f13.net

New series on HBO coming 8/16.  Based on a novel by Matt Ruff, set in the Jim Crow era 50s.  Jordan Peele is an executive producer, but so is JJ Abrams, so I suppose it could go either way.  Trailer looks alright, but really doesn't shed any light on things.

https://youtu.be/dvamPJp17Ds (https://youtu.be/dvamPJp17Ds)

I must be the only person on earth who has never been slightly interested in Lovecraft.

This might be the cure, in that it takes a bit of his aesthetic but uses it like Get Out to think about race--that the dreaded things from beyond aren't just motiveless whatevers but something far more intimate and horribly recognizable.

Based on my book sales, no you aren't.  :rimshot: :why_so_serious:

THANK YOU for coming into this thread about a Lovecraft show to tell us that!  I was on pins and needles wondering what thoughts you, Lamaros of f13, had about Lovecraft and now I know! Well that itch is well and truly scratched! Ahhhhh!

Well, if it helps, your books are the only Lovecraftian stuff I've read. 

Yeah, I wondered that, having never read the original stuff if I'm just used to seeing people take the simple bits and not add anything. Hard to read too much from a trailer as to what level/detail of intimacies the series will explore, but more promise than other recent takes.


You're most welcome. I imagine it must be really satisfying when someone posts an on topic comment about a subject in a thread specifically set up to discuss it.

Perhaps I misunderstood your pitch when I asked you about your books, but they sound like a niche within a niche where Lovecraftian fiction is concerned.

That pretty much describes Lovecraftian fiction period.

There's probably some fashion you're missing.

I'm still waiting for someone to deliver a cinematic equivalent to his stories, nobody can get the tone right at all. I'd say some found footage-style flicks have come closer in intensity than any actual attempt to make a "lovecraft" film. In particular, I'm talking about the divisive Muirhouse (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2146834/), which absolutely nails the atmosphere of a Lovecraft story (though there is a sort-of chase sequence in the middle that pushes down it to standard FF for a bit). Since it's about a quiet, building intensity as a man loses his mind, most people hate it ("nothing happens" makes me feel like a lot of the reviewers want jump scares or some plot laid out for a simple mind).

Exception is this one" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1756479/ The single good Lovecraft adaptation.

I have zero point zero interest in anything Jordan Peele has done since the show ended. Horrible.

Seems an odd thing to make a blanket statement on, but your loss I guess.

Lovecraft I think is interesting to a lot of later writers because he pulls together a whole host of pulp tropes and makes something moody, that is a kind of feeling rather than a memorable plot or character. I often compare him in my own head to the way it feels to read Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, which is both indelibly memorable and completely forgettable in the same moment. (e.g., nothing especially happens; the characters are weird 'flat' grotesques, really just scenery within the house; but the mood of it is so distinctive).

But it's why Lovecraft is really nothing you want to adapt straight up. I've always found it a bit besides the point when a writer like August Derleth works to expand, extend and specify a "Lovecraft Mythos" and to flesh out (sometimes literally) what those various monsters and names refer to. Lovecraft works while it's all about dread and the unseen, when it's about knowledge that exists but that no one should have, when it's a book or a name that no one should open. His stuff works while it's on the edge and fails when something actually happens or becomes concrete. It works when you really *don't* have an image in mind of what he's describing (in fact so often he is trying to tell you that you can't or must not!). But you can't do that in a film or in visuality--you can't just say "look, this is non-Euclidean geometry! It's impossible!", because you have to show it.

Lovecraft himself was also a grubby, unpleasant ickily overt racist. Which is why Lovecraft Country was a such a smart book--it takes the dread and the mood, puts it into something seemingly concrete, AND acknowledges Lovecraft's own grossness.

I agree with most of this. I'd prefer that if changes are made, to just remove the race shit entirely and just focus on a good creepy tale and leave the hollywood wokeness to the oscar bait.

