#tom hiddleston deserves an emmy

[meep-meep-richie]

I just want to add; if it’s Owens own choice; that’s okay of course…but if he is left out i’m going to freakin kms; cause that show wouldn’t be half as good as it was without him. So he deserves to shine there with them and get the credit he deserves.

Besides that it’s not only here; i just don’t get that much content from him at the loki promotions or bts at all; and i just don’t know why😭 it feels like he is left out way too much for the impact and importance he had on the show….it feels like Ke Huy has taken over; why it should have been the four of them instead…

They say pictures don’t hurt but this one does; cause where the F is Owen😭😭😭

[xpurpleheart2002x]

Loki season 2 Spoilers & rant incoming:

I have never, EVER, bawled so hard in my life after a season finale. On the one hand I feel like this is the first time in a long ass time this phase where Disney has actually worked hard to give the fans something special. That being said I also feel DEPRESSED AS HELL.

I was doing some digging a few days back and I discovered I got into the Marvel/Loki fandom around the time of Thor: The Dark World. I was 11, and now I’m 21…

It just feels so overwhelming to see my favourite character grow and change so much over the years, just as much as I myself have grown and changed. It’s almost been like having a companion, and I’m sure many fans feel the same.

Also CAN WE GET TOM HIDDLESTON AN EMMY FOR CRYING OUT LOUD?!? Man has given his heart and soul into this character for so long and deserves some recognition. I know Tom will never see this post but, my goodness sir, thank you for all you have done for us in bringing this character to life for us fans

Now excuse me while I go cry about this for the next few days

[pinktwingirl]

Have you watched the one piece live action? There the show runners were brave enough to show the 1-2 episodes to the fans first and the whole season to the critics. Although the marketing tactics of Netflix is questionable, the show was made with love and care.

I felt gaslight with all this raving for Loki here and there especially on tumblr and Reddit. The reviews are making it like a masterpiece, raving Tom’s performance like it deserves an Emmy. The fact they only showed 1-4 episodes and that too critics speaks volumes.

I’m worried for the awards, Loki will steal one piece’s thunder. The cast deserves the love since they were HUMBLE ENOUGH TO THANK THE FANS IN ADVANCE . Plus they are relatively unknown too.

God only if the Loki’s finale is more than atrocious the secret invasion.

I have not watched the live action One Piece yet but I’ve heard mostly good things about it. It just goes to show the lesson that Disney/Marvel consistently fails to learn: good adaptations are born out of love and respect for the original source material. Contrast that with the Loki series, in which the writers literally said they wanted to “strip Loki of everything that makes him Loki.” Like… wtf is wrong with you??? People loved this character for a reason; why would you think we wanted to see him turned into a hollow, boring shell of himself? Also, as much as it pains me to say this because I genuinely think Tom Hiddleston is a great actor and I know he’s capable of better work, his performance in the Loki series is most definitely NOT award-worthy imo. It’s a jumbled mess of cartoonish over-acting that’s honestly painful to sit through. Like I remember watching the scene where Alligator Loki bites President Loki’s hand off and just feeling embarrassed for Tom at how cringe the whole thing was. (I haven’t seen S2 nor do I have any plans to but I’d imagine his performance is more or less the same as S1.) To be fair, though, the dialogue is so poorly written that I think anyone would have a hard time making it sound natural. Also, we’ve seen him give truly great performances as Loki in his past movies so I don’t blame him for it; I blame the direction.

[asoiafpostsfromanothertimeline]

Just Announced! Netflix’s “The Conciliator” — First Look at the Official Cast for Spinoff in Popular "Ice and Fire" Franchise

Netflix’s Ice and Fire took the world by storm in the 2010’s. With over 30 Emmy and Critic’s Choice wins (and twice that many nominations) fans were certain the show would have get the ending it deserved. Those hopes were quickly dashed, however, when author George R.R. Martin and Netflix executives couldn’t work out a writing contract for Season 5. Since then, renewals and spin-offs have been rumored to the Wall and back, with none true—until now. The Conciliator will follow the life and reign of King Jaehaerys the First, the third Targaryen king to rule the fictional land of Westeros. Taking place 200 years before the events of Ice and Fire, the new show will serve as a prequel to the original series. Martin hopes the show will “provide some interesting insights into the history of the Targaryen dynasty, which is an important plot element in A Dream of Spring, my last book. (We can only hope this means a release date for The Winds of Winter is imminent!)

Slated to air in 2025, The Conciliator is helmed by Matt and Ross Duffer, fresh off season 6 of Stranger Things. They’re “looking forward to switching gears from science fiction to fantasy” and were “mega fans” of the original series. Conciliator will begin its story during the last day of King Aenys' reign and aims to cover King Jaehaerys' rule until his death. Will the Duffers continue the story afterward? "Jae's story actually sets a Targaryen civil war," Ross Duffer says. "If all goes to plan, the sky's the limit there, really. Unless you're a dragon, haha." (Note: Jae is the Duffers' nickname for their titular character, who they "already view like a son.") The Duffers are also bringing along some familiar faces to their Ice and Fire universe journey, too—Stranger Things stars Finn Wolfhard and David Harbour are slated to play a 14-year-old Jaehaerys Targaryen and his usurping uncle, Maegor the Cruel, respectively. Check out the full cast here: Finn Wolfhard as Jaehaerys Targaryen I Madeline Arthur as Alysanne Targaryen Sarah Paulson as Alyssa Velaryon Tom Hiddleston as Aenys Targaryen Julia Garner as Rhaena Targaryen Timothée Chalamet as Aegon Targaryen (the 2nd) David Harbour as Maegor Targaryen Cate Blanchett as Visenya Targaryen (Read the full article here on Vaulter)

wow! what do we think? i'm still super bummed that ice and fire ended before dany ever got to westeros, but it was probably for the best since they ran out of grrm source material lmao.

[inglorious-purpose]

The big questions

The Loki show posed some Big Questions: Where do we come from? What happens at the end of time? What makes a Loki a Loki? Can Loki change? Did Mobius have a jet ski? Will Loki ever get to wear a nifty outfit again?

