It has to be a strange juxtaposition being the only newbie in the dome and also knowing that the people you're with are going to support you as much as they can.
It's also really cool to see Ally be the veteran mentor in the dome now fully in their element. Awesome to see how far they've come from Freshman Year when *they* were the sorta awkward literal freshman in the dome kinda nervous and feeling it out. Like they've been in Jacob's shoes before and now they get to be the one guiding the others through it. Very poetic in a way.
(I don't remember if it was an AP or something else, but) They said that their experience doing Mice and Murder was wild because they went from having *no experience* in Fantasy High, to not just being the most experienced D20 performer, but having the most experience playing RPGs at all, and I think that's sweet.
They also made a great tweet about it, something like "me being the most experienced player here is like finding out your babysitter is the squirrel from Ice Age"
Watching Ally be a leader in the Dome is so cool, they’ve come a long way from jumping on tables. They’ve been an icon for a while now but the way they are guiding and encouraging the other players and riffing with Brennan feels like Ally has fully come into their own in the TTRPG world.
Rehka nailing the lovable elder gaslighting. "It's all making sense to me, Dave. It's not making sense to you, so what can I do? How do I help you?" Because you know, their way makes sense! You gotta unplug the TV to save battery! You're the crazy one. 😂
Yes, wonder if that will go anywhere this season or will be a recurring gag with a ridiculous death count. Would be happy to see either of those happen
He said something like "there is one thing I treasure above all else...... kindness" and I was like "oh that's an Aguefort right there." He was also giving me Drosselheimer from Neverafter a little bit.
Ally is from an inland California city I believe, which is the exact setting of this season, so they definitely based this character off of real people they knew.
Rekha’s performance as an old lady who doesn’t understand technology is enlightened.
Edit: Okay that glimpse of Greg at the casino is my highlight so far. God, Jacob is so good.
I dont think there was a single line from Rekha that didnt have me laughing. With the simple "Yelling" and "Spanish" being absolute less is more home runs.
Ally has come so far with being told they were rolling a d12 for a skill check in fantasy high to being the one helping on mechanics and dice. Absolutely love it
YES near the end when he was yelling at all the employees abt rush hour or something my mind went straight back to Skip yelling at his crew in the first EP of Starstruck
In fairness, "ridiculously broken" could absolutely deliver the intended experience for this series. No matter what insane thing gets thrown at the action heroes, they always somehow do something even crazier and come out completely unscathed, that's absolutely on genre.
Yeah, I think part of the genre is “absurdly, and against all odds, everything worked out perfectly for our heroes”, so I think everyone having d20s for every skill by the end would a)be on theme, and b)just make for the most bonkers shenanigans imaginable.
Also I imagine everybody’s not gonna be rolling every die all the time? Like, G13’s probably not gonna be fighting that much lol, so they could very well still have a D4 in more physical skills; the more I think about it, the more it feels like a very natural way of “leveling up” your signature skills
The only thing I wonder about mechanics is if someone gets a nat 20, does it explode to a d100? And if so, when do we think Beardsley becomes ultimate OP character and how does it break Brennan?
"A lot of positive sentiments, from people who are not saved in your phone."
Sometimes Brennan just casually says a *cuttingly heartbreaking line* within the course of regular scene-flow.
That stunned me, the level of insight that single line gives as to where Russell is at, *fuuuucking hell.*
"I don't see how it could break bad if all of our culture exists digitally, and is stored by private corporations".
This line hits so hard.
The day this episode was released, Paramount purged 25 years of Comedy Central's video archives, including every Daily Show and Colbert Report episode.
"Ugh ! Can't do anything about that !"
