signs and symbols: AMC's LODGE 49

weird timing and all cause in all probability it just ended for good; no one watches this show. but they should: it's warm, humane, mysterious, timely, touching, and occasionally riotously funny. and also maybe the only show that's reckoning with the current economic climate in anything approaching an honest way. also featuring some guest/recurring stars that I don't want to spoil for the uninitiated. but man I love(d?) this fuckin show.

I just spent a week and a half in LA and 5 different people recommended it to me. I've only watched the premiere and loved it. Yesterday I mentioned the show by name (not by @) to 2 people (an ex-ilxor & a semi-famous musician) who sang it's praises and within hours, two of the major actors liked and retweeted my tweet.

OK, I guess *some* people watch it. But yeah, if you so much as breathe a word about this show on Twitter half the cast/crew will fave, to an extent I've never seen with any other series.

Lol, since I posted that, I got another retweet from someone NOT on the show but worked as an AD on Breaking Bad, Mad Men & The Office according to her imdb.

Yeah, it's the kind of "they generally don't make 'em like this" project that tends to attract industry praise. I hope all the love is enough to keep it going at least one more season.

NY Times gave it a shout out and a "please don't cancel this" today

For the newbies, a spoiler-free, adoring intro from Emily VDW (inasmuch as this is a spoilable show):

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/8/9/20798142/lodge-49-season-1-streaming-watch-season-2-premiere-review

can’t wait to get home and watch the finale

it’s tricky to get the formula right when a season begins with a flash-forward and the season builds back to that point and from what i’ve seen so far, they’ve done a great job.

the other thing that sticks with me is how some characters are homages or parodies of real people but it’s done so very thoughtfully. i mean, having wyatt russell as the lead doesn’t hurt. dude is great at playing congenial characters

loved season 1, loved the first episode of season 2, have completely fallen behind on this and all tv. will slowly get back into the fold over the next couple weeks.

S2 has some tiny dips here and there but higher highs than S1. There's a mythology-heavy episode around the middle that is particularly stunning.

Yay, you started a Lodge 49 thread! Let me catch up and rhapsodise.

I am yet to watch the finale, and hope things are sufficiently wrapped up lest we not get another season, but not so much that it precludes the possibility of one!

As suggested upthread, the fact that financial hardship figures as a central component of the narrative is one of the more honest things in recent TV history. The exploration of a relationship between orphaned siblings and the weird relationship to memory and different approaches to coping is particularly poignant. Ah but there’s so much hope in the show! In magic and in acts of rebellion! It’s a show that likes and rewards people who are kind and I can’t remember the last time I watched something like that. Okay, maybe The Good Place, but Lodge 49 is just the absolute best.

I was trying to figure out how I know Champ (David Ury), and it took me until today to recall he played the early youtube prankster Ken Tanaka, a caucasian man adopted by Japanese parents and grew up in Japan.

Most of his vids are scrubbed but a few along the periphery remain, like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLt5qSm9U80

If you are Western looking and could speak JP with a bit of fluency 10+ years ago, one or dozens of your Japanese friends might have sent his videos to you back then.

Okay now I know why my musician friend was posting about the show, a song of his plays in the third episode haha.

no spoilers, but the quiet Dud/Ernie scene in the s2 finale absolutely killed me.

Whoever is coordinating the music on this show is A+

Almost finished season 1. Does anyone know if season 2 is coming to Amazon Prime or will I need to look elsewhere?

(In the UK that is)

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/an-interview-w-lodge-49-music-supervisor-tom-patterson/

I played some Soundcarriers stuff on my old radio show but never heard them in the wild, so it was really cool to hear them used so prominently here

spoilery intw with the creators a couple days ago

https://www.bustle.com/p/will-lodge-49-return-for-season-3-the-series-creators-have-big-plans-for-dud-19253974

Just wanted to echo how powerful that scene with Ernie and Dud was. My wife and I were both in tears. Amazing job by both of them.

Finally watched the last episode. Wow, the last ten minutes or so were like the most exciting and joyful television ever! The show's varying levels of fantasy work so well because there is always something totally corporeal to anchor it; for every mysterious door there is a scene like the Ernie and Dud one. Ah, so much was set up - I really hope it gets a third season.