And then there’s this, from the Loki-meister himself:

“Loki, as a show, has introduced so many complex ideas, and themes, and conversations,” Tom Hiddleston tells Marvel.com. “One of the things I've been so pleased and thrilled to see with the show is how deeply the audience is engaged with the big ideas, the ideas of fate versus free will, agency versus determinism. Do we have the capacity to genuinely choose our path through our lives? And in those choices, where do we derive meaning? To what extent are any of us free? To what extent are these characters free to choose their route through the universe and self-realize and determine the course of their lives?”

source

All of these “so many complex ideas” are really just the same idea: Do we have free will, or are we destined to follow some predetermined path? Which isn’t even an idea per se, but rather a question. And if the audience did indeed engage in deep discussions around this topic, one might be forgiven for having missed these conversations entirely, overshadowed as they were by the raging debates as to whether S*lki is incest or self-cest, whether Lok*us is a thing, or whether Loki should dump these losers entirely and get some real friends, because frankly both relationships are toxic af.

One might argue that the show doesn’t properly ask the question, so much as offer an answer that is as ridiculous as it is unsatisfying: apparently, from 2008 til now, every plot line in the MCU -- every decision, every action -- was dictated by a god-like puppeteer called Kevin Feige He Who Remains and enforced by his brain-washed minions, the bureaucrats of the TVA. The characters had no free will; they were locked into their fates up until the point that HWR stopped controlling the timeline. (Which is not, incidentally, the moment that Sylvie kills him, but a few minutes prior to that, during the long, eerie zoom-in/zoom-out sequence where HWR declares that they’ve crossed the threshold, and appears to be amazed when he drops an object and it, well, drops. The significance of this gesture was completely lost on me.)

The notion that this dude who we just met has been pulling the strings all along, orchestrating every heroic and villainous act, sending the TVA to prune anyone who dared to deviate from their preordained path, begs the question: if the characters had possessed free will, would they have made different choices? Would heroes still be heroes, and villains, villains? Would Tony still have sacrificed himself to save the universe? Would Steve still have gone back to Peggy? Would Odin still have been such a dick? Would Clint Barton have had a personality? 

Out here in the real world, the free will vs determinism debate has become the purview of neuroscientists and philosophers of mind. Moreover, the question has been redefined -- it’s not particularly relevant to ask whether we are “free” to choose. There’s no bogeyman reaching into our brain and tickling our neural circuits to make us do his bidding. In that sense, of course we have free will. It’s more a question of the role that our subconscious and conscious processes play when we make a decision. We feel more “in control” when we perceive our actions to be volitional. On the other hand, subconscious factors undoubtedly have a (sometimes very strong) influence over us. Yet this doesn’t indicate a lack of free will -- the subconscious parts of your brain are, after all, still parts of your brain. It’s all “you,” whether you’re aware of it or not. It’s simply a question of the balance between consciousness and subconsciousness -- an area of active research, in which we have much to learn. 

In any case, now that Loki presumably has free will, how will things play out? Will he stay a hero, or fall back into villainy? Will he be trustworthy? Mischievous? Unpredictable? Will he get his snark back? His wit? His good hair from TDW? And most pressing of all: will he choose S*lki, Lok*us, or neither? Stay tuned for season 2!

[projectprotectloki]

Looks up Emmy nominations 💻

Sees no love for ‘Loki!!’

[wurwurz]

Tom Hiddleston - Emmys 2016 / The Night Manager.

[kimanne723]

He was excellent in this. 😍

Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine The Night Manager (2016, dir. Susanne Bier)

[twh-news]

“You Went to Therapy for That?”: Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton, Oscar Isaac and the THR Drama Actor Roundtable

Tom Hiddleston, Brian Cox and Quincy Isaiah also open up about insane fan requests, keeping boundaries and the opportunity and anxiety of Marvel: "Just the level of embarrassment that it would be, once you throw on a cape."

BECAUSE IT'S LONG, READ THE WHOLE ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ON HOLLYWOOD REPORTER >>

Oscar Isaac has just flown in from New York, where the Scenes From a Marriage and Moon Knight star was enjoying some much-deserved time off, and Succession’s Brian Cox will soon head to Miami for a documentary shoot. Loki’s Tom Hiddleston is about to go back into production, and The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey’s Samuel L. Jackson has just wrapped a film shoot. But for a few hours on a Sunday in late May, six of Hollywood’s leading men — an esteemed group that also included Dopesick’s Michael Keaton and Winning Time breakout Quincy Isaiah — convened in Los Angeles for The Hollywood Reporter’s Drama Actor Emmy Roundtable. The conversation whipped from deeply funny to deadly serious, as the sextet doled out a mix of stories and advice.

Let’s start easy: When a fan comes up to you on the street, what do they typically recognize you from, and what do they usually say?

OSCAR ISAAC On the plane here, I felt a little letter fall on my seat and then someone walked away. I looked at it and it was in this blue highlighter with the little moon on it for the Moon Knight show that I’d just done. It was like, “My mother would’ve disowned me if I didn’t say something, as a person of color, about how much it means to me that you’re out there doing these things.” It was really sweet.

SAMUEL L. JACKSON You were on a regular plane with other people?

ISAAC Oh, yeah. I mean (nods to Jackson), one day … (Laughter.)

MICHAEL KEATON What a nice thing for somebody to lay that on you. Have you ever done that? If I see somebody I like, other actors, I’ll slide them [a note]. I’ll know a thing someone did and I’ll say, “Killed me. Unbelievable,” and then I’ll just [vanish]. I don’t want to be around when they read it. I’ve done it a few times because people have done it [to me], and you feel so grateful. Also, I think you tell people, man. If you see somebody do something great, just tell them.

Who have you done that to?

(Jackson lifts up his hand, points to himself and smiles.)

KEATON I think Maggie Gyllenhaal was the last one.

ISAAC But it is nice, just to give something and not be asking for anything.

KEATON Right. A woman came up to me the other day and she was so cool about Dopesick. She was on her way out and she just stopped and said, “Thanks for doing that.” Boom. End of it.

TOM HIDDLESTON Well, I’ll say this, Quincy and Oscar, I don’t know how you guys feel, but sitting with you three gents (to Keaton, Jackson and Cox), I grew up watching you, so it’s an honor to be at the same table.

BRIAN COX I grew up watching Sam.

JACKSON It’s easy to do. I do way too much.

KEATON And I haven’t grown up yet.

COX My thing [since Succession began] is people ask me to tell them to fuck off all the time.

