Hey everybody before I get started I just want to mention a couple of ways that you can engage with me on a more personal level I have a few Avenues set up and I keep focusing on one and I figured why don’t I make a short little
Video talking about all of them real quick before we get into these uh episodes so first thing patreon there’s a link in the episode description and every episode description to the patreon as well as uh a video on the feed called major announcement that has all the
Details of what each tier offers and how much they cost I implore you to check that out I offer a lot of cool [ __ ] for my patrons uh second thing the Discord Channel there’s also a Discord Link in the episode description and in every episode description I have multiple
Channel set up there for each show that I’m covering and it’s a great way to just engage with me I have a channel set up for uh uh MMA talk as well I’m a big MMA fan so if you’re an MMA fan you can check that out as well there’s a link to
The Discord in the episode description and then lastly oh the Facebook and Twitter social media follow me on there I post news on there when I say news I mean like hey I’m stopping covering this show hey I’m starting covering this show let me know what you think about this I
Do uh live watches of things on Facebook where like I’ll check in and say I’m watching so and so show and then I’ll like live comment while I’m watching it and that’ll be cool if maybe you watch that show too and you want to watch along with me or you’re watching it
Later and you’ll see my thoughts which are usually pretty entertaining because I’m usually pretty high when I’m writing them so uh check out all those links in each episode description and let’s talk about this episode Peace All I need is one M all I need is one mic hey everybody welcome back to One mic and today I’m here to talk about season 1 episodes one and two of the new Taylor shared and produced Paramount plus series that was a lot I’m not going
To say that every time uh Lawman bass Reeves so can I just say up front how much I hate this title like so I understand that this is is meant to be part of a series right it’s going to be like the Law Men series and this one is
Bass Reeves and there’s going to be other ones and I get it but it just really irks me that men as plural and B Rees as one person and it gives me like it it’s it’s like it breaks me inside it gives me the mental equivalent of like
If you need to crack your knuckles and you just can’t do it and you’re just doing like this it’s like why would it [ __ ] crack like it gives me the mental equivalent of that every time I see Law Men bass Reeves I’m just like but anyway that’s
All we’re here to talk about the title uh if you’ve been around this channel for a while you know I was covering this show um I wouldn’t say that I’m a I’m a big fan of all things Taylor shared in TV but uh he does consistently do
Something that I tend to embrace in television and film which is showing me something that I’ve never seen before uh you know with Yellowstone he showed me that Cowboys in Montana can be like the media Moguls on succession or you know on 1883 uh he gave me like a realistic
Portrayal of like the difficulty of settling new land with minimal resources like things that would be a cakewalk today could be deadly back then and I found that really compelling to watch uh and it was also it I mean aside from that it was still a really compelling
Series a really compelling story all that good stuff really well acted just like all of his shows Jil tend to be at least within this Yellowstone universe and because of that as Sheridan moves across like the America’s chronological timeline uh telling his version uh his story of how the West was settled
Through The Eyes of the Dutton family and and and its offshoots he’s pretty much got my eyes on every project at this point so when they announced he was doing doing a show on bass Reeves the first black uh us Deputy Marshall I was all in starring David ooloo say less
Like I’m already I’m I’m I’m ready to watch it I’m there on day one but apparently this is the first uh shared and produced show that he didn’t actually create or co-create you know this one is created by a guy named Chad fan uh he was a I think he was like the
Lead writer on Ray Donovan which I mean I mean that’s a that’s a pretty at least especially if he was like the lead writer on the first couple Seasons like I didn’t finish Ray Donovan but Ray Donovan was a pretty good show so like that’s not something where you would uh
You you wouldn’t take that seriously like you know a lead writer on Ray Donovan I’m like okay well that’s somebody good to bring in but I think this is his first time you know creating a show and and H having that showrunner role so um you know we’ll see but
Fortunately I I don’t really see too much of a change between this and what I’m accustomed to seeing within this franchise uh you know as far as like the tone and things like that uh you know 1883 1923 it feels about tonally the same so uh let’s talk
About what this show is about so uh bass Reeves is a real life historical figure he actually existed uh it was a former slave who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War and the show in the in the first episode in particular it it very lightly wrapped on the
Door of uh uh him being looked at not not even him being looked at as a traitor among his PE people but just kind of just like how just just raising that question kind of getting the audience to think like how does this look if you’re if you’re a Slave at the
Time to see someone in this position and and they give you that just just a little bit and I kind of wish they dug a little bit further into that and they still may obviously I mean we only got two episodes I think it’s eight I want
