But Is It on Netflix? - Streaming Video Service Thread: Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, Peacock, YouTube TV, AT+T Watch, Philo, Playstation Vue, HBO Max, HBO Now, Facebook Live and many more

started watching Mark Ronson's Apple+ sound documentary series - he seems like a nice enough guy and has good taste, kind of weird when they play anything he's done aside from Amy Winehouse and it's absolute garbage

Finished The Bear which is ok, but I didn't love it, because the basic premise still doesn't make sense to me: why did a sandwhich shop have this much staff? Like an expert pastry chef? I gather you're supposed to assume that Michael hired and brought these people on because he himself was such a foodie but unfortunately you don't get a sense of that until the end of the series. I do think the last two episodes were the best ones. Also it's not clear to me at all what was going on with the money in the cans.

akm, here you go: https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/the-bear-ending-where-did-the-money-come-from

The dead brother had that unmarked ledger where it looked like he was making monthly payments toward something, but it turned out that was what he was storing away. I liked this show’s balance of veracity/imagination more than most things I try to watch.

why did a sandwhich shop have this much staff? Like an expert pastry chef?

They definitely seemed to have more people than they strictly needed, but TBF the pastry-chef guy was originally just there to bake the sandwich rolls; he was inspired by Carmy's arrival to begin expressing his inner self as a pastry chef.

I just finished it last night, too. I think Michael, rather than paying his bills, had been squirreling away the money into those cans, so that after he killed himself his brother would have money to open up a new place. In an earlier episode Oliver Platt offered to buy it from him to absolve the debt. Now Carmy can sell the beef stand to Platt and use all that cash to open a new place.

The pastry chef is self taught, though for sure at least in the context of the beef stand ("there is always money in the beef stand, wink wink") there's no reason to have the dead weight around of a guy experimenting with high-end donuts. The other staff, at first it does seem too big, but I have no idea. Our own awesome local sausage/burger stand down the street has been struggling with a host of issues (not unlike the show, come to think of it), and recently (successfully) raised over $100k from customers and fans to take care of pressing issues. Our place is a hole in the wall, and apparently even it requires four people, minimum, to run efficiently. Dine in (which they do not have, but I think this show's place does) requires more, since someone has to wash dishes and stuff. Still, I think the staff in The Bear is only five or so, plus a couple of dishwashers?

Wait, wtf? The money *is* the $300K loan from Platt? So Michael took it, hid it, and left it to Carmine? I guess that would lead to the same result. Carmine can sell the place to Platt, cancel out his debt, and then put that cash into a new place.

Yeah, I don't actually know how many people it takes to run what seems from the outside to be a very small restaurant. I have food service experience, but it was at an airport food court which served thousands of people every day so we had a massive amount of people working there.

only a few episodes in but it seems pretty clear that everybody there already worked there except for the young woman who follows him there. Everybody's like "don't mess with our system".

yeah, the entire thing was that Michael was really struggling and wanted to make a franchise, and figure out how to bring his brother into everything, but he just didn't have the ability to work it out

so he did what he did, but left Carmy with the ability to do his own thing with the seed money he never spent

They didn't say it outright, but I assumed Michael understood that pushing Carmy away would not only save him from getting mired in the family business but force him (via reverse psychology) to get even better at what he does. I'm hoping that Carmy got the hint from the brief but galvanizing note his brother left.

I guess in a show like this, leaving so much of this stuff unsaid works against the show. Because there are rational answers to all the questions I/we have, and it wouldn't take much work to add this context into the show so these points don't seem vague, but instead the show runner decided to use up screentime with negligibly successful fantasy scenes.

well, I mean, there is going to be another season.

xp A couple other things in that vein (things where the screenwriters wanted to show some moment, or move the plot in a certain direction, but didn't really fill out the supporting details):

1. What "drug deal" is it that Richie does where he can clear $8K in profit in like one day, and then just walk away?

2. How did the money get in the cans? Seems like a very elaborate scheme! Did Michael know someone at the San Marzano cannery?

3. Risotto requires a person standing in front of the stove the entire time it is cooking. How would this possibly be a good financial idea? What's next? Are they going to start making zabaglione for dessert?

2. Apparently restaurants have canning machines that are pretty easy to use.
3. I've made risotto in my instant pot and it was fine, so maybe Sydney used a pressure cooker?

