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True Detective starts tonight

Seriously, try Banshee.

I've had it in my Netflix queue and will bump it up. Thanks. One more disk to go for S3 of Homeland and then I will give Banshee a shot.

And while I am a huge fan of GoT, the season was over before TD S2 started. I just mainly meant what was worth watching besides TD S2 Sunday night this summer because I can't think of anything. I've had my complaints, especially about the incessant mumbling, but it's still better than most TV shows in my opinion.
 
Sounds like you need to watch Daredevil and ESPECIALLY Banshee. There are a TON of great fight sequences in both but especially Banshee that puts the action in Season Two of True Detective to shame. Seriously, pick any random three episodes of Banshee that are connected and you would have a five star action movie. Plus, there were some great scenes in Spartacus after the first couple of episodes.
But seriously...watch Banshee.

Spartacus S1 is very good. Damn shame the guy died just as he was about to hit the big time. This was better on TV, but is a example of what you are talking about.


Banshee is much better overall. A couple bonuses, Lili Simmons from Season S1 of TD is a main character and CJ Perry makes a guest appearance S2.
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Both shows embrace violence and the female form.
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I think it was implied he had the $3.5 million nest egg of diamonds hidden in the suit, but I could be wrong. Trust me, I hated the ending and the whole season really, but that wasn't botched unless it wasn't more noticeable to other people. Basically, he MIGHT have gotten out alive but his pride AND nest egg aka everything he had worked decades for would be taken from him. Should have hidden the diamonds in his socks.

Yeah, it was the diamonds. He was that close to getting out of it, assuming he could have walked to safety if he was healthy. But the diamonds were the reason he took a chance to see if he could get out with his suit.
 
When you say "top tier", I'm thinking you're talking top tier of at least the new Golden Age of TV (Sopranos and beyond).

If you are talking about just what's running in a given year, then Season 1 is probably one of the 10 best shows of 2014 for sure, so by that definition Season 1 is probably "top tier." But it's not an all-time top tier TV show, in the Sopranos, Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, etc territory, and I don't think it's even remotely close. That doesn't mean it isn't quite good. For the record, I wouldn't put GOT in that category either.

Season 2 is almost certainly not one of the ten best shows of 2015. If you're talking about what's running at any given moment, then maybe it's top ten in those eight weeks. That's not a hard bar to clear in the summer. But I don't know many people that watch TV that way any more, when you could always watch a better show you missed the first time.
 
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I need to watch last nights episode again. I had the baby crying and was distracted on a occasions.

overall though, I wasn't impressed with this season.

Someone mentioned that they thought there were to many characters to try and develop...it was after the first episode. I think it was DMM...i thought that person was being ridiculous at the time...but they were spot on. Way to many characters...and boring ones at that.
 
When you say "top tier", I'm thinking you're talking top tier of at least the new Golden Age of TV (Sopranos and beyond).

If you are talking about just what's running in a given year, then Season 1 is probably one of the 10 best shows of 2014 for sure, so by that definition Season 1 is probably "top tier." But it's not an all-time top tier TV show, in the Sopranos, Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, etc territory, and I don't think it's even remotely close. That doesn't mean it isn't quite good. For the record, I wouldn't put GOT in that category either.

Season 2 is almost certainly not one of the ten best shows of 2015. If you're talking about what's running at any given moment, then maybe it's top ten in those eight weeks. That's not a hard bar to clear in the summer. But I don't know many people that watch TV that way any more, when you could always watch a better show you missed the first time.

Give me season 1 of True Detectives over the last few years of Sopranos, season 2 of The Wire with the dock workers is solid, Breaking Bad is overrated to me (but I know how to make meth) because the first few seasons aren't strong but still excellent and intriguing television.
 
Give me season 1 of True Detectives over the last few years of Sopranos, season 2 of The Wire with the dock workers is solid, Breaking Bad is overrated to me (but I know how to make meth) because the first few seasons aren't strong but still excellent and intriguing television.

I was a huge fan of BB when it was aired, and completely agree that it was overrated. TD1 > BB.
 
Rachel McAdams and the gay Marine basically brought nothing to the season...