To say so um yeah there’s still time to do that I kind of suspect that they won’t it felt like something that they were just kind of just like yeah we’re just going to tickle that and then but we’re going to keep doing it we’re going
To focus on what we want to do but we’re not g to get get too far into uh into into being a race traitor but um you know aside from that too though I actually listened to a podcast the other day that uh talked about how there was a
Surprising lack of racism among Deputy Marshals back then because they really just saw each other as like uh like like brothers Partners in-law kind of like like police do now like like that fraternity that Brotherhood and they didn’t they they didn’t really look at as like oh there’s a black Deputy
Marshall and I’m a white Deputy Marshall was like oh we’re both putting our asses on the line uh that’s my my brother and and I’m going to support him just how it’s the same way the police are uh today just ironically minus the racism which is now done a complete 180 and is
Now the the most recognizable aspect of law enforcement never mind let’s not get into that um but I’m just saying I was shocked to learn about the lack of racism and law enforcement back then that’s all I’m saying but um so bass makes a name for himself as kind of like
A general badass who accumulated a [ __ ] ton of arrest and supposedly this show is going to be his story now I’d be remiss if I didn’t uh segue here and to talking about uh something this show did that I did not like and I didn’t like how the first episode was basically like
A prologue uh this seems to be like a upand cominging strategy that mayy show seem to be doing right now uh House of the Dragon did it uh for for a lot longer than this show did but I thought they did it fairly well because it kind
Of because it was so extended you could even though it jumped in time you still really felt like you weren’t missing anything important because one it you got everything important but two it was like their their prolog was like four episodes or some [ __ ] so there was like a lot of
Time for them to build up to that so they were still able to cover a lot you didn’t really feel like you missed too much but uh that same uh Dynamic it made this the first episode of this show when you uh take out commercials and you’re
Running 42 minutes give or take uh it made this first episode feel really disjointed with a lot of time jumps a lot of time spent on things that uh at the time at least feel like they really don’t matter um or that they’re not really telling us anything important to
The point where I’m guessing about what some of the secondary plot lines might be based on the scenes that felt kind of pointless in these first two episodes I’m like that has to be there for a reason so maybe this is tied into the beat plot like that’s the kind of mental
Gymnastics I’m doing here to kind of elevate some of the scenes that kind of felt like why did I need to see that it’s like this show hasn’t found the the proper balance between giving I think too much backstory and and giving too little like I I I didn’t I don’t mind an
Entire episode that’s backstory but I feel like the episode itself it needs to be a story like it needs to Encompass the story part of uh of backstory if you’re G to do something like that but this first episode it felt more like a collection of events that took place at
Various points in time and and we spent a quar of this episode like seeing his time as a slave during the war then there’s like 17 consecutive scenes of him just walking across the Midwest after he live after he has to leave his family and then there’s like a whole
Section of story where he basically gets a new family loses them and then returns to his original one and then the [ __ ] SP like 12 years in time and I’m just like I don’t know man like the whole situation with the second family like that had to be a very pivotal time in
His life so I understand why that [ __ ] is included right like it’s it’s a important time in his life it probably went a long way toward uh developing and making him into the person that he became but man it sure felt like a big [ __ ] waste of time for me to spend
Just 20 minutes with them before we jump ahead 10 years and put him back with his original family again like it kind of it felt like why did I need to see that like like I know I needed to see that but why did I need to see that that’s
Just kind of what it felt like man uh so we’re also introduced to uh a lot of characters and actors we can expect to see throughout the season uh Shay Wiggum uh is unexpectedly in the first 20 or so minutes of the first episode I didn’t
Know he was on this I love Shay wigam and he’s absolutely great uh in the time that we spend with him in episode one as well he plays uh bass’s owner George Reeves uh bass later returns to George’s house I think in the second episode and
Even though his wife is there and the car and she mentions that he is alive and in politics we don’t actually physically see him which makes me worry that that was more of a cameo than anything and that sucks because like I said I really like Shay wigam I was once
I saw him I was like please let Shay wigg will be around for this whole season that would be a very unexpected surprise to get somebody uh like him on here so um I don’t know if that’s what’s going to happen but I guess we’ll see
Let’s see where am I uh oh Berry pepper uh he plays a character named uh ESO Esau um I don’t know uh too much about him yet uh what I do know I would consider to be a spoiler so I’ll just let you learn about him while watching
The show but Barry Pepper if you don’t know Barry Pepper I mean great [ __ ] actor I I he’s one of those actors that I know for a fact his character is going to be [ __ ] great on this show uh he he’s great in in the time that we spend
