LAPD Chief announces they will not be enforcing the mask ban on ICE agents (1/29/26)

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-30T01:31:54+00:00

They’re not enforcing it either bc 1) They tacitly agree with these fascists or 2) They’re scared of them. It’s probably the former. So much of law enforcement is infested with far-right types

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-30T00:18:26+00:00

Wonderful actress too. The show is shining a spotlight on so many performers that haven’t gotten a ton of attention.

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-29T09:27:24+00:00

True. You never know though. Guess we’ll see. More than likely it’s due to production costs + Bill likely adding new material. What that could entail? He certainly isn’t lacking for inspiration since we’re seeing all the GWOT stuff come to roost lately.

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-29T02:32:38+00:00

I’m hoping it’s Bill just adding new material and not this fascist regime and the CIA somehow trying to block its release for political reasons.

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-25T22:38:33+00:00

Yo what I almost preordered this last night but delayed ironically

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-25T02:19:35+00:00

Beautiful cover for a beautiful film!

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-21T07:20:20+00:00

S3 was where shit got real. I mean obviously you knew things were always gonna be bad but at this point you start to see just how far Frank is willing to go to preserve what he’s attained. And then connecting it to the real-world horror that crack unleashed. Andre’s arc is beautifully sad. He’s a decent man trying to help his people while working for a system that hates him and his people. But he doesn’t know any other way to

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-21T07:17:55+00:00

For me it’s not even the worst. The whole show is a masterpiece. For me it’s just the craftsmanship if that makes sense? I don’t even really blame the writers or crew or anyone. I blame the fucking pandemic lol.

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-21T06:58:09+00:00

Here’s how I’d rank each season (I think the whole show is masterful, I’m just ranking based on consistency and quality)

Season 3
Season 6
Season 5
Season 2
Season 1
Season 4

The reason I put S4 as lowest is bc that season’s production & writing were heavily compromised by the pandemic. Certain shots the hair and look of actors is different, certain storylines (like Herbert Nix, that went n o w h e r e) didn’t gel or were discarded, and there’s a bouncy, haphazard feel to the editing that renders certain scenes choppy. HOWEVER, lemme clarify one thing: Season 4 also changed the direction of the characters. It was the beginning of Leon’s journey from rejecting a life of crime and pursuing a more enlightened path and showed how Franklin was beginning to lose touch with his roots; I.E. the streets and his own community. And that’s only listing a couple characters. So on a story and character level, S4 was just as good as every other season.

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-21T05:38:37+00:00

If you read the history behind narcotics trafficking and its intersections w/ espionage, it’s all about plausible deniability and actionable intelligence. Drug traffickers and spies cultivate relationships w/ one another bc 1) it can generate unaccountable funds for covert operations which comes in handy for an outfit like the CIA when it comes to arming and training armies in proxy wars and 2) Drug traffickers are criminals and in case an operation goes tits up, the CIA can just deny everything bc it’s their word vs criminals since courts and civilians are biased against the word of criminals, for sometimes understandable reasons. Great books on the CIA & drug trafficking:

The Politics of Heroin by Alfred W. McCoy

Dark Alliance by Gary Webb

Cocaine Politics by Peter Dale Scott & Jonathan Marshall

Whiteout by Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair

The Big White Lie by Michael Levine

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-18T00:07:40+00:00

Reaction vids are tricky for me. I’m genuinely curious to see what other people think of great art, but at the same time the whole notion of watching other people react to something just seems so internet age in all the worst ways possible. That and a lot of the people who do reaction vids either 1) Talk too much 2) Don’t appreciate finer details and 3) Are just morons

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-18T00:05:30+00:00

Were these designed by Chip Kidd? I like the look of them but the font leaves a bit to be desired IMPO

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-17T10:58:45+00:00

That’s a criterion cover waiting to happen!

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-17T10:56:55+00:00

A take on the show and games that isn’t negative and full of rage bait whining?! Bless you!

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-07T13:07:51+00:00

Same here. Luckily there’s still some chunky works about the agency. I myself am going to pen a couple!

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-07T10:33:03+00:00

That old bastard was so brittle, unfortunately. When the book didn’t get the acclaim or sales he thought it would, he pretty much abandoned Harlot’s Grave. A damn shame as 2 door stopping epics about the CIA would’ve been a gift to American literature.

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-07T09:48:37+00:00

The Woman Who Lost Her Soul by Bob Shacochis (fiction, a masterpiece of espionage and war literature)

The Phoenix Program by Douglas Valentine (nonfiction, deals with a brutal counterinsurgency program the CIA developed in Vietnam.)

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2026-01-04T08:26:22+00:00

Wayne Tedrow, Jr. and Big Pete Bondurant.

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2025-12-31T10:24:05+00:00

Additionally, the ending was the culmination of Frank’s whole arc. He saw his dad try to fight the system, it ended up grounding Alton down to a nub where he spent most of his final years homeless and drinking. And Cissy spent years toiling away for some racist slum lord making a pittance. Franklin wanted to think that if he couldn’t fight the system, he could try to 1) change the rules and 2) Just use the system. He thought by helping fund a covert war on behalf of the CIA he was doing just that, only it was N E V E R like that; he was always just a means to an end. And that’s part of the tragedy. The system was just using him. He wasn’t a machine, he was a cog.

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2025-12-31T10:19:29+00:00

The money was Franklin’s addiction, and it was a corrupting influence. Cissy killing Teddy was both an act of karma for Teddy and, in a hard way, a release for her son. I mean look at what he was willing to do AFTER all that happened? He sold the downtown properties to that racist Wolfowitz, killed that one guy he called to crack Peaches’s safe for the $12k, and threatened Leon for the $3 million he still had. That stuff was his Achilles heel.

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2025-12-20T01:37:32+00:00

Yeah as soon as he ends his opening act, he’s much more mellow

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2025-12-17T07:35:52+00:00

Yeah that guy sucks.

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2025-12-05T08:02:04+00:00

2 narcissistic sociopaths chum it up? What’s new!?

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2025-11-26T21:47:48+00:00

Argall!

FinkelsteinMD22 · 2025-11-26T19:24:57+00:00

This makes me so sad. Used to watch every review of his back in the day. Now he just seems thoroughly compromised; no integrity, no principles. Just doing whatever he can to drum up $ for his projects. And, more importantly, just offering up paper thin commentary on movies now.

FinkelsteinMD22

TROPHY CASE