#they're out there serving james bond realness guys

[lonestardust]

SHUT UPPPPPPPPP THEIR WEDDING LOOKS JSJSKSKS iris in a suit!!!!! doing things to my gay lil heart!!!! TK STRAND!!!!! THE GROOM 😭 SEXY AS HELLLLL, AND HELLO WEDDING RING sjsjsj, grace and nancy i can't speak when my jaw is on the fucking floor

[perkeleen-lavellan]

So there's this movie script idea I've made which includes Nicholas Cage and Robert Pattinson as the protagonists and Mads Mikkelsen and Daniel Radcliffe as the antagonists. Admittedly Daniel was a late addition there mostly because he was delightful in the second Now You See Me magic movie and could probably play a good evil twink, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Nick is a retired CIA agent and Robert is an ex Russian agent (he's gonna fake an accent because Hollywood is like that). They both quit their jobs after secretly falling in love during a job and now they are living the dream suburban homosexual life. Sometimes they fight about groceries and who does the dishes because they're stifled by the quiet life but ultimately they enjoy the peace and their succesful con.

Until. Mads Mikkelsen, who we do not actually see yet, we only hear him, contacts Robert. He's like an ex colleague of him and he tells Robert he has to come back to work for him because he knows his secret (that he left for a CIA agent) and if he doesn’t, well. Maybe Nick will have an accident. Maybe his dirty secrets will fall on the American's lap and Nick will be arrested and tortured. Who knows, anything could happen.

So Robert breaks up with Nick and runs away to Mads in a great dramatic scene. Nick is mopey about it first but then a couple weeks go by and the CIA contacts him to tell him that the assassin from the old days that was Nick's personal case has seemingly reappeared and they need him to come out of retirement to deal with him. No one else knows this guy like Nick does apparently, they all believe he has a great grudge against him. So this is when Nick realises something funky is going on and so starts his quest to win back Robert from Mads.

Robert will of course refuse at first because he thinks this has proven it's impossible for him to leave his dark past behind, this is what he was born to do, and Nick will try to convince him that it doesn't matter so long as they're together.

All the while Mads keeps having these vaguely horny scenes where he's lording over the power he has over Robert and doing other villain stuff, and Mads's character MUST be played with the premise that he is attracted to Robert's character and is jealous of Nick's.

Daniel would serve as like, a secondary villain, he's like Mads's secret henchman whose like his replacement Robert and real bitter about being seen as second to a traitor. Like I said he was a late addition to the mix.

So ultimately Nick and Robert fake their deaths. Nick has been bullshitting the CIA the whole time but at some point they grew suspicious, and they managed to defeat Mads and Daniel, so now they're just gonna disappear again. But this time the implication is they won't try to go back to the quiet life but they will continue having adventures across the globe as a spy and assassin.

Tonally this is both a black comedy and a James Bond parody, but the romance is treated genuinely. Nicholas Cage can do some really good broody disturbed traumatised man behaviour actually so he should do that, Robert is king shit of weird and I think he could be a great redeemed former evil twink while we have already established that Daniel can pull off a fun villain persona, and of course Mads is great at being menacing, vaguely horny and enjoys doing black comedies, so we should let the man do them!

mads mikkelsen and robert pattinson need to do a movie together just because the promo interviews would be chaos personified

[dukereviewsmovies]

Duke Reviews: Captain America: The First Avenger

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Where We Are Continuing Our Look At The Marvel Cinematic Universe...

Where Today We Are Looking At The First Movie With The First Avenger, Captain America...

When I Saw The Trailer For This Movie, I Had No Idea Who Captain America Was, I Had Seen The Original Movie With Matt Sallenger When I Was Younger But I Had Absolutely No Memory About It Whatsoever And After Watching The Nostalgia Critic's Review Of It, I'm Glad I Don't...

So I Went To The Comics And Bought An Omnibus Of Captain America Comics With The First Few Issues, And I Liked It To The Point I Couldn't Wait To See The Film In Theatres, However, When I Saw The Captain America Costume I Started To Not Hold Out Much Hope For The Movie As It Didn't Look Like Captain America From The Comics

And The Idea Of The Human Torch Playing Cap Instead Of Someone Who Hasn't Been A Superhero Just Added To That But Luckily, When I Saw The Film I Absolutely Loved It But Is It As Good As I Remember It?...

Let's Find Out As We Watch Captain America: The First Avenger...

The Film Starts In The Arctic, As 2 Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Are Taken To A Ship That Has Been Uncovered By A Russian Oil Team, Lasering Their Way Into The Vessel, The 2 Agents Find The Vessel Iced Over. Discovering What Looks To Be A Red, White And Blue Shield Covered In Ice, One Of The Agents Tries To Contact Nick Fury, Saying That He Has To Know About What They Found...