BECAUSE IT'S LONG, READ THE WHOLE ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ON HOLLYWOOD REPORTER >>

[lokiondisneyplus]

"Humanity, look how far you’ve fallen,” a voice drawled out of the darkness of San Diego’s Comic-Con. In the summer of 2013 actor Tom Hiddleston took the stage in full Loki costume to promote what was supposed to be his last turn as everybody’s favorite Marvel villain in Thor: The Dark World. The already boisterous crowd went absolutely bananas chanting “Loki! Loki! Loki!” as Hiddleston, channeling iconic pro-wrestling heels like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, fed off the mixture of screams and boos, pointed menacingly at the crowd and hurled elaborate insults. Go ahead and google “mewling quim” if you’re feeling brave.

It was a star-making moment for an already popular character—one that racked up millions of views online and ensured Hiddleston’s future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU. It’s the reason, according to longtime Marvel producer Nate Moore, that Hiddleston’s character escaped death once again in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame to land his very own show, Loki, debuting June 9 on Disney+. “If you’ve ever been to a Comic-Con where Tom Hiddleston makes an appearance,” Moore says, ”you see what magic that is.

”The same year Hiddleston turned in the WWE-worthy performance in San Diego, lifelong pro-wrestling enthusiast and Loki head writer Michael Waldron began an MFA program in screenwriting just a couple hundred miles up the California coast, at Pepperdine University. Waldron rode his love for Hulk Hogan and the drama of the wrestling world all the way out from Atlanta to the shores of Malibu. His ride, from there, took him straight to the top. This is how one man’s lifelong love affair with wrestling became critical to the development of Marvel Phase Four.

Less than a decade later, with an Emmy-winning stint on Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon’s fiercely beloved animated series Rick and Morty in his rearview, Waldron has become the chosen favorite of Marvel president Kevin Feige, who was so impressed with the now 34-year-old’s work as head writer on Loki, that he tapped him to take over writing duties on the upcoming Doctor Strange sequel. Impressed with Strange, Feige then handpicked Waldron to work on his top-secret Star Wars project. With Loki set to make a big splash next week, Waldron shared his unusual inspirations for both Loki and Strange, his rapid climb to the top of the Hollywood heap and how, really, he just wants to be the next Nora Ephron.

While still a student at Pepperdine, Waldron landed an assistant gig with one of his comedy heroes: Dan Harmon. Stationed outside the Rick and Morty writers room, Waldron was desperate to catch Harmon’s eye and decided launching a softball league would be the key. “What I knew about him before was that he was a guy that would love a bunch of attention, like everybody,” Harmon says. “When he started coaching the softball team, it became obvious that he deserved attention.”

“We were terrible. We were the worst team in Burbank rec league history,” Waldron recalls. “But it was a great opportunity for me to trick everybody into reading my writing.” Waldron leaned on his “Southern roots” to channel Friday Night Lights’ coach Taylor every week.

“We lost every single game and he’d take us out to the parking lot and give us this pep talk,” Harmon says. “What was the point of pep talking this terrible team? He kept on, which was a job that you couldn’t accomplish by being ironic or cynical.” One day, fortune smiled on both Waldron and the team when, in the frenzied excitement after their first-ever softball win, Harmon offered Waldron a writers assistant job on the fifth season of his NBC sitcom Community. “I look at all the amazing moments I’ve had in my career, and I’ve been so lucky, I don’t think I’ll ever have anything more exciting than that one,” Waldron says.

“He wanted to be a writer and I was like, ‘Too bad. You’re very handsome and charming. Get on the phone and talk to these producers for me,’” Harmon recalls of his early treatment of Waldron. “So there he is on Community as a writers P.A. and as a ‘facilities manager’ simultaneously—which is code for fixing things that go wrong in the bathroom.”

Waldron, not content to work in Harmon’s bathroom forever, began pitching a show he wrote while still in school about his first love: wrestling. Starz gave Waldron a crack at it, and in the summer of 2017, despite never having written a script that made it to air, Waldron ran his first writers room. “What I loved about wrestling, even as a kid, was there were stakes,” Waldron says. “If Hulk Hogan turned bad one week, that had big ramifications for the rest of my life, as far as I was concerned.”

The wrestling show Heels was born and just as quickly fell apart. “We couldn’t cast it,” Waldron says. “So much for my meteoric rise. My career’s over. I’m like 29 and really, really languishing. I licked my wounds after Heels went on the shelf and said, ‘All right, let me prove to myself that I can still write.’”

With his eye on impressing the likes of Marvel and Lucasfilm, Waldron took two weeks to whip together the first draft of a time-traveling/sci-fi/romance feature worthy of both Nora Ephron and the Rick and Morty writers room, titled Worst Guy of All Time. Waldron’s team was disinclined to share a copy of the script (possibly because it’s in development or its DNA will be found in some other project he’s working on) but you can read write-ups of it here and here. The story about the worst guy in the world, the girl who was sent through time to kill him, and how they fell, disastrously, in love landed Waldron on the 2018 Black List alongside Emerald Fennell’s Oscar-winning Promising Young Woman. It also caught the eye of Kevin Feige.

Meanwhile, Dan Harmon had finally seen the light. In 2018, Harmon and his Ricky and Morty team decided to staff “blind” with writers submitting anonymous cold opens for the fourth season of his irreverent, animated journey through time and space featuring a young boy (Morty) and his drunk, Doc Brown–esque grandfather (Rick). “It was such a Sword in the Stone thing,” Harmon says. Someone informed Harmon that the two submissions he identified as “clearly the best” were “both by the same writer and that writer was the guy cleaning your toilets and all other manner of dirty work and trying to develop a Starz show on his off hours.”

Harmon was so impressed that he not only hired Waldron to write for season four, he offered him a showrunner position for season five. “We’re like, ‘Okay. He’s a little green, but he’s moving so quickly and he learns so fast and he’s such a hard worker. We’re crazy for doing it. Let’s take a chance on this kid,’” Harmon says. “He’s like, ‘Guys, I’m so flattered by this. I have a meeting at Marvel this afternoon. I think I might be running a show for them.’ That’s the story of how we loved, semi-supported, semi-discouraged, and definitely lost Michael Waldron.”

Dan Harmon is no stranger to losing talent to Kevin Feige. Longtime MCU directors Joe and Anthony Russo were plucked from Community. And in 2020 Marvel hired another Rick and Morty writer, Jeff Loveness, to write Ant-Man 3. It’s no mystery why. When sitting down for a lengthy interview with Vanity Fair in 2017, Feige was as eager to talk about the Rick and Morty season-three finale as anything else.

“Well, you can’t fight Kevin Feige in the street,” Harmon says. “He’ll just say, ‘Oh, I love that you’re fighting me, this is so wonderful,’ and everyone will start booing you for being a bully. I am honored and validated by the idea that if people leave me, they leave me for Marvel. That’s an amazing legacy.”

