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Survivor 47: Episode 5 "The Scales Be Tippin" Gameplay Analysis

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 "That tribe's a mess." -Kyle Ostwald For most of this episode, this was a pretty average episode of Survivor .  Fortunately, even average Survivor is fun.  What elevated the episode was the ending.  Anika's reaction to being blindsided is an all-timer.  On a human level, I felt bad for her, but I was laughing my ass off at her reaction.  More of these, please!  Now, let's get into who played well and who sucked. Who Played Well: Starting over on Gata, I have to give a lot of props to Sam.  I really think Andy should have been the one to go home here, but saving Andy was good for Sam's game.  He managed to convince Sierra to go along with his plan without even having to play his Idol.  He keeps both his allies and gets rid of his number one enemy, Anika. We finally got to see the payoff for Andy's course correction.  He made himself indispensable to Sam and, in return, Sam saved him.  He may be the reason his tribe lost the challenge, but I'll give him
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Survivor 47: Episode 4 "Is That Blood in Your Hair" Gameplay Analysis

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 "Rome will burn." -Sol Yi Well, this episode took a turn I wasn't expecting.  I was all set for the downfall of Rome.  I was really excited to see him finally get voted out and out of nowhere the game got flipped on its head.  This Lavo tribe is a mess and I'm here for it.  Let's get into who played well and who sucked. Who Played Well: We'll start on the Gata tribe with Anika and Rachel, who were part of forming the Breadwinners alliance.  They are seeming more and more like the smarter path for Sierra to take and I think they're doing a good job of making her feel comfortable. Going over to Lavo, I love Genevieve's move in knocking Kishan out of the game.  She realized he was throwing her name out as the backup vote after she agreed to join Kishan and vote out her closest ally in Rome.  She realized that Kishan didn't actually have her back and made moves to knock Kishan out of the game instead of Rome.  I love this move for her! I'll give S
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Joker: Folie à Deux (2024) Review

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"I don't wanna sing anymore." -Arthur Fleck After the events of the previous film, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) sits in Arkham State Hospital awaiting to see if he will be declared competent to stand trial.  He meets another inmate, Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), a superfan of Joker, who brings music back into Arthur's life. What Works: My favorite part of the movie is the opening sequence.  It's an animated Looney Tunes-esque sequence with Joker fighting his own shadow.  It's the most creative and fun this movie ever gets and I wish the rest of the movie carried some of this energy. There's also some decent acting in the movie.  Phoenix and Gaga have great chemistry and there is some spark in their scenes together.  They just don't share enough screen-time.  Leigh Gill is also great in his brief appearance.  You can't help but feel awful for his character.  Gill absolutely nails it. What Sucks: I don't hate this movie for the same reasons it seems
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Community: Season 1, Episode 5 "Advanced Criminal Law" Review

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 "The only difference between Señor Chang and Stalin is that I know who Señor Chang is." -Troy Barnes "Advanced Criminal Law" picks up with Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) announcing a statue dedication ceremony in honor of Greendale's most famous alumnus, Luis Guzman.  Annie (Alison Brie) is on the committee trying to create a new school song, but is having trouble with their composer.  Pierce (Chevy Chase) offers his services as he wrote the jingle for the Hawthorne moist towelette.  Annie convinces the Dean to let Pierce create the song.  However, Pierce struggles immensely and Annie becomes concerned that he won't be able to get the song done.  Pierce eventually confesses that he steals all of his songs and tries to quit.  Annie won't let him and gives him an inspiring speech.  Pierce manages to perform his song for the ceremony, but doesn't seem to realize that it's mostly stolen from Bruce Hornsby's "That's Just the Way It Is." Tro
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Survivor 47: Episode 3 "Belly of the Beast" Gameplay Analysis

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 "Just so we don't have a "Q" moment..." -Kishan Patel I'll be honest, I can't wait to see Rome's downfall.  I enjoyed this episode and the season continues to setup the downfall of this egomaniac.  I don't know when he'll get voted out.  Heck, he may even make it to Final Tribal Council and lose in spectacular fashion, but I'm stoked to see it happen.  Let's get into who played well and who sucked. Who Played Well: Starting over on Gata, Andy had a great bounce-back episode.  I loved his observations of the tension between Anika and Sam, plus he had a really good conversation with Sierra.  Offering to hand over his Shot in the Dark before a Tribal Council was a great way to build trust with her. I also want to give props to Rachel who did a great job on the puzzle at the Immunity Challenge.  Her efforts let to a comeback victory for Gata. Finally, the conversation between Sierra and Andy was good for Sierra as well.  She now has a so
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Survivor 47: Episode 2 "Epic Boss Girl Move" Gameplay Analysis

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 "Bro." -TK Foster This was a really fun and satisfying episode of Survivor.   I love when overconfident players get setup for an epic downfall and this was no exception.  TK getting voted out here was hilarious, especially with Kyle's reaction.  It's wild.  After episode 1, if you had told me that TK would be the next person to go, I wouldn't have believed you.  This episode did a great job of showing exactly how we ended up here and I loved every second of it.  Let's get into who played well and who sucked. Who Played Well: We'll start over on the Gata tribe.  I gotta say, Andy made some headway in working his way back into the game.  Although I think he should have taken the Beware Advantage, Andy telling Sam and bonding with him definitely helped his position.  Sam wants to take him further into game at this point. While finding the Beware Advantage with Anika wasn't ideal, I do like that Sam got it.  Keeping it out of Andy's hands was the most
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Community: Season 1, Episode 4 "Social Psychology" Review

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 "Is this still part of the experiment?" -Troy Barnes "Social Psychology" picks up with Jeff (Joel McHale) avoiding walking to his next class with Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown).  He tells Britta (Gillian Jacobs) that it's because they don't have anything in common to talk about and that Shirley's overly positive attitude can be too much for him.  The next day, when Jeff gets stuck walking with Shirley, it's very awkward until they bond over talking crap about other people.  This works until they see Britta making out with Vaughn (Eric Christian Olsen), a hippie student she had recently started hanging out with, which upsets Jeff. Britta finds Jeff later and says she didn't tell Jeff about Vaughn because she was worried Jeff would make fun of him for his hippie attitude.  Jeff decides not to talk crap about Vaughn with Shirley anymore and when Shirley brings up Vaughn's tiny nipples, Jeff runs away.   Later, Britta tries to talk to Jeff about
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