this 'take place after the young pope' like i said before,  but it's basically a second season of the young pope - with characters and story lines that all carried over. whoops.

final thoughts:

• no episode titles?? feels lazy
• could have used more male nudity
• should be called the young pope season 2
• check out this a) pope bowflex machine and b) outfit

"it's never too early for a gin and tonic" - pope john paul III, the new pope s1e05

The New Pope I

last watched: s1e03

i am going to watch every television series on hbo. some back-of-the-envelope math tells me this will take maybe two years, depending on how much of my time i dedicate to watching tv (which is very little currently, but due to the coronavirus this may change).

i have already watched a solid amount of shows that the premium television network has to offer (including some long ones like game of thrones, sopranos, entourage) which will give me a jump out of the gate. i'll catalogue what i've seen/what's left in a future post.

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i do not have any concrete order for how i'll go about this. i'm thinking maybe i start with shows that have a single season to knock out some low hanging fruit. maybe i start with the shows i want to watch the most or maybe i get some of the awful ones out of the way first? all options to consider.

nevertheless, as i type this i am watching The New Pope s1e04. why start my journey here? i don't know. it makes even less sense that i didn't start with The Young Pope, which takes place chronologically before the events depicted in The New Pope. but i'm already 4 eps deep and there's only one season, so i'll continue on.

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A follow-up to "The Young Pope" from Oscar®-winning filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino, this series picks up with Jude Law's Pope Pius XIII in a coma and the Holy See searching for his replacement. Out of the fray rises Sir John Brannox (John Malkovich), a religiously moderate, sophisticated and sensitive intellectual who has secrets and insecurities of his own.

i am finding it a little difficult to follow exactly what's happening. maybe the result of my divided attention and the thick italian accents. however even with the context removed, john malkovich has a very pleasant speaking voice. i will also add that it is shot beautifully and the title sequence slaps.

i don't have much else to say about the show yet. it seems like things are just starting to 'heat up'. the young pope is still in his coma and i'm guessing the show gets more interesting once jude law enters the screen. quick aside - the other night i watched The Talented Mr. Ripley with jude law and matt damon. it's kind of like a spy thriller except there's no spies and also all the characters are gay? anyway it was pretty good, go watch it on netlix.

alright that's it for now. i'll post again after the young pope wakes up.