I never was one who thought the S1 was the greatest thing ever, so I didn't mind that this season was completely different.

But it just felt too cluttered. It dragged at times and felt way too rushed towards the end...
 
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I need to watch last nights episode again. I had the baby crying and was distracted on a occasions.

overall though, I wasn't impressed with this season.

Someone mentioned that they thought there were to many characters to try and develop...it was after the first episode. I think it was DMM...i thought that person was being ridiculous at the time...but they were spot on. Way to many characters...and boring ones at that.

Yeah, that was my biggest concern with this season and it turned out to be correct.
 
Yeah, it was the diamonds. He was that close to getting out of it, assuming he could have walked to safety if he was healthy. But the diamonds were the reason he took a chance to see if he could get out with his suit.

Didn't they show them in his blood/wound at the very end, just before he sees his GF?
 
. They played up the whole season that Frank would actually be the true father since they kept harping on his fear of the paternity test..

Wait... They did?

I thought it was painfully obvious that CF would be the father. Maybe not from anything actually presented in the story, but just from how it tried to show how fat and ginger that kid was compared to CF.
 
Rachel McAdams and the gay Marine basically brought nothing to the season...

I never was one who thought the S1 was the greatest thing ever, so I didn't mind that this season was completely different.

But it just felt too cluttered. It dragged at times and felt way too rushed towards the end...

I agree. About half the show was spent on McAdams and her back story and she just ends up being nothing more than a women with a baby on the run with a dead love interest.

This season was ok and I will watch #3. There were some good action scenes and having Colin appear to get shot in the beginning was very interesting. I did think Vince Vaughn, Colin Farell, Rachel McAdams and Taylor Kitsch acting was much better than their scripts. While many were worried about Vaughn not being able to handle the acting, I thought he stole the show in the last episode.

The spoiler cruising around the internet nailed the last episode which sucked and I fault myself for looking it up. I prefer to be surprised by the characters I know instead of just throwing in a character at the end we only had a glimpse at.
 
Wait... They did?

I thought it was painfully obvious that CF would be the father. Maybe not from anything actually presented in the story, but just from how it tried to show how fat and ginger that kid was compared to CF.

Sorry, brain fart. I meant Ray (CF), not Frank (VV). Bad and confusing sentence, sorry. I've probably done that a dozen times in this thread and stopped, proof-read and then fixed before posting. Missed it in this one.
 
Truthfully I can only think of a couple of shows that deteriorated as much or more in quality than from Season 1 and 2 in True Detective. Usually it'sa pretty slow decline like in Dexter which was at its pinnacle in Season Four with John Lithgow and then every season was just a little bit worse until you finally hit the %+%fest that was the final season, Season 8. And that's a fair comparison for me as I loved Season 4 of Dexter just as much as Season 1 of TD and loathed Season 2 of TD just as much as Season 8 of Dexter.

The closest I can remember to such a dramatic reduction in quality is in between season four and five of Babylon Five and there were real issues going on in terms of the channel told the producer/writer to hurry up and tell his full story arc by the end of season four because they were cancelling and he did (which was MARVELOUS writing...B5 is kind of hard to rewatch because the FX was crude by today's standard CGI rather than practical and the acting varied even wider in quality than the various Star Trek series, but the plot and dialogue was some of the best on tv). But after rapping everything up the studio said "Surprise we're renewing you!" And there were very few plot threads left unresolved and the writing was done in a quick, slapdash manner rather than a well thought out, multi season arc. True Detective has no such excuse, if anything the producer/writer was given a bigger budget and all the assistance he could ask for plus free reign.
 
Truthfully I can only think of a couple of shows that deteriorated as much or more in quality than from Season 1 and 2 in True Detective. Usually it'sa pretty slow decline like in Dexter which was at its pinnacle in Season Four with John Lithgow and then every season was just a little bit worse until you finally hit the %+%fest that was the final season, Season 8. And that's a fair comparison for me as I loved Season 4 of Dexter just as much as Season 1 of TD and loathed Season 2 of TD just as much as Season 8 of Dexter.

