OT: Anyone watching Lodge 49?

[Ranger Dan]

i just caught the first episode of this season’s Better Call Saul from the DVR, and saw previews for a new show on AMC called Lodge 49. They billed it as being similar to the Big Lebowski, but seems to maybe a little like Old School or Revenge of the Nerds. I’m going to check it out....

 

[sluggo72]

i just caught the first episode of this season’s Better Call Saul from the DVR, and saw previews for a new show on AMC called Lodge 49. They billed it as being similar to the Big Lebowski, but seems to maybe a little like Old School or Revenge of the Nerds. I’m going to check it out....

I watched it last night. We discussed it a little in the BCS thread. I'll watch next week

 

[BBrown]

i just caught the first episode of this season’s Better Call Saul from the DVR, and saw previews for a new show on AMC called Lodge 49. They billed it as being similar to the Big Lebowski, but seems to maybe a little like Old School or Revenge of the Nerds. I’m going to check it out....

I watched it and thought it looked interesting. It's definitely on the "quirky" side but I like that sort of stuff.
Although the lead guy is just a little too lazy and what my parents would have called "a good for nothing" LOL.

 

[RandyL]

The lead actor is son of Kurt Russell (a very underrated actor imo) and Goldie Hawn (I think).
I tried to watch but was falling asleep as it was coming on. Might be decent show.

 

[Roar More]

Found the first show interesting enough to try a few more.

 

[anon_xdc8rmuek44eq]

There is a lot of proven talent behinds the scenes and it looks intriguing (sort of the existential comedy heir to something like Mad Men; where the show isn't necessarily about what it's supposed to be about). I still have to watch the first BCS of the season but I hear this is a show that pays off if you give it time.

 

[ivan brunetti]

Seems like a show that is about what one does when one's entire life falls apart. Good timing for our upcoming recession.

 

[anon_xdc8rmuek44eq]

Watched the first episode and really enjoyed it. Getting some 'Big Lebowski' type reviews and that's a good thing. Still, I think there is a lot of potential for this show to sort of transcend itself in a way Mad Men did. It didn't quite get there in episode one, but definitely a lot of potential. When Dud sort of breaks down at the Lodge when telling everyone about himself you can feel this show has a bigger story to tell.

And his sister has this sexy Kate Mara vibe.....

 

[MtNittany]

...Good timing for our upcoming recession.

Short everything!! Seriously - put your money where your mouth is.

 

[wentzel25]

So who's still on this show? Watched Monday's episode last night, and I think we're finally about to start getting some clarity. At least to some degree.

 

[PSU2UNC]

It's quirky and interesting and worth watching, but it's only made me "lol" a few times (i.e. it's no where near as clever as Big Lebowski, but few things are).

 

[anon_xdc8rmuek44eq]

So who's still on this show? Watched Monday's episode last night, and I think we're finally about to start getting some clarity. At least to some degree.

I am - really enjoying it too. Like you said, things starting to develop a bit more and I’m really liking the character growth - especially for Dud and Liz. I have a feeling a lot of threads are going to intersect in the desert at some point (scrolls, The Captain) and think Larry’s death was really a turning point.

 

[BBrown]

It's quirky and interesting and worth watching, but it's only made me "lol" a few times (i.e. it's no where near as clever as Big Lebowski, but few things are).

Yea I watched the first few episodes and thought it was interesting but since then think its pretty blahhh.
I might have watched more if it was on in the summer when nothing else is happening but not now.

 

[Ranger Dan]

I'm caught up to, but not including this weeks episode. I'm really liking it. It's not laugh out loud funny and it's not hard drama... it just is an enjoyable story and interesting characters.

 

[wentzel25]

I'm caught up to, but not including this weeks episode. I'm really liking it. It's not laugh out loud funny and it's not hard drama... it just is an enjoyable story and interesting characters.

Agreed, don't think I'd classify as wholly comedy or drama, but, as you said, a good, interesting story.

 

[anon_xdc8rmuek44eq]

I'm caught up to, but not including this weeks episode. I'm really liking it. It's not laugh out loud funny and it's not hard drama... it just is an enjoyable story and interesting characters.

Agreed, don't think I'd classify as wholly comedy or drama, but, as you said, a good, interesting story.

