#apple's media: tv

[apple-pecan]

Smiling Friends (Season 2) (2024)

SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SEASON

smiling friends blindsided everyone back in 2020 when it's pilot episode premiered basically unannounced during adult swim's annual april fool's prank. the overwhelming success of this batshit insane cartoon made up of newgrounds animators guaranteed it was greenlit, and season 1 premiered in early 2022, with the entire season airing in one night for some reason. it had a bit of everything: murder mysteries, various little characters, a frog tv star, homicidal fast food mascots, the sinister nihilistic frowning friends, and of course, gilbert gottfried as God. it took a while, what with adult swim's limited budget, but season 2 premiered much the same as it's pilot: completely unannounced on april fool's night. season 2 had some ups and a few downs, but overall i loved it and it made me thirsty for more.

the first episode of this season involved gwimbly, a washed up former video game star who thrived back in the 90's, but has fallen upon hard times now that the game industry favors microtransaction laden live service trash instead of wacky mascot platformers. it totally isnt a metaphor for microsoft and banjo kazooie what are you talking about. this episode was amazing, both because it was really funny with many many good quotes, but also because of it's scathing commentary on the game industry. the way the episode ends, where gwimbly doesn't get a new game but instead settles on being a playable character in the next super smash bros game, probably hit too close to home for banjo fans. great episode, and my favorite of the entire series so far.

episode 2 was, uh, not as good sadly. in this one, the smiling friends are tasked with helping the incumbent but horrendously inept president to win the upcoming election against mr frog (from season 1). the episode has a basic but absolutely horrifying premise: what if chris chan were president? it's a little too successful in that goal; president jimble is repulsive, with a weird preoccupation for eating lamb, with stains all over his mouth and clothes, and even shits himself during a speech. i dont like him!!! that said i do like the scene where he broadcasts himself countrywide to announce that he's giving the populace a billion dollars each, only to take it back mere seconds later once pim states that would crash the economy. riots ensue nationwide. it has it's moments like that, but otherwise this is my least favorite of the season.

thankfully the next episode is better: allan goes on a mundane adventure to get paperclips for mr boss. things get out of hand pretty suddenly. this episode is basically an excuse to flex the animation budget. the action is intense and beautifully animated, and allan finally gets some much needed screen time after being mostly absent from season 1. the ending where mr boss gives allan a reward for his adventure (a miniature statue of mr boss) and then immediately doesnt want it and tries to pawn it off to someone else in FRONT of mr boss is golden too. a great episode; what other cartoon is gonna name drop burnout revenge for the ps2?

the next episode is another halloween episode and i liked it much better than season 1's. mr boss marries a hideous demon girl, who is also the daughter of satan. this isnt good obviously. my favorite scene has to be when pim, charlie and allan are looking up how to vanquish the demon, with a reference to that creepy old youtube video with the singing girl robot. shortly after that, doug walker (the nostalgia critic) cameos as daniel the demon slayer, who slays demons so YOU dont have to. after james rolfe (the angry video game nerd) cameoed in season 1, i always hoped his film equivalent would show up too, despite how much zach hadel and his friends rag on him on oneyplays. sure enough he did and this little addition made my night. the post credits scene is hilarious too. good good stuff.

im not really sure how to feel about episode 5, "brother's egg". pim and charlie are hired to be assistants to a mad scientist by the name of professor daniel psychotic, except the episode has nothing to do with science or experiments and they just have to help daniel's relationship issues with his brother instead. the jared fogle joke was great, if horrifying, and i liked that weird barely animated construction worker goblinesque creature, but it doesn't seem like they could put all they wanted to in the episode, and the plot resolves itself with pim and charlie basically having done nothing. maybe that's the joke, but oh well. i like charlie's rant at the end though, and the post credits scene was also funny in this one. overall, it was okay.

next episode brings it all back though; pim and charlie meet a UFO spotting crew, complete with some guy named bill, a flat earth believer named fillmore, and finally duncan who does nothing but vomit. unexpectedly (or, expectedly for how crazy this show is), a UFO abducts pim, charlie and bill and they have to find a way to escape and get back to earth. well, pim and charlie do at least; bill fucking dies. the ending to this episode might be the best ending in the series thus far; it's so insane and hilarious i dont even wanna spoil it here. simply put, you have to watch this one.

the second to last episode involves mr boss and pim going to the neighboring country of spamtopia, as allan and charlie watch over mr boss's """18 year old""" son jason. spamtopia is a place of completely unhinged chaos, devoid of any logic, kinda like wackyland from looney tunes or hell even greeny phatom. do people even know what greeny phatom is? whatever. everything involving spamtopia is like a horrific fever dream and i love it, but the B plot involving charlie and allan is a bit half baked. still though, it's an amazing episode and it's one i think i'll return to a lot, much like season 1's "frowning friends".

