The craziest thing about Netflix's Big Mouth.

The ghosts of Duke Ellington, Freddy Mercury, and Socrates, respectively.

I was really looking forward to Big Mouth and... it's... good. It's good! It pushes the boundaries of what Netflix can show and does amazing things with it. There are multiple, I'll say it, highbrow sketches based around nudity and sexuality. One where Kristen Wiig plays the female lead's hyper positive vagina had me on the floor.

What's less great are it's half assed musical numbers whose joke hardly ever evolve beyond "It's a song about tampons!" One in which John Mulanney's character thinks he might be gay is musically pretty strong, but it's just built around easy rhymes for gay. It's saved beacause it's a solid Queen imitation and the guy playing the ghost of Freddie Mercury is SCARY good. I assumed it was Broadway's Andrew Rannells (who's characters use as a one note joke machine instead of, you know, a character) deserves it's own post.

But no. It's Jordan Peele. He's been sitting on the best Mercury impression I've ever heard. I bet you money he's been hustling karaoke night with Someone to Love for years. That's something you can hustle, right? My point is Peele may be one of the most interesting people who's ever lived.

The most glorious Xcom operation name in the whole darned world

One of the little things that makes Xcom so special is how surprisingly good it's randomly generated operation names are.

Wind Tongue, Hammer Slap, Witch Queen, God Walker, Storm Wheel, and Hellborn Sleep being gems I've found in just my last play through. But this time... this time I've found something truly special. It's like a randomly generated time release bomb. The first word makes sense, the second doesn't, but together they make magic:

...well I thought it was funny.

In 2 to 3 weeks!

I just know this picture is going to be used against me one day... but how?

...3 months and 4 phone calls later I finally got my refund for being double billed by Spectrum. I'm not even mad anymore I'm just super happy I got my money back. Plus the fact I'm no longer being charged $10 rent for my modem every month is pretty sweet. It's nice when the only half decent internet company in NC needs good will. I brace for the day they start burning it.

Channel Zero Season 2 Review: Muuuuuuuuch better.

Horror is a hard genre to love. It is so difficult to get right and what little that glitters is drowned in a sea of half-assed embarrassments. I gave the first season of SCY FY's Channel Zero a try and I stuck with it for what seemed like an eternity. Some shows can make 13 episodes vanish in a couple hours, Channel Zero made 4 feel like a prison sentence. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that season did that wasn't profoundly outdone by the IT mini series. And that hasn't aged well AT. ALL. Tim Curry aside, of course.

But there's the thing, that show was anchored by Curry as a driving force, Channel Zero had a tooth monster that nibbled the hero's fingers when he slept. It was dull, aimless, choking on awful dialogue  and trying to force performances out of child actors I wouldn't ask Gary Oldman to tackle.

But now we have season 2. A fresh start, a better cast, and what I assume is a bigger budget. If you can give John Carrol Lynch a good character to chew on I am there. After watching the first episode and letting it rattle around in my head for a few days... yeah! It's trying much harder this year. Maybe not B+ material, but I definitely have a "most improved show" ribbon for it.

We have 2 female leads, which is pretty refreshing. One is coming home to the burbs after a semester of college while the other took a gap year after her dad died from a freak allergic reaction. Sure, they mine guilt for her out of it, but I love how boring the most dramatic thing that's ever happened to her is. That's not a knock, suburban horror must find a way to weaponize boredom and they've pulled it off here.

It's not all rosey, there are still dialogue problems (people pointing out painfully obvious things, characters clumsily spouting exposition about themselves, etc.) and the opening scene involving a panicked woman trying to escape a never ending housing development is a smidge too "community theater" for me. But this is a haunted house story and this haunted house is f**king awesome.

It's actually more an art installation/escape room and I loved it. It was the best kind of world building. Unsettling, but poetic enough so it sends a message. Not everything works, of course. There's this one dude who has to creepy laugh all the time. He's terrible. But the rest of the rooms balance it out. That's the word for this show. Balanced. 