With him in these first two episodes so I hope we get to see him some more throughout the season uh Dennis Quaid uh he’s all over the promotional work uh he plays a guy named Cheryl Lynn uh he’s the deputy that ends up recruiting uh
Bass into the uh into the uh Marshals is a really great scene in episode two where you’ve spent this whole time up to this point with with Quaid’s character hearing him be very uh venomous toward toward native people and there’s a scene toward the end of episode two where he
Explains why he’s like that it was it it’s a great scene and and you could tell Quay is going to eat this [ __ ] up uh he’s going to be great I hope we see more of him as well but let me pause right there though because the reason I
Keep saying I hope we see more of these characters I’m sorry these actors is because it seems like Sharon is almost developing this habit of like promoting shows as having big names starring in them but then the big names don’t show up that often like it’s like oh here
They are you oh Nicole Kidman’s on the show and then you find out she’s not she’s on it but not a lot like that’s how she was used very sparingly I think on Special Ops Li is granted she was used more than I expected though but like Morgan Freeman I don’t even think
You visually see Morgan Freeman until the sixth episode and he’s like right in the poster and [ __ ] so like they’re both I think very obvious reasons uh prominently featured on the ad material but I think like sparingly used on the show so that’s why I’m kind of like not
Getting too excited about Shay wigam or Dennis Quaid or uh according to the preview for episode three Donald [ __ ] southernland like I’m not getting too excited about that because I I just I don’t want to get in the space of like oh I can’t wait to see these characters
Every week and and then that’s it we get them in like one episode or two so that’s why I keep saying like if we get to see this person if we get to see this person so uh yeah that’s that’s weird that I’m kind of just not like oh this
Is the cast it’s like well this this is the cast and hopefully we’ll get to see them uh but I said the wild back a while back sorry uh the first episode really felt like a prologue that was meant to inform us on bass and uh who he is why
He’s the way he is and I I I don’t mind that I just I just didn’t like that the backstory wasn’t a collective story it was more like watching like a long [ __ ] like highlight reel with scenes that ultimately some not all of them but some that felt kind of irrelevant
Irrelevant and it didn’t have any windmill dunks so like why would I watch that highlight real but um yeah I don’t know it becomes significantly less interesting after we stopped seeing Shay wigam so I think I think that’s the best way uh to put it like that first episode after the Shay
Wigam portion is over it it it I would say dips it quality because that sounds insulting and and I still enjoyed the show but uh yeah like it wasn’t uninteresting it’s just that uh seeing what Reeves had to go through is both interesting and necessary for us to
Understand who he is and uh ooloo is playing the role um with a lot of stifled Rage which I can personally uh relate to it’s just that um it it takes that it takes a slight dip in intrigue just because it starts to feel very kind
Of uh that’s when we start getting the time jumps and it it starts to feel kind of wonky and disjointed a little bit bloated but like I said a lot of those things could end up being more relevant as the season continues it’s just it in watching that first episode I was a
Little bit kind of just like H I don’t know where this is going uh episode two it jumps 10 years of the future I’m not going to spend a ton of time talking about this by the way uh and we get more kind of like this is what his life is
Like now montages uh that I had grown tired of by by the time we had stopped seeing them but I I don’t know how many times they think I need to see him farming to understand that he’s trying to be a farmer but the answer to that
Question is one that’s the only amount of times I need to see him farming I didn’t need to see it like five times like they show me but whatever uh so did qu’s character Cheryl Lynn he arrives in the second episode and he wants to recruit bass for a job because he needs
Someone who can speak the native tongue and he learned also that bass was a badass and he’s hesitant but by this point they’ve already shown me that he’s a shitty farmer like 18 times so it’s it’s no surprise that uh Cheryl sells him on you’re a broke shitty farmer and
You need the money like that that works and that gets bass to do the job and then episode two basically just focuses on that job which obviously I’m not going to spoil but by the end of the episode bass did the job as as well as you could imagine so uh he ultimately
Ends up getting offered a a permanent regular job an actual job job as a US Deputy Marshal and I’m just like did I watch a second prologue episode I’m like for real though like so now we’re at episode three and he’s just now becoming a US Marshall which means
They’re just now starting to tell the actual story for the season which kind of feels like yeah those first two episodes were kind of like two separate prologs it was like one it was like here’s how he got to the point of all here’s how he got to the point of almost
Becoming a deputy Marshall and then the second episode was like here’s the one event that made him become a deputy Marshall that we’re going to play out for this episode and then now for the rest of the season we can see him as a deputy Marshall so that
