Patriot on Amazon Prime: Let me Walk You Through Our Donnely Nut Spacing

holy shit

Four hours of this stuff! And the last one came out this week!

It's like listening to a guided meditation podcast or something. Soothing.

My attempt to sell it in 280 characters or less:

I am some years late to this but PATRIOT is a phenomenal TV series, just a perfect bleak comedy about depression and murder and family and love and the baroque incompetence of the American intelligence services. Brilliantly written, directed and acted. Amazing stuff. pic.twitter.com/OU85VS0XPy

— Caustic Cover Critic 📚 (@Unwise_Trousers) March 17, 2021

Just finished series 1 yesterday. Amazing show.

one thing i love about it is it sets up characters as a stock "type" (kurtwood smith as leslie, chris conrad as dennis) then you start to learn more layers to them as they open up

I don't know if I've come across a straight answer on this one, but: is all of the piping jargon complete bullshit?

Yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXJKdh1KZ0w

(there's even a few specific fake phrases being lifted from the retro/turbo encabulator for Leslie's jargon)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkH20fNavoI

It's like the creators wanted this to be a cult show. Or maybe they realized it would work best as a cult show? We found the trailer pretty off putting and didn't get around to watching the show for months as a result. Bad trailer and a forgettable, hard to search show name and an unknown cast isn't a great recipe for popularity. But the cult is growing as well it should.

The dead seriousness with which they spout off the fake piping jargon sales pitches is just brilliant. And the regretful tone of the interwoven interviews from the government investigation after everything goes jellyfish, that's top notch.

And did we talk about Lakeman's songs?

The song as he attempts to steal the gun from the poor Senegalese guy, that whole one-shot sequence; just brilliant.

Just starting S2 and this is great but there is way too much peeing, also - and this is really grouchy - but the artful, check-my-record-collection track choices are jarring, I feel like they're unconnected from the story most times.

Some very goofy moments in season 2. But it stays pretty cool.

Thereis a hilarious peeing scene in ins2ep4

Just finished S1 and I feel like I should just curl up for a while before going on.

heh

So what do we think about the fact that pretty much everything about Europe in this is bullshit?

I first noticed this when my wife, who is French, went "wtf is a rochambeau" and after googling I discovered only americans call it that. Was also surprised to hear Luxemburg has a sizable Brazilian immigrant population and a friend dug up an article from a LX paper that revealed that a) no, it doesn't and b) pretty much everything the show says about the city is bullshit, also it was filmed in Prague and takes no care whatsoever to conceal this. From thereon I started to get skeptical towards everything and while I haven't researched everything, come on, how likely is it that this procedure for supermarket owners to get guns isn't bullshit?

I'm not saying all of this as a criticism, per se - it works nicely for a show that is about deception, and dovetails with the idea of US agents in over their heads because they don't actually understand any other cultures. Gotta say that when they got to the Romani boy that was kind of crossing a line for me, tho - fine to make up immigration demographics or laws but I'd rather they didn't play into some pretty prevailing and harmful stereotypes. And in the first encounter you could always just assume they're mistaken, but second time confirmed it was very much a thing?

I want to believe Luxembourg's management of evidence is a game of hot potato and everyone walks around going "c'est cool."

Haha, fwiw "cool" is a frequently used word amongst French speakers.

Also willing to believe there's a folk tent in Boom, of course there'd fucking be.

While the show addresses real human issues and relationships, it essentially does so through a prism of pure fantasy. I mean, if you approach pretty much any aspect of the show from a 'hey, that's not what ____ is like in real life!' POV, it's never gonna pass muster.

This show was already pretty dang funny, and if i was a Luxembourgian process engineer I'd probably think it was the most hysterical thing that ever happened.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that they did zero research on the CIA before making this show. And that's okay, and here's why.

While the show addresses real human issues and relationships, it essentially does so through a prism of pure fantasy.

I dunno, the CIA financing candidates in Iran, a cop getting acquitted for killing a poc kid, the US reality seems to check out.

Would be very happy to hear that all the Milwaukee scenes prominently feature landmarks from, like, Delaware or somewhere tho.