"2. How did the money get in the cans? Seems like a very elaborate scheme! Did Michael know someone at the San Marzano cannery?" in the article linked above, the showrunner stated that 'they' had a can re-sealer. that's the sort of thing that seems sloppy and lame to me. KBL did? they are some can resealing company that can be trusted to put money in cans?

Re: risotto: true, which may also be part of why dude said 'no' to risotto on the menu

ilx: draining the fun out of perfectly good tv shows since forever

<3

how not to watch television

did you guys notice he said there were 42 cans but we only see them open 41 what is up with that

Anyone seen the new season of only murders? Loved the first one, but would rather tap out then watch an inferior second. Tell me it’s good!

i barely watched the first season and apparently missed the very ending of it becaue I was pretty confused when I started season 2. Hence, I only saw the first episode but it was good?

Did anybody else watch the HBO show Industry, about a bunch of attractive young people doing drugs and having sex while competing for jobs at a big London investment bank? I liked the first 8-episode season, but I don't know if I'm gonna watch Season 2, which premieres on Monday, because the protagonist was extremely unlikable. I think we're supposed to feel that she has Trauma from her Past and that's why she's a paranoid, hostile asshole to everyone and has near-breakdowns any time she faces an obstacle or fucks up, but...she's a paranoid, hostile asshole and it's very difficult to sympathize with her.

not I, I thought it looked awful but then I thought that about Succession originally too

I watched the first couple of episodes but it didn't really grab me tbh.

We watched the first 3 eps. of Only Murders S2... I thought it started slow but Ep. 3 was really good (we haven't turned back to it, though).

(They really should have done a longer recap of the twists & turns of S1; they keep referring back to events that made me think "oh yeah, I forgot about that")

i’m enjoying s2 of only murders … it took me a couple of eps to settle back in but it’s good!

I feel like the turnaround was shockingly fast! I'm not sure I'm ready for another one so soon.

We finished S2 of "The Great"... I can't think of a show with all-around better performances, the cast is just incredible

Things get pretty far-out at times (the content can be... "extreme"), but it's quite a show (again, I know this is old news for some)

The Great is totally great.

Could not get into The Great, despite loving The Favorite

i loved the first season of the great but keep forgetting to watch season 2. it's next on my list (prob not gonna have bandwidth for another hour-long show til better call saul ends)

NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock added zero paid subscribers in the second quarter of 2022 and lost 1 million monthly active accounts (MAAs) from Q1, according to second-quarter earnings Comcast reported today.

zero? how is that even possible?

I think it just means that subscriptions were effectively flat, as in for every new paid sub that signed up, they lost one.

i only have peacock because I can get it for free somehow, there are good things on there but it honestly should be like $2 and not $5.

Killing It is good.

xp that makes more sense, but the way that sentence reads makes it seem like they gained zero (not net zero, literal zero) and lost 1 million

i use it to watch Sanford and Son mainly

Undone - 2 seasons on Amazon - was excellent. Well-written, cool rotoscope animation, moving. And Bob Odenkirk !

And Rosa Salazar! And written by Kate Purdy and Raphael Bob-Waksberg from Bojack Horseman! It's baffling to me how little attention the show gets, Amazon has done a poor job promoting it

Hopefully surprising no one, there were reportedly lots of layoffs at the Coda Collection today.

Oh man I just realized what Prey is and I am stooooked for it, Friday can't come soon enough.

I'm cautious but I'm hearing really good things so far about Prey!

Oh, that’s cool, I hadn’t heard of that movie…

Can’t believe Dan Trachtenberg hasn’t directed a film since 10 Cloverfield Lane (which I thought was awesome)!

Btw – we’ve moved onto this HBO Max* series The Gilded Age, which is like a Neanderthal version of Downton Abbey… terrible writing, acting, directing; it’s ridiculous and fun to watch / laugh at.

(*Wikipedia says this trash is actually on regular HBO, believe it or not; so I guess not fit for this thread.)

the Resort on Peacock is thoroughly enjoyable so far.

xp idk, sounds like Neando could do a better job than that!

Gilded Age is definitely dull but I didn’t find it straight-up bad - ymmv

Baranksi & Coons were worth it for me

Yeah, I didn't think it was that bad besides very obviously trying to do nothing more than transplant Downton Abbey to NYC a few decades earlier. Some of the CGI is terrible and they uh play fast and loose with geography and architecture of the era, but I enjoyed it as a mindless fun,

i was mostly annoyed by how impossibly clean the streets & sidewalks are lol