When Michael Waldron left for Marvel in 2019, he went with his Rick and Morty experience, his love of wrestling, a time-travel romance screenplay, and very little actual comic book knowledge. This last part may have appealed to Feige the most. The head of Marvel Studios himself didn’t grow up reading comics and has said that someone with an outsider’s approach to a comic book story can be more valuable than a writer stuck in the weeds of back issues. “I grew up a pro-wrestling guy, probably more of a Star Wars guy,” Waldron says, “but my love of Marvel came from the movies.”

When Waldron met with Marvel for Loki, the executive team had already decided to set the show in the world of the TVA (or Time Variance Authority), a sci-fi bureaucratic agency that cleans up any anomalies in Marvel’s increasingly complex and branching timelines and realities.

“That was the sandbox that we had to play in,” Waldron says. “I came up with the emotional engine of the whole thing. The fans of Loki watched him experience a character arc through Infinity War and, in a lot of ways, maybe even arc out. How do we break new ground with this character? What better movies and TV shows did I intend to rip off in each episode?”

Marvel itself solved the “arc out” problem by plucking Loki from earlier in his timeline at the end of 2012’s Avengers. Hiddleston’s character enters the show a time criminal captured by the TVA who may, in the end, prove its most valuable asset. Loki, the series, presents a less evolved, more mischievous god of mischief and Waldron considers Hiddleston’s versatility the show’s ultimate weapon. The ceiling for Loki felt “so high” that Waldron was free to draw on a broad range of films and TV shows to construct Loki’s latest journey through the MCU.

The time-and-space-hopping adventure spirit of Rick and Morty is an obvious inspiration. “At first I was carrying in the Rick and Morty sensibility and I had to recalibrate,” he says. “I'm not writing a 22-minute cartoon. I was watching Quentin Tarantino movies — Inglourious Basterds. Movies that luxuriate in long scenes of dialogue and tension building.” Waldron also rattles off some other surprising inspirations: Blade Runner, Before Sunrise, and Catch Me If You Can.

But just because he’s pulling from cinema doesn’t mean Waldron thinks of Loki as a six-hour movie. “I’d say it’s something totally new! It’s MCU. It was important that every episode stood alone. The Leftovers or Watchmen, which I admired so much—every one of those episodes felt like a distinct short story. That’s the sign of a great episode of TV. ‘Oh, it’s that episode of Loki.’” (If you’re wondering how delightfully weird Loki might get, Waldron mentions the lion sex cult boat episode of The Leftovers, “It’s A Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World,” as a personal favorite.)

Close watchers of Loki trailers have already singled out what they think is a Mad Men reference in an homage to unsolved mystery man D.B. Cooper. Waldron says the connections to Mad Men, his favorite show of all time, run deeper. “Mad Men is about characters becoming aware of who they are,” he says. “Don Draper gained an awareness of how he was broken and why.”

Here, Waldron says, is where time travel stories really come in handy: “You can literally hold up a mirror to your characters. Perhaps they can encounter other versions of themselves at different points in their lives. In the case of Back to the Future’s Marty McFly, he can encounter versions of his parents and then he understands himself better.”

Fans of the Loki comics know things can get even wilder than Lorraine and George McFly. On the page Loki has shown up as a little kid, and as a seductive figure known as Lady Loki—could these be versions of himself that Loki meets on his journey? Could meeting yourself be literalized in this way? “It certainly could,” Waldron says. “What being is more chaotic than Loki? What do you have to learn from any version of yourself?” If this is the case, Marvel is keeping that aspect of the show a secret but fans have noticed that a few Loki actors, including the decidedly Hiddleston-esque Richard E. Grant, have yet to be assigned roles. Could Grant be playing an elder Loki?

It’s the juvenile iteration of Loki that caught Waldron’s attention. The Kid Loki comic Journey Into Mystery #622-636 by Kieron Gillen was inspirational “not necessarily because our show is about a child version of Loki, but because it excavates his humanity in a more vulnerable space in a way that you only can with a child. A child version of Loki is still burdened by the sins of his past self which is very much what our version of Loki is running up against in the TVA. Can a tiger change its stripes?”

As for Lady Loki, remember the toxic romance Blacklist screenplay that first got Michael Waldron in the door at Marvel. Loki’s cinematic journey has been so tied up in his relationship with his brother, Thor, that he’s never had an on-screen love interest. Waldron, who still aspires to be Nora Ephron, says there certainly are some love stories running through his season.

One love story to keep an eye out for is brewing between Hiddleston’s god of mischief and Owen Wilson’s TVA bureaucrat Mr. Mobius. The two spark and spar, building on the duo’s chemistry from Midnight in Paris. “Mobius and Loki, that's one of the love stories you might see in Loki for sure,” he says. “Although if you print that, knowing our fans, they’re going to take it the wrong way.” When I clarified that their love story might be more akin to the platonic one between Tom Hanks’ FBI Agent Carl Hanratty and Leonardo DiCaprio’s con man Frank Abagnale Jr. in Catch Me If You Can, Waldron says: “Exactly. Right.”

As fruitful as the time travel genre can be when it comes to juicy emotional development, Waldron knows it can also be a logistical nightmare if not plotted carefully. “I can show you what was all over our writers room,” he says, quickly sketching out a branching timeline. “We had to create an insane institutional knowledge of how time travel would work within the TVA so the audience never has to think about it again. It was a lot of drawings of squiggly timelines.”

Marvel already made its case for how time travel works in Avengers: Endgame but that, Waldron points out, “is the way the Avengers understand it.” With a TV show it’s a little different. “I was always very acutely aware of the fact that there's a week between each of our episodes and these fans are going to do exactly what I would do, which is pick this apart. We wanted to create a time travel logic that was so air-tight it could sustain over six hours. There's some time-travel sci-fi concepts here that I'm eager for my Rick and Morty colleagues to see.”

Part of the fun on a Marvel project like this, Waldron says, is creating a disaster and just saying, “‘Yeah, we'll leave that for the next writer.’ But then you do that on Loki and you find yourself writing Doctor Strange and you have to clean up your own mess.”

Like WandaVision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier before it, Loki has two main creatives working alongside the team of Marvel producers and executives. In the world of Marvel on Disney+, a head writer like Waldron will get the ball rolling and then a director, in this case Kate Herron (Sex Education), will join in shaping the project going forward.

