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Post by ibbi on Feb 26, 2023 14:33:47 GMT
George and Tammy is well-made, easy to watch, and the songs really come off pretty well considering these two non-singers are singing them.
The best thing about it is how it dabbles in how this industry exploits these people and profits from their misery.
The second best thing about it is the chronicling of this really pretty sad story of how this girl grows up to marry her hero, her idol who got her through the early years of her life, which makes her eventual separating from him that much heavier.
Only that second thing is tied into what is the worst thing about this.
It is a total Chastain vanity project, and her taking the role here despite being far too old for it takes so much of the edge off.
It takes the edge off how young Tammy was when she made it.
It takes the edge off the fact that she grew up listening to this guy, and all that entails.
It takes the edge off the fact that she wasn't actually a middle-aged woman when she had to get a hysterectomy, so it was probably actually a lot more meaningfully sad.
And it takes the edge off in the final episode when they start doing flashbacks to when they first met 30 years prior and she looks exactly the fucking same.
In the end, it has so little edge left that it's basically a circle, you might say a ring, but not a very golden one.
Though Goggins deserves some love for the split second in the fifth episode after the gun goes off.
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Post by JangoB on Feb 26, 2023 21:36:55 GMT
The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House by Hirokazu Koreeda and co. is nothing but a delightful 9-episoder. If you want some mellowness, kindness and tenderness in your life, watch it without any hesitation. Special thanks to Koreeda-san for recruiting Yôko Kanno to do the score after her genius work in his own Our Little Sister. These two should form a full-on collaboration because they're perfect for each other.
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Post by ibbi on Feb 28, 2023 18:42:24 GMT
After watching the first 4 episodes of 1923 I was more convinced than ever that Sheridan had just made Yellowstone so that he could make these prequels, because they were about 10 times as good.
Then in the last two episodes of this back half it all fell apart. I haven't seen a show tread water this hard since The Walking Dead was in its dogshit prime. Literally not even worth watching until season 2 is out.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 2, 2023 0:16:19 GMT
Cunk on Britain (2018) - s1, e1 (on Youtube)Precursor to the even more relevant, and even more funny, new Cunk on Earth mockumentary on Netflix ^ - this is more limited and just a little less sharp ..........but some riotous peaks and Diane Morgan is no less winningly hilarious as she just owns this character. One of the great comic creations of the MAR era ..... Bunch of ace one-liners like “But this Iron Man didn't have superpowers like the Iron Man you see in films. He couldn't fly, or tolerate Gwyneth Paltrow"
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Mar 2, 2023 5:18:54 GMT
trying to get back into Handmaid's Tale. Gave up 2 eps into S1 a couple years ago so let's see how far I get this time.
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Mar 9, 2023 18:31:49 GMT
Cunk on Earth (2022 / 2023) - Netflix - s1, e1 Delightful, marvelously dry mockumentary that Christopher Guest would admire........ Diane Morgan (Kath in Ricky Gervais' After Life) is inspired here - as a clueless host (Philomena Clunk) in a partially (ok, mostly) scripted, but also a slightly, partially improvised show.....she is interviewing real people here and at times genuinely fncking with them.......a pretty great comic creation by Morgan especially Kind of loved this - 5 episodes in the season........highly recommended if you get my sense of humor - you know who you are Loved this show. I could use some Cunk on Film next...
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SZilla
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Post by SZilla on Mar 13, 2023 15:41:42 GMT
Party Down - Season 3, Episode 3.
Loved the first two seasons when I first caught it about a decade ago and so far Season 3 has been great. This episode in particular was great. Has anyone else been watching the new season?
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tep
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formerly known as Ban
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Post by tep on Mar 15, 2023 20:18:40 GMT
American Horror Stories season 1 was about as mediocre and unmemorable as I expected it would be. 5/10.
Still gonna watch Season 2, I’m addicted to these horror anthologies
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Post by PromNightCarrie on Mar 21, 2023 13:37:24 GMT
I finished the Queen's Gambit. It's one of those shows that is comforting to binge with no pause if you have the day. It flew by like a 2-hour movie. Still, I'm not sure it lived up to the hype. I didn't think the addiction was well-played once it reached its most intense stages. And the final episode reminded me of those movies endings I dislike where the writers make sure to tie up every loose end with a nice bow. I think the strongest part of the mini-series was the relationship between the mother (the one who adopted her) and Beth. Marie Heller is so good and it makes you happy seeing her and Beth become a team. Her character's sense of missing out on a life she could have had of her own comes through. The show drops considerably after her death. I say she's MVP. If I had to pick a favorite scene it would be the one where Beth is playing the young Russian boy. Next on my menu: I'm finally going to get down to watching Atlanta from season 1. Hope I like it.