But Before We Can Find Out, We Go To A Flashback In Norway In The Year 1942, As A Hydra Tank Barges Into A Church, So The Leader Of Hydra, Johann Schmidt (Played By Hugo Weaving) May Enter With Soliders To Find The Tesseract...

(Imitating Agent Smith From The Matrix) Mr. Anderson...

Searching A Tomb, Schmidt Finds Something That Looks Like The Tesseract But As Schmidt Points Out, The Tesseract Was The Jewel Of Odin's Treasure Room And It's Not Something Someone Buries...

Asking The Caretaker Where The Tesseract Is To The Point Of Threatening To Destroy The Entire City, The Man Points To A Big Wooden Wall Carving Of Yggdrasil, The Tree Of The World, Which Is Where Schmidt Finds It...

With The Caretaker Telling Schmidt That He Contol The Power Of The Tesseract And He Will Burn For It, Schmidt Kills The Caretaker Before Walking Out...

Meanwhile In New York, We Go To An Army Enlistment Center Where Steve Rogers (Played By What's Left Of Chris Evans After Playing This Character For Many Movies) Attempts To Join The Army Only To Not Get In Due To His Bad Health..

Going To A Movie Afterwards, Steve Gets Mad At A Guy Who Doesn't Care About The Newsreels And Wants The Cartoons To Roll Which Leads To A Fight Outside Between The 2 Of Them...

Saved By His Best Friend, Bucky Barnes (Played By Sebastian Stan) Who Got Himself Enlisted And Is Shipping Out Tomorrow So, That Night Him And Steve Take 2 Girls (One Being Possibly An Ancestor Of Clara Oswald) To The World Of Tomorrow Expo Where They See A Science Demonstration Done By Howard Stark (Played Here By Dominic Cooper)...

Going To An Army Recruitment Center At The Expo, Bucky Tries To Stop Steve From Enlisting Again (As He's Been Lying On His Enlistment Forms And That's Technically Illegal) But Not Willing To Sit On The Sidelines Anymore, Steve Tells Bucky That He's At Least Got To Try No Matter What The Cost...

Telling His Friend To Be Careful And To Not Do Anything Stupid, Bucky Leaves, Overhearing His Conversation With Bucky, Steve Is Confronted By Dr. Abraham Erskine, A Scientist Who Works For The SSR Who Offers Steve A Chance To Get What He Wants...

Meanwhile At Hydra HQ, Johann Schmidt Has Arnim Zola (Played By Toby Jones) Work On A Machine That Will Transfer The Power Of The Tesseract Into Weaponry For Hydra....

Activating The Machine, Arnim Zola Is Cautious When Raising The Energy For The Transference But Schmidt Is A Patient Man And Places The Machine At Full Power Which Causes A Interesting Effect But It Works...

With The Energy They Have, Zola Tells Schmidt That It Could Not Power All Of His Designs But Change The War As Well As The World...

A Few Days Later At The SSR Base Camp, Steve And A Bunch Of Other Guys Are Briefed By Agent Peggy Carter (Played By Hayley Atwell) And Colonel Phillips (Played By Agent K Himself, Tommy Lee Jones) Who Tell Them About The SSR And How They Will Be Choosing A Man To Be The First In A New Breed Of Super Solider...

Cue The Training Montage!

Well, I'll Admit Steve Isn't Mulan But He Got The Flag!

With Erskine Deciding That Steve Is The Right Man For The Job, Phillips Fights Erskine On It As He Believes That Steve Is A Loser And That A Man Named Hodge Is Better Decision As He Passed All Their Tests, But Looking For Qualities Beyond Physical For This, Phillips Decides To Throw In A Dummy Grenade Which Steve Gladly Takes For His Fellow Soldiers, Saying That He's Still Skinny, Phillips Walks Away...

With The Experiment Happening The Next Day, Erskine Pays Steve A Visit In His Bunk Where He Asks Erskine Why Him? This Leads Erskine To Tell Steve How He Was Recruited By Adolf Hitler Himself To Join The Nazis But Telling Hitler That He's Not Interested, Hitler Instead Sent Schmidt Who Shares A Passion With Hitler For The Occult And Myths...

However Unlike Hitler Who Believes It To Be Fantasy, Schmidt Believes It To Be Real And That There Is Some Great Power Left By The Gods Waiting To Be Seized By Man. Hearing About Erskine's Formula, Schmidt Could Not Resist Taking That Power For Himself, But When Schmidt Took It There Were Unfortunate Side Effects...

Saying That The Formula Amplifies Everything That Is Inside Of The Person, With Good Becoming Great And Evil Becoming Worse, He Says That That Is Why Steve Was Chosen Because A Strong Man Who Has Known Power All Of His Life Will Lose Respect For That Power Where A Weak Man Knows The Value Of Strength And Compassion...