“Kate's a great creator,” Waldron says. “Suddenly we had the benefit of fresh eyes on this whole thing as we hurtled into production. It's been run more like a feature in that it’s ultimately more director-driven. I'm not the showrunner in the sense that I'm not the one with the budget hanging over my head.”

Waldron wasn’t even on set while Loki was shooting because in February of last year, just before he was to leave for Atlanta, Kevin Feige called and let Waldron know “they were going in a different direction on Doctor Strange.” Original Strange director Scott Derrickson left the project over “creative differences” and Feige, likely eager to hit the target production date of May, made an offer to Waldron.

“I knew I wanted to stay in the family,” Waldron says. “I felt like Loki was in a great place and I was eager for what the next challenge would be.” Director Sam Raimi, a longtime hero of Waldron’s and someone Feige knows from his early days as a producer on the Raimi’s Spider-Man films, was brought on board a week later to direct.

Time was tight. “How do we just make a movie in two months?” Waldron recalls thinking. “But COVID quickly descended upon us. We're not shooting now until November. So I got to spend my 2020 on Zooms with Sam Raimi. Not too bad.” While acknowledging the foundation Derrickson laid for him, Waldron says he and Raimi started “from scratch.”

Waldron began juggling his Strange duties while still keeping one “hand on the wheel of Loki.” (Oh and somewhere in there he also scooped up an Emmy for Rick and Morty over Zoom.) He put his trust in Herron and fellow Rick and Morty alum, writer Eric Martin, to handle the day-to-day of Loki while Martin and Waldron would collaborate on any re-writes needed to make the series come together.

Waldron found a real-life touchstone for Loki in Apple mogul Steve Jobs. They’re both adopted, he points out, and they love control. For Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dr. Stephen Strange, Waldron says: “I gravitated towards [travel documentarian and chef] Anthony Bourdain. Strange is an elitist as a neurosurgeon and a sorcerer. Anthony Bourdain was a man of the people, but there was that intense intellect. You always felt like he could eviscerate anybody with his words at any time. But yet Anthony Bourdain never really punched down. That was the first ingredient in the stew for Doctor Strange.”

Waldron also connects Bourdain’s world-traveling to Strange’s own reality-hopping adventure: “Anthony Bourdain had been everywhere, seen everything. What surprises you at this point? I think for all of the heroes in the MCU, in a post-Endgame world, how do you rally yourself to fight the stand-alone movie villains after you fought Thanos?”

Strange’s fighting spirit led Waldron to his next inspiration. “He's Indiana Jones in a cloak to me,” he says. “He's a hero who can take a punch. That's what made those Harrison Ford heroes so great. Those guys get their asses kicked. Look at Stephen Strange in the first movie. He's really getting beat up but he's very capable and everything. I can tell you that it's a ride...very Sam Raimi. The film is incredibly visually thrilling. John Mathieson our DP, who shot Gladiator and Logan — I think the look of it is going to be unlike anything you've seen in the MCU before.”

“He just wanted to write a really great Indiana Jones-esque blockbuster,” Waldron’s close friend, fellow Rick and Morty alum and Ant-Man 3 writer Jeff Loveness says. “He nailed it. It’s a kind of a throwback.” Waldron, he adds, may have an even more personal connection to Strange: “His wife is a [physician’s assistant]. He really got to the heart of the character, how doctors do have to be cocky. He got the Hawkeye Pierce energy of Strange.”

Waldron says whatever plans he had for Strange weren’t greatly impacted by the fact that the character was meant to show up (and then didn’t) in WandaVision. But Waldron’s close friendship with WandaVision head writer Jac Schaeffer, forged in the halls of Marvel as he was working on Loki, loomed large over the production. “I admired her so much,” he says. Schaeffer, who recently signed an overall deal with Marvel Studios, created a show around Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff which will lead directly into Waldron’s first feature film. “When I got brought on to Doctor Strange — especially because Wanda is part of that story — I just wanted to make sure I wasn't gonna let my friend down,” he says. “I can't shit the bed because she did such a great job. So we had a lot of conversations. Getting to continue Wanda's story was amazing.”

Waldron found himself in frequent communication with Schaeffer and Loveness, creating a kind of friend-based network of writers you don’t often see across several MCU projects. “He was still in the middle of his highly strenuous shoot and running another show, and working on another secret movie and he came onto our Zoom and collaborated on some story stuff,” Loveness recalls, “It's like swimming in the ocean over there. There's always going to be 10 movies that yours ties into. They're going to change Doctor Strange so that it will affect Ant-Man and that'll affect season eight of The Mandalorian.”

Waldron notes that one of his Loki writers, Bisha Ali, went on to create Ms. Marvel and that the whole interconnected enterprise hangs together better if they can think of it as a family: ”Jeff’s dealing with the Quantum Realm and I was dealing with time travel and the multi-verse. Our conversations are probably illegal to have, digitally. We have to meet on a bridge somewhere.”

“Iwas like eight weeks into writing Loki and I finally moved on,” Waldron recalls. “I'd spent a year driving past the old Heels writers room and feeling like a failure. Now I'd risen like a phoenix from the ashes and then, of course, the jilted lover calls and says, ‘Hey, what are you up to?’”

In 2019, Starz came calling to see if Waldron would be interested in reviving his old wrestling show Heels. Arrow star Stephen Amell, having wrapped up his superhero duties on the CW, was available. Waldron, of course, was a bit busy.

“I had to surrender control over the thing that I had been the most maniacally obsessive over,” Waldron says of giving the reins to actor turned showrunner Mike O’Malley. “Mike, to his great credit, was just so generous and patient with me as I did that. There's still so much of it that's mine.” Waldron spent some of his 2021 working on post-production for the show which will debut this August.

By then, Waldron may be even busier tackling another cinematic galaxy. He can’t say much about getting the call to work on Feige’s Star Wars, but he can say: “You’ve heard all my references here. Star Wars! Indiana Jones! [Kathleen Kennedy], she’s made so many of my favorite movies. So to get to collaborate with both of those entities is a dream come true.” Waldron's Lucasfilm gig came with a lucrative overall deal at Disney.

Setting sail on a steady ship like Marvel is one thing, but diving into a fractured fandom like Star Wars is a much bigger challenge. Then again, Waldron survived the Rick and Morty Szechuan Sauce Wars of 2017, so anything is possible. “I think he can be the guy to really kickstart the cinematic grandeur of those movies,” Loveness says. “That's probably laying it on a little thick, but I really think he's the guy to do it.”