 :roll:

If you think Peele's work is Hollywood wokeness (even using that phrase unironically is a bit of a red flag) I don't know what to tell you, especially without dragging a thread about a cable series down into politics. Horror at it's best has things to say about humanity, society, culture, etc..., and Peele is one of the very few people approaching it (very successfully) from a racial angle. I haven't watched his Twilight Show series because I don't think I had whatever service it was streaming on at the time, but overall I've been liking his work and wouldn't want to see him remove "the race shit".

Cuck sounds more your speed, Sky.

Get Out made me exquisitely uncomfortable but there is no way in which I would say it was superficially 'woke'--it seemed like a pretty brilliant thing.

Is this Praxis?

EDIT: Also, Sky... Hollywood WOKENESS? What the actual fuck are you talking about? Your posts have started to veer like one step away from using idiot terms like "virtue signaling."

P R A X I S.....

That said Haem, I've not picked up your books but I will rectify that post haste.

As a person of color in America, I've always had a deeply conflicted appreciation of Lovecaraft and I've reveled in updated, less racist takes on his works, like stuff in Cthulhu 2000. I'm pretty sure Peele's sensibilities are close to mine and I'm looking forward to the series.

Not to derail too much into my own books, but there's some discussion of racism and situations in many of the Cthulhu books. One of the main supporting characters, FBI Agent Bill West, is African-American and he and the main character discuss it a few times. The 5th book in the series is actually set in the NYC Mayoral Race of 1886 and much of the anti-immigrant sentiment of the time. And when I talk about that book in my video podcast, I intend on delving a little into Lovecraft's overt racism.

I probably need to pick up the book this is based on, as setting a Lovecraftian story in Jim Crow is really just about perfect.

I'm getting a bit run down from the extreme nonsense from both ends of the spectrum lately. Remember I live in a redneck region and deal with a lot of really naive artists. Half the people I know want to watch the world burn and the other half want to watch the world burn.

I'm not big into the world burning thing. Sorry to bring it into the thread.

We can't just blame Cthulhu, guys. Both sides.

Don't worry this has literally nothing to do with that lore or the themes of cosmic horror.

If Jordan Peele sticks to the source material 1to1. Personally I found the book pretty meh, like a white guy who wanted to right a book about jim crow but knew no one would buy it so he sprinkled in a setting that people may actually be interested in. The jim crow was hollow and the cosmic horror/weird scfy was non-existent. So you have a book that really doesn't do much, say much, or inspire much. Less strange eons and more extremely familiar ones eons.

So I'm tempted to let this show ride and see if reviews gush about any actual horror elements. 

Enough geometrical correctness.  It’s time to blame both sides.

That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange æons, we must see both sides. 

It's a fun book (and sadly where I first remember hearing about the Tulsa Massacre). It's basically written episodically, like the original intent was for a series/miniseries.

Goddamn. Art.

Bravo good sir.

Well, damn, MediumHigh thinks something doesn't meet his standards for meticulously accurate historical invocation of Jim Crow, game over man.

Hmmm no. Id rather the writer say im writing a jim crow story rather than write a poorly syfy story that really just wants to be about the 1950.

Compared this to say umbrella academy which does the setting more justice in season 2 and manages to deliver exceptional syfy

First episode was a bit of a slow build to set the stage but that slow build also included a James Baldwin speech as the protagonists drove across Jim Crow America so big bonus points for the montage.

The final act was fuckin’ bonkers and the close with a cover of Sinnerman was chefskiss.gif.

At some point, someone please describe how "horror/gory" it is.  I like the concept but don't really like that sort of thing so am holding back on watching it.  I can take blood splatter or general bloody violence, but can't abide body horror/excessively viscera-based stuff.   Analogies to other stuff would be helpful.

The writer who wrote the original set of stories this is based on started with the Negro Motorist Green Book as the basic underlying idea--of a character who was one of the travellers helping to write the Green Book entries. Can't get much more "about Jim Crow" than that.

From the first episode there was a dismemberment, a guy lost an arm but it was relatively quick. No horrible body horror stuff so far.

