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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025

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I can only speak to the first season as I mentioned, but it's one of the best seasons of television of the last ten years. Full stop.

Now admittedly it's not to everyone's taste, it's a slow and deliberate Cold War spy thriller living in the most Star Wars feeling Star Wars since the original trilogy.

If you are the kind of person who liked Better Call Saul as much or more than Breaking Bad you are 100% going to love it, but I don't fault people for needing a faster pace etc.

Put another way it reminds me of Winter Soldier which duct taped an excellent non Marvel script to Marvel IP and kept the advantages of both.

It does have some woke elements but they are chiefly background casting stuff that isn't too annoying when it's drowned in quality. It is also explicitly anti-fascist and anti-authoritarian but not in the childish modern politics way so it shouldn't chafe too much.

It's much less Wolfenstein haha kill the nazis and much more Das Leben der Anderen this is the reality of these systems. Sure the woke end up liking it but that's by accident.