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Post by stephen on Mar 21, 2023 15:05:14 GMT
First two episodes of Bad Sisters and I am in love with it. Sharon Horgan is terrific and I love Anne-Marie Duff, Eve Hewson (KNICK GANG RISE UP!), Eva Birthistle, Brian Gleeson, and Daryl McCormack. But the real draw for this show is Claes Bang playing just the biggest prick in history. Just when you think he can't be any more of a douche, he keeps going and it's a delight.
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Post by Martin Stett on Mar 22, 2023 21:50:40 GMT
I don't have my computer right now, so I've been rewatching my DVDs of Ouran High School Host Club (my sister gave the whole series to me after I made I jokingly called it "the perfect gift for the homosexual supporting cast in your life") and rediscovering how damn charming it is. This show is never - EVER! - meanspirited, and it is such a breath of fresh air to see something so goodhearted. For all of the, uh... *questionable* sexual humor, there is a refreshing quality to the way this tackles class politics, sexual identity, unrequited love, the weight of expectations on a child's development, etc. And if you don't mind that this show features a musical theater club consisting solely of lesbians that abduct a teenage girl so that they can steal her first kiss in front of an audience as revenge against the club of boys that unfairly stole her heart, the humor can be wickedly funny as well.
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Post by Brother Fease on Apr 29, 2023 0:22:56 GMT
Succession Season 1, Episode 2 - Trying the show out. The characters are all wonderful terrible. Roland is my favorite so far.
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Post by JangoB on Jun 14, 2023 14:14:00 GMT
Continuing my anime adventures, I decided to dive into one of the most popular series of the second half of the 2000s - KyoAni's The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. And, like for pretty much all of its fans back in the day, the experience has been quite a rollercoaster. It's kind of the closest anime equivalent to Twin Peaks I've managed to find so far... not that I'm actively searching or anything The premise of the show is fun: an aggressively enthusiastic and forceful girl assembles a school club devoted to solving mysteries. She's not interested in "normal" people and is dying to encounter anything related to aliens, time travelers and espers. And lo and behold, three of the five members of her club are exactly that. Although she doesn't realize it. The other thing she doesn't realize is that she has the ability to literally transform reality by sheer willpower and that the three paranormal (unbeknownst to her) members of her club are there to prevent her from destroying the existing world. Which they must do by indulging her every whim. The one-sentence concept would basically sound like this: what if God lived among us and didn't know he/she was God? The first season is pretty terrific. It was initially broadcast in non-linear order (which is how I watched it too) and it's very clear that the episodes weren't just randomly meshed together but that there was special attention paid to how to structure them, what to reveal, when to reveal it and so on. There's a little bit of everything there: high-school comedy, sci-fi action, mindfuckery, horror - you name it. It's an excellent season full of surprises and memorable moments but most importantly it makes you truly excited for the continuation of the story in S2 because there's an incredible amount of potential in it. And then there's season two which is the main thing I wanted to talk about. Its release history is worth a movie of its own: after the immense success of S1 everybody was just starving for a sequel and KyoAni knew that they had a guaranteed hit on their hands if they made it. But in an act of remarkable trolling towards the show's fanbase, KyoAni essentially refused to announce anything concrete about S2 or to present any proper footage from it until the moment of its release. And its release was peculiar in its own right - instead of simply putting out new episodes, the studio announced a re-run of S1... which listed twice as many episodes as there were actually in it. Fans speculated whether S1 would be shown twice in a row (in the OG non-linear order followed by a chronological one) or whether there'd be new episodes there as well, and it turned out that both things were true. The first season was indeed shown again but this time in chronological order, AND the new S2 episodes were ALSO thrown in there, intermixed with the S1 ones to form one big linear "Haruhi Suzumiya" experience. So before fans officially got an S2 entry they had to rewatch 7 episodes from S1 first Once again, this wasn't announced beforehand so people just had to wait and see whether anything new would be shown at all. That first episode of S2 is actually quite great (and very Twin Peaks-ian) but it's followed by one of the most infamous arcs in anime history which is called "Endless Eight". The characters get stuck in a time loop