The Stop Button

American Gothic (1995) s01e17 “Learning to Crawl” [1996] D: Michael Lange. S: Gary Cole, Lucas Black, Paige Turco, Brenda Bakke, Sarah Paulson, Nick Searcy, John Mese. After a near death experience, Black goes fishing with Cole, only to get in the middle of Cole messing with Bakke and Mese’s date night. And to interrupt kidnapper Ted Raimi and company. Good acting from the regular cast can’t compensate for the terrible performances from the guest stars or the direction. Or the neglectful writing. Very low okay.

The Bear (2022) s03e01 “Tomorrow” [2024] D: Christopher Storer. S: Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ayo Edebiri, Lionel Boyce, Abby Elliott, Matty Matheson, Liza Colón-Zayas. The show does one of its concept episodes–a flashback filled montage showing White at various points in his professional career. Sometimes they even involve returning guest stars, just in for cameo bits. There are some reveals (it’s a mythology episode), but it’s mostly just exquisitely done food p*rn. Great direction from Storer. The best possible (narrative) dodge.

The Bear (2022) s03e02 “Next” [2024] D: Christopher Storer. S: Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ayo Edebiri, Lionel Boyce, Abby Elliott, Matty Matheson, Liza Colón-Zayas. Intense, initially Edebiri-fronted episode before it widens to the group and does a proper follow-up to last season’s finale. Some outstanding curse banter exchanges between White and Moss-Bachrach. Great performances. Oliver Platt shows up for some fun, and there’s a nice, unexpected coda. BEAR’s ripping. And the opening titles Chicago montage is a winner.

The Boys (2019) s04e06 “Dirty Business” [2024] D: Karen Gaviola. S: Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Karen Fukuhara. The show pushes the gross-out, even for it, as Quaid goes undercover as the Spider-Man analog in the Batman analog’s mansion. Well, the cave. Upstairs it’s Starr trying to court the 1% of the 1% into a coup, downstairs it’s even more objectionable. And then there’s a lot for Urban to figure out on his own.

The Boys (2019) s04e07 “The Insider” [2024] D: Catriona McKenzie. S: Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Laz Alonso, Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara. The show remembers it’s the season finale next time, so after a relatively chill episode–minus the bad guy tearing their skin off (intentionally, so they can shape-shift) and things getting worse for Capone, Jesse T. Usher, and Chace Crawford (series best work from the latter two)–things get wild. And double and triple wild. Alonso’s awesome too.

The Boys (2019) s04e08 “Season Four Finale” [2024] D: Eric Kripke. S: Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Laz Alonso, Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara. Powerhouse season finale gives lots of folks great scenes, starting with Urban and Moriarty (probably her best episode, acting-wise, to date), with Starr getting some great material too. And Claudia Doumit. Can’t forget her. Things just get progressively worse for the gang, as Urban lays dying and Moriarty’s imposter’s got her prisoner. Tense, passionate, knowing; real, real good.

The Equalizer (2021) s04e07 “Legendary” [2024] D: Tamika Miller. S: Queen Latifah, Tory Kittles, Adam Goldberg, Liza Lapira, Laya DeLeon Hayes, Lorraine Toussaint, P.J. Boss. Exquisite righteous violence episode has Latifah searching for daughter Hayes’s missing friend, a trans teenager (Avery Sands). Yasha Jackson plays Sands’s (understandably) panicked mom. She’s real good. Meanwhile, Toussaint goes to visit her reformed mugger from last season, Sosko; they have a nice but complicated visit. The sometimes amateurish guest performances are still earnest and the script’s rock solid.

The Equalizer (2021) s04e08 “Condemned” [2024] D: Cheryl Dunye. S: Queen Latifah, Tory Kittles, Adam Goldberg, Liza Lapira, Laya DeLeon Hayes, Lorraine Toussaint, Stephen Bishop. Latifah, Toussaint, and Hayes go to their annual block party, have gentle adventures, and learn important lessons. It’s a concept episode. Except, meanwhile, Kittles is shooting it out with the mob (in a bickering buddy pic with dad Danny Johnson). While it’s fun to see director Dunye do action sequences and Kittles is good, script’s a tad thin.

The Equalizer (2021) s04e09 “The Big Take” [2024] D: Millicent Shelton. S: Queen Latifah, Tory Kittles, Adam Goldberg, Liza Lapira, Laya DeLeon Hayes, Lorraine Toussaint, Deepti Menon. Sometimes okay, sometimes not good episode has Latifah and Kittles teaming up to take down his partner-killing nemesis (returning guest star Berto Colon, who’s… low energy; the writing doesn’t help but… low energy). They bicker over approach and Kittles has his worst episode in ages. But Hayes and Toussaint have a perfectly solid mini-episode with squatter Menon.

The Equalizer (2021) s04e10 “Shattered” [2024] D: Darren Grant. S: Queen Latifah, Tory Kittles, Adam Goldberg, Liza Lapira, Laya DeLeon Hayes, Lorraine Toussaint, Donal Logue. It’s the season finale, with some early forecasts at cast changes. Before the shake-up, Lapira finds herself in unexpected danger with the team racing to save the day. Sadly, it’s the network-mandated Islamophobic episode so it’s a bad A plot. Hayes’s educational future should be the B plot, but gets downgraded. Maybe the cast refresh will help.

Evil (2019) s04e01 “How to Split an Atom” [2024] D: Robert King. S: Katja Herbers, Mike Colter, Aasif Mandvi, Michael Emerson, Andrea Martin, Christine Lahti, Patrick Brammall. Is it really good or is it just Wallace Shawn joining the cast as the team’s boss? It’s really good (because Herbers finally gets to let loose). And they’ve got a doomsday clock (multiple ones, actually). Maybe it’ll be a good last season. The cast deserves it. Mandvi gets a good subplot too. Colter… not so much.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2014) s11e16 “June 23, 2024: UK Elections” [2024] D: Paul Pennolino. S: John Oliver. The feature’s all about the July 4th UK election and what utter wankers the Tories have been for the last fourteen years. It’s a well structured episode, with great recaps for the familiar audience member, while still being geared towards less familiar viewers. Lots of good laughs at terrible people. Oliver rarely does one for the homeland; nails it.