“Star Wars is definitely sticky because if you make a certain brand of nerd happy, you're actually middle fingering an adjacent breed of nerd,” Harmon says. “If you take it too seriously, you're doing it wrong. If you don't take it seriously enough, you're definitely doing it wrong. It needs that total joy of the greatest franchise ever, along with a kind of swagger. I do think that Waldron would make a good match for that, but I don't know if he would make a good match for the machine that's carrying that stuff.”

Then again, this is Feige’s Star Wars and it’s not at all difficult to see why these two have forged a successful partnership. Feige and Waldron are both nice guys from the East Coast with wives in the medical field who like action blockbusters from the 80s, have a connection to Nora Ephron, and weren’t brought up on comic books. But the parallels run even deeper. Feige and Waldron see story in a similar way: constantly pushing beloved comic book characters through the lens of favorite blockbusters like Back to the Future. More crucially, both seem to have mastered the art of being political and ambitious without ever seeming disingenuous.

“I remember when he said [he was going to] Marvel and I was like, ‘Oh, god. That's perfect. He's going to be such a team player,” Harmon says. “Orson Welles is not going to work well at Marvel. The Russo brothers, they were collaborators always, first and foremost. That also didn't surprise me. There's a tremendous mandate at Marvel about ‘all for one’ and respecting the franchise. Their leader, Kevin Feige, leads by example. If your ego is simultaneously powerful but flexible enough to fit through that pipe, you are rewarded and you have a home there forever. It's the most obvious place in the world for Waldron. He is an Avenger.”

Growing up in Atlanta and watching his hero Hulk Hogan captivate a crowd, Michael Waldron may not have even known what an Avenger was. But possibly the two worlds aren’t all that different. “In the Heels pilot, somebody compares wrestlers to superheroes because there's the aspirational quality of putting ourselves in their shoes,” Waldron says. “But superheroes aren't just gods, even the ones that are gods. They're human. They're broken just like us. So whether it's a towering, hulking wrestler in the middle of the ring or a pompous demi-god shooting green balls of energy out of his hands, there's a vulnerability in there. I think that's just a really thrilling thing to get to explore.”

More from Michael Waldron and a Loki preview on this week's Still Watching podcast.

[everythingissoboring]

TOM HIDDLESTON İS A FUCKING GOD. HE PLAY LOKI SO GOOD HE MAKE LOKI LOKI. SO THANK HIM FOR EVERYTHING. THANK HIM FOR THE TV SERIES. HE DESERVE EVERY FUCKING AWARD FOR THIS PERFORMANCE OMG HE NAILED IT! JUST IN ONE EPISODE! GIVE THIS MAN AN EMMY. AN OSCAR. HE DESERVES THE FUCKING GALAXY. THAT WAS SO FUCKING GOOD OMG.

[holiday-from-realll]

10 characters 10 fandoms 10 tags

Yay thanks for the tag @livinginsunnyhell

Hmmm... *cracks knuckles* don’t be surprised if there are a lot of daddy issues to go around.

1) Mickey Milkovich, Shameless... the perfect storm of character who had all these surprising layers to peel away plus a fan fave pairing plus an actor who is as charismatic as he is talented and a hateful villain to pit him against in dear old Dad.

2) Jack Shephard, Lost... the natural caretaker with major daddy issues. If Matthew Fox cries I cry okay? It’s been that way since Party of Five. I will never watch the Lost finale with a dry eye.

3) Castiel, Supernatural... the angel who fell in love with humanity. And one human. The good soldier who never quite got the knack for doing what he was told thanks to that beautiful crack in his chassis that let all these amazingly human emotions pour out. What a journey. Um also Daddy issues, but this time with a capital D because God was a deadbeat dad. Cas deserved better. Every season. As did Misha. Forever Cas girl.

4) Leslie Knope, Parks and Rec... Amy Poehler my love. I’d vote for Leslie Knope.

5) Loki, MCU... see: Daddy issues. A scheming little shit but also so rootable. One of the few MCU versions I prefer to their comic counterpart which of course is all Tom Hiddleston.

6) Beatrice, Shakespeare... it’s an OG fandom okay? She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. Favorite scene: Benedick after finally admitting his feelings asks how he can prove his love and grieving fuming Beatrice doesn’t want poetry or flowers. No she says “Kill Claudio” and explains her frustration in being denied the outlet to avenge her slandered cousin because dueling was a man’s business. God that I were a man... I’d eat his heart in the marketplace. Benedick gets it, steps up and agrees though Claudio is his best friend. It’s an intense test of true devotion in what had been a lighthearted comedy and always blows me away. Boss ass queen I love her.

7) The Creature, Penny Dreadful... Rory Kinnear should have an Emmy for his brilliantwork on this series. By far the best and most faithful live action portrayal of Frankenstein’s creature. Practically invented daddy issues.

8) Wade Wilson, XMenverse... tears of a clown. Deadpool is Deadpool and I love him a lot.

9) Ten, Dr Who... every Whovian has a favorite Doctor and the tenth doctor is mine

10) Faramir, LOTR....brave af but also just wants to marry Eowyn and be a scholar. Valid of him. Dad didn’t love him best. His loss.

Um I tag (if you feel like it) @onamelancholyhill @bellafarella @thevermingod @casdeservesallthelove @ianrightsonly @luckyshazmrsmonaghansblog @dean-you-assbutt-cas-loves-you @tikistitch @exitpursuedbyasloth @foreverlokid

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Chapter Summary -  Tom finally speaks with Danielle properly for the first time in months, but it does not end how he expected when she verbally castrates him.

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously. 

Mac Tíre is pronounced Mac tier, it is the Irish for wolf and means son of the earth.

If you wish to be tagged, please let me know.

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog  @jessibelle-nerdy-mum @nonsensicalobsessions

“Mum.” He called after her, but the older woman did not respond. It was then he noticed Mac Tíre, Elle’s German Sheppard cross dog looking at him from across the garden. “Hey, Mac.” He smiled. It was actually him who had got her the dog, it was a scraggly stray pup that had shown up at a set he was working on that was in bad shape, and since Elle’s dad had been a veterinarian, he thought she could help it. Mac was a bit weedy looking still, not as well built as other German Sheppard’s, but he had a good sheen to his coat and was as fit as a fiddle, joining Elle when she went jogging or cycling in the woods nearby.

Mac eyed him for a moment; usually the dog would make straight for him when he acknowledged the canine, seemingly remembering who had helped save him, but as though knowing what the women had been talking about, Mac rose to his feet and trotted to the house, scratching once at the door before it was opened to let him in.