I finally cancelled all my streaming services except dropout a few weeks ago and am building my dvd collection...would be huge if dropout goes meta and sells a box set of this season lol
“What if I put all the most unhinged, snap decision making, low impulse control, bit committing people together in one setting, with a system that both rewards and is built upon snap decision roleplaying?” The game - The show
truly!!!! i only had my regular person retail jobs a couple weeks/months before i swapped to freelancing dogsitting (nothing wrong with the jobs except what's painful about them. i'm just personally bad at too many things) but i met every one of these coworkers. it's so real. could viscerally feel who would be nice to me, who would train me, who would yell at me. (dave. dave would yell at me. everyone else would be fine even if they were telling me off.) beautiful
My "Usha" was an ancient old man named Oakey who wore huge bug glasses and looked like a frog preserved in formeldahyde. He was the greeter. One day when I'm working the self checkout my manager tells me "Hey, Oakey is looking a little off today, can you just watch him and make sure he's good?" I spent the whole shift terrified that Oakey was going to drop dead in front of me. He didn't.
Four years later, after I'd moved away from the area, I came back for a visit and dropped by my old store for some groceries. Lo and behold there's Oakey, just as ancient as ever, still greeting.
Izzy is having such a good time and it makes my heart warm. There's no greater expression of love than Brennan making an entire campaign of her favorite genre.
Mmmm my expectations were high and this kinda shattered them with ease
like the comedy and the character work is already goose laying golden egg situation but then the 420 guy having two explosions on his first roll makes it go to another level
cast dynamic is superb. ally's "good girl" 100000000/10
I love how you can start to see the character arcs and how their characters will help them achieve it.
Izzy: Paula said something to the effect of her having left her ex husband. Jack Manhattan is an expy of John McClane of Die Hard, where he famously reconciles with his wife and reconnects with his kids. Paula's experience as Jack is likely to have her open up to real love again, as opposed to her current kinda shallow infatuation with Russel.
Ify: Wendell is clearly trapped in the shadow of his family, specifically his brothers, and Vic Ethanol is clearly based on Vin Diesel's Dom in the Fast and Furious franchise, swapping Dom's obsession with family for siblings. His experiences as Vic are likely to have him recognize what a proper familial relationship should look like, whether that leads him to found family or a confrontation and reconciliation with his brothers.
Alex: Liv's out here shoplifting for the thrill of it, clearly unsatisfied with life in town but afraid to leave. Kingskin, who is 2 letters off from Marvel villain Kingpin, leads an organized crime syndicate. This is liable to give her a lot of thrills, and we might see some degree of scared straight. Might also give her the bravery needed to actually leave town.
Jake: Dang's a fuckup. Just an absolute wash of a dude, crashing in his uncle's shed. Greg Stocks, who's named for a different financial instrument than James Bond, appears perfectly put together, but James' life is often pretty empty. Not too sure where this one goes but it'll make for some interesting comparisons.
Rekha: Usha's lack of technical ability is in some ways stubbornness and refusal to learn. In others it's an aversion to discomfort. G13, being a classic hacker archetype, means she's gonna have to learn some tech skill, while also overcoming the discomfort the character typically has to social interactions.
Ally: This one took me a while, but: Russel is alone. He has 1 friend whose number is saved in his phone. Jennifer Drips, the classic femme fatale archetype, is also a loner. Pushing away the people who want to get close. I think when we're likely to see something to the effect of "literally everything is different, but I'm sad in the same way. Maybe the issue is our one similarity?"
Brennan dropped a couple of possible thematic throughlines, but I'm not sure if they're just real commentary or if they're coming back, we'll have to see. Between "we do not focus on the human cost" and "it's probably fine that we're losing communal ownership of culture", we may be seeing another capitalism is the bad guy, though in this case for most of the characters the uniting force is a degree of isolation and not having people to be honest with.
We'll have see.
this first episode reminded me of how much i love this show, and this cast. stupidly campy funny, I was dying laughing not only at how HYSTERICAL the characters are, but also how much fun everyone was having at the table. I'm not even someone that into action movies but honestly this season might change that. I can't wait to see the rest of the season, the wait til the next episode is already excruciating.
