...screw it, can't focus on work right now, lets catch up on episode three of #TheWatch. Got traction last week, and, I dunno, maybe they manage to turn this around into something at least coherent if they're not going to bother for textual accuracy...

*one minute in*

...nope. https://twitter.com/RexMundane/status/1346092714673270784

Watching on VOD so this isn't exactly livetweeting, but so far, Sybil becomes a society heiress turned vigilante crime-fighter because she witnessed her parents being assassinated.

Because that's what Discworld needed. The Goddam Batman.

...I know they're going for building their own world and all, but, again, how does shit like TV Sets (that don't use power cords?) make a lick of sense in a world where news is communicated via semaphore/tickertape "Clacks?"

Past-Sybil escapes, runs through the streets, meets a Watch Officer (No idea whose been named at this point) who says the perfectly ordinary thing you would in the circumstance...

Smash-cut to now, Sybil looking at the assassins' mask she kept, in a house her family's wealth bought her, next to her bat-cave armory, and the message is "did you know that it is sad when people die when they are killed?"

Folks, we are 2:05 into this.

So Carcer has some surveillance ghost thing and... oh piss off, show.

...and piss off again because it's Borrowing. Wonse, who is... *has* to be Eskarina now (witchcraft, worked in UU as housekeeper because of sexist heirarchy, etc), is just *giving* Borrowing to Carcer so he can keep tabs on Vimes.

This gets to what I keep running up against with #TheWatch: It's not that it's a bad adaptation of the stories, it's that it isn't adapting them at all. It's just raiding the fan wiki pantry for stuff it can throw in and hope a story just kinda happens to appear.

"Okay, now we've added the Holy Wood, the Agony Aunts, Pteppic, and Mister Fusspot. Is it a plot yet?"
Not a bit.
"Alright, so how about we add Cosmo Lavish, The Amazing Maurice, 71 Hour Ahmed, and Conina the Hairdresser. Is it Plot?"
Not even close
"Alright, so the Hogfather..."

...alright we're having a "no, we're super serious" moment now. Vimes is going over the report from 20 years ago Sybil filed about her parents murder, because backstory is best delivered when one character is literally reading a person's bio back to them. Screenwriting 101, that.

And oh no, twist of all twists, it turns out that the assassins guild? Y'know, the one we've already established operated legally in the city? It turns out they operate legally in the city.

This is legitimately treated as a new and shocking development.

...then there's this weird bit where the Watchmen becomes complicit? Like, gaslighting her into pretending it never happened, to save her own skin from reprisal because the assassins are actually just petty, retaliatory thugs after all?

So, yeah. Sybil hates criminals, but also hates the Watch for letting it happen, so she becomes the Goddam Batman.

...right, so dear hell I'm not six minutes in still, but a few notes...

Why would anyone allow *this* guild to exist? The given explanation (book and show) is that they self regulate so much they arguably prevent more murders than they commit, and is mostly aristocrats killing one another. This isn't that. I don't know what this is.

Why wouldn't the Ramkin family have security of any kind to prevent against it? Why would Sybil be shocked about this? Why would the complicit Watch have a hard time explaining what surely everyone in the city already understands about the Assassins' Guild?

Again, this isn't an "It's not book-accurate" gripe, but the books do end up fitting the Thieves/Assassins Guilds into a kind of civic heirarchy, chaotic but functional.

This isn't chaos, it's nihilism. Who would choose to live in this nightmare?

*pinches bridge of nose* Aaaaaanyway, back to the MacGuffin Hunt of a story. #TheWatch need a magic sword because the magic book told them to.

"Hey, didn't we just have a plot beat about how people doing what they're told leads to civic corruption and how it damages people?"
"Yup"
"And we immediately follow by them just doing what the book told them in hopes it'll solve the problem?"
"Yup"
"Just checking."

So obvious prophecy is obvious so they need to get the sword, and wouldn't you know it, that means they have to get into... have you guessed it? That's right, the Assassins' Guild.

"Hang on, we haven't put a joke in the episode yet. People are expecting comedy! High-larious goof-em-ups!"
"On it!"
"Brilliant Work!"

The joke was so good they wanted to tell it twice. Anyway, this calls for a heist because the sword's in the basement, and a-ha, that's why she kept the mask... and apparently just... keeps the memento of her parent's death on her at all times... neat.

More Heist talk, heads butting, minor antics with feeding a dragon kept in a toolbox for the entire scene because the CGI budget ran out. But we're coalescing on two plans. Sybil through front door as assassin, Watch through basement where it connects to the building next door.

Random sexual tension between characters who haven't really even flirted yet, while the rest of the Watch just sort of... brought a snake they stabbed out to the front step to show the world, y'know. Like you do. Ordinary Copper stuff. Very Discworld.

And for once I'm with Vimes here, that really did come out of nowhere and accomplish nothing.

Oh, wait, I know this one. So in the books a major plot point is the Assassins share a wall with the Fools' guild. And they're setting up the obv gag, but fair enough, indeed, who'd be foolish enough to, cut to the reveal and... that's not the... that's the wrong... w-what?

Again, this is beyond it being book-accurate. Defenders of #TheWatch will say it's fine if you ignore the books, and that's just... not the punchline to the joke they were setting up.