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TV: Season 3 Of “The Ranch” Is Deceptively Intense (And Good)

(Warning: If you’ve yet to watch Season three of “The Ranch” on Netflix, it’s probably not a good idea to read this post, as many spoilers are included)
In my opinion, there’s a tendency over the past several years of viewing television shows. Shows tend to peak over the first few seasons before considerably tailing off and ultimately become unwatchable. I’m talking about you Orange is the New Black and House of Cards among others. Who knows—maybe TV series have always been that way and I was too blind to notice or care.
Three seasons into Netflix’s “The Ranch’ and I don’t see any regression. In fact, I think the show has gradually improved. If you didn’t abandon ship after the first dose of episodes which were yes— kind of uninspiring, you’re been remunerated with a well-rounded show constructing equal parts calamity and raunchy laughs.
Initially I thought The Ranch was an R-rated comedy sitcom packaged for Netflix and to some degree it is, but it’s deceptively more profound. Sure, there’s the old-school laugh track featuring plenty of dick and fart puns highlighting sophomoric behavior from the males constantly called out for it by the leading ladies. However, there’s a copious amount of serious plot lines as well.
A few that began in the first two seasons and become more glaring in the latest batch include:
Colt Bennett (Ashton Kutcher) reuniting with his first love, Abby (Elisha Cuthcart) but just as he’s doing so finds out he’s impregnated his ex-girlfriend Heather (Kelli Goss).
A stressed relationship Colt’s parents, Beau (Sam Elliot) and Maggie (Debra Winger) has ultimately ended in divorce.
A father-son bond between Beau and Colt’s brother, Rooster (Danny Masterson ) is broken and has Rooster kicked out of the house and family ranch business.
Season two ended with a cliffhanger; Heather’s pregnancy bombshell. As the latest block of (10 episodes) begins Heather tells Colt she’s planning on getting an abortion (like I said—this season gets deeper). It results in a surprisingly very open pro-choice stance by Maggie in consultations with her torn son, who initially is very much against the prospects for an abortion. She ultimately breaks through to Colt, who decides to support Heather no matter what she does. He eventually apologizes to Heathers and offers to do anything he can to be supportive, including driving her to the clinic. At the last second Heather decides she can’t go through with it, and Colt ends up getting a second job stocking shelves at Safeway to defray medical costs.
The whole Abby hating Colt but finally coming around to love him anyway while internally struggling with it all takes a backseat this season.
For me, the true luminaries of Season three are Beau and Maggie and the labor of moving forward following their divorce. Beau tries to develop relationships with other women with (very) limited success because for him all roads lead back to Maggie. However, there’s no fairy tale ending for the former long-time lovers—-not at this point anyway as Maggie’s made several life-changing decisions of her own. After spending most, if not all her adult life putting her family’s dreams and needs ahead of her own, she decides she’s going to sell her bar, skip town for a stretch and see other people, including a sketchy musician (Lou Diamond Phillips) she sleeps with near the end of the season.
Her arc dominates Season three—even if Kutcher is the star.
I should probably be a more cautious with my review, as this all seems a bit too melancholy. It’s not like The Ranch had devolved into St. Elsewhere or This is Us. At its foundation there’s still plenty of hoots, hollering and a shitload of (mostly) well comically timed one-liners.
A less-than-satisfactory cliffhanger of Colt receiving a call that Heather’s in the hospital (that’s all that’s revealed) withstanding, Season three was far and away The Ranch’s best yet.

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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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