Yeah - there's more here than is being let on at this point I think. I like that it's a pretty casual, but quirky, story and Dud is such a likable guy and his sister is really relatable as the mature, smart member in the family who doesn't have the financial luxury to just not give a f***. With most good shows (IMO) the characters are the most important, and I feel they're doing a great job here (like AMC does with nearly all its shows).

Also, it's weird that Liz is a Brit IRL....

 

[LionJim]

I tried it; the first scene I caught had the protagonist masturbating in the shower. I have to pick and choose what I watch and I think I'll pass on this one, easily. If it's my loss, then I guess I'll muddle through life somehow.

 

[anon_xdc8rmuek44eq]

I tried it; the first scene I caught had the protagonist masturbating in the shower. I have to pick and choose what I watch and I think I'll pass on this one, easily. If it's my loss, then I guess I'll muddle through life somehow.

LOL. Yeah, that's an interesting scene and one that has bigger significance later on. But, there's a ton of great stuff out there to watch - plenty of options for all.

 

[LionJim]

LOL. Yeah, that's an interesting scene and one that has bigger significance later on. But, there's a ton of great stuff out there to watch - plenty of options for all.

Glad you like it. I’m too invested in BCS at the moment to move on.

 

[Ranger Dan]

I tried it; the first scene I caught had the protagonist masturbating in the shower. I have to pick and choose what I watch and I think I'll pass on this one, easily. If it's my loss, then I guess I'll muddle through life somehow.

Honestly, this is the only masturbation scene in the show thus far. You just watched at the worst time. Just like if you turned on the Pitt game last week just as they scored a TD and you might conclude that Pitt played well...

 

[BBrown]

Honestly, this is the only masturbation scene in the show thus far. You just watched at the worst time. Just like if you turned on the Pitt game last week just as they scored a TD and you might conclude that Pitt played well...

I'm a...not exactly sure what to say to that. Never mind.

 

[LionJim]

Honestly, this is the only masturbation scene in the show thus far. You just watched at the worst time. Just like if you turned on the Pitt game last week just as they scored a TD and you might conclude that Pitt played well...

So the selling point for this show is that there’s only one masturbation scene?

 

[Ranger Dan]

So the selling point for this show is that there’s only one masturbation scene?

the selling point was that it was quirky funny, kinda like the Big Lebowski. I would say this it doesn't deliver on the comedy of the Big Lebowski, but the characters and intertwined story are every bit as well done as the Big Lebowski. So, it you like the Big Lebowski, then give this show a try.

 

[anon_xdc8rmuek44eq]

the selling point was that it was quirky funny, kinda like the Big Lebowski. I would say this it doesn't deliver on the comedy of the Big Lebowski, but the characters and intertwined story are every bit as well done as the Big Lebowski. So, it you like the Big Lebowski, then give this show a try.

I think marketing it as kind of a Big Lebowski clone or something is really misleading. Dud is kind of like The Dude in some ways (willing to settle for a less than lavish lifestyle, enjoys the little things....), but Lodge 49 is more ambitious, and that's not a knock on BL.

It's not an easy show to explain - but, here's a recent review that tries (if you have the time LOL)....

It’s not particularly easy to explain what Lodge 49 is about, because it’s not really like any other TV show I can think of. Its premise revolves around a Long Beach, California-based lodge maintained by a (fictional) fraternal order known as the Lynx. (Think the Masons or the Elks, but with a stronger record of gender and racial equality than those groups had.) The lodge is an all-purpose hangout for its members, but also seemingly a weirdo portal to some other, more purpose-driven life. It’s sort of, uh, Cheers meets Twin Peaks amid the ruins of late capitalism.

Lodge 49 uses this lodge as a window into the lives of its characters and the city of Long Beach, which is caught in transition between its working-class roots and its increasingly hipster-focused rebrand. (I used to live in Long Beach, which is perpetually in danger of becoming Los Angeles’s latest version of Brooklyn, though Silver Lake may have something to say about that.) But there’s also a lot of medieval symbolism and references to alchemy amid the tales of gentrifying neighborhoods.

Lodge 49’s protagonist, Shaun “Dud” Dudley (Wyatt Russell), finds a ring belonging to a deceased member of the order while beachcombing; later, he finds himself at the lodge itself after his car putters to a halt right in front of the building. (The show has a hefty dose of fate and/or destiny at its core.) He joins the lodge, where he becomes the “Squire” to longtime member Ernie Fontaine (Brent Jennings), who serves as his “Knight.” The two become friends, even though Ernie is initially wary of Dud, and ... so far that’s about it.