“Even the bloody dog hates me,” Tom mumbled walking to the door, knowing it was better to deal with everything now. “Mum.” He looked into Elle’s kitchen. He could hear the shower on upstairs. “Mum, I’m sorry.” Diana gave an ‘hmm’ in response. “I’m jetlagged and hungry, and to be honest, jealous, that you have spent the day here and not with me.”

“And I am hurt that you thought going to the beach and making a holy show of yourself rather than spending time with your family was a better use of your time Thomas. I am tired of having people ask me are you having some sort of early midlife crisis to say you are going to teenager concerts looking like a chaperone rather than a partner of someone there, and I am embarrassed at how you have treated someone this family holds dear in the manner you have of late.”

“Wait, what, who?”

“Who do you think?”

“Mum, I don’t…”

“What is the real reason you did not have Danielle collect you today, as she has done for four and a half years, and why have you not spoken to her once since Christmas, not once. What did she do to deserve that?”

“Wait, I have…”

“When? Today perhaps.” Tom did not respond, he had not realised it was true. He used tag funny pictures to Elle on his private Facebook, or send her some training tips he got from some trainer if he thought they were beneficial to her, but of late, he had not even looked at her page, he had no idea what was going on in her life. “I really do not know what to say to you Thomas, is all of this worth it, to gain fame and perhaps notoriety, is it worth it when you cost yourself people who care about you as a person?”

“I have to take the next step, get as big as I can.”

“Well, when Hollywood bores of you, I hope those who care about you that are not family are still there my boy because there will be someone new, someone fresh; we all age, and there are always people ready to take our place. Elle cares for you; she is willing to put herself out selflessly for you. She brought food to your home so that you could come home from a shoot, or a long flight and have something ready that is good and filling, she got everything you wanted from London so you could rest tomorrow, and she did not care if you even knew about it being her that did it, after eight months of no contact, she still did it.” Diana’s anger seemed to have dissipated, but in its wake, was a sadness and cold truth that terrified Tom, eating at the insecurities he had that he had not voiced himself. Diana placed the containers of food she had organised for Elle on the counter and walked out of the house, leaving Tom to stew on her words.

When Elle came downstairs, she was tying her hair back so that she could be ready for work. She paused when she saw Tom in her kitchen looking at her, looking then to the containers and back to him.

“Mum sorted them.” He pointed to the food.

Elle gave a forced smile and nodded slightly before noticing the dog. “Mac Tíre, get your hairy ass outside now, you know you can’t stay in when I’m working.” She scolded. Mac did not move. She opened the back door. “Out.” Mac rose to his feet and eyed her for a moment, then Tom, then back at her. “It’s only Tom, come on, out you go.” Mac gave the actor one last apprehensive look and trotted out the door. “Diana will feed you at eight.” She stated, closing the door. There was a moment of her and Tom looking at one another after she locked it.

“You know he can’t understand you right?”

“He seems to get the hint, which is more than can be said for many humans.” She responded.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I have clearly offended you in some manner.” Elle cocked her brow and pursed her lips. “I am sorry I have not spoken to you in a long time or bothered to contact you and check on you, but in my defence, you weren’t exactly running to contact me either.”

Danielle started counting on fingers. “Your birthday, I sent you a ridiculous picture and a big not with it, Patrick’s day I sent a funny picture, April Fools, I sent a funny joke, St George’s Day I sent a mocking text, the day of the Presidential dinner, the MET Gala, the Emmy nomination, all top of my head examples, need I continue?”

“I didn’t get half of them.”

“I bet you didn’t, and by half, I bet you mean everything since the day before the MET, right?”

“You don’t get to say anything, you don’t even know her.”

“You’re right, I don’t, because when she was here, I was not worthy of introductions, was I?”

“You could have come over.”

“I could, but the glut of paps and the security got in the way, I was told I was not allowed, that it was private property, in fact, my favourite part was when they called the police, but thankfully it was Joanne and Mike that got called out, who know I actually live next door.”

“You never said…”

“But I did, but you clearly you didn’t get the message, I wonder why. Tell me, does she scan all your texts, or is it just me she blocked.”

“What, that ridiculous.”

Danielle took out her phone and brought up his number before pressing the call button.

“We’re sorry, but you are not able to be connected to this number, please hang up and try again.” The monotone recording played.

“So can I ask, is it just me out of your female friends that you have not heard from of late?”

“She hasn’t been alone with my…”

“Have you gone to the bathroom, the shower, the gym, even left your computer on?” She challenged, Tom bit his lips together. “I guess you know the answer to that too. Have a nice day Tom; I am off to actually do something other than open your eyes for you. Get some rest for yourself before you go back to the circus.”

“Circus?”

“GQ, Esquire, Time Magazine, Forbes, they are where you want to get a front page, they are prestigious, but you, you have been plastered on the front of the National Enquirer Tom, as the bit on the side to the arm candy, that’s hardly a prestigious publication.”

“You always mock tabloids and magazines, and here you are reading them.”

“They are in front of me, plastering every shelf when I enter Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s Tom, I don’t need to read them, I can see headline after headline, picture after mortifying picture; speaking of which, please tell me that Fourth of July t-shirt was you taking the piss out of yourself, or a dare, or a bet you lost, please tell me you did not do that willingly of sound mind.”

“You wouldn’t…”

“Jesus, it wasn’t. That is so embarrassing, I am actually so mortified on your behalf, before I was cringing, but that, that actually made my insides hurt, I didn’t know should I laugh or cry for you, and to be honest, thinking back, I still don’t.”

“It’s not your place…”

“But you made it my place, me and every last person you whored yourself on the cover of those publications to. Those weren’t pictures taken without consent Tom; they are proper staged photo’s; that is the notable thing here.”

“Whored?”

“Well, that may be a bit harsh, whores tend to realise they are getting fucked and get paid for their work, I hope she gives you a hefty allowance of her earnings.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” He snarled viciously.

“Don’t you think it is weird, you used get spotted by fans wherever you went, but it was always fairly anonymous, here, LA, New York, everywhere you went; but now, everywhere you go, everywhere you are, there are paps, and a tonne of them.”

“That’s the business, you wouldn’t understand.”

“But they were not at your mothers before, they were not hounding your sisters, your niece, that one gets me the worst, she is five years old Tom, she is not famous, she does not want that, but then again, I doubt you or ‘fame hungry Barbie’ checked with that.”

