Yeah - after feeling kicked around for so much of his life, he loved being the one in power.
You can’t say there wasn’t a hint of pride there.
Watching his journey from schlub to kingpin and then his subsequent fall was such a gut wrenching trip and I loved it.
Hindsight truly is 20/20.
Funny, too. If you haven’t done so yet, watch the short Webisodes on YouTube:
The one with him and Badger is my favourite.
These look great. I’ll have to check them out. Thanks for the link.
That’s great, but the Bitch Montage is my favorite by far:
I don’t hold them in the same class as the self destructive characters. They were dark, but in both the characters were mostly acting intelligently fully in accordance with the morality (or amorality) of their peers, whether mobsters, gang bangers or cops. Contrast that to say, Seinfeld, where the non-Jerry characters are simply awful narcissists or fuckups, and there have been many copycats since.
IMO where it works is when it’s subtle, like how the 2 leads in Billions make small errors in their chess match due to egotism, or a rare big error like when Paul Giamatti’s character goes to the bondage club and is photographed. If he did stuff like that every week no one would take his character seriously as a formidable US Attorney.
Tony Soprano is amazingly self-destructive at several points in the series, despite his supposed desire to become a better family man (in both senses of the terms). The characters in “The Wire” are also self-destructive, usually because they repeatedly and delusionally slam their heads against the institutions they serve, but often on a human level (one word: McNulty; a second word: Bubbles).
A self-destructive character in these dramas is one who’s constantly betraying his stated desire to be a better person, whatever that means according to his own morality or what he thinks his own morality should be. Very often, as in the case of Walter White or Don Draper, we discover that they’re operating on the basis of a serious category error in that regard.
There are subtleties at work in the comedies, too. The difference is that those characters are not trying to be better people and gleefully reject morality. On “Seinfeld,” Jerry is awful in his own way, selfishly and sadistically enjoying the misfortunes of others (“well, that’s a shame!”) while pretending to be the “only sane man in the room.” Dennis fulfils that role on “Always Sunny.” “You’re the Worst” put its own spin on the idea, with the self-destructive characters fighting tooth-and-nail against their better impulses.
I liked “Billions,” but the self-destructive behaviours of the two main characters were not subtle compared to those of Tony Soprano or Don Draper or Walter White. Both of those characters know that their peccadilloes (kink and thieving greed) are unacceptable to society at large, but don’t want to change them and think society at large is a bunch of chumps. Morality doesn’t enter into it for them, except as a show for the public.
All true, I guess I’d argue on scale. McNulty was self destructive, but it wasn’t what the show was about, he was usually a coherent character. Tony was acting according to the general moral code of his peers, who were often self destructive, but that came with the criminal territory. It’s the shows where the characters are bulls in the china shop, acting impulsively and amorally being the main plot drivers, that I find unwatchable.
I like Mozart in the Jungle for it’s usual restrain, finding humor in situations, not in someone running off the rails. In a scene a musician has to run off stage due to bad clams, but it’s not like they got up and did something stupid or inappropriate. Same for Younger, a silly premise, but done gracefully with most characters earnestly doing the best they can, and only a couple of off the wall supporting ones. No one is as depressing as the characters on Girls.
OH wow - Jessica Jones has an Egon Schiele print in her bed room. She just got 20% cooler.
I love her eternal snarkiness…
I am about half way through and like it more than I thought I would. I guess I didn’t know what to expect.
I think a lot of people were turned off by how the story unfolded… it doesn’t start high action and you don’t even see Kilgrave for a while into the series (I’m forgetting what episode).
Tennant is just fantastic in the show, too.
Oh I don’t mind the less action, that’s fine. I figured it was more of a drama show. I guess I just didn’t know what to expect and while I had interest, just drug my feet. But that is the story of my life. Not doing what needs to be done - even if I want to do it.
Hell I am doing it right now, watching Jessica Jones vs something else 
It took forever to finally watch GoT, for example.
In the first few episodes, if your name was Jessica, you could close your eyes and pretend Tennant was your dad (you know, barking at you to do stuff
eta - LOL - “Was ‘Murder Corpse’ already taken?”
Just a nitpick, but the artificial time crunch because of Hope’s plea/trail is just that. So what she gets sentenced? First off, what double murder trial doesn’t take YEARS to pan out. Second, if you get new, GOOD evidence that shows she was innocent, then the verdict gets overturned. In the very least it would spark an appeal process. I mean, Tiger Lawyer should know this.
I know, I know, we need a plot device that motivates people to make the less than best decisions. Turn off your brain and just enjoy it
Also, I should IMDB people sooner. All though the series I thought Jessica looked familiar, and yeah, she was in Breaking Bad. Also a sitcom I never watched but I saw the ads for.
And they used the exact same stupid trope in Daredevil, like a DA could get a capital case "fast tracked " to be in court a couple of weeks after arrest. One of the reasons I stopped watching. I guess they think if you believe in a blind ninja vigilante lawyer, you’ll believe anything.
I never watched it, but I heard it was pretty good.
It is often used in crime dramas. It isn’t enough to make me stop watching, it is just annoying as the writing overall is pretty smart.
I feel like maybe I did see the show once, but probably not. I think it was funny that she used to be Jessie’s girl, and now she is Jessie.
I love the animated version of badger’s star trek script…
That’s right; Badger & Skinny Pete totally had an idea for a Star Trek ep!
I remember the look on Jesse’s face during the pitch:
In name, mostly.
Jones is equally as emotionally damaged as Pinkman, but far less self destructive… which could be only because her powers mean that she has less capacity to permanently harm herself.
I like the detail about the tulaberries, except voyager was stranded in the delta quadrant and not the gamma quadrant where they do originate from. According to memory alpha though they were mentioned in voyager so the level of geekery is high with these two.