The closest I can remember to such a dramatic reduction in quality is in between season four and five of Babylon Five and there were real issues going on in terms of the channel told the producer/writer to hurry up and tell his full story arc by the end of season four because they were cancelling and he did (which was MARVELOUS writing...B5 is kind of hard to rewatch because the FX was crude by today's standard CGI rather than practical and the acting varied even wider in quality than the various Star Trek series, but the plot and dialogue was some of the best on tv). But after rapping everything up the studio said "Surprise we're renewing you!" And there were very few plot threads left unresolved and the writing was done in a quick, slapdash manner rather than a well thought out, multi season arc. True Detective has no such excuse, if anything the producer/writer was given a bigger budget and all the assistance he could ask for plus free reign.

Although it wasn't such a prestige show, the one that comes to my mind is Heroes. That had an excellent first season, and then went straight to garbage.
 
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Give me season 1 of True Detectives over the last few years of Sopranos, season 2 of The Wire with the dock workers is solid, Breaking Bad is overrated to me (but I know how to make meth) because the first few seasons aren't strong but still excellent and intriguing television.

That is absolutely fine, anyone is welcome to their opinion. I really liked a show on Showtime called Brotherhood that nobody thought was very good, and I thought the last season of The Killing on Netflix was pretty great. I never liked Curb Your Enthusiasm.

But your opinion of the place of True Detective season one is very, very far from the general consensus.
 
Although it wasn't such a prestige show, the one that comes to my mind is Heroes. That had an excellent first season, and then went straight to garbage.

That's true. While I wasn't a huge fan of Heroes (I liked Alphas MUCH better despite the significantly lower budget and I like all of the current CW shows plus AOS better), it was interesting and had some decent acting in it. But season 2 was so bad I stopped watching it about halfway through and never bothered over the years to get caught up.
 
That is absolutely fine, anyone is welcome to their opinion. I really liked a show on Showtime called Brotherhood that nobody thought was very good, and I thought the last season of The Killing on Netflix was pretty great. I never liked Curb Your Enthusiasm.

But your opinion of the place of True Detective season one is very, very far from the general consensus.

Brotherhood was an awesome show (the Caffee brothers).

I also don't think my opinion on S1 is very very far from general consensus. It's tough to judge since it is an anthology style show but none of the "top tier" programs listed were heralded as such for many many years after their release or well into a multi season run. Season 1 of Breaking Bad is weak but it built up steam at the end of S2 and took off in S3, if we were to solely judge BB on 1 season, which would be better TD S1 or BB S1? Again, it's tough b/c of the nature of TDs style.

BB or Sopranos didn't make me go and read Robert Chambers stories, diving back into H.P. Lovecraft mythos and step outside the "idiot box" for more information. The Wire made me go and consume David Simon's writings, Band of Brothers had me wanting to learn everything about Easy Company. We conversed on here about this during S1, you were drawn in to the mythos too. My best guess is you were "let down" by this side effect and knock the show but I've never talked to anyone that loves Breaking Bad that just didn't love the show. There's no complexity there, it's just a great show. True Detectives S1 was way more than that. I was absolutely immersed in it, from watching episodes multiple times, reading easter egg information, what inspired the writer of the show, texting with friends on theories, delving into aspects of the forgotten society of people, cults etc.

BB and Sapronos is just typical albeit great TV. "Oh my GOD did you see what happened on last nights show?!?!?!!?" Again, I love this stuff too and I put these shows in the top tier but it's surface entertainment.

I think people have short memories, I think it's short due to the style of TD, I think people are/were pissed that the easter eggs didn't pay off (which I disagree with) and I think some people just live to be a contrarian (not saying this is you).

How could you not love Curb Your Enthusiasm, something else controversial that I think. Curb >>>> Seinfeld

curbyourenthusiasmFAINT.gif
 
Sorry, brain fart. I meant Ray (CF), not Frank (VV). Bad and confusing sentence, sorry. I've probably done that a dozen times in this thread and stopped, proof-read and then fixed before posting. Missed it in this one.

Oh ok, no problem. Just assumed I missed some obvious details by binge-watching the entire season in 3 days.
 