It’s not clear what the larger point of the series is, or where all of its mystical portents and hints about some larger purpose for these characters are going. There’s a strong subplot about Dud’s twin sister, Liz (Sonya Cassidy), who’s working at a Hooters-ish sports bar named Shamroxx, because she’s so burdened down with debt passed down to her by her and Dud’s deceased father. There’s a dead body in a secret, hidden room in the lodge. There’s a loose seal wandering across the road.

All of this, I think, has led to people trying to guess what Lodge 49 means. It has some of the outward trappings of a mystery show like Lost or Twin Peaks, so it must play by the same rules as those shows, right? But the series’ fourth episode, “Sunday,” is as good an argument as anything that the series is less about trying to make sense of its many loose ends and more about realizing that you find life amid the loose ends.

The plot of the episode, such as it is, is simple. Dud and Ernie head out on a quest to find Larry, the strangely absent head of the lodge, while Liz spends her day off from work by going in to work to hang out. But the details are what make the show. There are parking lot shopping cart jousting matches, corporate stooges carrying gift baskets, a billboard reading “Is There Another Way to Live?,” news reporters who keep trying to call the corpse in the lodge a “mummy” (when it’s clearly a reliquum corpus, goodness!), and that seal blocking traffic.

The meat of the story is easy enough to explain, and, indeed, all of the characters find what they were looking for in the place they thought they left it. But it’s everything served to the side that makes the show so entertaining. Maybe the best way to describe this series is Don Quixote for scuzzballs.

There’s got to be another way to live

Liz goes shopping cart jousting.
Jackson Lee Davis/AMC
For me, Lodge 49 clicked into place around the midpoint of its first episode, when Dud, sitting alone in a donut shop, muses about the dark turns his life has taken since he was bitten by a snake, which ruined his surfing career and led to the cascade of events that included the death of his father and his sister having to take a job at Shamroxx. “Don’t have to live like this. Gotta be another way,” he says, and while he’s mostly talking about his present situation, there’s a layer of social commentary here too. There has to be a way to live where a snake bite doesn’t mean a family loses everything. There just has to.

There are things about Lodge 49 that don’t entirely work yet, to the degree that the show acknowledges it, right down to a scene where Liz and Dud admit they’re once again making her the responsible killjoy while he’s the loosey-goosey fun guy who joins lodges and goes on weird quests. But these nitpicks fall away when I think about the show’s overall vision, not just of itself but of life in general.

Both Dud and Liz are running away from death in some fashion, trying to live forever, both in the wake of Dud’s near-death snakebite experience and the loss of their father (a probable suicide). And the lodge itself, tied to a bygone era, is no longer the healthy organization it once was, to the degree that everybody assumes Dud is joking when he tries to join. Ernie even charges Dud way too much for his membership dues, presuming he’s a prankster.

What’s quietly beautiful about the show is how it positions the lodge — and by extension, a more community-based way of thinking about the universe — as the “other way to live” that Dud is looking for. It’s no good to live your best life if you don’t have others to live it with. Or, as Ernie puts it in “Sunday,” “What’s the use of living forever if you’re all alone on a Sunday?”

Lodge 49 feels a little like a show removed from its time, like it landed here direct from 2011. (It would be a perfect companion piece to the late, lamented FX detective show Terriers.) It shambles when other shows would sprint, and it never bothers signaling where it’s going, because it thinks maybe you’ll be interested enough to come along for the ride. It is not a show about a premise or plot, instead choosing to focus on characters and vibe. And that makes it a distinct anomaly in today’s TV landscape.

But that also means it’s a show capable of moments of almost tossed-off profundity, like finding something of immense value in a pawn shop. It is not a show about masculinity being used to break apart the world but, instead, about how masculinity can be used to heal it, to forge bonds between lonely men in desperate need of something larger than themselves. That shouldn’t feel as revolutionary as it does in 2018, but there’s some quiet comfort in the idea that neither Dud nor Ernie need to ever again go bowling alone.

 

[Ranger Dan]

Anyone catch episode one of the second season? Pretty good. I like that there are some mysteries relative to the plot and not just comedy.