Drops of Gold is ……. well…… pure gold. It’s also a great way to learn some of the inside things about the world of high end wine and the pretty sophisticated expertise of master sommeliers and others at that level. The plot is prettt interesting in its own right.
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Caught up on Stranger Things last night. All the crying was mighty annoying, and reminiscent of the equally weepy and disappointing final season of Resident Alien — both of which could be summed up as “wah wah wah” 
We’re caught up as well. Gotta say, I know it’s a period show, but Will’s big reveal was pretty overwrought, especially considering Robin has been out since her character was introduced, and it’s been obvious since Season 2 that Will’s crush is Mike.
Yessss! We were baffled what high drama they squeezed out of this rather obvious revelation. Sure, it’s the 80s, but … really? Meh.
Shame her love for animals didn’t extend to people from all backgrounds.
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Ya, no great loss to the world 
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Thanks for the heads up, in checking it out I discovered there’s also a new book, just out.
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Just watched this. Great performances, and a very relevant and sobering topic.
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One of the best things on the tube this year.
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Stunning. Put me in mind of the (very different plot, similar gut-punch effect) Michaela Coel series “I May Destroy You.”
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Would you recommend it? I love both Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, but Lanthimos is….. out there, for sure. It’s streaming for free now, so it’s a possibility for tonight.
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I’ve loved pretty much everything by Lanthimos. My favourite is The Favourite! So I’m putting Bugonia on my watch list.
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I’ve only seen Poor Things, which I liked a lot.
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We also watched Fackham Hall last night, which was streaming for $9.99.
Found it only very mildly entertaining — think The Naked Gun kind of humor, but nowhere near as funny, which is likely why I completely forgot about it.
Jim Carr as the vicar is one highlight, even if it’s the same joke over and over.
Love that as well. And was interested in The Lobster and Poor Things and Triangle of Sadness, without actually liking them.
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good to know!! about both the new episodes and the book
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If you liked Poor Things then you would probably like this. It’s not for everybody, but very well acted.
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Watched a movie on Netflix last night - The Best We Can with Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgewick. Light and funny, we really enjoyed it.
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I think the strength of Pluribus lies not so much in the themes but in how all of this is being treated. It’s not a content issue-- although I still think the fundamental question of whether an invasion of the hive mind is a positive or negative, the forms of surveillance, and what constitutes harm are worthy of raising, even if they’ve been raised before.
But really, the strength, or where it becomes interesting is in the form. Slow cinema is a wonderful exploration of process and context and an immersion into a world. Slowness demands a different register and different way of gaining satisfaction and as such works as critique of social conditions and their mediation-- it’s why it’s such a strategy of responding to capitalism and also patriarchy. (I think here, even if Chantal Akerman so tired of this, of how Jeanne Dielmann resisted the “male gaze” and the expectations of visual pleasure through narrative cinema. So what does slow television bring? What is achieved when an entire series (sorry, “season”) pretty much encapsulates what a typical show would use as its pilot? What does it mean to have sci-fi tropes (“they’re eating people!”) deflated? And with an informercial, no less? I’ve really appreciated the ways in which this play with televisual time encourages more sitting with the situation these characters inhabit. And allowing boredom, loneliness, and grief to be the experiences that are highlighted (and not just righteous anger and determination) brings something I’ve not seen as much and appreciate sitting with. It’s also nice, in a world of brain rot and and contact stimulation to be sitting somewhere that is doing something different.
Now if only all the Vince Gilligan fans would learn something about slow cinema before declaring their boy a genius who invented this.
None of this is to say you should change your opinion about how much you enjoyed it, but I did think your suggestion it’s all been done before misses out on what this show brings-- besides the fabulous Rhea Seehorn not to mention Karolina Wydra and Carlos-Manuel Vesga.
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