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I agree. About half the show was spent on McAdams and her back story and she just ends up being nothing more than a women with a baby on the run with a dead love interest.

This season was ok and I will watch #3. There were some good action scenes and having Colin appear to get shot in the beginning was very interesting. I did think Vince Vaughn, Colin Farell, Rachel McAdams and Taylor Kitsch acting was much better than their scripts. While many were worried about Vaughn not being able to handle the acting, I thought he stole the show in the last episode.

The spoiler cruising around the internet nailed the last episode which sucked and I fault myself for looking it up. I prefer to be surprised by the characters I know instead of just throwing in a character at the end we only had a glimpse at.

The only thing Rachel McAdams character brought was her sister to getting her into the sex party, and some vague backstory from the commune.

I'm still searching for what the gay ChiPs guy brought other than some contrived midseason drama.

The ending just felt too rushed and almost thrown together, not slowly built upon by clues..
 
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True Detective season two ended as it began—obtuse, weird, dark, and constantly finding new and exciting ways to divide its audience between the hate-watchers and the actual fans. The finale certainly was never going to change any minds, but for those who were already onboard with the depressing adventures of Ray Velcoro, Frank Semyon, Ani Bezzerides, and Paul Woodrugh, it's hard to imagine a more brutal or satisfying conclusion. Or, it's hard to imagine a more bloated, overbearing, and up-its-own-ass conclusion. But this is True Detective. It's allowed to be both of those things at once. - Esquire Mag
 
Brotherhood was an awesome show (the Caffee brothers).

I also don't think my opinion on S1 is very very far from general consensus. It's tough to judge since it is an anthology style show but none of the "top tier" programs listed were heralded as such for many many years after their release or well into a multi season run. Season 1 of Breaking Bad is weak but it built up steam at the end of S2 and took off in S3, if we were to solely judge BB on 1 season, which would be better TD S1 or BB S1? Again, it's tough b/c of the nature of TDs style.

BB or Sopranos didn't make me go and read Robert Chambers stories, diving back into H.P. Lovecraft mythos and step outside the "idiot box" for more information. The Wire made me go and consume David Simon's writings, Band of Brothers had me wanting to learn everything about Easy Company. We conversed on here about this during S1, you were drawn in to the mythos too. My best guess is you were "let down" by this side effect and knock the show but I've never talked to anyone that loves Breaking Bad that just didn't love the show. There's no complexity there, it's just a great show. True Detectives S1 was way more than that. I was absolutely immersed in it, from watching episodes multiple times, reading easter egg information, what inspired the writer of the show, texting with friends on theories, delving into aspects of the forgotten society of people, cults etc.

BB and Sapronos is just typical albeit great TV. "Oh my GOD did you see what happened on last nights show?!?!?!!?" Again, I love this stuff too and I put these shows in the top tier but it's surface entertainment.

I think people have short memories, I think it's short due to the style of TD, I think people are/were pissed that the easter eggs didn't pay off (which I disagree with) and I think some people just live to be a contrarian (not saying this is you).

How could you not love Curb Your Enthusiasm, something else controversial that I think. Curb >>>> Seinfeld

LOL, I knock TD S1 because I say it's not one of the 10 best shows ever? LOL. I liked it, quite a bit. I found the performances of MM and WH to be mesmerizing. I discussed it on here, and I was enamored with the mythos. I thought it got progressively more silly and confusing, but then it got a big jolt when the estranged detectives got back together to close the case...really good stuff, even though it had quite a bit of nonsense too. I was actually a lot less put off by the ending than most...I was ahead of the curve on here in figuring out the whole Yellow King stuff didn't amount to any actual supernatural stuff, so the ending was fine for me.

It was one of the best 5 shows last year. You're telling me why YOU liked it even more...you don't have to convince anyone of that, it's your God given right.
 
LOL, I knock TD S1 because I say it's not one of the 10 best shows ever? LOL. I liked it, quite a bit. I found the performances of MM and WH to be mesmerizing. I discussed it on here, and I was enamored with the mythos. I thought it got progressively more silly and confusing, but then it got a big jolt when the estranged detectives got back together to close the case...really good stuff, even though it had quite a bit of nonsense too. I was actually a lot less put off by the ending than most...I was ahead of the curve on here in figuring out the whole Yellow King stuff didn't amount to any actual supernatural stuff, so the ending was fine for me.