where they have to relive their two-week long August holidays unless somebody does something to break that loop. And this arc is exactly what is says in its title - it's EIGHT (!) motherfucking episodes of THE SAME STUFF shown over and over and over again. No episode of this arc looks the same - the "camera" angles and the characters' clothes are always different. But what's happening from episode to episode literally doesn't change (well, aside from one reveal in the arc's episode 2 and, obviously, its ending in episode 8). Can you imagine being a fan of this series back in 2009, waiting for a new episode each week and then having to watch the same goddamn thing? Waiting for something, anything new to happen only for all your hopes to be destroyed again until the arc's episode 8 TWO MONTHS IN? Holy shit, I don't think I know of any TV trolling experiments as huge as this one. Where have you heard of a studio alienating and pissing off the fanbase of its biggest hit on such an epic scale? It's bold, it's reckless, it's insane, it's kind of genius, it's kind of annoying and horrible. It's kind of everything. I must say, I think the only people who experienced this arc correctly and fully were the original broadcast viewers so unless you artificially recreate those conditions for yourself (watching episodes once per week not knowing anything about them), you'll only have to imagine what the real "Endless Eight" experience must've been like. I'm not gonna pretend that I suffered through the eight episodes in their full horror - since I binged the show, I saw no reason not to speed up the playback during most of this arc. I knew I wasn't gonna get the proper experience anyway so I made the choice to ease the pain. But fans of this arc (and yes, those people exist) will tell you that it has to be seen in full because it's either an avantgarde masterpiece or the most accurate depiction of what being stuck in a time loop might feel like. I appreciate both of these sentiments but... yeah, no thanks It's insane that KyoAni would spend (waste?) more than half of the eagerly awaited S2 on this arc but you just gotta admire the audacity and the balls of that. Even though the reason for this decision is actually far more banal than deliberate audience trolling or trying to create an anime arthouse masterpiece: initially these time slots were meant for a different arc called "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya" but the studio couldn't come up with a way to break that arc into standard episodes and chose to turn it into a full-length movie (which is the second-longest animated film of all time... and is absolutely brilliant). So now they had a whole bunch of time slots to fill and no new material to fill them with. And their way of dealing with that was to show the same episode 8 times, only with different animation And thus one of the most controversial anime arcs of all time was born. I'm of two minds about it: the incredible audacity of turning a mainstream hit into something THIS audience-unfriendly is commendable but at the same time it IS a slog to get through (even sped-up) and, even more importantly, it doesn't allow S2 to live up to the promise of S1. The arc that follows "Endless Eight" and concludes S2 is a five-parter called "The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya" and although it's fine, it simply isn't on par with the greatness that S1 often showcased. Therefore the first episode of S2 ends up being the only actually terrific one which makes S2 more interesting as a concept rather than an actual piece of storytelling. Thankfully all of that is followed by the aforementioned feature film which is astonishing but the series is sort of a mixed bag. I definitely lean towards the positive side of things as I liked a lot of stuff about it and at least admired the balls of its most bewildering arc... but I feel that there was a promise there that wasn't properly fulfilled. I mean, it was fulfilled by the movie but we're talking about the series itself here. Its history though? Totally fascinating. Something with THIS many fans turning THIS hostile towards them? Gutsy.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jun 14, 2023 14:49:30 GMT
Continuing my anime adventures, I decided to dive into one of the most popular series of the second half of the 2000s - KyoAni's The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. And, like for pretty much all of its fans back in the day, the experience has been quite a rollercoaster. It's kind of the closest anime equivalent to Twin Peaks I've managed to find so far... not that I'm actively searching or anything Holy shit. That is... oh my god, I can't begin to imagine what that experience must be like. I haven't been able to latch onto KyoAni's output, but I'd heard the title of Haruhi Suzumiya and like many anime shows, I didn't know where to begin (I had heard something about it having a strange release). This makes me curious. The show doesn't look like my sort of thing in its core concept, but the release history sounds like something a cartoon supervillain would have cooked up.