So this is a one episode at a time release?  I always forget HBO does that.  I guess I can wait a bit, sounds promising though.

I disagree.  
I was very happy with it.  The CGI was really well done.  The characters made sense to me.  I am intrigued.

this was great

Meh, I cut my teeth on Miike body horror, so that shit was all low grade. YMMV.

On the racism in Lovecraft, it wasn't always there. The Mountains of madness is very interesting as the Protagonist at the end identified with the monster, that it had woken up in the middle of a bunch of apes, had no idea what they were, and lhad ashed out in self defense and dissected some of the Men as it was a scientist and didn't know what they were.

Also I ran across this as a decent adaption of Lovecraft, a 2005 low budget movie filmed like a 1920s silent movie. The reviews all are calling it the one faithful Lovecraftian adaption.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478988/?ref_=tt_sims_tti

It was sympathy for the Elder Things.... who were slavemasters.  The Shoggoth were rebelling slaves.  It was sympathy with a decidedly different creature, but one that was still involved in oppression.



Lovecraft's biases are both over and under discussed.  He was racist, but he was also broadly xenophobic, elitist, and generally just a misanthrope in his writings, with almost everyone being a monstrous caricature or a dumb unthinking beast.  Shit...  in the Outsider Lovecraft thought of himself (as most of his protagonists were just Lovecraft analogues) as a monster.  

Some other notable instances of Lovecraft hating:
The Terrible Old Man has three robbers who are Italian, Polish and Portugese.  Hint hint.  It is evil immigrants breaking into the wrong house.
Dunwich Horror is bascially just how terrible those incestous poor white people are.
Beyond the Wall of Sleep is again dim, bovine poor white person who is described as coming from a race of poor white people.  (there are a bunch of other stories with "degenerate rural white people")
Dreams in the Witch-House takes place in a Polish neighborhood...  lots of dehumanizing of the Polish immigrants goes on in the background.  It's really bad if you actually stop and notice it...  the baby that is sacrificed?  Police just assume the brutish Polish boyfriend got rid of it/caused the mother to get rid of it because the kid wasn't his.  Surprisingly, Nyleralathotep was not terrible.  Yah, evil was black but "pitch black with caucasian features" so.... yea?
Etc.


Yah, his views were moderating as he aged.  There are also stories that can be read in entirely different contexts.  

- Shadow over Innsmouth?  A common critique is that it is about miscegenation, and definitely has some of those elements.  I choose to read it as about the heritibility and horror involved in inherited diseases, specifically mental illnesses.  It also reads like an anti-colonial narrative:  more "advanced" people come from the sea.  Trade trinkets.  Slowly supplant, take over, and forcefully interbreed with the local population while imposing their own religion.  Usually peaceful, but when stymied respond with force including mass murder and terror weapons.

- Whisperer in the Shadows can also be read as resource extraction/colonial narrative...  Mi-Go are coming to mine shit.  Pay off locals with trinkets, institute their religion, disappear those that squawk, and also abduct people to take back home to show them off (brain jars... odd parallels to how Columbus and others brought natives back to Europe)



So yes:  Horrible racist.  And xenophobe.  And elitist.  Pretty much instinctively hated all non-Upper Middle Class raised WASPs...  and also kind of filled with self-loathing.  The White Supremacy angle is dumb, as are the sexism charges.  

I agree with a lot of that but the white supremacy angle still fits, considering at it's core it is pretty much self-loathing projected outward.

The HP Lovecraft Historical Society produced 1920s-ish Call of Cthulhu is good, the 2011 pseudo-50s style Whisperer in Darkness is also good.

So was I.  Maybe its just me but J. J. Abrams seems to be better at making compelling TV series then he is at making movies.

Abrams is an Executive Producer on about a million different projects at any given time. I think people really tend to overestimate how much he actively works on most things his name is attached to. I'm pretty sure anything that Bad Robot has a hand has to list Abrams as a Producer. Even Peele, despite being credited as co-creator with Misha Green isn't credited as a writer for any of the episodes nor as a director (although the second half of the season doesn't have directors announced yet). This seems to be largely Green's show as she appears to be credited as co-creator, showrunner, and writer or co-writer on every episode.

