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TV Review – Last Chance U (Season Two): Must-See Netflix TV

(WARNING: This review contains spoilers. If you haven’t watched and/or don’t want to know anything that happened, don’t bother reading this post. I’m not talented enough to review a show without giving away spoilers–deal with it.)
Typically I don’t post reviews of television shows I watch, mainly as it would literally engulf all my time, but in this case I feel compelled to write. That’s because Season 2 of Netflix’s “Last Chance U” is exactly that—compelling. It’s unequivocal compelling documentary-style television.
There’s plenty of Netflix content I’ve watched religiously over the past handful of years. House of Cards, Narcos, Orange is the New Black, The Ranch and Master of None immediately come to mind.
I’m telling you guys and gals now— Last Chance U is better than any of ‘em.
Before proceeding I should dispel any potential myth. If you haven’t watched Last Chance U due to not being a football fan, you’re making a mistake. Last Chance U is an eight-part documentary series covering a junior college (Eastern Mississippi Community College) that fields fields regularly a national powerhouse football team consisting mainly of major Division-I football talent that fucked up somewhere along the line to end up there. From drug arrests, burglaries, other crimes or getting thrown out of bigger schools for shitty grades, the roster is comprised primarily of elite talented kids down to their last chance at getting a shot to play major college football again.
Even if you couldn’t give a shit about college football, Last Chance U is entirely worth your time. Both seasons dig its cleats on much more than the field and locker room. From coaches to players, families, residents in the small town of Scooba and lastly— an incredible academic advisor, this series will make you have all the feels, trust me.
I binge-watched Season two in less than two days. As good as Season one was, I found the latest batch even better. Once I sat down to watch I simply couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.
Last Chance U is HBO’s Hard Knocks on steroids.
I have plenty of thoughts on this second season but must warn again that my notes contain spoilers. If you haven’t yet watched and/or you don’t want to know anything that happened before viewing, stop reading now.
♦ On the football side, the 2015 on-field brawl (if you didn’t watch Season one you really need to) that destroyed their championship three-peat hopes essentially became a two season penalty. With the exception of head coach Buddy Stephens every member of the team from last year—including coaches, assistants, trainers and players were suspended for Season two’s opener. That included the starting quarterback, who on the night of the brawl was merely on a recruiting visit and seated in the press box. Subsequently Stephens, his small group of graduate assistants and mere 28-man roster full of freshmen and transfers narrowly lost by two points. Ultimately, despite running off 11 consecutive wins their shorthanded loss cost them an opportunity to play in the JUCO National Championship game— a complete joke and farce. Had many of the star players been eligible play that first game they likely win handily and finish undefeated.
♦ The most well-known athlete at EMCC in Season two is the aforementioned quarterback seated in the press box during the brawl last season, De’Andre Johnson. Unbeknownst to me that Johnson was on the team before watching this, he became infamous two years ago for cowardly punching a defenseless female directly in the face at a bar that was caught on video for the world to see. Johnson deservedly paid a heavy price as he was dismissed from the Florida State program following the footage’s release. To Last Chance U’s credit they didn’t shy away from it—showing the deplorable incident in its entirety. In fairness to Johnson he expresses what I perceived as genuine remorse and works hard to prove what he did was a mistake and not define him as a person. Johnson isn’t heavily recruited by D1 schools, as they’re clearly still shying away from the controversy an offer would cause. In fact, no school makes an offer until we learn near the closing credits Johnson is offered at mid-major Central Florida. I’m glad I got to see him through the lenses this season, because “fuck this guy for the rest of his life” beforehand. Regardless of how you feel, it makes you weigh the right consequence an athlete should pay for an inexcusable mistake—getting a second chance or having his potential livelihood taken away for good.
♦ Season one left me conflicted on how I felt about Buddy Stephens. He struck me as an overall nice guy suffering from a hard time keeping his emotions under control during the heat of battle on the sidelines. There’s no internal debate for me after Season two—Stephens is an asshole. He at first appears contrite over letting a few moments get away last year, but his attempts at remodeling his demeanor don’t last long. For me he grows downright unlikeable this time around. It’s one thing to flex your authority over younger players, but Stephens was often an unapologetic dickhead to members of his coaching staff, especially his offensive coordinator. Ultimately his behavior and idiosyncrasies led said coordinator to leave the staff and more perhaps more importantly drive away beloved academic adviser Brittany Wagner.
♦ Speaking of Wagner, she’s the real MVP of this series. Her devotion to the student athletes and their success is unambiguous and authentic. Wagner’s the clear conscious of the football program and her constant hearing from players of Stephens’ treatment towards them convince her it’s time to find a new career. We find out at the very end of the final episode that Wagner is starting her own counseling service for student athletes.