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Post by JangoB on Jun 14, 2023 15:11:57 GMT
Continuing my anime adventures, I decided to dive into one of the most popular series of the second half of the 2000s - KyoAni's The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. And, like for pretty much all of its fans back in the day, the experience has been quite a rollercoaster. It's kind of the closest anime equivalent to Twin Peaks I've managed to find so far... not that I'm actively searching or anything Holy shit. That is... oh my god, I can't begin to imagine what that experience must be like. I haven't been able to latch onto KyoAni's output, but I'd heard the title of Haruhi Suzumiya and like many anime shows, I didn't know where to begin (I had heard something about it having a strange release). This makes me curious. The show doesn't look like my sort of thing in its core concept, but the release history sounds like something a cartoon supervillain would have cooked up. The backstory really may be more interesting than the show itself. You can't even say that they shot themselves in the foot with that S2 - they knew what they were doing. Since we live in an era where showrunners are mostly trying to please everyone, it felt somewhat refreshing to see a show turn so confrontational towards the audience. Not that it made it more enjoyable
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SZilla
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Post by SZilla on Jun 18, 2023 0:37:19 GMT
I've been watching the latest season of Black Mirror - only have one episode to go, but I did catch the first two minutes of it and I love the old Hammer aesthetic it was going for.
As for the prior four episodes, Loch Henry (episode 2) was the best of the bunch. All of the episodes have been decent (with Mazey Day - Episode 4 being the weakest) but they don't quite hit like the older pre-Netflix seasons. The Entire History of You from the first season will always be the best imo.
EDIT - Just finished the last episode and it was, as the Brits say, Bollocks.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 18, 2023 10:40:17 GMT
I thought this season of Black Mirror was awful - almost as bad as Season 5 - and I'd like to focus on the episode which will get the most acclaim - and it is the best - but is not close to being fully realized as much as I can tell (?) Loch Henry (Ep 2) why would the mother "need" to hang herself? There is nothing to link her to the girl - in fact, the setup in the beginning shows how people "can die quite easily there".......she doesn't know what the John Lynch character "thinks" he knows and tells the son......she wouldn't kill herself now if she didn't before, right? Maybe I missed something? Why would the murder house still exist also - GTFO...........that's just lazy writing The ending of this episode is designed to reveal a predetermined outcome - not logical or organic to hints dropped and then ignored within the show itself........and also to take (yet another) shot at "Netflix" (Streamberry)......this episode actually takes the real life case (Fred West, I guess) mixes it with Red Riding or something - and actually then lessens that horror and its Netflix satire of the horror.....it's a good episode I guess - interesting setup, very watchable and the best of this season .........but it also shows how far this stuff has fallen. Black Mirror really could (should) have ended after season 3 tbh - I like some of season 4 (Hang the DJ) but it's hard not to feel really burned by this show for a long time now......
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SZilla
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Post by SZilla on Jun 18, 2023 15:05:21 GMT
I thought this season of Black Mirror was awful - almost as bad as Season 5 - and I'd like to focus on the episode which will get the most acclaim - and it is the best - but is not close to being fully realized as much as I can tell (?) Loch Henry (Ep 2) why would the mother "need" to hang herself? There is nothing to link her to the girl - in fact, the setup in the beginning shows how people "can die quite easily there".......she doesn't know what the John Lynch character "thinks" he knows and tells the son......she wouldn't kill herself now if she didn't before, right? Maybe I missed something? Why would the murder house still exist also - GTFO...........that's just lazy writing The ending of this episode is designed to reveal a predetermined outcome - not logical or organic to hints dropped and then ignored within the show itself........and also to take (yet another) shot at "Netflix" (Streamberry)......this episode actually takes the real life case (Fred West, I guess) mixes it with Red Riding or something - and actually then lessens that horror and its Netflix satire of the horror.....it's a good episode I guess - interesting setup, very watchable and the best of this season .........but it also shows how far this stuff has fallen. Black Mirror really could (should) have ended after season 3 tbh - I like some of season 4 (Hang the DJ) but it's hard not to feel really burned by this show for a long time now...... Yeah, my assumption was that she wasn't sure if she managed to get out of there alive or not, but either way I think it was just a little too convenient of her to just hang herself. I'm also curious why the mom was so dead set on her son making the documentary to "tell his father's story" if she was worried about the revelations coming out? This season is incredibly underwhelming as a whole. I looked back at the past few seasons and I agree that besides Hang the DJ, the episodes have mostly been on the lesser side, although I did like Bandersnatch.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jul 3, 2023 19:26:55 GMT