Before Tomorrow, Erskine Has Steve Promise Him One Thing, That He Will Stay Who He Is, Not A Perfect Solider But A Good Man...

Back At Hydra HQ, Schmidt Tells Zola That His Men Have Located Erskine And Tells Zola To Give The Order To Kill Him...

Taking Steve To The SSR's Hideout, Peggy Takes Steve Into A Lab Where The Experiment Will Happen...

Meanwhile At Hydra HQ, Schmidt Is Visited By Some Of Hitler's Generals Which Leads To Him Showing Them The Results Of His Work By Saying That Hydra Is Developing An Arsenal To Destroy Schmidt's Enemies In One Stroke Including Germany, Which Leads To Him Wiping The Generals Out With One His New Weapons...

I Guess We Can Change The Name Of The Musical To Springtime For Red Skull...

With The President Retasking The SSR To Go After Hydra, Steve Wants In But With Erskine's Death, Phillips Considers The Project A Failure As Erskine Promised Them An Army Of Super Soliders And That Just Having Steve Is Not Enough To Win The War.

However, A Senator Believes Different After Both Him And The Country See Steve In Action And Offers Steve Another Opportunity To Serve His Country...By Selling War Bonds....

(Start At 0:22)

And What Can I Say About This? I Absolutely Love It! There's Only One Other Thing That Could Top It And That's If They Played This...

Doing A Performance At An Army Camp That Goes Horribly, Steve Runs Into Peggy Who Reminds Steve That Erskine Wanted Better For Him Than To Just Be A Performing Monkey, Seeing Wounded Soliders Come In From The 107th, Steve Remembers That That Is Bucky's Troop Which Leads Him To Talk With Phillips About If Bucky Survived And Phillips Makes It Look Like He Didn't...

Asking If Phillips Is Planning A Rescue Mission For The Ca, Phillips Tells Steve No As They're 30 Miles Behind Enemy Lines That Are Heavily Fortified And They'd Lose More Men Then They'd Save, But Unable To Accept That Steve Plans A Rescue Mission With The Help Of Peggy And Howard Stark, Who Takes Steve Into Enemy Lines On Board Stark's Airplane...

Parachuting Into Enemy Lines, Steve Boards A Truck That Takes Him Into Hydra Base, Once Inside, Steve Rescues The Missing Soliders Including The Howling Commandos (With Two Of Them Played By Damien Dahrk And Spider-Man's Principal?)...

(Start At 0:31)

With The Soldiers Fighting Hydra And The Base Exploding Around Them, Steve And Bucky Go Up Flights Of Stairs Only To Be Confronted By Schmidt...

(Start At 0:30)

Back At The SSR Camp, It's Believed That Rogers Is Dead But...Yeah, Steve Survived As Well As The Soliders From The 107th Including Bucky...

Meanwhile In Washington, Steve Is About To Get A Medal For Valor By The Senator But Of Course He's Not There...

Stan Lee Cameo!

Returning To The SSR's Headquarters In London, Steve Shows Peggy The Locations Of The Hydra Bases That He Saw On Schmidt's Map While Bucky Tells Them About The Weapons Factories However, Hydra Has Shipped The Parts To His Main HQ Which Is Not On The Map...

Phillips Tells Carter To Coordinate With MI6 (Which Makes Me Wonder If Captain America And James Bond Have Ever Teamed Up) To Look For Schmidt's Main Base, While They Send Rogers To Deal With The Other Bases...

With Phillips Putting Together A Team To Help Steve, Steve Already Has People In Mind Which Leads Him To Recruit The Howling Commandos And Bucky To Help Him...

The Next Day, Steve Goes To Meet With Howard Stark, But While He Waits, He Talks With Margaery Tyrell Which Leads To Her Kissing Steve (And Who Wouldn't Want To Kiss Her) Only For Them To Be Spotted By Peggy Despite Steve Thinking That Her And Stark Had Something Going On...

When Stark Talks With Steve, He Tells Him That There's Nothing Going On Between Him And Peggy Before He Shows Steve Some New Shields Until Steve Finds A Prototype Made Out Of Vibranium...

(Imitating Black Panther) Wakanda Forever!

Which Will Work...

(End At 2:02)

Not Happy With What Is Going On With His Bases, Red Skull Tells Zola To Finish His Mission Before Captain America Does Or Else...

Attempting To Get Zola Back To His Headquarters As Quick As Possible, Zola Ends Up Boarding A Speed Train That Unfortunately Passes By Where Cap And His Crew Happen To Be...

Using A Zip Line, Cap, Bucky And The Other Howling Commandos Board The Train Only To Be Confronted By Hydra Soliders With Major Weaponry...

