X-Files and Grifts

Mulder and Scully

X-Files and Grifts

Last night really was a night all about one thing.  The previous night my wife had fallen asleep during the X-Files premiere, because she is sick as hell… so we had planned on watching the first episode again while eating dinner so that we would be primed and ready for part two when it aired at 7 pm my time.  I have to say I have been looking forward to this television return just about as much as anything you might imagine… other than maybe the start of a new Walking Dead season.  During the 90s I was a huge fan of the X-Files, and I am guessing I watched it more religiously than I ever realized.  When watching the show again recently with my wife on Hulu…  I remembered the major plot points of every single episode we saw.  For the most part… the original show holds up pretty well other than the technology aspects in a largely pre-internet world.  I tried to temper my hopes about how the continuation of the show might end up, but regardless I was pretty hyped.  Be warned that I am going to spoil various plot details so if you have not had a chance to watch the show, I suggest you skip down to the Diablo block below.

For the most part… I think the show ended up really damned good.  I was kinda shocked to see them using the same television intro sequence that they did in the original, but I guess they wanted to paint a clear picture of the fact that this directly connects to the original.  We find out that Mulder and Scully did in fact get together… and had a child together… but ended up having to put him up for adoption to project him from the powers that were after both of them.  Mulder has essentially lived a life in relative seclusion, whereas Scully has returned to medicine and is doing surgery to correct defects that may or may not be caused by Alien DNA.  Where the show starts to go a little off the rails is the introduction of a new character played by Joel  McHale.  “Tad O’Malley” is a caricature of the right wing conspiracy theory types, and he vehemently believes that the government has been in a massive cover-up of alien activity since Roswell.  All of this fits the original vibe of the show… but then something happens that I just cannot reconcile.  Mulder is introduced to a woman that he apparently interviewed when she was a child, during her first abduction… that tells him that she was abducted by men not by aliens.  Without much additional information…  Mulder goes through this “change of religion” and is instantly equally convinced that the government has been fiddling with its own people, and that the Aliens are no longer even a thing anymore.

I guess my problem here is… how does someone who has devoted his life to the thought that Aliens were fiddling with the human populace, quite literally turn on a dime and adopt a completely different conspiracy mythology. Thankfully Scully plays the skeptic here, and calls him on his shit.  By the end of the show however his change of religion is essentially confirmed, but the way this all plays out just feels pretty abrupt.  We are treated to a very sweet shot of the “Smoking Man” who is now having to smoke out of a tracheal plug.  Then we shoot forward to last nights episode, as both Mulder and Scully are apparently back in the saddle working for the FBI under Walter Skinner again.  This episode felt perfect.  Everything about this felt like we are just picking up the legacy of the original show and moving forward, this time acting upon the theory that mankind has been fiddling with Alien dna and fusing it with people.  We are eventually presented this super creepy ward filled with kids with rare deformities, that we suspect are the cause of Alien intermingling . Basically if they can keep cranking out episodes as good as the second part of this “six part event”, I am down to gobbling up whatever the X-Files puts out there.  The best part about all of this… is Duchovny and Anderson still work amazingly well together.

Grifts with Friends

X-Files and Grifts

While watching our little mini X-Files marathon last night, I was also fiddling around in Diablo 3.  I initially started simply piddling around and doing bounties, however once Damai logged in he rallied the troops and before long we had a full team alternating between regular and greater rifts.  There are still several pieces of gear that I am hunting for, so I was totally down with the cavalcade of legendaries and set pieces.  The big takeaway from last night was just how well I seemed to be able to hold my own.  For the most part we were doing the same Torment X stuff that was wrecking my face the last time we were together as a group, but I have reached a point where honestly it doesn’t really phase me.  Sure I still need to get out of exploding bits..  but most of the mob and environment damage is at a point where it is reasonable.  The only gotcha is the fact that I still do way less damage than would be needed to quickly clear this content.  Fortunately however we had plenty of dps to chew through the mobs, and Carth who is now well over 600 paragon levels is a brutal machine.

By the end of the night I managed to climb to 297 Paragon which places me within the realm of the big kids finally.  I am still pretty sold on my thunderfury, and I managed to pick up a temporary chest piece that serves nicely until I can find the one I am actually hunting for.  Other than that the big acquisition was the thorns epic gem, but I am running very low on sockets for my jewelry.  This is a point of contention for me with this game actually.  At 70, no piece of jewelry should come without a socket.  There is never a point where you would not want an epic gem in every piece of jewelry, yet the random item generator is constantly spitting out socketless rings and necklaces to serve as  disenchant fodder.  Instead I went through 35 diamonds trying to socket a ring before finally getting the lucky roll, which ends up super frustrating.  Mostly this just feels like a design flaw, since the key to doing awesome things at high level seems to be based around rocking as many maxed out legendary gems as you can throw in there.  I still don’t have all of the gems that I need, so I am guessing that my new idle activity is going to be clearing greater rifts just to level the ones I have up.

 

 

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