finally, it's another christmas special, and it's a really good one. it's a send up of frosty the snowman, except instead of a magic hat that brings a snowman to life, it's a radioactive flower. rotten the snowman, played by duino d duck's canonical voice actor dana snyder, is a happy go lucky snowman who just loves being alive. that is of course until pim accidentally teaches rotten about the concept of death, in which case he does nothing but scream. by far my favorite scene is when charlie hires bill nye the science guy to teach rotten that death is just a natural part of existence via a tacky song, only to have his hot air balloon get caught in a power line 10 seconds in and electrocutes him to death, making rotten scream even louder. this feels like a scene i would write. it's funny, but also a bit touching and deep as well, as rotten comes to terms with his own mortality, before being reincarnated as the entire ocean. happy end! until rotten lets his intrusive behaviors win, eats an entire boat and eventually dooms us all. eh, shit happens. this is one of my favorite episodes this season, second only to gwimbly. it was the perfect send off and i wouldnt be surprised if the entire budget went into this one episode. what an awesome season finale.

overall this season was good. i liked it. im tired of writing this now. and you must be tired of reading it. im going to bed now bye.

NOTE: ouuu ouuu ouuuuuuuu!

[mr-malumm]

This was for 4th of july hehehehehhee

[lunar-years]

Twitter people are very upset about this. I, however, am chuckling.

[aquarines]

sam reid is absolutely correct in not having any sort of social media account and limiting his internet usage to 1 hour per day, but he also should definitely have a tumblr account

[brotherdusk]

WE ARE SO BACK

[unripe-lemon]

REBLOG FOR MORE DATA!!!!!! THANKS

[k-wame]

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT & VLAD TICHEN 2021 • Mr. Corman • S1·EP7 • dir. Joseph Gordon-Levitt

[hijabis-in-media]

Hijabis in Animation -

Background Character- The Afterparty

[justlookatthosesausages]

There's something extremely funny (and by that I mean sad) in the fact that, not only entertainment american productions are entirely directed by the old white men executives at the top of the companies and not the diverse, multicultural ensemble of people who worked hard on them, but that the execs actually are inconsistent about it.

This year is filled with perfect examples: you have Strange World this november, an animated movie with POC and lgbtq+ rep, happening in a freshly odd universe, and the execs went 'oh no a liberal movie let's do our best to sink it so people never talk about it and give the studios 0 marketing budget so that it looks like there's no audience for this movie, and we'll have a good reason to never make one ever again'.

And then on the other hand you have the tv series Severance that released in february which is a psychological thriller with mystery and a white main character so the execs went 'ooooh a large audience to market on' so they boosted it up. But what they didn't realize and frankly it's hilarious, is that Severance, in the same vibe than The Boys on Amazon Prime Video, is a show that mocks the system of its own production company. Severance mocks formatted dull work places and formatting and is produced by Apple. The Boys mocks rotten corporate means and is produced by Amazon.

So that MEANS that executives, who work in those shitty companies, and you would expect them to have at least a few brain cells since they are multi billion international companies, don't even check what a media is about if it looks from afar that they can market on it and make a lot of profit, but will stop right in its tracks a media that remotely looks like it's out of the mold.

TL;DR: Executives from the world's biggest entertainment companies not only have trash opinion, but they don't even do they job correctly on stuff they approve.

[raviposting]

Nate is really one of the most interesting characters to me, because his character begs the question: what happens when your life gets better but you’re still not happy? 

Because we see how Nate is in the beginning. We root for him and we love the attention that he gets and how he gets his time to shine. Ted’s methods clearly work for a lot of the characters, it has its merit, and Nate (at first) is no exception. He’s promoted to being a coach, he’s getting attention, the team is also improving so they’re being kinder and everything is better now, right? 

Except in season 2 (and 3!) we see the cracks - in Nate, but for all the coaches, really, because ironically the coaches who are mentoring the players and telling them to believe are also the ones we see struggling with that mentality the most. Beard’s one of Ted’s strongest supporters, his right-hand man, but we see in Beard’s episode how deep his depression and self-hatred run. Roy isn’t exactly screaming Ted’s methods from the rooftops, but we see how he slowly accepts it and appreciates it, and how it does help him - but he struggles with finding his purpose and feeling wanted and needed, and it shines in quitting things early and never getting proper closure in things he really loved, with him constantly wondering if he ever really made the best choice (his team, his job, his relationship with Keeley). Ted struggles to express these negative emotions and it spirals quickly, especially in season 2. 