That’s uh I don’t know man I not a big fan of this prologue [ __ ] man like I don’t even know what you would call that like the episode one was a pre log and episode two is a prologue but now because of that uh it’s actually not
Difficult but a little tricky to give my my like a full kind of like this is what I think of the show kind of opinion because a part of me feels like I haven’t really seen the show yet like I’ve seen the background information that they want me to have before they
Tell me the story they want me to know but I kind of feel like I haven’t really like like okay so I know it’s going to be well acted uh I’ve already seen that I know it’s going to look amazing it already looked amazing in these first two episodes that Sheridan shows they
Always look amazing shows with in this universe I know those things but when it comes right down to it what’s going to separate this show from 1883 and 1923 and Yellowstone and I can’t really tell you that aside from the fact that it’s got a black guys as a lead but like like
I said I don’t really feel like I’ve gotten into what what they want to show me and I like I know they want to show me this guy bass re becoming a great us I I know that but like there has to be a
A a this is how we’re going to to to tell this story and I don’t really feel like I’ve gotten that yet so that that’s why I kind of feel like I can’t give a full opinion um but uh I did enjoy uh what I’ve seen so
Far even though I’ve cracked a lot of jokes on it but and I do intend on continuing watching the show for right now now if episode three is another [ __ ] Pro if episode three is the po log then then I might bail on the show
But um no I I I I I enjoyed these first two episodes I I I I’m being a little bit hard on it but again at the end of the day I do really feel like they kind of made these first two episodes of prologue I don’t really know exactly
What the what the story is going to be just yet and I I I I felt like these first two episodes were a little bit bloated but again they could be leading into something great so it’s just the fact that I don’t know what that is yet
Um I don’t know what the A+ necessarily going to look like so it’s difficult for me to uh for example distinguish it from what the other plots might be cuz you don’t just have you know you have a b plot you probably have a c plot but they
Do seem to be setting up a couple of things that I I kind of picked up on that um they don’t seem to be all that great but I’m hoping there’s going to be more to them and I I suspect that there will uh so the show’s clearly going to
Make bass’s wife’s uh home life a plotline uh so far all they’ve done with that is have a delivery boy have a crush on their daughter and they’ve had some wolves kill a cal um and the thing with the delivery boy there were two scenes for that both of
Which felt entirely pointless unless they plan on forming something of a relationship and having a plot line with him and the daughter so like when I said earlier that’s what I meant about some scenes that felt kind of pointless but then I just thought oh this must be why
That’s what that’s what that was like the the first scene is a scene where he’s delivering a piano to her and then the second scene is one where he comes back pretending like he wants to work on the piano cuz he wants to see the daughter and she tells him to [ __ ] off
That’s the two seeds that we get hey I guess that’s maybe a spoiler I don’t know but I I really hope that doesn’t S your experience that I told you those two seeds but my point is Jack [ __ ] happened to those two seeds and I watched I’m
Like what is the point of this but I’m like okay this what this whole thing with the daughter and and this boy that this must go somewhere so maybe that’s why so that’s what I meant when I when I said I was kind of withholding judgment
On some of the scenes that felt kind of pointless at the time because I feel like they might be turning into something different something interesting um I definitely think this thing with the the delivery boy and the daughter is going to be a thing will it
Be a thing that’s interesting to watch I don’t know but we’ll see um let’s see so oh uh religion also seems to be a big theme here and I’m interested to see what they’re going to do with that if anything again I don’t know guessing um I’m assuming it’s
Important because uh bass is very religious we hear him talk about it a lot uh Shay Wiggum has a great Shay wiggum’s character George has a great conversation with him in episode one about what he thinks having his life for black people I’m sorry it’s it’s it’s shitty
And it’s funny at the same time I’m sorry like Shay wiggam has some hilarious moments of racism in this first 20 minutes of this episode that it’s like oh as a black person a but then is like a human who has who has a funny modat it’s like any anyway and um
Dennis quid’s character berates bass for believing in a God that would slay him so like there’s a there’s a big uh religious theme which religion is permeant in in black history anyway but um yeah I don’t know I’m curious to see what they’re going to do with it uh but
Those three conversations they haven’t LED anywhere yet so I don’t know for sure that religion will play a significant role thematically but I kind of hope that it does so uh that’s all I got for my uh non-spoiler thoughts of the first two episodes like I said overall pretty enjoyable uh with great
Potential but I I don’t really feel like I know what this show is going to be yet because these first two episodes uh kind of both felt like prologue to the story that they actually want to tell so um I’ll be back back here next Monday to
Talk about episode 3 full spoiler field uh details uh hopefully we’ll have a better idea of where this show is going and until then peace
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