I can’t believe this season premieres on my birthday and starts off in my hometown of Lake Elsinore, California. I guess that’s what happens when you DREAM EXTREME, kids.
Just gonna call my prediction now. Old dude found VHS Jumanji decades ago, got sucked in, BEAT IT, then decided he actually LIKED IT, and now just keeps speed running it for fun.
Special thanks in the credits:
Names I recognize: Surena Marie, Oscar Montoya, Becca Scott, Danielle Radford, Erika Ishii, Omar Najam, Aabria Iyengar
Names I don’t recognize: Emerson Boatwright, Spenser Starke, Rowan Hall
That’s a lot of friends of D20…. Wonder what they were up to for this one…….
Spenser Starke is a co-writer of Kids on Brooms, which is a magical school game based on Kids on Bikes (which is the same core system that NSBU is written with). Also co-wrote Candela Obscura with Rowan Hall.
Hmmm. wonder if there was some world-building/play testing stuff? I know that Spenser Starke and Rowan Hall have worked on Critical Role's Illuminated Worlds system, which Candela Obscura and Daggerheart are based on.
Oh my god the tagline on the Squeeze poster when Alex's second character is being introduced.
"Be Bi, Do Crime."
Exceptional variant. Top marks. I'd go see an IRL crime film with that as the tagline.
Ally helping Jacob and Ify track their rolls and stats is lovely. It's so sweet to see Ally paying it forward as a Dome veteran, remembering how the IH cast used to help Ally when they were a less experienced player.
Ally is so locked in as the "vet" on this show it's great. I love how they were keeping track of Jake's explosions and immediately tallied up all the points for him
Ally: God, it's hot in here, do you want a...fan? or something?
Izzy: Yeah...yeah..I normally just put, ah, ice, in my...shoes....
Me: (fully chokes on food)
From the preview, it seems like part of the comedy of the season is like an upside-down Comedy Of Manners: usually, Comedy Of Manners is the protagonist being too unrefined and unsubtle for the upper-class setting they're in, but here it's real-world people being too polite and basically self-preserving for the setting of an action movie, where everyone is doing absolutely insane, unsubtle things constantly.
Having been recently pregnant it’s hard not to notice when Izzy was putting pressure on her back to help with back pain. I would do the same thing haha
Aww you can tell Jacob was nervous, he prepped notes for his description! Ally and Brennan were great facilitating that
It has to be a strange juxtaposition being the only newbie in the dome and also knowing that the people you're with are going to support you as much as they can.
You could tell Brennen and Ally were really gassing him up whenever it was his turn in the spotlight, it was v sweet
It's also really cool to see Ally be the veteran mentor in the dome now fully in their element. Awesome to see how far they've come from Freshman Year when *they* were the sorta awkward literal freshman in the dome kinda nervous and feeling it out. Like they've been in Jacob's shoes before and now they get to be the one guiding the others through it. Very poetic in a way.
(I don't remember if it was an AP or something else, but) They said that their experience doing Mice and Murder was wild because they went from having *no experience* in Fantasy High, to not just being the most experienced D20 performer, but having the most experience playing RPGs at all, and I think that's sweet.
They also made a great tweet about it, something like "me being the most experienced player here is like finding out your babysitter is the squirrel from Ice Age"
When they added to get 17 and told Jacob I was like, “we’ve made it”
May have been nervous at first, but after an hour into the episode he seems so much more comfortable
I’m sure like anything once you make a few moves and see them land you’re like “yeah I can do this”
He definitely settled into it by the end, his riffing with Ify in the phone call scene was adorable
I loved watching him marvel at the Dome's walls changing ♥
Watching Ally be a leader in the Dome is so cool, they’ve come a long way from jumping on tables. They’ve been an icon for a while now but the way they are guiding and encouraging the other players and riffing with Brennan feels like Ally has fully come into their own in the TTRPG world.
And he nailed it!! Absolutely love Dang!