♦ My lone major complaint about Season two is while it’s evident Wagner struggles over her decision to stay or leave, we never see or even know if her and Stephens confront or even speak directly to each other. If there’s a Season three we’ll surely see a void a EMCC without Wagner.
♦ If Last Chance U were a movie chockfull of fictional characters, I’d nominate defensive line coach Davern Williams for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. The guy is a great coach and while tough—also very fair. I love his mixture of fire and composure.
♦ It was tough rooting for some of the players the series focused on, primarily running back Isaiah Wright and defensive tackle Kam Carter. I kinda wanted to see him whip a player’s ass a time or two.
♦ Wright is a Division-I talent but it’s painfully obvious that character issues haunt him—namely an ability to simply keep quiet and listen to authority. He also has a tough time playing through an ankle injury team officials don’t regard as serious, and he makes an ultimate bonehead play on the field (catching a punt inside the three yard line) that culminates in a complete meltdown on the sideline after being rightfully scolded. In fairness to him and as mentioned previously, Stephens was a dick to many of his players and none so more than Wright, but he should’ve bit his tongue many times that he didn’t. It surely ends up costing him, as we find out he has to take an offer with D2 West Georgia—hardly suited for his formidable talent. It’s a sad story, really.
♦ Carter’s a dominant defensive tackle kicked out of Penn State for a violation of several team rules. His straight-up childish behavior if often on full display, including incidents where he disrespectfully swears at a teacher and later gets into a shoving match with Coach Williams. In fairness, Carter does suffer from ADD and proves that elite sports talent usually wins out; as we learn despite his well documented off-field flaws he scores a scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh.
♦ With the extent of trouble many of its athletes found before arriving EMCC, led by Johnson’s barroom punch and Stephens’ sideline meltdowns, Season two felt a little darker. There’s also Dakota Allen—a linebacker kicked out of Texas Tech three years ago after getting busted for burglary and stealing a gun, although he couldn’t have come off as nicer and more reformed than he did on Last Chance U (Spoiler alert—he ends up going back to Texas Tech).
♦ While the players and their struggles are the obvious focal point it’s Stephens and Wagner that pretty much steal every scene they’re in, which is most. The relationship—or lack thereof between the two carries, by far the most significance. Wagner’s lifework with the kids being successful her goal against Stephens actions that doesn’t appear to have the kids’ best interest at heart is Last Chance U’s biggest story arc.
♦ I have a 14-year old son playing football and he’s a decent high school prospect for his age. I can categorically tell you after watching these two seasons that if he got into trouble and any Division-1 hopes were at least temporarily derailed, I wouldn’t want him playing for Coach Stephens at EMCC.
♦ As for the football scenes and action, director Greg Whiteley does an outstanding job of capturing everything. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen on TV before. I really hope there’s a third season.
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VEEP Recap: Meyer Fund For Adult Literacy… And Aids

If citizens of the United States thought they’d seen the last of Selina Meyer in office, they have another thing coming—at least in her falsified mind.
Time-hopped one year ahead of this past season five finale that saw Meyer defeated by Laura Montez in the Presidential vote by the House of Representatives, Meyer proclaims (solely to her inner circle) her intent to run again for President, of which draws the wholehearted support of—absolutely nobody.
More on that in a minute. Season six begins with Selina interviewed on the CBS morning show by her former Deputy Director of Communications Dan Egan, who’s slanting for a permanent gig as co-host on the show. Pressed (calculatedly) by Egan on some of Selina’s Presidential pardons before leaving office last year, she changes the narrative by declaring her “Meyer Fund for Adult Literacy (and also Aids) charitable foundation. She also discloses a half-truth that she’s been working, feverishly on a memoir from her time as the first FPOTUS (of which she literally hasn’t written a sentence yet and received a mere miniscule in publishing advances compared to other former Presidents).
To the surprise of no one, Gary has remained loyal to Meyer while Richard is her official assistant.
As for the others:
Jonah Ryan got testicular cancer, beat it and despite being in remission secretly continues to shave his head because “people liked it, and he even got four and a half handies out of it.”
The aforementioned Dan, who wants the co-hosting gig until he finds out the main anchor has a reputation for destroying thriving careers. Dan then intentionally attempts to sabotages his interview with Jonah, but after a string of masked insults that sees the congressmen walks off the set, CBS producer (played by Andre from “The League”) says it’s great TV and people love it.
Ben has a job working in the executive offices at Uber but a run of unbeknownst (to him) racially insensitive remarks sees him get fired.
