#bemadewell watches

[beingfacetious]

LET'S GO!!!! LET'S GET SAD

[fiofo]

Tagged by @bemadewell - thanks! :) Haven't done one of these in ages!

+Last song: (I'm listening to my "current" playlist on Spotify right now, but) Turn Me On "Mr Deadman" by The Union Underground. It sounds very of its time - early 2000s rock - and I love it!

+Last movie: City of Ember. I just wanted something easy that I'd seen before and didn't have to pay attention to. I love its steampunk vibes. Last new movie was Everything Everywhere All At Once, which was phenomenal and gorgeous. Need to watch it again.

+Currently watching: Baseball. I've just gotten into it this year. Supporting the Red Sox (so naturally they're having a dreadful start to the season) since I've been to Fenway before. I keep abandoning every TV show I start watching, no matter how much I'm enjoying it, which is becoming very frustrating. I did actually finish Our Flag Means Death though, and that was fantastic!

+Currently reading: The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson, last novel in the second Mistborn trilogy and it's so so good! Although I feel like I need to go back and reread the first Mistborn trilogy because I've apparently forgotten all the characters and events, and they're brought up fairly frequently.

Tag 9 people you want to know better: @halfincubus @pebblethief @raiiiiiiiiiiiin @xargon @theotherside-oftherain @lpanne @captainchilly @gay-jonah-jameson @asleepyintrovert

[trinkettes]

oh wow a meme! it's been ages! thanks for the tag @bemadewell

+ Last song: I have no idea. by BiSH been listening to bish and bis a lot lately, i meant to listen to babymetal more but all they're releasing is nfts and other useless stuff, glad i found these other two groups who are actually releasing music

+ Last movie: watching sonic 2 right now! my boy knuckles!

+ Currently watching: according to my weekly tv reminder note: critical role, taskmaster, minx, owl house, the gilded age. rewatching doctor who season 4, and buffy (i'm on 5x08) also watching shetland and young morse, summertime british crime shows have arrived woop woop!

+ Currently reading: Into every generation slayer is born - how buffy staked our hearts, by evan ross katz. i accidentally got a work friend REALLY into buffy, it's a whole thing. I still haven't finished the last chapters of leigh bardugo's ninth house, since last summer :l technically i'm also reading city of the dead (edas), it's gathering pdf dust. also dracula of course.

Tag 9 people you want to get to know better (no pressure!): @oblivioustoast giving you an excuse to talk about what you're into atm :>

[oodlyenough]

i recently saw the news of rtd's return and had to come see your tumblr lol, just as i used to like 8 years ago (i can't believe the 50th was that long ago btw, WILD). i remember a couple of years ago i was wondering and hoping that maybe rtd would write an episode at some point, it might make me watch the show again, but i always thought it was a pipe dream. and now this??? i literally had to double check several sources, i was sure it was a prank lol

LOL ME TOO @bemadewell sent me the twitter Doctor Who account tweet and I like, triple-checked it wasn't someone pretending to be that account, double-checked the URL of the press release, clicked around the site... and even then I only started to believe it when other news media reported it too lol

I remember I used to hope he'd just write an episode or something too but understood he uh isn't so good at relinquishing creative control to do that kind of thing. I would never ever have considered this a possibility LOL... even when I saw the tweet I thought he was just doing the 60th, and that was exciting enough.

I really enjoyed the little bits he wrote last year during lockdown. I haven't read his "Rose" novelization yet but maybe I will.

[beingfacetious]

of course I watched all of Lev Red over the weekend so a few overall thoughts 

all with the caveat that I’m Brand-New Here in that I only finished the original series earlier this year lol

the thing about Leverage is that it should be all but impossible to mess it up. They love each other and they do clever crimes and that’s the show. There’s more to it than that, obviously; the cast chemistry is so good and the writing is so good and there’s a ~Vibe that’s very Leverage-specific. but the new episodes would’ve had to find a really creative way to stumble to be bad imo. 

and they did not! I wrote a couple days ago that it felt like there was a shift after episode 2, and I still think that—eps 1-2 felt like a (REALLY GOOD) transition between old Lev and Lev Red—but I also think it was intentional and tbh necessary. it would’ve been worse to act like nothing was different (frex, like, essentially revamping the old title credits with hitter hacker etc. and just putting “hacker” with Breanna). Hardison is also my favorite so I kind of went in with a little dread, like what if the Hardison-shaped hole is too big? but ultimately it wasn’t. Nor was the Nate-shaped hole imo! They both got really nice sendoffs (hopefully less permanent for Hardison) and their presence was felt across these eps. episodes 3-8 felt like Leverage to me. a couple of those felt like really good Leverage, and only one of them felt like potentially skippable-during-rewatch Leverage. I mean, that’s pretty great! 

I have a lot of expectations for certain shows, esp. plot-driven shows—like, the Strong Female Lead of your contemporary noir show should not have to endure increasingly worse trauma to stay interesting! and also she should be a decent detective—but for Leverage, my expectation is that it makes me happy while I’m watching it. and it did! it does! Leverage is like comfort food made with a few ingredients you actually do always have lying around. it’s a fierce love but it’s an uncomplicated love. so. there. the end.