There's nothing it did wrong that's bad enough to keep me from finishing it like last year. I like the actors, I like where it's going, it knows most of David Lynch's best tricks, and I can't wait to see JCL be a scary motherf**ker eventually. Because there's no way he won't.

XCOM has turned me into an amateur propagandist

So happy togethuuuuuuuur...

I've finally got my hands on war of the chosen, I like what I see so far, even if all it is are a few new mission types and a bevy of new maps. I thought X2 was the sh*t as is but it's nice to see my $40 filter through the entire experience even though most of it is saved for the mid-game. Where it was sorely needed.

I had heard about "bonds" your squad mates can become buddies giving them an extra turn when they team up, but they're tasked with winning hearts and minds too. You make propaganda posters out of their bro-mance. I love it. I can't wait to hear my squeak of rage when one of them dies and I can't save scum out of it. That'll be fun.

C&C 90: Don't be Afraid.

One of these things is not like the other...

Don't be Afraid.

 

Hollow Knight's Halloween Special:

Wait... is Halloween a thing in Australia? Neat.

Christopher Larkin is still killing it with the gothic organ sh*t.

This is free, people. Though I'd happily drop $30 bucks on a season pass for this $15 gem. You thought I'd cool off my GOTY rants about this game? No. This is still a stupendously special game and you should all buy it. Right the hell now.

C&C 89: It's a Cult.

Things get both sad and racial this week. They don't have to be mutually exclusive.

It's a Cult.

 

Back in the habit.

Now that I've thrown down $25 for PS-Plus I might as well give Overwatch anouther shot, right? It's funny how a 7 month gap can give you the distance to figure out what you really want out of a game that used to confuse the crap out of you. For one, I'm way better at Macree for some reason, I won a 8 on 8 death match with 76 handily, and I am KILLING it as Zenyatta.

There's almost never a wrong situation for this guy. My score cards are bursting with golds and silvers. As long as I can hide between the legs of a tank I can heal and mark for death all day long. I think... I think I'm finally super into Overwatch.

Destiny 2 is... well... s'ok.

You save this entire game, Nathan Fillion. Look at me, seriously, DUDE... the entire game.

 What do you what in a shooter? Do you want something that's really easy to pick up and nigh impossible to master? Bungie's got you here. Every gun, every enemy, and every head shot feels like it belongs in the billion dollar plus venture Destiny is. I'm running around with two different pistols. If this were Borderlands I'd be screwed, but in Destiny if I just breathe deep and concentrate I'm never more than 4 headshots away from moping up entire mobs.

I was ready to lay into D2 a lot harder than I'm going to because you know what? There is something really special about Bungie's games. I can't quite describe it, but nothing is ever too hard or too easy. If you just pay attention/run away screaming at the right time you can make it though any firefight. I really can see myself poping in and out every few weeks or so to snag loot and do public events. The gameplay is truly a cut above and the gear is uniformly interesting. I also thought I'd hate the controller based cursor menu but it's lovely! It's way snappier and intuitive than it should be. So you get an 8 Destiny 2. A rock solid 8.

But I'm not that happy with it. It's not just because you can blow through the entire campaign in a day and a half. No, you sold me on this game with that trailer of Nathan Fillion's character being a fun nut. He may very well be that and he was absolutely the highlight of the game. But here's the thing,  no one else is. The script is awful. Flunk creative writing 101, awful. I know I gave Andromeda a lot of crap for it's dull as sand dialogue but guys, it's 12th Night compared to this drivel.

Video game writing has a long way to go but it's been years since I heard a villain say "we're not so different, you and I." Austin Powers had an entire sketch on that line 20 years ago. Don't even get me started on their crushingly unfunny attempt at GLADOS. Just be prepared for it. Oh, and Lance Reddik  pauses... for dramatic effect... all the time. I just don't understand how someone looked at the script, saw Reddik's character doing 3 Horatio glasses removal lines in a row and though that was ok. It's tragic.

So in summation, super fun shooter, really pretty and well designed levels, spectacular guns, endlessly fun to shoot enemies, and one whopper of a script. Stick around for Zoe and Mal. You have my permission to skip everything else. If Dinklidge and North can't make Ghost work, no one can.