“Sarah did not say anything.”

“Like she had a fucking choice, you didn’t warn her in advance, did you?” She challenged, her voice raised.

“You’re just fucking jealous, that’s all that’s wrong with you, jealous that for once, you were not the centre of my family’s life.” He bellowed back.

Danielle had a few different laughs, her snigger when she knew she shouldn’t, her snide one, for when she and Emma would bitch whatever co-star Emma had that was only on a production for reasons other than her acting ability, her one for when she wanted to laugh more, but she was embarrassed to do so in front of those she didn’t really know, and the one she had when she found something so hilarious, propriety be damned, she would erupt into laughter. Tom’s statement was met with the last one. Danielle erupted in laughter so strong; she went red in the face. “That…jealous…” She took a deep breath before standing straight again. “I do not envy you, Thomas, I pity you, so fucking much it actually is beyond words. I mean, what do you two even talk about, does she know anything about Yeats, Shakespeare, Wilde, hell even Tolkien? She will get her next album material or her next piece of boy meat, and you will be a pariah, to both decent women and good productions, and if you don’t believe me, look at her previous conquests, the guy from One Direction, where is he now, trying to get an album together apparently, Gyllenhaal, he practically has to freeze his ass off for a role and his depiction was seen as mediocre, and that guy from Twilight, is he even making movies now? And as for her bickering, let me just say this Tom, I’ve read that West and Kardashian are not supposed to be the greatest people alive, or Perry, or Bieber, or whoever else she is pissed off with this week to sell music, but no one who is nice has that many people arguing with them. She is accomplished, no one can take that from her, but you are going to be left in her wake, another ‘boyfriend of Taylor Swift’ and not your own man, and you will have that tattooed on your resume for as long as you act, are you really okay with that? Become the Tom I know, would not have been.”

“You mean the Tom you knew.” Tom glared at her, hating her for voicing what Benedict, Chris and Luke had clearly been hinting when they were introduced to Taylor.

Danielle let his words linger for a moment, kissing her lips and nodding. “You’re right.” She conceded. “I don’t know this shitbag in front of me, and to be honest, I don’t fucking want to.” She shrugged. “Get out of my house, and when this shit fest hits the fan, if the real Tom Hiddleston is in there, let him know I will probably still be here, and I will accept his apology, but not yours, you are nothing more than some ‘Taylor-trash’.” She turned and left, not waiting for him to say anymore.

[inglorious-purpose]

Tom put so much of his heart and soul into the Loki show and I hope he gets an Emmy for it. I mean, the man cried in almost every episode, doesn’t get much better than that! Seriously though, such a range of emotion and expression, incredible acting as always. We love you Tom!

[stabarella-punchington]

I posted 1,270 times in 2021

35 posts created (3%)

1235 posts reblogged (97%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 35.3 posts.

I added 209 tags in 2021

#loki - 53 posts

#loki spoilers - 36 posts

#loki series - 35 posts

#marvel - 20 posts

#tom hiddleston - 20 posts

#wandavision - 11 posts

#loki disney+ - 10 posts

#wandavision spoilers - 9 posts

#mcu - 8 posts

#markiplier - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 102 characters

#i feel like such a fraud for being deep in depression and not touching my art and wips since september

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

“But what is grief, if not love persevering?”

As someone who’s lost someone dearest to me (my mother) this line was so beautiful and so devastating at the same time. Whoever wrote it deserves an Emmy.

26 notes • Posted 2021-02-26 18:00:17 GMT

#4

Hey if anyone has seen or will be writing any President Loki fic just give me a heads up please because he’s all I can think about rn

32 notes • Posted 2021-07-08 08:42:17 GMT

#3

I’d just like to thank the following shows and games for keeping me entertained during what has been one of the worst mental health periods I’ve ever dealt with;

Bridgerton

Taskmaster

Yonderland

Horrible Histories

Bob’s Burgers

BBC Ghosts

The Mandalorian

Star Trek Discovery

Assassins Creed Valhalla

Animal Crossing New Horizons

And Stardew Valley.

Thank you all.

39 notes • Posted 2021-01-10 13:58:34 GMT

#2

Markiplier: hinting something is going to happen at midnight PST.

Us:

58 notes • Posted 2021-11-13 23:57:00 GMT

#1

2357 notes • Posted 2021-11-14 08:42:19 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[craftycraftin-blog]

I agree! Love love love tfatws but ONLY because it had actors I personally liked. Some of the writing was a little disjointed—maybe if Stackie were Exec Producers on their show like Tom Hiddleston is on his, it may have gone a different direction.

Tfatws had several goalposts (read: messages) they were trying to hit, which was great and I think they hit those goalposts, but there’s not much transition between the scenes nor is there explanation behind those goalposts. I remember feeling like Bucky‘s apology to Sam came out of nowhere and it would have REALLY hit home if there was some background to show how Bucky arrived at his conclusion he had hurt Sam in that way. Instead, the unexpected apology left it open to people claiming (essentially) the show was pushing white guilt when really Bucky’s privilege left him blind to Sam’s dilemma. Bucky essentially says the latter, too, but because the realization only came up exactly once, it lessened Bucky’s gesture and mishandled his growth.

Sam’s cap speech was handled in a similar fashion. Honestly, it drug on too long for me, like they were trying to explain & justify Sam’s stance all in that one moment without exploring the dialogue, thoughts, progress that led to his position. Again, this left it open for people to claim “the show is being too woke”. They could have made SUCH an impact with both of these scenes if they had just fleshed them out more. I believe if they had more than just 6 episodes they could have accomplished it, but trying to cram all of these huge teaching moments into what they did have minimized the message and just affected the flow of the story overall.

Thus, I don’t think the show was Emmy level material. But for me as a huge fan of these guys, it was my bread and butter for six, gloriously long weeks.

Carl Lumbly still deserved accolades though. 👀

Here’s the thing while I do think that Anthony and Sebastian did a great job, ultimately if the series doesn’t have the writing chops then it’s not getting nominated. I think that what happened with tfatws, in the end the acting just didn’t stack up against the actual story of the show. If I’m being honest tfatws is probably my least favorite of the Disney+ shows thus far. In all fairness this is probably because I was the most excited for it and thus the most disappointed when it didn’t measure up. I also did have genuine problems with the show, which I might go into in another post.

However with all that said I think that Carl Lumbly was snubbed and should have been nominated for best supporting actor, cause Isaiah was 100% the best part of that show.