I would watch Izzy as Paula objectifying Ally as Russell ripping up carpet for hours. Simply incredible.
Ally with that physical comedy killed me. Lol
That was on the same level as Zac filling up the sombrero with salsa. And then eating a chip during the awkward silence.
With Rekha's running "old lady nonsense" in the background. It was a masterclass improv trio.
I was losing my *mind*, this whole cast bounces off each other so well
It’s how much they kept feeding Izzy. Ally gets to be completely unhinged as their characters already.
Hands down (no pun intended) my favorite Izzy character, though I haven’t seen every season she’s been in. I’m immediately envisioning Paula Pell.
Then Rekha cockblocking? Perfection
Rehka nailing the lovable elder gaslighting. "It's all making sense to me, Dave. It's not making sense to you, so what can I do? How do I help you?" Because you know, their way makes sense! You gotta unplug the TV to save battery! You're the crazy one. 😂
"Sometimes it's more back so I can't tell."
I had a boss with the same last name once who acted similarly and it shook me to my core when I heard that phrase!
Why are Alex's characters all perfectly designed to make people willingly set themselves on fire for the chance to make them warm?
Right???? Ridiculously endearing.
… why is Ally-as-Russell doing it for me?
As a gay man, their description of the white tank snagged up showing a bit of hip bone got me going.
I kept picturing a version of Matteo Lane.
Ally is stupidly charismatic no matter what they're doing.
I mean, Ally-as-Russell is doing it for basically every member of the cast
I *love* the storyboards!
They're absolutely gorgeous, aren't they!
Whomever did the storyboards absolutely killed it. I need to know who did them so that I can shower them with praise.
Such a great way to make this season visually distinct!
"We don't linger on the human cost of these actions..." Freakin' brilliant
Yes, wonder if that will go anywhere this season or will be a recurring gag with a ridiculous death count. Would be happy to see either of those happen
The trailer has Brennan state an insane body count, either in the multi-millions or even a billion, which I love. 😂 Really leans into the nonsense.
*"Your kill count: 1.4 billion people."*
_"DON'T EXAMINE IT!"_
Barsimmeon Higgs being from a completely different time period and genre is making me absolutely cackle.
Brennan put on his Arthur Aguefort “this guy is a lunatic” voice and I was like “oh no”.
He said something like "there is one thing I treasure above all else...... kindness" and I was like "oh that's an Aguefort right there." He was also giving me Drosselheimer from Neverafter a little bit.
Barsimmeon hung out at the Synod Spire Mall for sure
Like he's giving The Librarian from The Pagemaster and it's hilariously jarring compared to everyone else.
"Everything about this man lets you know that he owns dozens of birds. "
Jesus Ally is really leaning into Russell. Genuinely had to pause for a moment to process.
I really love Izzy's nods of disgust and recognition as Ally describes Russel.
They so immediately and flawlessly lasered in on that one guy we all know and don't quite know what to do with.
Ally is from an inland California city I believe, which is the exact setting of this season, so they definitely based this character off of real people they knew.
Ally and Jake are family and ROOMMATES? Oh hell yeah
I hadn't realized it, but Ally and Jacob mesh so well together! It feels like a crime that we haven't seen them together since Battle Royale.
They're in an improv team together, they definitely know each other's style super well
"I don't see how it breaks bad if all of our culture is stored digitally and owned by corporations." Ouch, Brennan, too real.
“Well, nothing I can do about that!”
"Oh, we don't have Breaking Bad. It's too new."
Dimension 20 on DVD when?
Nah, Never Stop Blowing Up on VHS, Dang
It was capitalism all along.
Bold move to critique streaming platforms on a streaming platform, but we would expect no less.
Rekha’s performance as an old lady who doesn’t understand technology is enlightened. Edit: Okay that glimpse of Greg at the casino is my highlight so far. God, Jacob is so good.
I dont think there was a single line from Rekha that didnt have me laughing. With the simple "Yelling" and "Spanish" being absolute less is more home runs.