Interesting second episode.  I have no idea where this thing is going, but the journey seems wildly fun.

Agreed. This one was a glorious mess.

I’m still willing to stick it out.

I couldn't find this earlier, but there is also a foreign film called Dagon that I found pretty good for a low budget film.   I would give that a shot if your wanting to see a pretty good Cthulhu Mythos film.

Dagon is decent SyFy level schlock.

The second episode was good fun. I expected them to stretch that whole thing out a couple of episodes at least, so was quite surprised by the ending. And from what I saw of the trailer for next week, I have no fucking idea where this thing is going and I'm ok with that.

Not really a foreign film.  Set in Spain, follows (roughly) the plot of "Shadow over Innsmouth" and directed by Stuart Gordon (Re-animator, From Beyond).  Honestly, any of the Stuart Gordon movies are good B-movies in the original sense of the description. 


The Colour Out of Space just came out this winter.  Directed by Richard Stanley, starring Nicholas Cage, Joely Richardson, and Tommy Chung.  Pretty solid, definitely feels like a real movie and not like a B movie....  pretty well reviewed.  He is working on the Dunwich Horror right now.

Lots of genre horror has had Lovecraftian elements over the years, too--From Beyond, Cast a Deadly Spell, the first Hellboy film, etc

After the first scene of the first episode, I said, "WTF?  Where the hell is this going?"
When the accident occurred, I rewound for a second to look again.  I said, "WTF?  Where the hell is this going?"
When they encountered the police chief I said, "Ah, I knew this was going to happen and … WTF?  Where the hell is this going?"
When the first episode ended I said, "Ah, OK.  Now I know where this is going."
The second episode began and the music kicked in and I said, "Nope.  I have no idea where this is going."
They saw the tower and I was like, "Ah, OK.  Finally.  Here is the structure I was expecting.  We'll … oh, I guess they'll come back."
Then the last act of episode 2 took off and I just drank it in.  At the end of the episode, I was shaking my head as pretty much the entire season structure I'd envisioned was out. 

I am loving this show so far, but I hope this all adds up a bit more by the end of the season to a bit more of a cohesive story.  There are elements there, but they're throwing chaos on top of all of it and tearing away things as quickly as thy build them up.  I want to feel like everything added up to the season climax.  In other words, I don't want it to wander between chaotic moments with no real build like Lost did.

Omar!

Ok, ep 3 continued to be random but so good.

The random is faithful to the source--it's essentially a series of stories in a similar/connected setting.

Random, but not random in the end. 

I get the feeling I am either going to love this at the end of the season, or be hugely let down.

This one definitely felt disconnected from the previous episode right up until the end. Still good just not up to the high standards of the first two episodes.

I'm fine with some interspersed MOTW middle episodes loosely connected to the main plot. I don't think you can maintain the pace of the first two episodes for another eight.

Also while the CGI for the show has been very hit or miss, overall I thought the visuals were very good in this one.

The only terrible cgi this far was crotch snake. It looked like it was rendered a decade ago. Hell. Nearly pre Jurassic Park.

Weighing in to say Journee Smolett Bell is hot AF.

Things that go without saying for $500, Alex.

Agreed, and not to suggest she hasn't been attractive in everything else she's been in (although the Birds of Prey costumes didn't really do anybody any favors), but the look she's got going in this show really works for her.

She was hot in Birds of Prey but yeah, the costuming (and really any other efforts) on everyone but Harley Quinn were pretty shit. This one, though, she is just straight fire.

Still diggin' this and tonight's episode was a fun little diversion into Indy/National Treasure/Goonies territory.

My current favorite show - but I still feel like it is 509-50 on whether I am very happy at season end or very disappointed. 