S1 E1 of Sound! Euphonium
Fun start. Definitely a show for classical music nerds, which I am definitely not, but the character interactions are a blast and fairly realistic (the chill guy getting confused about why the main character refuses to talk to him is a comedic highlight). Label me as cautiously optimistic. K-On! burned me out a bit with its repetitive nature, and I'm a little worried that this could do the same, but it already has a wider cast of characters and a more down-to-earth approach to its directing.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jul 4, 2023 21:04:36 GMT
S1 E1 of Sound! EuphoniumFun start. Definitely a show for classical music nerds, which I am definitely not, but the character interactions are a blast and fairly realistic (the chill guy getting confused about why the main character refuses to talk to him is a comedic highlight). Label me as cautiously optimistic. K-On! burned me out a bit with its repetitive nature, and I'm a little worried that this could do the same, but it already has a wider cast of characters and a more down-to-earth approach to its directing. S1 E2 OH MY GOOOOOOOD THE TUBA MOUTHPIECE! BWAAAAAHAHAHAHA! Please please please please please don't disappoint me, show. I am in heaven right now, with a grin on my face and love in my heart. The humor in this is so simple - the girls having to lower their skirts for the teacher's strict dress code, the bit with Reina trying to switch over to trombone and telling her friends not to mention that she's a eupho player, Asuka reciting a whole essay on the euphonium to entice newbies, the tuba guy saying "we don't play much melody and this thing is really heavy" as his sales pitch - it is all so grounded and normal, and that's what makes it so funny. There is nothing "special" about what has happened so far, but it is obvious that the writer knows this world and these people, the kind of people that would join in the concert band and devote their after school activities to it. If this show loses me, it will break my heart. I want to love this so much, but it is early yet and maintaining a developing story from a beginning with this sort of tone will be difficult. How is it going to raise dramatic tension? It has done a good job so far in setting up Kousaka and Reina's differing views on music (and Aoi's outsider opinion), but if this gets too intense it will lose the frothy fun... and if it stays too light, it will turn into K-On, which was too repetitive for my tastes.
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SZilla
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Post by SZilla on Jul 4, 2023 22:14:27 GMT
Finished Season 4 of Barry. - I'm sorry to see the show end but its been a fun ride.
Season 1 of Channel Zero - Has anyone seen this show? I thought this season was phenomenal. Definitely seems underrated. I hope the rest of the show is as good as its first season.
Got one episode left of Atlanta as well. Feelings are similar to how I felt with Barry.
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Post by Brother Fease on Jul 9, 2023 18:24:47 GMT
Finished up Breaking Bad. Great show. Poor Andrea.
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Post by Brother Fease on Jul 18, 2023 2:48:07 GMT
My list:
The Afterparty, Season 2, Episode 1 & 2 - Pretty good parody of the murder mystery genre.
Bad Sisters, Season 1, Episode 1-4 - Great show. Can't believe this got lost in the shuffle from me. Very funny. Lovely shots of Ireland and a pretty clever premise. I am loving every second of this. Yet nobody is actually talking about this show.
Hijack, Season 1, Episode 4 - Yet another Apple show. Pretty good premise in a worn-out genre about being trapped in a plan with terrorists.
Silo, Season 1, Episode 5 - Got off to a rocky start with me, but I am warmed up to this. Every episode the main cast changes.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jul 18, 2023 17:01:50 GMT
wrapped up Silo last night (good show but has some weak storytelling towards the end) and moved on to Love & Death which so far is better than expected given the mixed feedback and my increasing indifference towards true crime bullshit. First ep is pretty sleepy, just introduces us to the characters and sets up the affair between Candy and Allan. Finished Ep. 2 last night ("Encounters") which finds the couple getting in too deep and Allan readjusting and trying to recommit to his wife, and it's a definite step up from ep. 1. Olsen is terrific so far with lots of behavioral nuances to capture this woman's growing obsession, Plemons is so-so, and Rabe is good as the ill-fated Betty Gore, strident and full of neuroses and desperate to be loved. Looking forward to seeing more.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jul 24, 2023 20:20:25 GMT
been watching a ton of TV these last few days. Knocked out Love & Death (liked it a lot), Ted Lasso S3 (much better than S2 but still flawed) AND Perry Mason S2 (wasn't a fan sadly, felt slight in comparison to S1). now I'm on to Nat Geo's Holocaust miniseries A Small Light, about Miep Gies, one of the women who hid the Frank family in Holland. Very good so far. Bel Powley is terrific and Liev Schreiber is weirdly unrecognizable behind what appears to be pretty minimal makeup. Didn't even notice him for the first few minutes. Ep. 2 "Welcome to Switzerland" The Franks are already in hiding. While the persecution of the Jews ramps up in the country, Miep and Otto Frank have to decide whether to risk their families in bringing more desperate fugitives into their sanctuary.
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