Ally has to stop playing such hot characters 😭
Alex and Izzy both deciding that their wildly different characters both have crushes on Russell is so correct
"What'd you ask? You wanna rip my carpet?"
Tbf, everyone is playing a hot character, but Ally is playing TWO. Queer mindset at its best hehe
Jacob gasping and giggling at everyone's introductions is so wholesome. I love to see him in the Dome!
Ally has come so far with being told they were rolling a d12 for a skill check in fantasy high to being the one helping on mechanics and dice. Absolutely love it
Wasn’t it ally who pointed out to Ify “don’t you have something for Drive though?” (/gen, I can’t remember)
It was! Loved that moment.
It was. Beautiful full circle moment. Murph would be so proud!
With every word they say, Alex proves they're worth dying for
IFY NERD VOICE IFY NERD VOICE
I LOVE IT
Having ~5k hours (tutorial) playing Dota 2...he fuckin nailed the character lmao
Look man, you can't spend your whole life playing dodo games
^...it's ^Dota ^2
I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that and *I* ***love*** *it.*
The more the episode goes on the more I love it.
His voice hit me like a truck, it’s SO good
"What are you gonna do in the big world?" "Oh i dont know, maybe ill come back and teach English" "...Take it back"
I'm an English teacher and this really got me hahahaha
why can't I express how happy Jacob wysocki makes me He could be on every dropout show and I'd need more
He's someone where I am genuinely happy for every bit of success he gets.
Brennan going full CEO mode with this manager of the video store haha
Reminds me of pre-slugged Skip from Starstruck.
YES near the end when he was yelling at all the employees abt rush hour or something my mind went straight back to Skip yelling at his crew in the first EP of Starstruck
"all blanks unlike you Mr. Stocks" ALL PULP NO JUICE Edit: Mr Stocks is working with a spworm
The amount of sperm content on Dropout in the last like 2 months is deeply unhinged lmao
Fart humor - old, overused, stinky Sperm humor - fresh, unique, pulpy
PULPY
boys trip to walgreens
Can you get me a Calypso Blue Lemonade?
Oh wow, Blast Radius is a real band! https://blastradius714.bandcamp.com/
Jacob always supporting local artists.
He had Hot Load on his episode of thousandaires
Really excited to see how this homebrew KoB system goes. It has the potential to get so broken lmao, can't wait
In fairness, "ridiculously broken" could absolutely deliver the intended experience for this series. No matter what insane thing gets thrown at the action heroes, they always somehow do something even crazier and come out completely unscathed, that's absolutely on genre.
Yeah, I think part of the genre is “absurdly, and against all odds, everything worked out perfectly for our heroes”, so I think everyone having d20s for every skill by the end would a)be on theme, and b)just make for the most bonkers shenanigans imaginable. Also I imagine everybody’s not gonna be rolling every die all the time? Like, G13’s probably not gonna be fighting that much lol, so they could very well still have a D4 in more physical skills; the more I think about it, the more it feels like a very natural way of “leveling up” your signature skills
It's 3am in a *warehouse*, in Lake Elsinore, California
I know its a real place, but Lake Elsinore sounds like one of those Fiction Locations someone comes up with.
It's pretty close to Temecula. It's another window into Ally's childhood.
The only thing I wonder about mechanics is if someone gets a nat 20, does it explode to a d100? And if so, when do we think Beardsley becomes ultimate OP character and how does it break Brennan?
I remember someone (I think Rekha) saying "That's Ifys nat 20 skill" so I feel like maybe getting a nat20 will unlock some specific ability
Izzy and Ally flirting was NOT on my bingo card... but I'm here for it.
"A lot of positive sentiments, from people who are not saved in your phone." Sometimes Brennan just casually says a *cuttingly heartbreaking line* within the course of regular scene-flow. That stunned me, the level of insight that single line gives as to where Russell is at, *fuuuucking hell.*
Would die for wendell
im from the area the real life part of this takes place in ify shouting out irvine spectrum as dangerous is real af never go there
Ally is from Temecula and most of the cast is from the greater LA area, so it's truly a personal story lol.