“Bunch of dumb-ass millennials, too lazy to learn how to drive drunk” – Ben on Uber.
Kent’s now working for Jonah, seriously. He’s insulted by Ohio congressmen Ralph Furlong, who says “How the mighty have fallen. You want me to call a Japanese porn shoot see if I can get you a real job sponging up from cock parties, although you might have to lie about working for Meyer.”
Amy’s living in Nevada and running the gubernatorial campaign for Buddy Calhoun, of whom she’s also engaged to and apparently has a fetish for getting off in bed to political pillow talk.
Mike, the former Director of Communications for Meyer is a stay-at-home dad to three children, including an adopted Chinese girlwho doesn’t acknowledge him as her dad. He’s wanted for a job by Selina solely because he’s in possession of a diary he kept while she was President, but the terms are that he won’t get paid until her book is eventually (if ever) published.
Back to the action…
After calling a family meeting, Selina announces her intention to run, which sees her daughter (Catherine) burst into tears…and not in a reassuringly good way. She thinks it’s a bad idea, as does her now-wife/entruster of her finances after Grandma left everything to her upon her passing last season (Marjorie), her sketchy former Vice President Andrew and even Gary, who says nothing but his face communicates that it’s a terrible idea.
At the conclusion of the premiere, Ben is able to knock some sense (tho probably ultimately not not) into Selina by letting her know she won’t have the party or donor support for any Presidential run and that he’s going to take a job with Kent. Selina says she’s only talking hypotheticals (lies) and offers him a role on her charitable board for Adult Literacy (and Aids), one he accepts.
BEST QUOTE
“I didn’t think it was possible to look more like a giant cock, but I guess it’s true what they say—you are what you eat.” – Dan to Jonah
MoranAlytics Grade: A solid 9 out of 10. Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is not only back, but better than ever. This is arguably the show’s best season premiere yet.
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The Office: Power Ranking Every Episode (120-91)

This is the third of a six- part series Power Ranking all 185 episodes of The Office. Part four (90-61) will be posted tomorrow. See links at the bottom for previous entries (185-151 and 150-121).
I’d also like to take this opportunity to announce these power rankings re just the start of things when it comes to The Office here. After this I’ll be soon launching a semi-recurring segment on my Moran-Alytics Podcast called “The Finer Things Club.” I’ll have a rotating panel of segment guests— sports media folk, athletes and other personalities who are fans of the show to talk about specific seasons, episodes, moments, characters, plot lines and much more.
I’m over the moon excited about starting that project soon. If you’re a fan of The Office or know people who are, trust me now’s the time to subscribe to the Moran-Alytics Podcast on Apple Podcast/iTunes, for free of course.
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5 Takeaways From Smackdown Live (1/9/18): Boringggggggg

Here’s my five primary takeaways from Smackdown Live last night in Birmingham, Alabama. If you want match-by-match results or expert full commentary you’re barking up the wrong tree. These are simply five takeaways of mine based on the show:
♦ In general I’ve liked Smackdown Live more than Raw for some time but must admit I’m starting to tire of the former’s direction of late. It feels like Smackdown’s spinning its wheels in mud. I’m just about over Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan taking turns making unfair matches involving Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn and the rising dissention between GM and commissioner. Unlike the slow burn of a Jason Jordan full heel turn I’m simply not into Shane vs. Daniel pissing contests. Wake me up when/if Bryan’s ever cleared to wrestle and they can settle their beef in the ring. Until then, let’s get on the same page, boys—your shit’s getting old.
♦ I also, and this stretches to Raw as well have a problem with the Royal Rumble build. Look, the Rumble is one of the elite PPV’s and doesn’t need to spend much time structuring other programs, especially when you add a Women’s rumble match. Yet both shows and particularly Smackdown are spending an awful lot of time advancing storylines that don’t involve the rumble match(s). This is literally the one time of year where none of that is necessary. Make me believe Randy Orton or Shinsuke Nakamura can win the Rumble because for one PPV per year I don’t care about the Uso’s vs. Gable and Benjamin.
♦ I can’t make sense of or find a single benefit of having Breezango go over on Rusev Day. Breezango literally never has to actually win a match while Rusev (and Aiden English) need victories to show they’re more than gimmicky advancement talent. Then again, maybe that’s all they’re supposed to be.
♦ Heel Chad Gable is the best Chad Gable.
♦ Becky Lynch tapped out Riott Squad leader Ruby Riott. It’s pretty apparent the shine is gone from that faction. Good, because I didn’t like the way they came on the scene in the first place.
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