While it’s certainly disappointing to have to write, a run of two decent consecutive 2 Broke Girls episodes is really not bad at all. I thoroughly enjoyed “And the Rom-Commie” as well as “And the Sophie Doll”, and even though they weren’t incredible or even the best the show has ever been, their airing one week after the next felt like an encouraging change of pace for the CBS sitcom. It’s unfortunate that in spite of the season’s eighth installment continuing to land successful physical gags and better utilizing their cast neither are enough to prop up a paper-thin plot.
Which doesn’t mean that those two points are unappreciated, by any means. Han is actually the driving force of this episode, and while he’s been the focus in past seasons this week he manages to participate in the joke without necessarily being the butt of it. Also notable is the fact that, besides being POC on ensemble comedies, this is the first connection I’ve ever made between him and Sergeant Terry Jeffords on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
“[. . .] where ignorance is bliss,
‘Tis folly to be wise.”
Those lines are from “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”, by 18th century poet Thomas Gray. Now we both know the origins of the phrase; you’re welcome. There’s a reason those three words I bolded have survived and become a part of our cultural lexicon when the man who wrote them, and even the fact that they come from a poem to begin with, have long since faded away: we all know what it’s like to learn something we wish we hadn’t.
Kind of like when that image of what appeared to be a pink boa constrictor began circulating around the internet a couple of years back-
-and many people, when they found out what it was, said they would never eat another chicken nugget again. Which, let’s be real, can’t be a resolution that most of them ended up sticking with.
It’s easy to continue hitting up our dietary habits when it comes to Gray’s words; after all, don’t we eat every single day? Anyone who has seen the documentary Food Inc. may come out of it with the hot piece of trivia that corn makes its way into almost every item of food in American grocery stores, but the real question is whether or not they continue purchasing and consuming meat that has, in all likelihood, been produced by a factory farm. Continue reading →
So first thing’s first, and just because it’s the first thing you see when you open up one of these reviews, the header image is very clearly of subpar quality. The best I could find as far as promos was this one video on YouTube which, as you can see, isn’t great. I’ll try to to step it up moving forward but I can only really work with what’s available.
Given that this week’s episode actually fell on my birthday I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Were my expectations made that much lower due to my having to watch and review it when I could be doing almost anything else? Or were they perhaps on the higher end due to last week’s surprisingly decent installment? Regardless of where my expectations actually ended up falling, 2 Broke Girls served up a decent enough episode that more importantly continues to keep things fresh.
The highlight of “And the Rom-Commie” was the decision to pair Oleg and Han together, a coupling that ended up paying off surprising comedic dividends. While I don’t think that Matthew Moy deserves all the credit for how enjoyable the show has been lately, his performance opposite Kat Dennings is what I want to shine a spotlight on this time around. While his cherubic looks and high-pitched voice have more often than not been openly mocked, which in turn helps perpetuate the stereotype of the effete, sexless Asian man, they also end up adding a genuinely funny mischievous quality to his performance in “And the Sophie Doll”. Continue reading →
Let me make it clear right now that this is not going to be some post to analyze who deserves the blame for the events of the 8th. As far as I’m concerned, there’s more than enough to go around.
Enough for Republicans, who sold their morals for political expediency. Enough for Democrats, whose back door dealings resulted in them trying to shove a detestable candidate down our throats and whose arrogance made them think that we would just take it. Enough for the public at large, who swallowed fear and prejudice in an attempt to resurrect a past that never existed.
This isn’t about that.
This is about personal vindication.
For whatever may or may not come, I want to go on the record now in stating that I am not OK with this.
Retrieved from KnowYourMeme.com, originally created by KC Green and posted to The Nib. Fair use.
Make no mistake-
Trump Is Still A Monster
He was a monster before the election and he’s a monster now. Nothing has changed.
Even though I wrote a little over a thousand words last week on my experiences with Doctor Strange [required reading for this blog post] there were a couple of additional criticisms I wanted to level against both that specific film and the industry as a whole. While I covered pretty thoroughly how Asians were poorly represented in Marvel Studio’s latest offering, what I didn’t really touch on was why.
When Diversity Means Painting With All the Colour of the Wind
In the months leading up to the release of Doctor Strange the conversation about the Ancient One’s casting began heating up. With mainstream news outlets picking up on the controversy there were many waiting to hear from the creators themselves, which brings us to the episode of theDouble Toasted podcast that guest starred screenwriter C. Robert Cargill.
While his explanations regarding the character have since been championed by those defending the casting decision, even after his rescinding all comments made, and in spite of them being refuted by others, in particular by Shaun of the No, Totally! podcast, what I want to focus on are what he says right after that:
Now if you don’t want to actually listen to him, which I find perfectly understandable, I’ve also transcribed the relevant quote [emphasis added]:
“But when you start to see this film you’ll see that what we were able to do with Kamar-Taj, we made one of the most multicultural films most people have seen in years. Like this film is [. . .] I’m not certain that there’s a single major race that isn’t represented with a speaking role in this film. It allowed us to bring in, even as small characters to build upon later, a lot of characters from the Doctor Strange universe who come from all over the world. We were able to play with a lot of things and it gave us a lot to work with.”
So not only has CBS stopped updating the 2 Broke Girls page on their site with advance stills, but this week I was unable to find any trailers uploaded to YouTube to use in my header image. It’s like they don’t want anyone online to get excited about this show anymore.
Which is actually a darn shame, since this week’s episode was pretty good! Not only did we have some genuine character progression with one of the two leads [it’s always Max, please never put your money on Caroline] but there were some really solid jokes! I’m not even mildly disappointed that the actual events that occurred only barely mirror the synopsis that the Google search up above provided; it would’ve been nice to see Earl take centre stage more, but I enjoyed 2 Broke Girls this Monday, a rare enough occurrence to invalidate most other criticisms.
It’s a surprisingly plot-heavy installment, with two of the threads even tying together. As the header image indicates Earl’s past lover Pilar, who absconded from Cuba to the States, is in town to see the sights. On Max’s end Randy texted her, not a picture of his junk as per uje but letting her know that he has a layover in Newark. While Caroline is over-the-moon excited about a rom-com staple come to life, her best friend is hesitant to make any big moves at the risk of embarrassing herself. Cue, in the last third of the episode, Earl telling Pilar that he’s just not up to it, and the Cuban escapee responding that that’s life: nothing risked, nothing gained. Continue reading →
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