Turns out it was filmed in Chicago. lol

also it was filmed in Prague and takes no care whatsoever to conceal this

Yeah this got to me too, initially it was "hey Luxembourg has a bridge that looks like Prague, who knew" but then "why are all the signs in the background in Czech". There's something lazy and sloppy about the show - the almost-but-not-quite Wes Anderson shots, too many characters and pointless coincidences in S2, for all her screen time and impressive hair Agathe isn't really anything - but the intense sadness of it all has kind of stuck with me and I mutter "pretty good" to myself when I'm having a rough day.

new episode of Leslie's podcast went up over the weekend
https://www.lgclaret.com/podcast/episode/1feaf73a/episode-five-leslie-the-snowman-a-prison-escape-story

Can't believe they're still making that podcast lol

I watched both seasons recently and enjoyed them but season 2 felt off a bit. A little bit short on ideas and the dialogue was sometimes lazy. Still some great moments there though. My favorite scenes are every time Leslie talks to John in S1. There's such a palpable disgust from Leslie, I start laughing before he even says anything

i liked the whole structural dynamics of flow thing going on, the show’s macguffin being about the intrinsic difficult of getting something from a to b (the cash) and the fact that the piping designed to deliver it (the people, the plans, the social relations, the sadness, the loss, the places) creates entire complex (non a-b) situations of strange events and behaviour in “normal” contexts.

would you believe they're STILL making that podcast?
https://www.lgclaret.com/podcast/episode/37e0a001/episode-six-the-caracas-blackouts

hahahaha awesome

Started watching the show this week, inspired by the revive (I'd never heard of it) - thank you ILE!

Four episodes in and loving this. Michael Dorman may have the most amazing face since yesterday’s birthday boy Buster Keaton.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D4OK83DW4AYVEie.jpg

Think about 'Afternoon Spray' a lot. I really should rewatch this.

Still need to tell my story about the other guy there.

Getting towards the end of S1. The ladies just shared a rental car from the airport. It’s kind of amazing to me how despite the quirkiness it’s really well plotted and paced so that I am pretty much constantly on the edge of my seat. Now Leslie is making his speech about the sun and the planets.

Man, Leslie is as misanthropic as a Jim Thompson sheriff.

It also has one of the more indelibly brilliant, if unknowable female leads on television.
Rochambeau?

I know how you feel. You’re just human. “Hello, club member.”

TS glass blower vs. puppeteer

On to Season Two.

And now on the far side of The Vantasner Danger Meridian.

Re the beef with greg12: the original lyrics of "Pancho and Lefty" say "only let him hang around" in the first chorus and later on it's "go so wrong" instead of "go so long" is that it? It's not just Willie and Merle though, also Emmylou Harris which is maybe who they heard it from iirc.

Not sure what I can watch next that can measure up to this.

amazing
https://www.newtechniquesinmodernpracticalclosecombat.com/

pretty good show

Double good imo

I'm three episodes into this show and enjoying it a lot. It has a weird admixture of vibes - my friend described it to me as "Wes Anderson does James Bond" which put me off it for a while. It has higher stakes for me than any Wes Anderson movie, though I can see where he gets that vibe. The opening in S1 E3 detailing Leslie's backstory is such a punch. I feel like things are converging toward an epic fuckup.

Finally finished Season 2 of Patriot and honestly thought it was a bit of a slog. Not nearly up to the

Complaints included:

-The need to bring back every S1 minor character for brief and inconsequential cameos.
-John turning even more into The Terminator, ignoring multiple major wounds, etc. This was carried over from S1, but was just over the top in S2.
-Continued pulled football where you think John/Tom are going to have a moment where they realize what all this is doing to John, but nothing ever comes of it. Nothing.
-Why are we supposed to care about John in the end? Because he sings bad twee songs? He is a terrible person, especially terrible to his wife (like actually emotionally abusive).

Is the show just an allegory about American interventionism?

Second sentence should read: Not nearly up to the level of S1 (or at least S1 exhausted everything the show had).

Also, Leslie way more interesting character than John. I want the Leslie Claret show.

These are all fair points.

finally got around to making my wife watch this with me and she's into it, which surprised me a bit - i thought she would like the humor of it but was worried she'd be turned off by the violence in the pilot. anyways this show is a decade old now

watched and absolutely loved the first season of this show a few years ago on the recommendation of ilx but for some reason i lost all motivation when i started the first ep of season 2. worth taking another stab?

Yes

my wife is fully into the show now, we've been watching it over new episodes of poker face. it's so fucking good. i love it from the get-go but the cold open of ep 3 where you get the quick pass through leslie's backstory is where it really blossoms.

Greg12 to thread!

steven conrad has a new limited series on HBO called dtf st. louis

Looks like another one of those semi-edgy "check out the seedy, secret underbelly of the suburbs" things.

yeah i had no interest in it but since it's a conrad show i'll probably check it out, i'm assuming it gets weirder than it looks

Patriot has always been tough for me to get people to watch because the general premise doesn't really capture how unique and great the show is, maybe this is the same way

Only discovered this show now. Halfway thru S2 but I think I can say S1 is my favorite series ever (agree that S2 loses a bit the snappiness)