BAD NEWS: Officially canceled by AMC
GOOD NEWS: Is being shopped

God damn it.

I'm really not optimistic about the odds anyone else picks it up. I was playing pessimistic about its odds for renewal but I secretly kinda thought AMC would keep it going just for the critical love, and the fact that it was probably pretty cheap to produce. But alas.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/06/costello

whoa

catching up... as we near the end and the remedios varo references and mysterious auctions start to pile up its feeling just a little too nudge-nudge

https://goo.gl/maps/2ydrz2JJd5hmdE3z8

lmao

alas...

DEAR LYNX, it breaks my heart to announce that LODGE 49 won't be going forward. We tried very hard to find a new home, but there were no takers. Ratings, metrics, algorithms...que sera, brah. I will write a proper postscript soon, but for now a few thoughts. (thread)

— Jim Gavin (@jimatdeltaco) December 17, 2019

;_;

that's a lovely goodbye

fuck that almost makes twitter worthwhile

finally catching up on this season and it's obviously excellent.

sorry for being party to the show's cancellation by not watching in a timely matter :(

no spoilers but now that I know it's the end, it has one of *the* great final shots of a series

im still absorbing "circles," which was probably the best television episode of the year, unless there are better ones coming up.

That might be the series highlight yeah, the show's Achilles heel imo is that the direction can be a little flat/pedestrian compared to the material, so seeing them mix things up so successfully was exciting

this show is so good - i didn't know i wanted a late-capitalist crying of lot 49 with added western hermeticism but i really, really did

just finished s1, can't wait to dive into season 2

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/06/costello

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Saturday, 9 November 2019 06:32 (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is great btw, thx albert for posting - amazing how well jim gavin's voice here is reflected in the show

just watched s2ep7, that scene with dud and ernie was a tour de force. one of the saddest parts of the end of this beautiful show is that idk when we'll be able to see brent jennings in such a big role again. he's such a friendly, warming presence, even when (especially when) he's sad or angry.

just started watching this last night, love it

always good to see the Meat Man from Strangers w Candy

omg Bruce Campbell!! Silver Apples! Eden Ahbez! what a show

bruce campbell is so, so good in this

yeah, perfectly cast

this show made fantastic use of its guest stars

also v cool to see Charles Yu deliver a great script (albeit just for one episode)

I feel like this show kinda stole How to Be a God in Central Florida's thunder

i don't see it tbh.

A) because this show was way too low-key to steal anyone's thunder and
B) because how to be a god in central florida kinda didn't deliver (presumably due to its complicated gestation)

I saw HTBAGICF first but this seems so much better and predicated on a similar premise (recently traumatized loser becomes enmeshed in mysterious organization with hopes of striking it rich/finding redemption). that's all I meant.

oh. well then i see it :D

big difference is that Dunst's character is motivated by revenge - which you can't really say about any of the main characters in Lodge 49

I like the comparison cause they are/were both About Capitalism to some extent. I agree God is the weaker show (for now)

yeah a lot of commonalities around being in debt, get-rich-quick schemes, frauds, corporations-as-mystery-cults

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

Meat Man/Blaise is so great in this, didn't know he had it in him

also just about fell out of my chair when the producer from Review showed up as the "psychic"

so happy you‘re enjoying this!

it seems like practically every scene features some great visual gag or detail - and the recurring ones are really well deployed (the coffee table without a table, the croaking raven in Ernie's house)

I'm into this apart from the hapless tanktopped Englisher

I love the implied makeshift culture that takes root in the abandoned Orbis factory - the references to rival groups (the cook mentions a "treaty"?!), half-baked schemes like the trebuchet.

The wide shot that reveals the "living room" area existing in the corner of the plant is my favorite visual gag in the whole series I think.

yeah that was great

there's been a surprising amount of quality physical comedy/visual gags, lots of people falling through things etc. As soon as that murphy bed was introduced ...

SoCal people, trying to figure out what IRL company Orbis represents, Hughes Aircraft? It shut down for good in 97 when Jim Gavin would have been in his early 20s and could have made an impression, esp on the local south bay economy.

