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The Godfather Part II was released fifty years ago – and in the half century since it and the first film debuted, they’ve influenced film and television in innumerable ways. This story of a mafia family, and one initially reluctant member’s blood-soaked ascendancy to the top of the empire has continued to draw in audiences with its sprawling, epic nature and deep intimacy and drama because at its core is a tale that remains relevant, even all these years later. One of its most compelling modern echoes is found in Succession – another story of a powerful scion in a changing world and the family members vying to take his place. Connecting these two threads across time allows us to really analyze the true danger that lurks in the dark heart of greed, and how it consumes everything and everyone in its path.

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Being around family can be a lot of fun, but… it can also be very chaotic. And what time of year does that chaos really start to heat up? The holiday season, of course! It's a feature of so many hilarious episodes of our favorite shows, from Friends to Modern Family to Blackish to Brooklyn Nine-Nine and beyond (and some very *stressful* ones, like The Bear and Heartstopper), to some of the most beloved holiday movies, like Home Alone, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and more! This on screen trope arose from a real life issue to many of us can relate to: when the family comes together, chaos ensues. Let’s take a closer look at the Holiday Family Chaos trope to unpack why, at its core, it’s actually surprisingly heartwarming and encouraging.

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With siblings, there’s usually the responsible older child, the gets-away-with-everything younger child, and then… there’s the middle child. Born too late to be the first born and too early to be the baby of the family, middle children often get stuck in a kind of limbo – loved but… forgotten or ignored, no matter how much they might try to make themselves an equal part of the family. Being the middle child can lead to one becoming a bit of a black sheep, their outcast nature at home bleeding out into the rest of their life. Many middle children on screen are actually the geniuses of their families (a surprisingly pervasive subtrope!) And, even given all of their struggles in childhood, middle children can actually have a good shot at ending up the most well adjusted adults out of their siblings. It’s time to give middle children their moment in the spotlight – so let’s unpack this trope!

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Susan Mayer was Desperate Housewives’ ‘anchor character’ – the everywoman who show creator Marc Cherry designed to be loveable and relatable. But although on paper Susan was inoffensive, there was something about her that audiences loved to hate. Over the course of eight seasons, the Housewives met with murder, fraud, bribery and so much more – so… what exactly was it about Susan, a seemingly innocent girl next door type, that made her the show’s unintentional villain for so many?

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Gilmore Girls is of course the story of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore both figuring out how to grow up into the people they want to be – but there’s a third Gilmore woman who provides a very different perspective to the show with her own biting wit: matriarch Emily Gilmore. Emily was constantly at war with daughter Lorelai, over everything from major life decisions to the minutiae of her outfits. She is uptight and close-minded, the total antithesis of the fun and free Lorelai, and she can often come across as suffocating and even straight up mean. But, if we take a closer look, we can begin to better understand why Emily behaved the way she did, and why her evolution was actually just as important as Lorelai and Rory’s.

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The Penguin’s Sofia Gigante (formerly Falcone) is a departure from her comic book and animated film counterpart. Showrunner Lauren LeFranc gave the character depth and complexity, turning her into a more than worthy adversary for titular Oz Cobb. Both are strategic, observant, and know how to appeal to other peoples’ egos. Sofia sees people for who and what they are, and often isn’t afraid to confront hard truths head-on. Along with her controlling family, Oz knows this highly intelligent, chillingly calculated woman is usually right, prompting them to do whatever they can to minimize her power.

In this show about villains and criminals, LeFranc views Sofia as “the closest thing we have to a hero”, but also knows that she can be just as cruel and ruthless as her enemies and allies. So let’s take a look at Sofia’s evolution from mafia don’s daughter to empowered mob boss, and how she stayed true to herself despite many attempts to make her into someone else

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🍿When you’re a teenager, every emotion is dialed up to a hundred, but fortunately, the teens aren’t alone! Enter teen movies, especially teen movies geared toward teenage girls – capturing so many of the issues and emotions that teen girls find themselves experiencing, including romance, comedy, angst, friendship, awkwardness, anxiety, and desperately wanting life to be a little less complicated (preferably with a happy ending!)

Let's take a look at three particularly iconic eras for teen movies and go through some of our favorite movies from each! (And we definitely couldn't fit *every* great movie into this video, so if we missed your fave let us know in the comments so we can make sure that it's in part 2!)

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There’s so much talk about how different generations are, about how we’re all constantly at war with one another… but, for as much as we may disagree about hair parts and sock heights, Millennials and Gen Z have actually come to have a lot in common. The next, younger generation coming in and taking over is par for the course because… that’s how the forward movement of time works; but, underneath the aesthetic differences between these generations, there are a lot of commonalities both in how they approach the world and how the world tries to bring them down. So what are some of these big similarities, and are there some actually useful lessons that Gen Z could take from Millennials’ struggles? Let’s take a closer look!

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Weeds’ Nancy Botwin began the show as a very sympathetic figure – newly widowed and left to figure out how to keep her family afloat while struggling with her own grief. But over the course of the show’s 8 seasons, a different, darker side of Nancy made itself more and more apparent. She remained entertaining to watch, but became harder and harder to side with. By leaning into her anti-hero nature, instead of pulling back and softening her edges, the show managed to create a portrait of a complex, messy woman and the more sinister sides of her personality that cause her to harm everyone around her in her quest for more. So, what does Nancy’s story really reveal about the reality of diving into the darkness to chase a high you can never really catch? Let’s take a deeper look.

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Go to http://zocdoc.com/thetake to find and book a top-rated doctor today. || Wondering what else is out there is a core part of the human experience – whether it’s taking a peek into a dark forest or looking out into the cosmos, we can’t help but imagine what we might be missing. And in this world of ghosts, cryptids, aliens, and all other sorts of phenomena, there’s a big emphasis on belief. This, of course, has led to a split: the true believers and the skeptics. But while skeptics are often thought of as wholly against accepting any sort of otherworldly phenomenon, when we look a little closer we often find that isn’t the case at all – they just want proof. And that drive to disprove, or maybe even possibly prove, these seemingly unexplainable things often means that some skeptics can’t help but get drawn into this world. So, what keeps pulling us skeptics in? And… could we even be the key to unlocking the truth about these kinds of mysteries?

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