Just finished The Plot Against America on HBO.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

I won’t give away too much to spoil it for people who haven’t finished the series or book, but when they reveal what the actual “plot” was...well, it certainly seemed very, very familiar.

Mind you Phillip Roth wrote the book in, what? 2004?

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[liberalmediaaddict]

2. Amazing and disturbing show

Definitely hits close to home.

[Behind the Aegis]

3. Did you listen to the podcasts, too?

If you haven't, I suggest you do!

I read the book about two weeks before the series started. It was interesting because I actually had an idea of what was happening. I really wish they had one more hour and expanded some parts.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

4. Yeah I wouldn't have minded an extra episode.

The first five episodes were very good but were essentially all a slow setting up of the final sixth episode, which was phenomenal.

David Simon is like that, though. He takes his time with set up but the payoff is almost always worth it.

[JustAnotherGen]

6. I need to read it again

I know its somewhere upstairs in two dozen boxes of books.I read it many years ago.

The teleplay writers - read around on the internet about why the ended it the way they did. I hope HBO pushes it again in the summer . . .Emmy season - Convention time.

[Behind the Aegis]

8. I read it in Feb, a few weeks before the mini-series started.

There were some changes, including the name of the protagonist family. The podcast explains why. It also ends differently than the book and it was a definite "shout out" to the current situation we find ourselves in at this moment in history.

If you have an opportunity, do listen to the podcasts; it really adds to the series, IMO.

I hope they replay it right before the election!

I loved the acting, the sets, the pacing; it was a really awesome series!

[JustAnotherGen]

9. Will do

I'm going to have to dig it out and re-read it. I did not it ended differently.

And it is a very chilling 'notice' to America.


We must ALWAYS fight for freedom. Always. Never assume we are what we've been told.

[JustAnotherGen]

5. Fantastic

Just watched the finale.

I actually liked that last page of the teleplay. I read the book many years ago - and was expecting something different.

It worked for me.

And Mamet/Bess on the phone . . . ,

[question everything]

7. Here is how a reviewer started

Among last year’s nominees for the short-documentary Oscar was Marshall Curry’s “A Night at the Garden,” about a German-American Bund rally—replete with swastikas and sieg heils—that took place in a packed-to-the-rafters Madison Square Garden in 1939. Mr. Curry made a taut, dramatic seven-minute film out of footage he’d discovered. But the most remarkable thing for many was discovering that the event had taken place at all.

[NewJeffCT]

10. I read the book almost exactly 3 years ago

right after Trump started his reign of terror. Didn't even realize it was being made into an HBO series until this past weekend.

Yes, it was written by Roth in 2004 when he likely has Bush Jr in mind. But, the timing was right - just like Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale on Hulu. It was written during the Reagan years and was clearly influenced by the rise of the religious reich in America, but the timing was also excellent for the Trump years.

[HarlanPepper]

11. I couldn't get into it

I detest the alternate history genre (Man in the High Castle is unwatchable to me and completely ludicrous conceptually) so I’m not surprised I didn’t enjoy it. Glad you did, though.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. David Simon was behind it, so he handled it well.

It did move a bit slow--basically the first five episodes were a slow set up of all the different pieces. But the sixth and final episode just brought the hammer down in the most furious way possible, so it was worth it.

Not Simon's best work, but still very good in terms of writing and acting. Zoe Kazan especially.