Nuance

Seth Meyer's show has been meh for about a week, with continuing defeatism. His recent monologue against Democrats said "it's not their fault" but they're gonna lose the midterm elections because they're doing nothing about inflation. And then he had the nerve to bring up Joe Manchin and say "call his bluff" by passing whatever bills he'd agree too, even if he'd betray them, then they could "move on." Have you been fucking asleep through the negotiations for Build Back Better and the voting rights bill? They already called his bluff many times. There were months I would see nothing but Joe Manchin articles every day with press asking him what he and Sinema wanted. Congress had to whittle down ambitious bills to what he wanted for "bipartisanship", only for him to suddenly say, "Nope" and demand more concessions. So they've already called his bluff and already moved on. Why is Seth so dishonest and lazy about this? Why are you being a chicken little, panicking that they've got to do something, anything, as if they haven't done anything their entire term? I mean, if you don't want to root for Democrats, then fucking talk about something else like the TV cancellation bloodbath ahead of upfronts, or the Marvel  movies. Don't fucking bring me down when I'm wanting comedy. When even Amber buys into your BS take, then fine, I'll cancel my fucking season pass. This is just like why I stopped watch Colbert regularly.

Speaking of Marvel movies, I saw the Multiverse of Madness (even though I've never seen the first Dr. Strange) since it's essentially a continuation of Wanda's story. I've seen a bunch of fans disappointed that she became the evil villain of the movie, and that they wanted more nuance like the TV show. They wanted more of a "transition" or something to explain her change. But I thought the TV show already had a transition, when we saw her in the cabin reading the evil book. Did they think that was a happy ending, her reading the evil book she got from Agnes? Plus Wanda was essentially not punished for what she did at Westview and I always thought Monica Rambeau's line, "don't let him make you the villain" strange, as it essentially gave Wanda a pass, ignoring her sins while emphasizing the S.W.O.R.D guy's misdeeds. So already Wanda was well into the gray, in danger of going much darker by possessing the evil book. Most concerning was that she went to that cabin by herself without going to say, Sorcerer Supreme Wong, for help training her with her powers. Isolated, it would be so easy to let herself get obsessed. One could even argue that her hearing her boys call out to her for help, was just a hallucination brought by the Darkhold to corrupt her and make her use the darkest spells.

SPOILER

Also I thought there was plenty of nuance in the Strange movie when our Wanda finally met her children in the 838 universe and saw that they feared her as a witch and insisted that she wasn't their mother. She was filled with guilt and sadness, understanding that she could not have what she wanted. She finally snapped out of her bloodlust enough to realize she needed to stop. It was tragic and moving.

As for the rest, the movie was kind of gruesome about deaths and injuries for the 838 Illuminati. I didn't get all the references to Dr. Strange's past, plus he really was a hypocrite to do Dreamwalking too, and not get called a villain. I suppose his third eye might be a consequence of his using the Darkhold, but if he suffers no other punishment, it is like he's getting off scot-free. Dreamwalking, where you take over yourself in an alternate universe and puppet them around, is their version of Verse-jumping. (Although in Everything Everywhere All at Once, verse-jumpers seemed to gain the abilities of their alternate selves to do battle in their current universe.) I still think EEAAO is a better movie, but Marvel's okay if you care enough about a character.