And Nate? Nate watches as his life objectively gets better, but struggles because his anger and resentment don’t go away. He gets the attention from Ted but (even though it’s not the intention!) feels as if Ted drops him the second things improve. He gets a better job but his father will never say he’s proud. He tries to exude confidence but Jade (who’s most likely seen him for a while since it’s his favorite restaurant) immediately sees through through his persona and Doesn’t Care and Nate is so thrown off by it. He keeps looking for that validation through other people and we see that clear frustration because everything is better on paper so then why are the bad feelings still there? With every win, with every improvement, he gets angrier and more frustrated and then it spirals into him leaving for West Ham and Rupert. With Rupert, Nate leans in on hey, nobody loved me at my lowest and nobody loved me at my best, so maybe I’ll try being my worst. 

And god, I LOVE that even though fans thought he’d fail and that this would humble him into a redemption, he hasn’t. He tries to go with Rupert and get that validation from him and we see how much he struggles with that, because now he’s leaning in at what Rupert wants and we see how much he hates that, but Nate’s also at a point where Rupert’s attention is clearly conditional, he’s still not getting that fatherly validation, and he knows that and that’s where we see him finally start to come into his true self. Jade finally softens because she sees Nate holding strong to his opinion on Taste of Athens and admitting he’s putting on an act, he’s being honest and himself for the first time in those scenes. He tries to cultivate a relationship with the other employees and even if the Diamond Dogs ripoff didn’t work? They still invited him to drinks this episode! He sees Rupert for who he is and he goes back to Jade, and he wants so, so much to apologize to Ted for everything. 

Nate’s moved from a positive environment to this conditional one and the narrative could have easily went “Nate has crashed and burned and now realizes what he messed up” but instead it allowed Nate to figure out who he is and who he wants to be, by himself. He’s still growing and learning, of course, but he’s well on his way, and I think it’s just such a cool way to show that what’s helpful for some people can be incredibly detrimental for others if it doesn’t target what they need and that there’s so many avenues for a person to grow and improve themselves. 

[its-tea-time-darling]

Ten characters of ten fandoms, ten tags.

thanks for the tag ❤️ @swanfloatieknight

teresa agnes - the maze runner

kofun - see (2019)

athelstan - vikings

sansa stark - game of thrones / asoiaf

rumo - rumo und die wunder im dunkeln

kat baker - spinning out

kylo ren - star wars

alex - red white and royal blue

nan - tipping the velvet

katya goncharov - goncharov (1973) (< unreality warning, this is not an actual movie, tumblr made it up)

no pressure tags: @crestfallercanyon @sidekcks @hamartian-cathexis @ulfrsmal @blue-summers @go-catch-a-chickn @thatnerdybookgirliscool @nice-to-meet-ya-shank @ivesterrarium @dumb-bi-thomas

[richardarmitagefanpage]

Apple TV+

[lunar-years]

Oh wait did I get confused, I read it as confirming Jamie as bi, was it confirming Roy as bi?

it can mean anything your heart desires it to, anon. MY heart desires it to mean #happybivisibilityday to all pictured parties PLUS our favorite guy who hung their posters 🥰 do what brings you joy and #believe

[saying-odd-shit]

illegal streaming sites got me redirecting to sites i wouldnt go with a gun or my dick in my hand

[fuckyeahbananafreak]

wow wow wow louis patridge’s acting is intricate

[savelockwoodandco]

AppleTV Information Post

Hey all!

It's late on Wednesday evening for us, so it's time to prep for tomorrow! Remember, tomorrow's hashtag will be #AppleTVForLockwoodAndCo!

We'll make a similar post for each streaming service that the day's hashtag will focus on the night before (as we are for Apple TV today), so that we can all hit the ground running the day of.

**Just as a heads up, these posts are for information, not for debating which platform L&Co should end up. Our thoughts on that are here if you're interested. Keep it kind, polite, and professional -- the ultimate aim is getting the show picked up, no matter which site does it.**

_________________________

CONTACT INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONS

_________________________

Apple TV Discussions: Here!

Apple TV Social Media Handles:

Twitter: AppleTV

Instagram: appletv

Facebook: Apple TV

Apple TV Email: No option to email here; the contact form below fulfills that function.

Apple TV Feedback/Contact Form: Here!

This week we've been making great strides -- we hit 17k on the petitions, our focused hashtags have been trending, there's been new videos/pictures from the cast and crew, and honestly unimagined levels of engagement and interaction from those involved with the show.

Things are looking extremely bright, everyone -- let's keep adding our own illumination.