It was one of the best 5 shows last year. You're telling me why YOU liked it even more...you don't have to convince anyone of that, it's your God given right.

No, you can think and feel how you want and where the show falls in your ranking. Of course I posted about why I liked it and placed it as a top tier show, to me. I just place a heavier emphasis on shows that are more than "ohhhhh SHIZZZZ!1!1!! last nights 3rd act where so and so died was AWESOME1!!1!1!" I love TV shows and movies that generate conversations beyond the surface.
 
If season 2 didn't have the specter of the first hanging over its head, this would've been a serviceable gritty L.A. Noir presentation.

I think the show runner Pizzolato suffered from a sophomore slump, trying to prove season 1 wasn't just a fluke or the product of transcendent performances by Harrelson/McConnaghey. Problem was he threw too much into a short season, leaving viewers with the potential of good characters that weren't fleshed out enough. Too many coincidences and dangling plot lines didn't help.

But damn if there wasn't some scenes with good dialogue and character interactions.

It was close to being what the show INSISTED upon being. Ray and Frank should've been the sole focus in this season. Two sides of a coin where good/bad men are not as clear cut as most consider the stereotypes to be.
 
I think Pizzolato suffers from more than a sophomore slump, he suffers from an unchecked ego that doesn't see is own weakness and fallible instincts, and doesn't appreciate how much of TD1's success was a credit to WH, MM and director Cary Fukunaga. And how much was a result of the Yellow King parlor trick hooking people in.

You need to be able to look at yourself and your talents at least somewhat objectively, and it's pretty clear when you read interviews with him that he doesn't. He's stamped himself a genius, when I think he's more of a talent. But if you replace MM and WH with Vaughn and Farrell, and dump the Yellow King strand, we aren't talking about Season 1 either.

I think if he would have recognized that, he could have focused a lot more on tightening up the story and being more efficient with the character development. The actors were not season 1's leads, but they were fine. They did a good job with it, but the material needed to be stronger and more efficient, especially with the realization that he didn't have Fukunaga to make it work. I think the guy thinks he craps gold, and a lot of talented people go off the rails like that.
 
Wait, wait, wait. Are we just going to gloss over this little tidbit?

Ha......old job required knowledge of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and other assorted booby-traps, new job requires KSAs in drugs and how to make them. Spent a week in training on a how-to with a litany of Breaking Bad-esque stuff, really fun.
 
Ha......old job required knowledge of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and other assorted booby-traps, new job requires KSAs in drugs and how to make them. Spent a week in training on a how-to with a litany of Breaking Bad-esque stuff, really fun.

I bet
 
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I think he also suffered from cultivating S1 for years and years on top of being from Lousiana.

Excellent point. Like they say with bands...they might spend 10 years on the songs on the first album. And six months on the second.
 
Just finished the finale, meh. It's like the 2 main characters survived in S1 so in S2 he had to kill most of them.
I was still left with a few questions, were they going to kill Frank before he punched the guy asking for his suit or just leave him in the desert? I don't think the fake passport guys tipped off the Mexicans, they had 500k more coming if he got to Venezuela. Then again the Mexicans may have offered them more.
Was the paternity test new? I didn't see a date on it but couldn't tell if Ray's ex had it done years ago and always knew it was his kid or it was done postmortem.
Was the tracker on Ray's car the whole time and he just noticed it when he was parked over a puddle? Or did they put it on his car when he was saluting his son? Still a dumb move to make that visit. IMO he should've hauled ass to a bridge and jumped in a river, better than being hunted in the woods.

Casper probably unknowingly banged his daughter.
They made a point for Ray's new son to look exactly like him.
They accidentally deleted the hard drive? Pretty sure there are services that can recover that stuff...
They showed young Chessani and Burris still moving up in Vinci, guess all the info Ani turned over will take them down.
 