Major Weaponry That's Powerful Enough To Burst Open A Wall...

After Dealing With The Soldiers, Another One Enters And Blasts Bucky Out Of The Train Only To Leave Him Hanging By A Handle, Attempting To Save His Best Friend Steve Tries To Reach For Him But Unfortunately The Rail Breaks And Bucky Just Falls To His Death...

But In Good News, They Capture Arnim Zola...

Phillips Interrogates Zola Who Doesn't Say A Damn Word Until Phillips Gives Him A Letter That Shows Him That The Red Skull Has Turned On Him And Believes Zola To Be A Liability Which Leads Zola To Spill His Guts On Red Skull's Plan...

Finding Steve In A Cafe That Him And His Friends Went To Before It Was Destroyed, Peggy Finds Steve Having A Few Drinks To Try To Dull The Pain Of Losing Bucky But Like The Flash, Due To His Powers He Can't Get Drunk...

But Peggy Tells Steve That It's Not His Fault And If He Believed And Respected Bucky Then He Should Honor His Decision. Understanding That, Steve Swears To Go To Go After Schmidt And Destroy Hydra...

Steve, Peggy And The Howling Commandos Fight Hydra's Soliders Off, But Eventually Steve Catches Up With Red Skull Only To See Him Take Off In His Massive Plane, But When Phillips And Peggy Commandeer Red Skull's Car, They Attempt To Catch Up With It...

(Captain America) You Remember The Little Red Button?

(Phillips) You Don't Have To Tell Me Twice!

(Pushes Little Red Button)

Catching Up With Red Skull's Ship, Steve Kisses Peggy Goodbye, Before Hopping On Board...

As Steve Sees Missiles Targeted For Every City On The Planet, More Soliders Appear To Fight Steve, With Him Defeating Every Single One Of Them, Before Facing Off Against Red Skull...

(Start At 0:28)

With Peggy Contacting Steve On-Board The Plane, She Tries To Direct Him To A Site To Land But There's Not Enough Time And He Has No Choice But To Force The Ship Down...

Peggy Talks With Steve For As Long As Possible Till His Ship Crashes....

We Get A Montage Of What Happened After The War Including A Scene Where Howard Stark Finds The Tesseract In The Ocean And Peggy Keeping A Picture Of Steve Before Cutting To The Future! As Steve Wakes Up Years Later In A Hospital (That Looks Like It's In The Past) By A Woman (Who Is Supposedly Sharon Carter Except Instead Of Emily Van Camp It's Amanda Righetti From The O.C.) Who Is There To Tell Steve What's Going On...

However, The Game Playing On The Radio, Is A Game Steve Went To Years Ago...

(Start At 1:17)

After The Credits We Get A Sneak Peak Of The Avengers Before The Movie Ends...

And That's Captain America: The First Avenger And I Absolutely Love This Movie...

The 1940s Setting Is Fantastic, I Love The Story, I Love The Characters, I Love The Villain Despite Everyone Saying That He's Lame And Honestly I Have No Idea Why Hugo Weaving Did Not Want To Come Back For A Sequel As Red Skull Is Such A Good Character And A Great Villain In This Movie, I Love The Effects In The Movie With The Hydra Weaponry, The Costumes Are Great And It Is One Of My Favorite MCU Films And I Say See It...

Till Next Time, This Is Duke Saying That Next Week We're Tackling The Avengers!

[themerc]

My thoughts on NTTD

So... I saw the movie ten days ago, and I've been conflicted over it ever since. I'm still not sure if writing this post is a good idea or not. Those who have read my comments in Slack etc certainly already know. Don't be surprised if this post just disappears eventually - I need to get my thoughts out, but tomorrow I might feel like they're not anyone else's to see.

I hate negativity in fandom spaces and it's not the purpose of my posting this at all. But I'm not good at expressing my thoughts and feelings in a short, brief chat conversations so here I am again, trying to explain and rationalize even to myself. I'm genuinely very happy for anyone who completely enjoyed the movie after the long wait and I'm excited to see so many new people coming into the fandom.

But....

But. They killed James Bond.

James Bond, a character who is indestructible.

What has always made Bond an impossible kill for his enemies, and indeed for the scriptwriters, is his ability to endlessly regenerate and start fresh. He's not a nice guy, but he's efficient and resilient. He's dedicated and focused to his work and more importantly the cause behind that work, so that he isn't bound by the rule book - whatever gets the job done is fair game. He's portrayed as impossibly good at his work, to the point that it's ridiculous in some movies.