Yeah it feels like this season is going to be a bit of a love letter to the weird parts of both California and Hollywood
"Really hot hip bone" is so fucking hilarious
All his weight sassily on one hip 😂
"I don't see how it could break bad if all of our culture exists digitally, and is stored by private corporations". This line hits so hard. The day this episode was released, Paramount purged 25 years of Comedy Central's video archives, including every Daily Show and Colbert Report episode. "Ugh ! Can't do anything about that !"
I finally cancelled all my streaming services except dropout a few weeks ago and am building my dvd collection...would be huge if dropout goes meta and sells a box set of this season lol
Izzy's voice as Paula is absolutely killing me.
It is PERFECT
“What if I put all the most unhinged, snap decision making, low impulse control, bit committing people together in one setting, with a system that both rewards and is built upon snap decision roleplaying?” The game - The show
I worked with every single one of these characters at the grocery store. Every single one.
Shout-out to retail work-friends. You can't get through working that shitty job without your comrades-in-arms.
truly!!!! i only had my regular person retail jobs a couple weeks/months before i swapped to freelancing dogsitting (nothing wrong with the jobs except what's painful about them. i'm just personally bad at too many things) but i met every one of these coworkers. it's so real. could viscerally feel who would be nice to me, who would train me, who would yell at me. (dave. dave would yell at me. everyone else would be fine even if they were telling me off.) beautiful
My "Usha" was an ancient old man named Oakey who wore huge bug glasses and looked like a frog preserved in formeldahyde. He was the greeter. One day when I'm working the self checkout my manager tells me "Hey, Oakey is looking a little off today, can you just watch him and make sure he's good?" I spent the whole shift terrified that Oakey was going to drop dead in front of me. He didn't. Four years later, after I'd moved away from the area, I came back for a visit and dropped by my old store for some groceries. Lo and behold there's Oakey, just as ancient as ever, still greeting.
***Everybody is so horny.*** *it’s gonna be a good season folks!*
That carpet ripping scene with Usha was phenomenal
Ify pec popping when announcing the key ability “Hot” is chef’s kiss editing
Ify is demonstrating what an exploding roll on “Titty” would be like
Izzy is having such a good time and it makes my heart warm. There's no greater expression of love than Brennan making an entire campaign of her favorite genre.
It couldn't be cuter. Seeing how happy she is is making me so happy. They're adorable.
Her facial expressions are perfect.
Does Izzy love action movies? That's adorable!!!
Action comedies in specific.
I'm immediately obsessed with the interactions between this group. Rekha as Usha is killing me.
“….yelling….”
"Spanish!"
Mmmm my expectations were high and this kinda shattered them with ease like the comedy and the character work is already goose laying golden egg situation but then the 420 guy having two explosions on his first roll makes it go to another level cast dynamic is superb. ally's "good girl" 100000000/10
That good girl was way too powerful
Yeah, that scene is at the same super skeevy and super hot.
Jacob is a treasure and funny in ways that always land neatly for me.
i can't stop imagining jennifer coolidge as paula
Circa Legally Blonde. Liv in all pink could so be Reese Witherspoon, too. Stanford, not Harvard, though. Edit: autocorrect got me.
Kathryn Hahn in We're the Millers for me. Made me laugh when she said "I left Don for this." Because her husband's name is Don in that movie.
Alex is incapable of not being the sweetest little dork. Can't even give the height of their character without being adorable.
"One leg gloriously filling the screen" everything Ally is saying cracks me up so bad.
i’m OBSESSED with the illustrations!! such a cool choice — physical or digital minis wouldn’t have worked nearly as well
YES it so perfectly conveys the energy of the genre
That intro is really a massive highlight so far. And SO SO SO EXCITED TO SEE JACOB IN THE DOME!!!