6... hours... later.

This beats waiting until October 24th for destiny 2 but my internet ain't supposed to be this slow. Goddamn.

F**k it. I'm bored.

Good news and bad news. Good news is I've got a job with one of my all time favorite managers at his new restaurant if I want it. Bad news is those full time, paid vacation, heath care, and 401k having leasing assistant jobs are gonna leave me twisting in the wind for a week and a half before they cut me loose. Also my technical writing course was canceled from lack of interest... BUT I got my $2000 back!

So now what? Destiny 2 seems to be getting decent reviews and lord knows I'd take an even mediocre looter/shooter right now. The PC version comes out in.... OCTOBER?!  Fine. 30 fps PS4 version it is. For the record, when you google Destiny 2 PC release date it says the 6th. Get on that, Bungie.

Bojack Horseman Season 4 Review: "just a big waste of time."

No matter how much you like a show, no matter how long it manages to be exceptional, gravity exists in the creative world and it always catches up. Thrones was fun this year but it just seems so exhausted now. Kimmy Schmidt was on auto pilot half the season. It took me 2 months to bother finishing it when I had devoured it's first season twice by that time. The Defenders was a administrative decision in dire search for a reason to exist. Deathnote is just... awful. I don't know the first thing about the anime but I know that a production that refuses to fire a embarrassingly amateur lead actor should never been given that kind of budget.

So thank the sweet lord in heaven Bojack's back. The darkest, weirdest, most devastating, and delightful show I've ever seen came back swinging. The first two episodes this season are perfect compliments of each half of it's dueling personality.

First there's Mr. Peanut Butter's random as heck run for Governor of California. Which for a distressingly long time seems to point to a more realistic downturn for a character who has managed to simply stumble into fame and fortune at every turn. It takes the show's most lovable character and basically uses him to illustrate America's issues with blind populism. While turning the gubernatorial race into a skiing competition may sound like Bojack's more fanciful outings; it's brutally honest about the mockery of the democratic process that would have to happen to make that a reality. It's horrifically plausible to boot and I look forward to what I hope is a villainous turn for PB. Paul F. would murder it.

The second almost lost me as the "fixing a house/fixing your life" metaphor is tired stuff even if it involves anthropomorphized alcoholic horses. Bo's gone to his grandmother's summer lake house which is identical to the one in his fantasy of the life he wished he'd lived with Charlotte... located in the town of "Harper." The depth of Bojack's continuity continues to impress. But again, fixing up a house filled with flashbacks to the 40's (solid casual sexism and polio jokes aside) goes exactly where you expect it to. Bojack's abusive mother had one all her own and it takes almost the entire episode for it to pay off. Good goddamn does it pay off, though. I didn't realize Bo's grandma was Jane Krakowski because I've never heard her act her ass off like this before.

4 years later it amazes me that a show can have characters with names like Governor Woodchuck Couldchuck Berkowitz and still manage to haunt me. I thought I might sip and savor this season. Cut back to two a day... make it last... yeah, no. I've been waiting 14 months for this.

Big Mouth. Looks. Amazing.

An murderer's row of comedy talent, a lavish animation budget, and a maddeningly untapped well of brutally honest puberty jokes. I just watched the teasers an hour ago and now I am all about this. Pre-teens are sick, sick, muthers and it's high time we made brutally honest fun of them to the caliber of 90's Simpsons. Because that's how funny these trailers look:





And if that's not enough, Jordan Peele's credit is for the "ghost of Duke Ellington." You know you wanna see that.

Well... Damn.

Just had a hell of a week hanging out with a friend's extended family. It was fantastic. But you know what's not fantastic? Coming back from a 7 1/2 hour drive thinking about the burrito you want for dinner and seeing a flat instead. On Labor day so... nothing to be done about it as I'm fresh out of spares. I don't think someone slashed it, there's plenty of parking. But if that was the case, it's good to know they think I'll call their bluff for a few days before doing anything about it.