So - Bond is not a nice guy - on the contrary. He's flawed, an asshole really, and *knows* it. Craig!Bond especially. He feels and cares deeply and based on CR and Spectre, falls in love easily and quickly. Those are difficult traits for someone in his profession and he pays a high price emotionally for who and what he is. But it has never stopped him from doing his job. Coming back from the 'dead'. From being Bond.

Until NTTD. I went into the movie having read some spoilers but not too much - still enough to expect the major plot points and fear that seeing it would make me lose my interest in anything Bond-related for the foreseeable future. So... I sit there, fearing the worst and gradually start getting excited, thinking 'oh my god, they *actually* made a *spy movie* out of this, all the characters are SO good, they are not force-feeding me the Bond/Madeleine romance storyline I never bought in Specre.... The first half of the movie was superb, enjoyable, classic Bond action. Exceptional acting, breath-taking scenery, interesting start for a plot (after the non-sensical intro in Winter Wonderland....) It got my hopes up ridiculously fast. Only to serve a real slap in the face in the end.

James Bond was killed around halfway in, in Noway, by a five-year-old girl (and incidentally her mother). After that, it was just a matter of watching the inevitable trainwreck happen. Because when Bond is no longer *Bond* in all the essential character traits that define him, he is as good as dead. He WILL be dead. There is no other outcome for him.

I was, after all, force-fed the conventional family storyline that I feared would happen, and it was done in a boring way that made me consider my dad as a likely candidate to play the next "Bond" if they keep this characterization. If they so desperately wanted to include the child, why not have her actually NOT be Bond's, like Madeleine said at first? There was a brief moment of relief for me at that point, where I thought, *oh, excellent!!* until I realised they would not be doing like that for real. It could have been such a good way to show character development for Bond, being compassionate to someone else's kid and *still* care about Madeleine. They would have been able to establish a family of sorts out of what should really matter - shared experiences and actual history together. Rather than have it implied that the only meaningful legacy of everyone, even a phenomenal character like Bond, must be having a biological child? Never mind that he never even knew she existed, and the child's whole existence really is the choice of a woman he had a brief affair with - and suddenly after all that mistrust that lead to their breakup, seeing the child, he's magically in love with her again? Why, oh WHY is the world like this? In order to please the large audience, they just HAD to go for the butchered Disney ending that makes very little sense?

Other things that I count as negatives were...

- The villain treatment they gave Mallory. Just, NOPE. He was an ally in everything that came before, and suddenly out of the blue he's become an antagonist? Right, okayyyyy.... still trying to wrap my head around that.

- Safin and Blofeld were both so good, but so underdeveloped and wasted in their 'villain potential'. Blofeld is the ultimate arch-nemesis, DO SOMETHING with that concept when you have a brilliant actor like Christoph Waltz in the role. Safin had barely any interaction with Bond and while I think his characterization was good, his

motives were really vague to me??? I still don't know what he intended to DO with his nanobots or what his goals were? Also his age doesn't make any sense compared to Madeleine in the beginning.

-Moneypenny still didn't get much screentime and even fewer lines.

THERE WERE SO MANY GOOD BITS THOUGH. I can't say I hated the movie. I didn't hate it. I was just surprisingly deeply affected, and the good didn't quite manage to cancel out the bad for me. I will always love that movie for individual scenes and ideas that made especially the first half the absolute BEST the Bond franchise has ever given me. It gave us canon gay Q; brilliant, inspiring, empowering Nomi; sweet and sassy and adorably dorky Paloma who could *also* kick ass; and a really surprising, heart-wrenching, CR-mirroring death scene for Felix. It even *tried* to be an actual spy movie at some points. Every scene with Q in it was packed with stuff that made my 00Q shipper heart beat a little faster. Ben Whishaw is just a brilliant actor who can bring *so much character* into the tiniest of moments even without any dialogue. And I loved the depth of feeling Daniel Craig was able to convey. Even though I was not invested in the romance at all and could not relate to the family drama, that intensity is more *contagious* than the cursed nanobots.

I haven't lost my interest in all things Bond, like I feared, and I still want to participate in the fandom activities and read and write etc. But I don't feel like I can touch NTTD even with a long stick at this point, maybe never. The only fix-it I'm going to write is a way around NTTD canon existing at all. Usually I like to stick as close to canon as possible, so it won't be easy. ### Edit; I'm making this post public again for the fest because some headcanons I might post are heavily influenced by my NTTD experience.

[glossglamour]

Transcription of the Full Interview Under Cut

Oscar and Felix, Joey and Chandler, SpongeBob and Patrick. Over the years, television has served up some stupendous "bromances." But it wasn't until a woman got between them last season that we realized how big a man crush Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) has on his longtime Princeton-Plainsboro colleague, Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard). The deeply awkward triangle between House, Wilson and Wilson's girlfriend, Amber (Anne Dudek), unleashed so many sloppy emotions, there was no choice but to kill poor Amber off.