I was trying to figure that out as well. The flashback stuff with Jackie Loomis and her Orbis paramour clearly a nod to the JPL/Jack Parsons/Crowley/L. Ron Hubbard axis

apart from Hughes the other one that occurred to me was General Dynamics

been putting off the last three episodes cause im so sad there aren't gonna be any more :(

just finished, remarkable show

There are two seasons of this right? I'm only just onto the last few of s1

Yep

I don't mind spoilers here tho

I also dig the recurring motif of things getting smashed through - walls, windows, tables, maps, floors, ceilings

Finally finished, am very happy sad at the moment. Probably gonna keep the mood going by listening to Broadcast’s joint album with The Focus Group.

The Mexico episode is one of the funniest hours of tv I’ve ever experienced, and the last ep worked fine as a series finale—still, you can’t help but wonder what was to come after that brilliant final shot.

Maybe Jim Gavin turns it into a book.

also loved the touch in the finale that the other, background lynxes got annoyed at dud for not inviting them to guadalajara lol

i finally started this & i love it

join ussssss

:D

yay!

you look defydrated

damn I loved this show

s1e6 is fucking god-tier TV and probably the single reason why I'm now on my 4th rewatch of this show.

The accelerating leaps of pace and the corners each revealed mystery exposes is just masterful.

Petitioning to sneak s3 production costs into the covid relief bills, for our collective well-being

So just last night I found out (via my wife) who Wyatt Russell's parents are, I had no idea... in spite of meeting and chatted with his half-sister a few years ago.

Is this on any streaming services?

amazon prime (s1 only in the UK)

hulu in the USA

Groundhog Day: Blaise plays Bill Murray's shrink and Ernie's boss plays the groundhog day MC/handler.

ernie’s boss is bill murray’s brother!

yes! and he was the co-writer of Caddyshack but also in that film portrayed a character named "Lou Loomis"... almost the exact name of the Sovereign Protector of Lodge 49 circa s1 eps #1-5.

More odd parallels: Tricia Brock directed episodes #5 & 6 of Lodge 49 s1, but she was the writer of Twin Peaks season 2 episodes 17 & 23 which prominently feature Windom Earle, portrayed by Kenneth Welsh who plays Larry Loomis in Lodge 49.

I just watched the first episode. I wasn't crazy about it and would probably bail except for all the praise about it here.

I felt the same way, except the 2 people who recommended it to me specifically said to give it a few episodes.

It's definitely a slow burn, there are an incredible amount of buried/obscured details that reveal themselves in later viewings. If you're not onboard by s1ep6 (if you can hang that long) it's probably just not your thing.

I also dig the recurring motif of things getting smashed through - walls, windows, tables, maps, floors, ceilings

― Οὖτις, Friday, February 7, 2020 10:12 AM (two months ago)

Yes, it parallels the a brief detail of Flammarion's Engraving in the title credits, Paul Giamatti's character straight-up does this to the map on Ernie's living room wall:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammarion_engraving#/media/File:Flammarion.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammarion_engraving#/media/File:Flammarion.jpg

currently watching AMC's Dispatches From Elsewhere which feels a lot like if you stripped Lodge 49 of the fascinating minutiae, belly laughs, and contemporary resonance, and replaced it all with Michel Gondry worship and a real budget. A real shame.

I was a little worried about that. Haven't read any reviews and had considered checking the hivemind here before watching

most people seem to like it but I'm finding it kind of unbearable

the promos seem to be very portentous and packed with recognizable actors, which often does not bode well

not to mention a vague title and even vaguer trailers.

the gospel is spreading (don't worry too much about the specific meaning of this tweet)

Lodge 49 is the most grillpilled show I’ve ever seen.

— grillpilled_cushbomb (@cushbomb) June 15, 2020

there's a song on the new rolling blackouts coastal fever called 'beautiful steven' and it can't help but remind me of ernie's nemesis beautiful jeff

Still no sign of the second season in the UK so guess I'm going to have to torrent it

do itttt

Just watched the first Bruce Campbell episode and this show is a delight

I’m done with jokes about an ilx commune post-covid

I want an ilx Lodge

i thought i already said this on here but i guess not: if you liked Lodge 49, you should also watch Patriot on Amazon Prime if you haven't already. there are plenty of differences but they are both comedies with strong undercurrents of sadness and big ensemble casts of interesting characters.