I think it's biggest flaw right now is that I don't feel a cohesive direction - it feels very disconnected from episode to episode. I feel like I should be expecting there to be an overarching narrative but the threads in each episode are really thin.

I don’t know, I kinda like that it feels like a show and not a 10 part miniseries.

It's become such a ingrained thing with most of the bingeable shows now that it's almost jarring when I have to treat a season as less than a season long narrative arc.

I think we learn a little something at the end of each episode that turns seemingly unrelated material into an indication of something more cohesive.  I don't think we'll know what the finale is about until half way through it... the question is whether it pays off everything.

The source material is written in the vein of a series of short stories with characters who persist between them. Kind of game of thrones ish except for one the stories aren't happening at the same and their connectivity is more to do with the strangeness encircling one family less because the characters affect each others individual stories.

Ultimately the only pay off I'm looking for is for it to be entertaining. This is the kind of story that probably shouldn't be tied together neatly. I want something like this to be a little messy and for some things (maybe a lot of things) to go unexplained.

I agree with this.  Part of what makes Lovecraft fun is that he'll describe some weird shit while conveying that it's only the tip of the iceberg.  Wrapping everything in a neat bow is beside the point, if not completely antithetical to it.

Right, but that applies to the mythos, not the characters and storyline.  I don't need to see consistent rules for magic, an ecology for the monsters, or anything along those lines. 

However, it doesn't serve anything well if something out of the blue negates story elements. 

You still need a strong story that includes victories that are earned and characters that develop.  If they're battling a bunch of warlocks in the season finale and suddenly a brand new monster appears and eats the warlocks, that would be a VERY different experience than what we saw in the pilot.  You need the culmination of a season to actually, you know, culminate.  I have no idea what the season finale will be, but my hope is that it will build upon the story elements we've seen so far and pay off on our interest in the prior events.

Holy shit, that was fucking Ando from Heroes.

Yeah, it took me a minute to recognize him as well.

Even though it was definitely a "side story/backstory" episode, I think it was one of their best. When I heard that the guy playing Tick had been cast as Kang, I thought it was a good casting - this episode solidified that judgement.

Random side note, he was two years behind me in high school.

That said, this was a solid “filler” episode that still gave me a shitload of insight into where the season is going. Also showed me Jamie Chung can actually act.

And now you've seen his butt.

Another great episode and another stellar performance.

Yeah, I don't think I've seen Aunjanue Ellis on anything before but she is amazing.

Yeah, I've never watched Quantico and most of the other stuff she's in has been bit parts. Think the most notable role I would have seen her in is Undercover Brother. Of course people probably wouldn't recognize her name from that since despite being on the posters she didn't get billing, while Chris Kattan (who isn't on the posters) did.

Damn, I guess I didn't scroll down far enough. Completely forgot she was sistah girl.

And his “O” face.

This show continues to deliver. The effects they did on the transitions between time and space were just a perfect visualization of Lovecraftian descriptions of that sort of thing. The acting continues to be good.

Holy fuck.

That scary girl breaking the fourth wall worked SO well.

OH. SHIT.

Double OH SHIT.

They tie this to Watchmen and I won’t be too mad.

One more episode left.
:cthulu:

I've really enjoyed this show a lot, but I felt like last night's episode left cards on the table.  There was a lot they could do with it, and it fell flat. 

Admittingly, I went into it with high expectations.  GoT made huge "episode 9s", and I thought we'd get the same here - and felt we did not.  I just felt like the acting, writing and directing on this episode were a pretty sizable step down - which surprised me given the content they were covering.  I felt like they wiffed on a hanging 60 MPH curveball. 

We were apparently watching much different episode 9's.  :uhrr:

Some of your complaints are valid if you're a complete geek, but I'll take a little stretching of the logistical side of stories in order to get some of the emotional impact. Michael Kenneth Williams monologue at the window and his interactions with Johnathan Majors in the alley were worth every single bit of logistical glossing over. I'll always liked Williams since I saw him in Boardwalk Empire (no, I haven't yet watched the Wire and YES I KNOW), but the difference in emotional range needed for this character as compared to that is just fantastic, and he nailed it.