That dying scene, which closed Season 4, was one of Hour's most poignant moments. But because the brilliant curmudgeon had a tangential role in her death, it also sent ripples into this season. House is wracked with guilt. Wilson, still in mourning, wants nothing to do with him. House seems desperate to get his only real friend back, and he's even been fishing pathetically for replacements in other colleagues and the potential Hose spin-off private-eye character, Lucas (Michael Weston).

But as Wilson prepared to leave House's side forever in this season's opening episodes, the chemistry between the doctors remained as charged as any two straight guys could allow it to be. So charged, in fact, we needed to stop by the set to let Laurie and Leonard talk out their feelings about their characters and each other—man-to-man-to-magazine, as it were. On October 14, the death of House's father causes him more angst—and we'll learn how our boys first met. We begin with the foremost question on every House fan's mind.

Gentlemen, can this bromance be saved?

Leonard: [Groans loudly] Is everyone obsessed with homosexuality?

Wait, we weren't suggesting…

Laurie: No, no, let's talk about it. Wilson and House have an unusual relationship so you have to explore all angles. It's not simple buddy- dom. House and Wilson clearly care about each other and even House has joked about it [House once blurted to former girlfriend Stacy (Sela Ward) that being gay would explain a lot about bis own behavior: "No girlfriend, always with Wilson, the obsession with sneakers…."] But, no, I don't think they're….

Leonard: Thank you. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Laurie: I think House and Wilson are closer to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. What was that relationship, after all? Was it a marriage? They weren't just two guys on horses. They couldn't live without each other, that's for sure.

Leonard: I agree. Or look at Cesar Millan and Daddy.

Laurie: I beg your pardon?

Leonard: You know, the Dog Whisperer guy and his pit bull. They have a special bond.

But the question was….

Leonard: Oh, yes, our bromance, can it be saved?

Laurie: To be serious for a moment, I think House is embracing the bromance, actually.

Leonard: Can you be serious and still use the word bromance?

Laurie: Yes, because what we're seeing this season is how vulnerable House really is. I think it's fascinating to watch House pursuing Wilson. He needs him, and I suppose he's revealed himself more than ever this year precisely because he's so needy. Despite House's vaunted independence and grumbled disdain for humanity, we're seeing that he's a man with real human emotion.

What exactly is the need that Wilson satisfies in House?

Leonard: Why do all your questions sound vaguely dirty?

Laurie: Let me answer the question. One thing House needs Wilson for is vanity. He needs someone to laugh at his jokes. If a tree falls in the forest and Wilson doesn't hear it, does it make a noise? House needs an audience as much as he needs patients for his clinical skills. And I should point out, the jokes aren't simple comic relief. They're quite profound. House's ability to find humor in the absurd, whether it's during an influenza outbreak, let's say, or in the privacy of his own mind, helps House cope with the daily traffic of human misery that runs through the hospital. And he needs Wilson to be the foil for those thoughts.

Leonard: It's sort of the way Hawkeye and Trapper John used to work on M*A*S*H. Hawkeye was more audacious, but he needed the grounded one, Trapper, to be fully understood.

Laurie: Wilson and House are also equals the way those characters were.

Leonard: Exactly. Wilson's the one person in House's life who doesn't have any power over him or whom he doesn't have power over. He didn't hire Wilson. Wilson didn't hire House. There's a freedom in that which is essential to telling the story. It's a relationship chosen by House, not by employment.

Laurie: And I must pay a compliment here to Robert.

Leonard: Oh, no, you mustn't. OK, go ahead.

Laurie: Robert exudes an almost invisible aura of wit, intelli- gence and kindness, but also has that necessary streak of sar- casm, and that's what makes this show work. I was watching a scene with Robert and Lisa Edelstein recently and thought, these are the two actors I most want to watch on television.

Leonard: Wow. I'm touched.

Laurie: In fact, and Robert may fight me on this one, but I believe this show is at heart about Wilson, not House.

Leonard: I object, your Honor!

Laurie: It's Wilson's view of the world that lets the viewer in. It's his levelheaded narration, as it were, that provides a backbone for the show. As in the Sherlock Holmes stories, where Watson was writing about "my brilliant friend" or "my brilliant, annoying friend," it's the same thing. House is the acerbic outsider. It's Wilson who runs the place. At some point when I go, "I'm out," the show will indeed become Wilson's.

Does that mean Wilson isn't leaving the show anytime soon, even though he's resigning from the hospital?

Laurie: Did I just give something away? Oh, dear. I hope not. Leonard: I wasn't going to stop you.

Robert, here's your chance to return the compliment. What does Hugh bring to this role?