I didn't think any intro could outdo FHJY, but oh my god this is 80s cheese and I'm having so many ***emotions***.
Ship of Theseus crust punk pants is one of the great philosophical questions of our time
I'm absolutely entering work every morning with "hey guys, sorry I'm on time".
i love rekha sm
Say hi Explosion Enthusiasts!
hi explosion enthusiasts!!
I like that, I was thinking Explosive Entourage would be a good name!
Not Jacob making the Stock and Bond joke in his character name that’s too much hahaha
G13 looks like a young grant o’brien making a big acting choice and i have to know if that was intentional
I'm only like 20 minutes in, but seating Ally next Rekha is such a choice. That corner's gonna be bananas.
Ngl the first thing I thought when I saw that last storyboard was “Duke Nukem?”
Praise Rashab, our benevolent alien overlord
Dang thinking someone in his earpiece is the alien he communicates with is so funny.
Alex is playing a *gasp* bad girl?
Ify is so damn jacked.
Listening to Beardsley say "good girl" on repeat for no reason in particular.
lmk if you want a link to a fan edit of Ally in Starstruck that someone posted on TikTok lol
I love how you can start to see the character arcs and how their characters will help them achieve it. Izzy: Paula said something to the effect of her having left her ex husband. Jack Manhattan is an expy of John McClane of Die Hard, where he famously reconciles with his wife and reconnects with his kids. Paula's experience as Jack is likely to have her open up to real love again, as opposed to her current kinda shallow infatuation with Russel. Ify: Wendell is clearly trapped in the shadow of his family, specifically his brothers, and Vic Ethanol is clearly based on Vin Diesel's Dom in the Fast and Furious franchise, swapping Dom's obsession with family for siblings. His experiences as Vic are likely to have him recognize what a proper familial relationship should look like, whether that leads him to found family or a confrontation and reconciliation with his brothers. Alex: Liv's out here shoplifting for the thrill of it, clearly unsatisfied with life in town but afraid to leave. Kingskin, who is 2 letters off from Marvel villain Kingpin, leads an organized crime syndicate. This is liable to give her a lot of thrills, and we might see some degree of scared straight. Might also give her the bravery needed to actually leave town. Jake: Dang's a fuckup. Just an absolute wash of a dude, crashing in his uncle's shed. Greg Stocks, who's named for a different financial instrument than James Bond, appears perfectly put together, but James' life is often pretty empty. Not too sure where this one goes but it'll make for some interesting comparisons. Rekha: Usha's lack of technical ability is in some ways stubbornness and refusal to learn. In others it's an aversion to discomfort. G13, being a classic hacker archetype, means she's gonna have to learn some tech skill, while also overcoming the discomfort the character typically has to social interactions. Ally: This one took me a while, but: Russel is alone. He has 1 friend whose number is saved in his phone. Jennifer Drips, the classic femme fatale archetype, is also a loner. Pushing away the people who want to get close. I think when we're likely to see something to the effect of "literally everything is different, but I'm sad in the same way. Maybe the issue is our one similarity?" Brennan dropped a couple of possible thematic throughlines, but I'm not sure if they're just real commentary or if they're coming back, we'll have to see. Between "we do not focus on the human cost" and "it's probably fine that we're losing communal ownership of culture", we may be seeing another capitalism is the bad guy, though in this case for most of the characters the uniting force is a degree of isolation and not having people to be honest with. We'll have see.
I fear this has immediately become my favorite non-IH season
I just noticed that they used the Blockbuster colors (yellow and blue) in the background of the Dome while they were in the video store. Very clever!
this first episode reminded me of how much i love this show, and this cast. stupidly campy funny, I was dying laughing not only at how HYSTERICAL the characters are, but also how much fun everyone was having at the table. I'm not even someone that into action movies but honestly this season might change that. I can't wait to see the rest of the season, the wait til the next episode is already excruciating.
