nerrdrage

I was starting to worry that this might end up being the first unfunny episode. Matt's whiiiining is my least favorite part of the series. It's just the same stupid thing over and over.

Fortunately, Ike Barenholz saves the day again, with a well timed running joke. He's becoming like Tyrion Lannister, a character who keeps you happy to watch when everything else goes off the rails.

As long as they hang onto Sal, this series could get much worse and still be worthwhie. Now they've been renewed for S2 and I'm in it till the bitter end, when Patty steals a dragon from a backlot and burns Continental Pictures to the ground. Hope that's not a spoiler! No actually I hope it is.

This movie isn't as bad as some. There are many that I can't tolerate for more than 5 or 10 minutes.

This one has a good premise and a strong cast. DeNiro is a B-movie producer who has never made a good flick and has a supposedly great script but no money to produce it, plus he's in debt to mobsters. So he concocts a scheme that cribs from Mel Brooks to save his hide.

I stuck with it for a while, wanting to see what they would make of the premise. Something interesting would happen, then the plot would stall, and then something else would salvage it, so I kept watching, not really convinced.

Then there was a stupid agist scene in an actor's old folks home followed by something dumb with a German director and that was enough to drive me away. Way too inconsistent to stick with.

Another hilarious episode. The Studio is nicely consistent in avoiding true dogs. Like always, this episode zips along so that you're surprised and disappointed when it ends.

I'm happy to see a return to the demented Kool-Aid movie plotline. Even if it continues into next season, I hope they keep checking in on this movie's progress every few episodes. I'll probably want them to make the movie for real before it's over. It's kind of dementedly endearing.

This week, it's a parody of wokeness run amok. Kathryn Hahn is particularly good as an over-the-top marketing maven. The focus is on racial sensitivity and the joke at the end is that they were being over-sensitive about the wrong thing.

But this episode also made me wonder about the limits of this kind of satire. Would they ever dare do a Me-Too episode? They have gingerly made references but how about tackling it head on with a Harvey Weinstein type character? No way Apple would allow that.

Apple makes some great shows but they have something in common: an unwillingness to step over that invisible line that might bring the Apple brand into disrepute. I'm afraid this will always prevent Apple shows from being truly gutsy and great. Oh well. 8 or 9 out of 10 is still pretty darn good.

PS one final point, are they insane? Jason Momoa would be the perfect Kool-Aid man. Ice Cube is soooo passe.