Just watched the trailer and I remembered why I stopped watching that in the first 5 minutes - the protagonist casually kills someone over a job interview. That's not mellow.

he isn't dead! but yeah it is a lot more stressful than Lodge 49

Lodge 49 is so damn good, I keep rewatching it mainly due to recommending it to people and then days/weeks later having them want to dive into convos about the show and I want to be fully present and reoriented.

Finished this last night (after putting off watching the final episodes, like some others mentioned), so good. Really too bad it didn't get another season, but also kind of amazing that it got made in the first place.

I had no idea I'd seen Brett Jennings before L49... but he played Ron Washington in Moneyball.

Just realized that Dud's limp when he walks is awfully reminiscent of Snake Plissken's after he takes a crossbow bolt to the leg.

just thought about Brent Jennings in s2 and welled up a bit

finished this last night and i just need to say: man, this show

everyone needs to watch it

♥️

Got a few left of season 2 to go. At first I was a bit disappointed in the shift away from the hare-brained mystery arc but appreciating it much more now.

I have nothing to say that hasn't been said but fuck it's so good. Doesn't hurt that the surf hauntology soundtrack is just dead center in the venn diagram of a lot of my genre loves.

Maybe I just want Mary Elizabeth Ellis back.

there is approx a 100 percent chance i will rewatch this within a year

Wyatt Russell was quoted in Vanity Fair last week saying that if Jim Gavin ever wants to do a L49 movie or if the series somehow gets picked up, he would drop everything to rejoin the project.

It's never going to happen but it's nice to dream

eh, if a Party Down re-boot can happen a decade after the fact, it's not so insane to think a Lodge 49 one could happen someday, too.

hopefully his MCU character gets killed off soon lol

There was a zoom event last night featuring Charles Yu (L49 staff writer for s1, sole writer for s1e6 which is imho the best L49 episode) for the SF Book Festival, and just so happened to be hosted by Jim Gavin. It ran about 1 hour and focused on Charles' work in the speculative fiction realm, his awards and accolades including winning a major award (National Book Award - Fiction) mid-pandemic for Interior Chinatown, violence/malevolence towards Asians/Asian-Americans, coming from an unusual background (pre-med/law school/model-minority), Asian-Americans underrepresentation in the arts, but mostly Charles' process of writing and honing his craft.

These guys are obviously good friends so it was often silly and light-hearted compared to a stuffy reading of Charles' resumé and bibliography which in someone else's hands the event could have been.

Yet even though the spotlight was on Charles, he gave Jim and Lodge 49 deep, heartfelt compliments at every opportunity (seriously, maybe 20-25% of the talk was Lodge 49-adjacent, just on Charles' behalf!).

I'll check to see if it gets posted on the 'tube.

(Also I had no idea that Charles was Kelvin Yu's brother!)

love both lodge 49 and interior chinatown so please keep posted!

totally didn't realize that charles yu wrote for it tho, i know he worked on westworld

as if on command:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra9wZeh1lS0

thanks for that!

rewatching my fave ep, 2.06 ("circles")....so much great stuff. "are you ready for an evening of gargantuan horror?"

"every man eventually shoots another man. it's a rite of passage."

man what a great show, what a sad way to go out

just finished this, what a beautiful miracle of a show

It pains me that I can't find S2 anywhere - it's just not available in the UK, even to purchase. I'm too out of practice to know where 'else' to look and the few places I've checked aren't giving me anything. ARGH.

Was the same. Argh!
I found a t0rr3nce of it (still not watched though!) so feel free to contact me via user name

This reminds me — I still need to reply to your lovely email from last year! I can also send a link to a w3transfer if that works.

Hey Chinaski - would a VPN that shows you as being in the US work? I think Hulu here has both seasons.

I've fiddled with a VPN before and couldn't get my head around it (I think I've finally ascended to the cloudy realm of learned helplessness). Which is to say, Chuck_Tatum, I would absolutely welcome seeds/We Transfer files!

I ended up downloading s2 on Slsk

Admittedly I'm slightly under the influence (Dextromethorphan HBr 30 mg) but "Souvlaki Space Station" came on shuffle and I'm hearing a dubbier version of the Lodge 49 theme in certain (quieter?) parts... anyone hearing that?

UK folx:

Lodge 49 is now available to stream on ITVX.

god I love this show