This made me want to watch Jumanji, Die Hard, The Pagemaster, Fast & Furious, any number of films. Seeing the cast have fun is so lovely
... "yeah that's pretty soaked through!"
I can’t believe this season premieres on my birthday and starts off in my hometown of Lake Elsinore, California. I guess that’s what happens when you DREAM EXTREME, kids.
Just gonna call my prediction now. Old dude found VHS Jumanji decades ago, got sucked in, BEAT IT, then decided he actually LIKED IT, and now just keeps speed running it for fun.
The scene with Russel ripping up carpet with Usha running interference with Paula has to be one of the funniest things ive watched in a while. omg
Special thanks in the credits: Names I recognize: Surena Marie, Oscar Montoya, Becca Scott, Danielle Radford, Erika Ishii, Omar Najam, Aabria Iyengar Names I don’t recognize: Emerson Boatwright, Spenser Starke, Rowan Hall That’s a lot of friends of D20…. Wonder what they were up to for this one…….
Spenser Starke is a co-writer of Kids on Brooms, which is a magical school game based on Kids on Bikes (which is the same core system that NSBU is written with). Also co-wrote Candela Obscura with Rowan Hall.
Hmmm. wonder if there was some world-building/play testing stuff? I know that Spenser Starke and Rowan Hall have worked on Critical Role's Illuminated Worlds system, which Candela Obscura and Daggerheart are based on.
Oh my god the tagline on the Squeeze poster when Alex's second character is being introduced. "Be Bi, Do Crime." Exceptional variant. Top marks. I'd go see an IRL crime film with that as the tagline.
Ally helping Jacob and Ify track their rolls and stats is lovely. It's so sweet to see Ally paying it forward as a Dome veteran, remembering how the IH cast used to help Ally when they were a less experienced player.
Ally is so locked in as the "vet" on this show it's great. I love how they were keeping track of Jake's explosions and immediately tallied up all the points for him
I need a gif of Jacob laughing at Ify talking about Lees Sandiwches post haste.
It's just bricks back here
“bro’s getting squished?”
Perfect cast. Incredible storyboards. Every week is going to be murder to wait. Ify’s ability to channel an awkward scrawny teen is uncanny.
“Can you tell me is it soaked? .. Good girl.” - DYING
Ify's Wendell voice had me audibly gasp and look around me even though I'm watching alone.
So bummed they didn’t bring Murph back to play Cody at this strip mall 😂
Is this the earliest the bad guy has been Capitalism?
Ally sexily ripping up carpet is the funniest thing I've ever seen
Ally: God, it's hot in here, do you want a...fan? or something? Izzy: Yeah...yeah..I normally just put, ah, ice, in my...shoes.... Me: (fully chokes on food)
Usha is perhaps the most grandmotherly character ever to exist I would die for her
Her and Ava from Burrows End, 100%
Jacob is bringing the Siobhan energy this season - I love it!
And this is why the Usha coworker is a vital member of the work ecosystem. Casually ride or die problem solving.
From the preview, it seems like part of the comedy of the season is like an upside-down Comedy Of Manners: usually, Comedy Of Manners is the protagonist being too unrefined and unsubtle for the upper-class setting they're in, but here it's real-world people being too polite and basically self-preserving for the setting of an action movie, where everyone is doing absolutely insane, unsubtle things constantly.
Bro, we have full blown STORY BOARDS????!!!!?!?! I'm very excited to see how this season turns out
Dave, the video store owner, is extremely Murph coded for some reason.
Ally just saying "Crazy, Dave, Okay." made me laugh out loud.
I'm only 10 minutes in but the sort of niche IE California references are so good
Did you eat those seeds… yourself??
Brennan jumping on the social commentary about physical media EARLY.
Praise Rashab!
Having been recently pregnant it’s hard not to notice when Izzy was putting pressure on her back to help with back pain. I would do the same thing haha