Leonard: It's funny. I read stories like these where actors talk about each other, and I always think, "Pffff. That person's lying." So nobody's going to believe me when I say this, but I believe Hugh is House. And frankly, as an actor, I don't believe anyone. I watch actors on shows like Law & Order…

Laurie: Careful, Robert, careful….

Leonard: What?! I love Law & Order. It's one of the only shows I watch! But as an actor I don't believe those are lawyers. I know they're remembering lines. "Did the district attorney ever return the, uh, subpoenas?" Aha! You forgot the word "subpoena" for a second! And they act like they're being "human," but really they just had an actor's mind fart. Hugh's the opposite. When this man gets going, Dr. House is suddenly alive. He may be scowling but he's alive. And let's not even talk about the fact that Hugh's a Brit doing the part with an American accent. He's got a true gift. I feel like I'm working with Carroll O'Connor.

Laurie: My God, this is turning into a bromance.

Where's this friendship headed this season?

Leonard: Certainly Amber's death has changed things between them and will continue to affect that relationship. My favorite moment of any House episode was in the scene on the bus last season with House and Amber. He's telling her in that dream moment that he doesn't want to get off the bus because he doesn't want Wilson to hate him. To me, that's the most naked House has been in five years. He's like a 7-year-old at that point. I found it really touching. I like that we're seeing this new side to House.

Laurie: I do think if House and Wilson are able to get through this period, their bond will be stronger than ever. There's a line coming up that sums up where they're at. I won't give too much away, but House characterizes their relationship with a phrase and Wilson repeats it: "Still not boring."

Which means?

Laurie: It's a rather male way of saying, "We have something special. Whatever else may happen, what we have is never dull."

Leonard: Are you getting misty-eyed, Hugh?

Laurie: [Sniffling] No. No! Never.

Are you guys friends in real life? For instance, Robert, have you been to Hugh's house?

Leonard: Yes.

[Awkward silence.]

Leonard: How can you possibly follow up on that question?

Laurie: Do you want to know how long he stayed?

Leonard: All I remember is there were scented candles and Hugh came out in a robe.

Laurie: That's a lie!

Leonard: Hey, I was just trying to make it sound, you know, bromantic.

So apparently the version of the "Isn't It Bromantic" interview that gets passed around isn't the full thing

So after seeing a tumblr post I can't find, about two and half hours of intensive internet digging, and one purchase from a sketchy second-hand site late (full story under the cut, I promise it's interesting, but also long), I got the physical magazine and scanned it

So here you go: the full "Isn't It Bromantic?" TV guide interview with Robert Sean Leonard and Hugh Laurie

Feel free to repost wherever you want- I want people to be able to find the full thing

SO, as for how I found it:

I saw this tumblr post forever ago that I can't find anymore because tumblr is just Like That with a cropped screenshot of an interview with Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard. In the interview, they're asked about the "bromance" between their two characters. Leonard makes an annoyed comment about how "everyone [is] obsessed with homosexuality", followed by the interview apologizing and Laurie immediately jumping in with, "No, no, let's talk about it. Wilson and House have an unusual relationship so you have to explore…" and the screenshot cuts off there. Cue funny comment from the OP about the interaction, roll credits.

Except, as these things tend to do, it ended up becoming a bit of a brain worm, and I wanted to find it again. But I couldn't find the tumblr post. I looked absolutely everywhere, and in the process of looking everywhere, I found what I thought was the original interview- a blog post with the full quote from the actor. I didn't think too much about it, I figured it was just a short quote given to a popular blog in 2008. There's a magazine cover above it, but I don't think too much about it, because I'm focusing on the quotes in the article instead of the rest of it.

So I send screenshots to a couple friends to make jokes, and it probably should have died there.

However, late at night I end up thinking about that interview again, because of course I did. I start to think about how it's weirdly formatted for, what I assumed at first reading, was just an entertainment news blog reaching out for comment and getting a response. So I pull up the screenshots of the article (because weirdly enough, the old-ass blog only loads on mobile) and look at it again.

This is when I realize that this isn't an original piece from a blog interviewing these two after reaching out for comment. This is a blog post quoting and commenting on a full interview from a magazine, which I had originally thought had just been the inspiration for the piece.

So naturally, I go looking for the magazine.

Luckily, the name of the magazine is displayed on the cover, and so is the title of its main piece. This should be easy to find, right?

Wrong.

This is an interview in a physical magazine. From 2008. October 13th, 2008, to be exact.

I know this exact date because searching the article title and magazine name leads me to an archive on the TV Guide website.

Of covers.

And nothing but covers.

I spend like forty-five minutes searching everywhere I can think of on the web. Internet Archive, the TV Guide website, any search result that comes up when I search any combination of the words "House" "Interview" "Bromantic" "Bromance" "TV Guide" "Archive" etc. Over and over, all that's coming up are that original blog post and the cover from the official gallery.