HBO doing a more personal approach to the Tulsa massacre after Watchmen is also just perfect. I think they should do one show a year that just does nothing but recreate this event until white people finally get it through their fucking heads.

I thought it was amazing.

Yeah, I thought it was pretty great. Most of jgsugden's complaints seem to just come down to stylistic things which were done for dramatic effect. The slow walk was maybe dragged out a little long, but overall I didn't have any problems with the episode. I really don't get the complaint about not showing a car drive recapping things we just saw two episodes ago just so we can see some of the characters being brought up to speed.

And Haemish watch the fucking Wire!

I'm not itching to watch car rides.  Nor do I have a hard on for recaps.  However, I do want to see characters address the huge fucking elephants in the room because it stands out if you don't. 

Hippolyta, who was presumed dead, walks in the door, tells them she lived hundreds of years in the last few days, says she knows how to nonsense the MacGuffin to frell the Updyke, tells them she has infinite wisdom now, and then tells everyone to get in a long ass car ride so she can Uptown Funk You Up.... and apparently the only response is, "OK".  She has revealed nothing of her plan through the entire car ride (as evidenced by her explaining the basics of it in the observatory) by the time they reached there?  Montrose explicitly says she sounds crazy, but they just spend the entire car ride playing license plate Bingo or something?

And you don't 'get' why that deserves to be called weak storytelling? 

We didn't even need to see the car.  A throwaway line in the observatory could have made it clear she tried to explain it in the car, but they just couldn't understand what she was explaining.  Instead they made it clear that that her being part computer was a revelation being made in the observatory.  It screamed of a Fanfic Dramatic Reveal. 

And there was so much more … Hipployta rises up in the air, electricity arcing off of her - and Tig runs right under her to make sure he gets electrocuted?  Standing in the burning building that could collapse at any second and pin you in the rubble?  Not worrying that the book could get knocked out of your hands and incinerated in an instant during either the lounging in the burning building or the strut down Apocalypose Blvd?  The gun exchanges where the "good guys" stand firm with no cover, and the bad guys cower behind cover while they exchange shots (which I know is far from unique, here, but still annoys the fuck out of me).  "Hey Girlfriend - are you going to murder my Sister's guy - the father of my future nephew?  I really like the guy, but if you're going to become immortal, then by all means murder the guy."  Montrose's RPG character sheet must have a section on flaws that says, "Must dawdle for 1 minute before going through any portal."

There just was more self indulgent, nonsensical and unmotivated elements to this episode than I saw in the other episodes. 

All the lead characters at this point have experience crazy shit and participated in actual magic.  With Dee's life on the line and the clock ticking, yeah I'm not surprised that they were able to move on quickly when Hippolyta reappeared. No, I don't need to see them bombard her with question after question about all the details of what happened to her. I'm sure stuff would have been discussed on the car ride over. Considering how long she said she'd been gone, I'm not surprised she didn't get to cover every detail.

Every other comment is just nitpicky stuff you could point out in any other work of fiction.

That was a perfectly valid response given what they've all experienced.

Explaining the computer stuff in the observatory instead of the car ride is really just a "we really don't need to shoot another scene in the car" decision. This is a visual medium choice - how many scenes have you watched in movies and especially TV where one character makes a big reveal about something that is CLEARLY going to need explanation, but the explanation is made somewhere else completely (like on a walk/car ride or in another location entirely)? A ton, because the visual mediums often don't have time for exposition with characters just standing in place. It's one of the reasons GOT had so much sexposition, it's necessary for the viewer's eye to not get too bored. It's pretty nitpicky to knock an episode for that, especially when the episode needs to feel somewhat frantic due to the amount of rising tension.

One other point to make in the matter. If any of the stylistic choices had negative story repercussions, then I would understand the complaints more. If something did end up happening to the book because of Leti taking her time, or if the building collapsed on Montrose, or if anybody hadn’t made it back through the portal, then sure I’d be calling bullshit. As things went though, none of it caused any problems.