Just finished the finale, meh. It's like the 2 main characters survived in S1 so in S2 he had to kill most of them.
I was still left with a few questions, were they going to kill Frank before he punched the guy asking for his suit or just leave him in the desert? I don't think the fake passport guys tipped off the Mexicans, they had 500k more coming if he got to Venezuela. Then again the Mexicans may have offered them more.
Was the paternity test new? I didn't see a date on it but couldn't tell if Ray's ex had it done years ago and always knew it was his kid or it was done postmortem.
Was the tracker on Ray's car the whole time and he just noticed it when he was parked over a puddle? Or did they put it on his car when he was saluting his son? Still a dumb move to make that visit. IMO he should've hauled ass to a bridge and jumped in a river, better than being hunted in the woods.

Casper probably unknowingly banged his daughter.
They made a point for Ray's new son to look exactly like him.
They accidentally deleted the hard drive? Pretty sure there are services that can recover that stuff...
They showed young Chessani and Burris still moving up in Vinci, guess all the info Ani turned over will take them down.

Agreed about season 2

I had similar questions as you regarding Frank. I took it that there was no way he was going to live through that one way or another.

I took the paternity test results to be new, since it was implied that Ray's wife had "needed to know" this whole time and Ray kept begging her not to do the test.

The Mexicans (2 main guys) were on the podium area with Toni Chessani at the end when he's introduced as Mayor, so it's very possible (likely) they had taken everything over and been in cahoots with Toni/Vinci PD/etc this whole time.

First viewing through, I thought the tracker got put on after Ray left the car, but upon 2nd viewing, I thought he just noticed it because of the water puddle. Had my wife and I thinking the cars were already outfitted with trackers from the get go. We thought about that later and figured how careless it was for Ray to give up the way he did. He could have stopped for gas and then outrun the guys in the van. No way that van has longer range on a tank of gas than his car. Could have driven north until they ran out of gas. But alas, he had to go out in a blaze of glory. Kinda dumb. Would have actually preferred to see Ray get detained and go to jail, only to get exonerated by Ani's evidence dump later (or leaving it open ended).

As far as Caspere, yeah pretty gross that he prob banged his daughter. Unless the info dump included that, she probably would have died not knowing that.

Agreed on the hard drive. Pretty dumb to think that was a bargaining chip anyways. Even if they had turned it in, it would have been easy enough to make a copy.
 
After Frank was stabbed the camera pans away and I thought I noticed a hole had been dug out in the desert near by. Maybe someone can confirm?

I assumed Ray was thinking they may go after Ani or his family to get to him so he drove out into the woods to give time to get his message through and possibly buy more time for Ani too.
 
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After Frank was stabbed the camera pans away and I thought I noticed a hole had been dug out in the desert near by. Maybe someone can confirm?

I assumed Ray was thinking they may go after Ani or his family to get to him so he drove out into the woods to give time to get his message through and possibly buy more time for Ani too.

Yes, they dug a grave for him. Just after the Mexican guy stabs him, the main guy says, "We made a nice bed for you. Lie down Frank"

Interesting, I noticed the transcripts translated what was said in spanish between the mexican guys:

( in Spanish ) Stop, stop, stop!
( in Spanish ) -
We kill him?
What for?
f*ck!


If you recall, one of the main bosses told the henchman to stop and kinda sighed when he saw he'd stabbed Frank.

Read more at: http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=185&t=19879

Can read the transcripts for the episode here:

http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=185&t=19879

All that was in vain, though, with the messages right? Neither went through (To Ani or his son).
 
Would have actually preferred to see Ray get detained and go to jail, only to get exonerated by Ani's evidence dump later (or leaving it open ended).
I assumed if Ray got taken in to any jail/facility he would be killed almost immediately by someone working for Burris/Chessani. Otherwise yea, just drive to a police station and turn yourself in.

And in the last scene, were we ever told where the ladies & nails were going? And why? My wife was disappointed that they never showed the info going public and the top bad guys get arrested but that was the same as Season 1.
 
I really hate how shows will end on a cliff hanger but not actually continue on to another season. I want to know what happens to the bad guys. I can use my imagination but speculation never made anything better.
 
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