[beingfacetious]

ok ok I have a couple of things to say about Ted

I seihoegwtb. I love the ways this show and its storytelling surprises me! I’ve been waiting for this big emotional showdown between Ted and Roy where, like, you’ve been avoiding the thing you love, the people who love you, because what if you’re not the person who fits there anymore and what if they expect a version of you you can’t access and what if you don’t even love it anymore really, and instead Ted just fuckin went and got him back. Fuck me!!! Family!!! 

anyway this was by far my favorite episode for Ted-the-character this season, finally, love to see him!!! also ROY MY BELOVED!!!! GOD. I love them. I love this show

it also was a joy to see Rebecca be laugh-out-loud funny again ... even though ... I don’t care ... about ... one of these characters ... very much ... ... ... at all

[beingfacetious]

🙏🏻😈🤡

[beingfacetious]

shout out to everyone else who saw that Levrg Redmptn dropped early and got super excited and then immediately got SUPER scared/sad because you thought of Logan Echolls

won’t happen to us again, y’all. can’t happen again

[beingfacetious]

some personal news: I have finished Leverage.

[beingfacetious]

In today's episode of "Catey Parodies Herself," I'm at my dad's for the weekend, we're watching the X-Files pilot together, both for the first time, and I'm immediately and absurdly in love with Fox Mulder and his (I know. I know!) earnestness

[beingfacetious]

I’ve known a lot of love in my TV life but never like what Leverage 5x01 The (Very) Big Bird Job made me feel

[beingfacetious]

some personal news: finally tracked down and started watching Leverage last night and it immediately settled with a satisfying click into the spot my heart has been keeping open for it 

[beingfacetious]

In the Ash Wednesday spirit of confession ... we're near the end of Season 4 and I have very often enjoyed Season 4 Nate

[beingfacetious]

a handful of actual thoughts about WanVis

it sure did end like an MCU project lmao. but as has been well established, I am a basic bitch who loves superhero shit, so I enjoyed it a lot. as a treat to myself I am not seeking out the opinions of people I’ve muted because I do not like their opinions. growth!

the change I would have made that feels reasonable is more time for Wanda to process the reaction the awakened townspeople had to her and the reality of what she did to them. a) well-meaning person who did really bad and now has to own it is extremely my shit. but ALSO! b) it’s extremely Wanda’s shit!!! it seems like there was a really poignant, brutal parallel to be drawn there with her hauling the bomb into the building in Segovia, like--you’ve worked so hard and come so far, you’re a good person now, you’re a hero, only no you used your powers and people are hurt, again. plus the locked down with vision thing both times and the differences there. you can’t get away from your patterns. devastating! and it was, kinda, but for like 3 seconds. (also, when she apologized to monica, like, great, but apologize to?? everyone else?? just take a beat, show)

bigger picture, I would’ve dedicated a lot less time to the outside-the-hex world. I don’t have a fully thought-out idea for what that show would have been like but considering the whole show having finished it, I feel like I wanted more time with wanda and vision (and with kathryn hahn, but I also want her to have gotten to like ... stay ... cool and interesting after her reveal), and it was nice to see darcy and woo but then they kinda vanished, and monica’s most interesting moments all were in or around the hex, so. idk I will not be taking the time to flesh this out more lol it’s just an impression

anyway, overall didn’t live up to all the potential it had imo, but also made me care a WHOLE lot about wanda/scarlet witch and vision, which I would not have anticipated! 

[beingfacetious]

OK Leverage update as of mid-s3

Hardison is my favorite. Also, Parker is my favorite. Also, maybe currently most, Eliot is my favorite. But also, Hardison is my fa

I am aware it is news to no one who has ever seen this show and/or has ever spoken to me that I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!! I LOVE THEM. The three of them. The three. 

Listen before I started watching this show I didn’t know there even were other characters. And I just understand why that’s never obvious is all I’m saying. Sophie is OK! Sometimes Sophie is so great! But, through no fault of her own, SO MUCH of Sophie’s time is spent Caring About Damaged Nate, and I ... do not do that. It’s just tough!!! The episode where Hardison, Parker, and Eliot each secretly called her to get her advice when she wasn’t around was so cute and that’s what I want!!! anyway looking forward to the Nateless reboot already 

I am weak for Hardison/Parker. Don’t look at me. Last night she told him she thinks she has feelings for pretzels. God!!!  

Some favorite jobs/episodes:

wow looking at these summaries it’s like ... all of season 2

from s1! the juror #6 job

also maybe the horse one

tbh the two-parter at the end of s1 was an amazing heist it’s just so about Sad Nate’s Alcoholism 

onto s2 THE ORDER 23 JOB!!! (fake virus outbreak) (typing that it seems like it should have been more of a bummer but it was incredible)

three days a hunter job, with Aunt Zelda! 

THE TWO LIVE CREW JOB!!! EXTREMELY MY SHIT

Also we watched too much of this show Brain Games on Disney+ and the Parker parallel in this episode was a frequently featured sleight-of-hand expert in that show and he is even more cheesy in BG than he was here and we love him

I can’t just list all the rest of season 2 but it’s pretty much all the rest of season 2. The whirlwind bottle episode heist!! Eliot’s short-lived baseball career!!! I even genuinely enjoyed Nate a couple times in season 2, like every time he was wearing a ridiculous suit. If Nate was the “put me in the silly suit and let me do a bad accent” guy who didn’t take himself too seriously I could deal! 

The only one I have actively not liked was the one in the school where Sophie got some rich mark’s kid to believe in his singing voice?? weird and bad episode idk

omg I just looked ahead and the next episode is Eliot posing as a country music star ... this show blesses me SO MUCH!!! I love it so much. I want to watch it forever.

[beingfacetious]

OK. We're now really entering All-Time Favorites territory here. We're now pretty well past the point of reservation.