The only things I could find online were:

The cover and date of the issue on the TV Guide website

The original blog post that was screenshotted in the original tumblr post

Another blog post that had a much shorter version of the quote, references something Leonard says from later in the article, and makes a comment on the nature of his reaction to the term "bromance"

An entry on Leonard's IMDB page's "interview" list mentioning it in title only

And:

5. A single listing for the issue on what seemed to be a second-hand site that looked like it hadn't had its UI updated since the mid 2000's, with a listing with no date or additional information besides what issue it is.

This is the only listing anywhere. I checked every other second-hand site I could think of, and then some that only came up through google searches. There's not a single listing for that issue on any of them. There were plenty of listings of TV guide magazines, including one that seemed promising because it included issues from that year, but it was missing all of October.

It seemed like the only listing for this issue on the entire internet was this one copy on this one obscure website. For all I know, this was listed in 2008 and abandoned, and just never got marked inactive. It could also be a complete scam.

A few quick google searches show that that website seemed to be legit, albeit a bit loose on quality control (which makes sense, this website seemed like the kind of thing you'd have to use the Way Back Machine to access). It also had an option to pay via PayPal, which meant I could file a chargeback if need be.

It was $11.50 when you include shipping.

So at about half past midnight, I bought the listing.

Naturally, about an hour later, I manage to actually find a scan of the interview. I had to follow a link in the comments of a post on FanPop, taking me to an old wordpress blog, and I'm sitting in front of the damn interview at last.

But something doesn't make sense. Why would their cover story only be two pages of text that aren't even full pages, and why would it cut off so strangely? There was no concluding sentence or paragraph, even though it started with a fairly long lead-in. It also led right up to the edge of the page, which felt like there should be more to it. There were more images in the interview than text, and the fact that there are so many of them and they clearly did a whole photoshoot indicated that they had them on hand for a while. The silly string one, for instance, I imagine probably had to require a couple takes, which means cleaning off Wilson's hair and face, adjusting makeup, etc. for it. Meanwhile, the conversation itself seems like it could have taken ten minutes total. I could have been totally wrong and that was where the article ended, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there might be more.

So I hold tight. A couple days pass with no update, and then the PayPal purchase gets updated with a tracking number. Promising, but it could still be a scam. Whether or not I get the actual magazine becomes a source of anxiety for the next week.

Until today, when I get told it was delivered. And when I opened the envelope it was sent in: there it was.

When I tell you I was happy stimming in my bedroom just holding the damn issue in my own hands... And then opening it and finding out that I was right, there was a missing page... I was elated. I still am, just typing this.

So I spent half an hour getting my scanner to work, and I give you the above issues.

Like I said above, feel free to repost however and wherever you want. I want all this to mean something.

In the meantime, I have two more House-themed TV Guide magazines coming to try and get articles from.

[kleenexwoman]

Yeah it's Very Hard to make it all fit together! Especially when you have a show like MFU where the tone ranges from "Serious Mind Games" to "Dances With Apes."

It doesn't help that real life espionage also ranges from "Quietly listening to the same guy's life for years" to "Exploding cigars failed so we're assassinating Castro with trained spiders next time".

Mission: Impossible (I've only watched the first season because fuck them for firing Steven Hill for keeping Shabbat) is great at the Plan and the Twist with a minimum of external characterization (it's all in the Acting) and is good for getting the hang of creating an initial well-planned Hijink.

James Bond novels, or at least the first ones, usually feature simple plans that Bond fucks up and then has to recover. Book Bond is a man of appetites and sensations, and he’s also a distractable dumbass about them. He has a big expense account but is used to cheap shit so he does the martini equivalent of ordering a steak well-done with ketchup. Movie Bond... well, that varies. My favorite screen Bond is Roger Moore because he's so stuffy and uncomfortable that it's hilarious, if that tells you my opinion of the franchise.

Napoleon is a little like Book Bond if Book Bond was a cute lil dude with a good sense of humor and undiagnosed ADHD.

MFU has the additional constraints of the 4 act structure and the Innocent. There's plenty of stuff online about the 4 act structure, but here's a great article about the Innocents and their place in the plot:

You could definitely use Dan Harmon's story circle to plan out the way the Innocent moves through the plot.

There's also the David McDaniel premise, in which UNCLE unwittingly serves as a way for THRUSH to test their lower-tier megalomaniac geniuses before they're admitted to the Inner Circle, and the odd non-THRUSH international situation is really just them secretly manipulating world events to THRUSH ends. Not that you have to examine that deeply, but starting a plot with that perspective could help.

The worst part of writing for a fandom based around wacky televised espionage capers is that occasionally you have to actually try to write some wacky espionage capers.