Vee

I've said it before, but it's truly surreal to realize SMG is almost certainly back as Kendall after all these years (all due respect to Alicia Minshew, who deserves recognition and who I always enjoyed in the role). I just wish I could be confident the show's quality will live up to Sarah's talent and the opportunity.

Zawe Ashton, who played Journey Blue in "Into The Dalek", will be the villain in Captain Marvel 2. My bet: She plays the Skrull Queen Veranke, from the Marvel "Secret Invasion" storyline.

I'd go back and check again. Some of the 'cuts' in the show in prior episodes are deliberate bc of Wanda warping the 'episode' when Vision rebels. I didn't find anything around there. It was incredibly thrilling for me to get to see Wiccan's original Young Avengers costume onscreen. The kids are great; I had forgotten that in addition to remembering Billy/Wiccan from The Haunting of Hill House, I also saw Tommy/Speed in Z, a decent Canadian horror film from last year. I guess now we know why S.W.O.R.D. hasn't contacted any of the remaining Avengers re: Westview - they have something they want to hide regarding the crisis, probably related to their doing R&D on the Vision or Wanda, or both. Shades of John Byrne's Avengers West Coast run in the 80s, when an international intelligence community cabal disassembled Vision, leading to Wanda's first breakdown and the loss of their 'magic' twin boys. Evan Peters clicks well with Olsen. Others have theorized his Pietro/Peter (as he was called in the X-Men films, having been adopted by an American family) is actually Mephisto or some other entity in disguise, probing for more details about what Wanda knows or if she's onto him. I don't know, but I don't think Wanda is what's behind all this. Agnes is still clearly Agatha Harkness to me. She seems to display more awareness at some times than others. The Malcolm in the Middle opening was great. The title card is my new phone wallpaper. I never thought I'd see all these characters together as a family.

It came and went with little pop cultural footprint, with only a fraction of the original audience because they were only streaming a few months, in a time when streaming serial drama had only just begun to gain traction. I think AMC 2.0 was the best soap of the 2010s and that those shows were only failed by their management, but I can't deny that it and OLTL 2.0 (also good IMO) have little historical memory. IMO for the bulk of the general AMC/OLTL audience, their memory of the show's storylines ended in 2011 and 2012. Only a fraction remember the online revivals and their stories because they failed to last long enough and become big enough to get that kind of foundation. Were it up to me, I would still acknowledge their existence as canonical but only deal with them in passing references for now - a photo on a mantle of one of the PP kids at some point, maybe, or if you did OLTL you could have someone toss off a line about 'that whole government conspiracy thing', but that would be it. It would be behind us unless it became necessary to directly reference in more substantial detail, far in the future once a more successful revival had found its footing and could risk going into those obscure waters. But it's not up to me. So for ABC - especially given their nasty protracted conflict with Prospect Park - it won't surprise me at all if they choose to memory hole the entire revival which was built by a company which attacked them in the press and which did not garner most of the existing audience. I would hope the actors would stick up for it since it was Agnes' final work and vision, but I don't expect it to be acknowledged. I'd die if it was.

Meanwhile, in the impeachment trial:

Oh, I'm sure certain outlets will desperately try to give it a longer life, shades of Ken Vogel still hoping to fan the flames of Huntergate (and failing). But I don't think it's going to resonate with the public or last long outside a very rarefied sphere of media or political Twitter, provided Biden dismisses him or he resigns, which I'm sure is next. People in the real world don't care about Politico reporters sparring with Psaki at briefings, which Palmeri did recently in a situation unrelated to this.

I really don't think It will be that huge. There will be momentary furor (Maggie Haberman is already sniffing about 'what would people say if this was the Trump WH'), but Biden will fire him and that will be that.

Politico and outlets are pushing stories like this and desperate to swing the balance of power to Sinema, etc. because many of them and their owners are center-right. They believe Republicans are there to make savvy policy and Democrats are there to bend the knee and meet them halfway. If Joe can keep operating the way he is that will not leave them much oxygen. That's why they're now pivoting to fawning stories about Sinema, after Manchin failed to get much purchase in the relief deal.

Meanwhile:

The reason for the full court press of stories in Politico about people like Sinema, the conflicted Nikki Haley, etc. is because Politico is and always has been first and foremost a GOP-aligned outlet run by former Young Republicans. If they highlight the alleged principled beliefs of Haley or bipartisan comity of Sinema who could, hypothetically, handicap progressive or Democratic plans, that is a part of a sustained push towards a result. They run these stories trying to push a narrative, sometimes it succeeds and other times it fails. Most of the time their favorite narrative is 'Dems in disarray,' 'not so fast, Dems' or 'Dems might fail'. Other times it's 'look at this fair minded Democrat' like Sinema, who of course wants to give back all power to Republicans. They are tripling down atm because Biden seems to show little interest in kowtowing to Republicans. Everything Politico does is aligned with the GOP. But not all of it is reality. It is an outlet trying to manufacture narrative to favor the GOP to create an actionable reality, and it is not as real as they like to pretend.

Meanwhile, with Old Boy Champ cameo:

Update!

No, I'm not linking to it. Yes, it tries hard to mindfuck you into thinking it's not what it is.

Shari Headley (Mimi, AMC) is more present in the second trailer for Coming 2 America. She looks amazing.

They used the migraines/tumor to suggest Nora was driving the car the night Sarah was killed, and had blacked out. But I suspect it was always meant to be a red herring and obstacle for Bo and Nora, because the question of if she did it (and her believing she had) was a major plot point for months. So I don't consider that dropped.

Zero chance of that. We'll be lucky even if they even acknowledge the PP AMC existed.

Hopefully they're just cycling her out like they do with people constantly because of their tiny budget. I am not here for seeing Missy Reeves again. Cady won the audience against long odds.