Derek’s SDCC 2022 Recap: Friday

Check out my Preview Night recap here, and my Thursday recap right here!

Though I was out fairly late last night, I was feeling a bit better this morning than when I woke up on Thursday. My morning schedule was pretty light, so I took some time to work on write-ups and just… not move for awhile.

Around 10AM, I met Katie (and her partner Mark) in real life for the first time, which was very exciting! They were set to accompany me through a round of the House of the Dragon offsite. I was lucky enough to head through on Friday, but wanted to grab some better resolution photos than I was able to capture that night (the last few years of SDCC I’ve packed light, and have been equipped with only an iPhone, so this wasn’t entirely successful, but i’ll take what I can get).

With a bit of time until our reserved slot at the Dungeons & Dragons Tavern, I decided to just sit outside and soak up the energy for a bit. There’s so much joy and positivity throughout the massive crowds, and it’s absolutely something that we all needed after the past few years.

The tavern itself was very impressive — whatever bar or restaurant or whatever was underneath this transformation was completely unrecognizable. As you enter the tavern, small doorways show off classic D&D monsters such as the Mimic and… others (I’m not a big D&D guy) and at the end of a small hallway the tavern opens up to a massive space.

The experience takes about 15 minutes, includes a beverage (alcoholic or non), and finishes off in a big way. We’ll be sure to link our full write-up once published, but for now, take a look at a few photos below!

Katie, Mark, and I split up, and I hopped over to the IMDBoat for a quick snack before heading to Ballroom 20. I was sad to just miss the Paper Girls panel (but was excited to be headed to the premiere later that night).

This would mark For All Mankind’s first year at SDCC, and just as with the Severance panel on Thursday, the room was almost packed. I slipped in at just the right time, and somehow managed to make it in the first five rows of the room.

Featuring a huge group of panelists, including stars Joel Kinnaman, Jodi Balfour, Shantel VanSanten, Sonya Walger, Casey Johnson, Krys Marshall, Cynthy Wu, Coral Peña, Wrenn Schmidt, and Edi Gathegi, and executive producers Ronald D. Moore, Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert, and Maril Davis, I was pretty stoked to get an inside look at the series. The questions the moderator asked in the panel felt a little less organic than I would have liked, but with powerful answers surrounding the ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ aspects of the series from Krys Marshall, and some of the original cast discussing just how much the characters that they play change between each season’s time jump (and how entirely realistic that change is as one ages) was absolutely fascinating stuff.

Krys notes the time jump is like opening a surprise box — with the jump in time being so long, it’s hard to have any expectations or ideas of just where their characters may be when the new season begins. This makes it incredibly hard to prepare for a new season, as the chances that you get your character right are almost zero. The creators also touched on just how important it was when creating this ’alternate timeline’, that the series’ female characters take their rightful place in society — this was echoed in the cast featured in the panel, which hosted just three male actors, and seven female.

Just like Severance, I firmly believe that For All Mankind is one of the best shows currently on television. The panel had lots of reveals and discussions about huge, spoilery moments that have occurred over the series’ three seasons. These moments are big and exciting and I won’t discuss them here as this is another series that it feels as though almost nobody is watching. Please watch it — you won’t regret it, and I’d like it to run for as long as possible. On that note, towards the end of the panel the team revealed that the show had officially been renewed for a fourth season (and iterated that the current arc has been planned for seven). The crowd, understandably, went wild.

There was also a dude in a For All Mankind cosplay, and he got a ”Hi, Bob” from the cast. Excellent stuff.

With a bit of time until the rooftop screening of the Paper Girls premiere, I thought that it was finally time to take a walk across the show floor. As always, exhibit halls A through G are filled with millions of feet of publishers, movie/television studios, vendors, towers of t-shirts, artists, and more, and taking a long walk through makes for a super fun (albeit often overwhelming) way to spend a couple of hours (and maybe pick up a new hobby).

The hall starts at row 100, and adds 100 incrementally all the way up to 5-thousand something. I made it to ~1500 before deciding I needed to take a break, and felt slightly sad that I didn’t have the convention stamina that I once did.

There’s a 14 foot tall, moving, LEGO Bowser on the floor, and its amazing.

I dumped my stuff at the hotel, and walked over to the Grand Hyatt to check out Paper Girls. The rooftop was decked out with 80’s flair like rainbow slinky’s, cassette-shaped branded cookies, neon signs, and more.

This was a super cool press line to be a part of — Paper Girls marks the first major starring roles for much of its young cast, so to see the sheer joy and excitement of the family members as Camryn, Riley, Sofia, and Fina walked the red (purple?) carpet was just so damned sweet. Creators Brian K Vaughan and Cliff Chiang were also in attendance, and mostly, as a huge fan of Vaughan’s work… I just hope that Paper Girls fares better than Y: The Last Man did.

I hung around for the screening afterwards, as industry and some fans were treated to the first three episodes of the series (which begins on Prime Video on July 29). Of the three episodes that we saw, the third was definitely my favourite — the series kicks off fast and furious and features a super interesting tone, but I think that it works best when it slows down and really gives its characters, their thoughts and beliefs, and their fears, time to shine. I’m often made fun of for so thoroughly enjoying ’teenage drama’ (Life is Strange / Before the Storm is one of my favourite video games, and I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for The OC), so it makes a lot of sense why these pieces are my favourite.

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but Sofia Rosinsky’s Mac gave me major Edward Furlong in Terminator 2 vibes.

Screening attendees were also treated to swag bags (naturally, Paper Girls branded paper delivery bags) filled with 80’s candies, a box of popcorn, a genius rolled-newspaper looking poster tube with a Paper Girls poster inside, one of the aforementioned cookies, and more. It was a fabulous event, and I was so happy to have taken part in it.

I haven’t watched the show for several years, but just in case this is the last one, following Paper Girls I popped by the Walking Dead Fan Celebration, which offered dancing zombies in incredible makeup, themed cocktails, numerous props from the show, photo ops, and even a t-shirt screen-printing station. Attendees looked like they were having a blast, and I heard so many incredibly in-depth The Walking Dead conversations taking place.

After this, I popped over to the IGN / The Callisto Protocol party at the Hard Rock Hotel. Here they had more themed drinks, a massive dance space with a great DJ, photo ops, and more. Here, I ran into Geekscape Games co-host Carlos!

Once the IGN event ended, it was time to head back to the hotel and wonder how much I would regret my choices when I had to wake up a few hours later…

That’s it for today! Check back tomorrow for more of the action from SDCC 2022!