FUCKING HELL how do you even post about TV  :ye_gods:

Again, you guys are awfully forgiving. 

Great film/tv/etc... doesn't have these nonsensical gaps.  They close them, often with just a sentence or phrase, but they don't leave in unmotivated and nonsensical elements in their stories.  When we talk about character driven storytelling, this is exactly what we're talking about - the characters always doing what makes sense for them as characters, and the result of their actions being a great story.The character actions need to make sense and leave the audience either saying, "That is exactly what I'd have done," or "Oh, that was clever." 

How often have I seen things requiring explanation being revealed, them cut elsewhere, and then the explanation either taking place off screen, or at a later time?  Yes - a ton - AND THAT IS WHAT I SAID WE NEEDED HERE.  Don't hold the explanation and give it when the dramatic event happens - give it when it makes sense for the story.  As Haemish suggests - the explanations often come in the car ride.  And we do not need to even see it - just serve the characters by making it clear they had the conversation rather than making it clear they avoided asking the questions

They just needed to close the gap in a way that services the dialogue and characters properly, rather than having them do Horror Movie acting and just do nonsensical shit to set up a scene.

There were dozens of ways to close this gap - any of the below could have been tossed in to show that Montrose, Tic and Letitia either showed the natural curiosity / need for answers or were prevented from asking.

1.) Explicit: Hippolyta before they leave: "I'll explain in the car, but you're not going to understand."

2.) Confusion: Montrose or Tic in the observatory: "Is this where you become the Mother Lord?" Hippolyta: "Mother*Board*.  The brain of the computer."

3.) Too hard: Montrose/Tic/Letita before they leave: "Wait.  Before we go anywhere, you need to explain what we're …" Hippolyta: "No.  I don't.  My daughter.  My call.  And you're just not equipped to understand.  If you want to help save her, do what I tell you."

4.) Intentional deception: As Hippolyta plugs herself in, Tic: "What are those?  You didn't say anything about..." Hippolyta: "You wouldn't have understood."

And a real writer should be able to do a lot better than any of that crap. 

I am a real writer and none of those things were necessary.

The dramatic effect of Letty walking with the back or staying in the house - I'll give you those. They were a bit over the top and stretched out but not to the point where they completely ruined the episode, more of a stylistic choice. Montrose's monologue at the window was absolutely necessary, though, and completely in character with how he'd acted the entire episode. Trauma as intense as what he was working through in that episode makes people do very strange things, and this was shit he'd been dealing with his entire life. As for Letty, I can actually make a case that the intense trauma she has suffered over this thing for the series (after the whole "OH YEAH, SHE ACTUALLY WAS DEAD) can also excuse her from making some nonsensical steps.

I'd have to see a problem in order to forgive it. What I'm seeing here is something that would be maybe used to pad out one of those "everything wrong with x in y minutes" videos if they were really struggling to come up with stuff. It's only marginally better than wondering why people never go to the bathroom or asking why nobody ever ends a phone conversation like people do in real life. It's the kind of nitpick that comes when one is specifically looking for things to point out as being bad or dumb.

Now I don't know why you want to try to pick the episode apart. Maybe it's because you went into it inexplicably expecting some sort of GoT event episode because hey, they're both HBO shows and even though they're in different genres and have completely different creative teams maybe they structured their seasons exactly the same in that respect and only that respect. Or maybe you saw that there were already a bunch of people posting positively about the show and decided this was your chance to be special and get attention. This was a chance to show how much more discerning you are than the common viewer. It's been a long time since we've had someone here who played Devil's Advocate and took the unpopular opinion for the sake of it being the unpopular opinion, but thinking about it you would make a pretty good Geldon. It could be you just didn't like the episode and now are struggling to figure our for yourself why that is and these little things are the best you can come up with.

Regardless, you're alone on this one.

I've said my peace.