I slept more than 7 hours, which was wonderful. I dreamt about a home, where I’m from, secrets and hidden places on our property which don’t actually exist in reality, but which have some basis in fact and which are recurring elements in my dreams, which I cherish. I woke up around a quarter to 5. I had two missed calls, from Aaron & from Mark Adams. Both called shortly after I went to sleep. I suspect Aaron was just reaching out to let me know he’s okay and how his L.A. adventure is going while Mark was likely calling to talk about the new episode of Daredevil: Born Again, which probably ended around the time that he called – but I don’t know for sure, obviously.
When I got up to use the bathroom I saw that I had indeed caught the mouse in my traps. Often even finding a mouse in a trap I find it repulsive and it is a cause of some stress, but this time I felt a sense of victory. I swept the trapped mouse into the trash and I was done. I left the other traps just in case we have more than one pest, but I don’t think we do. I washed my hands, made a smoothie and decided I’d catch up on some of my TV shows.

I got caught up on Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord, watching the last 2.5 episodes, which brings us to episode 6. I’ve had mixed reactions to this series. It’s up to snuff with other animated Star Wars stuff like Tales, The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch & Rebels, but this has been the least compelling to date, which sounds like I hate it, but I don’t. I think what drags it down is the structure. We’re getting 10 episodes in Season 1, 2 episodes a week, but the story feels like a single movie randomly chopped into 10 pieces, so the endings all feel forced and obnoxious IMO. Everytime I feel like I’m finally getting into the series, it ends. I’d just wait and binge it but I don’t want to get that far behind on anything if I can help it. I will say that episode 6 (S01E06 “Night of the Hunted”) felt like the best episode so far and has many things I enjoyed, which made the first 5 all feel like setup, which is fine, but I wish I’d enjoyed the setup a bit more. Perhaps I’ll grow to love the series once this season is finished? We’ll see. The season will be over in just 13 days. A second season has been ordered but it’s unclear when that will arrive or what the story might be. I kind of hope there is a time jump between seasons and that we get a different Maul story that builds on this one while forging another way forward in a different location with different characters, but I really have no idea how this season ends, how that will affect my opinion, or what they have planned going forward. There has been so much new content since I last watched the majority of The Clone Wars (all 3 seasons of Tales, 2 final seasons of The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch and now this + Forces of Destiny) that I would really love to do a re-watch of this entire era, but I’m watching so much right now and I’m behind on even more, so it just doesn’t seem likely. Hopefully someday.
I’ll try to get to the other shows later, but I felt like taking a break.
