City Lights (1931, Charles Chaplin)

About halfway through City Lights, I realized most of the gags repeat. Especially when it’s Chaplin and his de facto sidekick, Harry Myers. But instead of making the bits seem rote, the repeat value just makes them funnier. There are some differences in how the jokes work, but not very much; Chaplin also lays into the repeat imagery. In the third act, it all makes sense when there’s finally a different reaction to a repeated narrative bit. The way Chaplin brings it all together is sublimely delightful.

The film opens with the most outdoor sequence in the film, with Chaplin—playing the Tramp—interfering with some city occasion. What sets it apart—besides people having audible (but distorted) voices in an otherwise silent picture. There’s diegetic sound and a musical score (by Chaplin), but all the dialogue’s in intertitles. Immediately after the opening scene, Chaplin meets beautiful blind girl flower seller Virginia Cherrill. He’s smitten with her and buys a flower—she doesn’t realize he’s a tramp; she thinks he’s a rich guy.

Luckily for the Tramp, he almost immediately makes the acquaintance of actual rich guy Myers. Well, luckily, in the big picture sense. In the immediate picture sense, Chaplin and Myers have a very disconcerting friendship (from Chaplin’s perspective, anyway). Myers is a drunk; his wife has run off to Europe and isn’t coming back. He’s a wild man when drunk, but when he sobers up, he can’t remember he’s made a new pal in Chaplin. So Chaplin keeps getting the boot.

But whenever he’s got Myers’s inebriated support, Chaplin thinks about how he can help Cherrill, which cements the idea he’s wealthy (he’s driving Myers’s Rolls Royce). Just as someone in Switzerland (maybe Fredonia) develops a cure for blindness, Cherill’s grandmother (Florence Lee) gets a letter from the landlord. Pay up or get kicked out. Tomorrow.

Will Chaplin be able to keep Myers drunk enough, long enough, to be able to hit him up for some cash? Cherill and Lee owe twenty-two dollars; Myers carries thousand dollar bills (and some hundreds, I think). So it’s not like it’d be a problem. Except whenever Myers gets the slightest bit sober, he completely forgets bestie Chaplin.

Myers’s unreliablity leads to some occasionally drastic measures for Chaplin, such as a fantastic boxing match. Chaplin fights badass Hank Mann, whose slightest slap can knock out a real boxer—so, Chaplin’s in real danger. And the third act’s pretty dark. City Lights isn’t a tragedy overall, but it’s mostly a tragedy. The opening bit doesn’t have much tragic subtext, but pretty much everything else is soaked in it. There’s a suicide attempt—with nooses around the neck are one of Chaplin’s repeat sight “gags”—there’s destructive drinking, which the Tramp pretty early on acknowledges is way too much. But he’s got to get drunk to get to be friends with Myers.

Most of the comedy set pieces in the first half involve their drunken carousing. They’re hilarious together too. Chaplin and Myers have great timing together; Myers’s performance as constantly stupefied drunk is superlative. A lot of it is Chaplin’s direction. He’s got just the right pacing for Myers to slowly realized what’s going on in the scene and then rush to get involved (making things worse). Except the Tramp’s rarely asking him for help in these scenes. It’s usually just Myers barging in. It’s always very funny.

Then the third act’s emotionally rending, as the Tramp finally seems to be on the way to a win—or at least not a loss—only to fail thanks to cruel people. It’s a lot, especially since Chaplin also breaks one of his repeat cycles to make the narrative change happen. Even with the finale involving another repeat cycle, the only way to know if the move will work is to do it. And they work beautifully both times. So good.

Chaplin’s performance is exquisite. The Tramp’s navigating hostile, turbulent waters in hanging out with Myers. Then he’s basically got a courtship arc with Cherrill, with her blindness being integral to Chaplin being able to pull off the ending.

Myers is also great. Not so much when he’s sober. He’s fine when he’s sober—like he’s doing the part, and it’s good—but when he’s drunk, he really gets to have some fun. Cherrill doesn’t get any fun. She gets small joys, usually with caveats related to her blindness (and poverty—if Cherrill had any money, the blindness wouldn’t be such a detriment to her success). But she does get a full character arc, something no one else in the film besides the Tramp is even in the picture long enough to attempt. Myers doesn’t get a character arc, for instance.

City Lights is a fantastic mix of slapstick and sincerity. Chaplin finds the heart in every situation—Myers’s alcoholism is a reaction to intense depression—without ignoring the various unjustifiable cruelties people inflict on one another.

It’s a lovely, singular motion picture.

Wild Life (2023, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin)

Wild Life has a “what if Douglas Sirk did an epic filmed over multiple years” feel to it. And Wild Life, though the film never acknowledges it, was filmed over multiple years. And not by directors Vasarhelyi and Chin. The subject of the film—Douglas Tompkins (the lead is his widow, Kris Tompkins, but it’s all about him)—made a movie about being a mountaineering adventurer. So they use a bunch of the footage in Life, but never mention Tompkins’s interest in being the Carl Denham of extreme sports.

It’s a strange omission, though, as maybe not because Wild Life’s filmmakers are so disinterested in filmmaking they use an oil painting filter on Tompkins’s death scene recreation to make it look classy. But all of Life has some weird omissions.

First, it’s a single-sided commercial for Tompkins’s work, which is really easy because they seem pretty great for rich people? They’re conservationists who protected a bunch of land; they did do it in Chile, which might complicate things. But these are likable—albeit exceptionally wealthy—folks.

So, when Douglas Tompkins got divorced, he had a bunch of money because he co-founded Espirit with his ex-wife—the film sets him up like the fashion Steve Jobs for ten minutes, then completely forgets it. It’s a Sirk melodrama, just a really upbeat one about good-looking blue-blood boomers saving South America from the South Americans through their love of skiing, hiking, and surfing. It’s privileged (and knows it enough it avoid mentioning high school dropout Douglas Tompkins was dropping out from prep schools) and colonial. But since the people are right, does it matter?

I mean, it doesn’t matter to Vasarhelyi and Chin. They obfuscate the entire movie, opening with Douglas Tompkins’s death but waiting until the end to reveal its dramatic potential. They also do these really cheesy diary-writing sequences with Kris Tompkins. For all the Wild, the film always feels controlled, like there’s a thumb always holding it in place.

It also does a bad job balancing the movie adaptation-ready relationship between the Tompkins with Kris Tompkins continuing the work after her husband’s death. They’d been partners, but buying up Chilean wilderness to donate to the country (as protected national parkland), was Douglas Tompkins’s idea. The movie’s got this frame about Kris Tompkins climbing the highest mountain in their parks, which her husband named after her, but it’s completely unimportant. Except to show how white saviors boomers still get it done. But for the film? Nothing. Good shots of everyone pensive on peaks.

Because Wild Life’s a commercial. Just say it, though.

It’s an incredibly manipulative commercial too. I’m fascinated with how they edited footage. They’ve got someone weeping but then someone else sitting in front of the person consoling that person, making the consoling person anonymous. Did Vasarhelyi and Chin film a funeral making sure to block out the people who didn’t sign waivers? Did they do an Eyes Wide Shut composite? Wild Life’s a lionizing bit of propaganda, arguably less impressive than a Wikipedia article, but the construction’s intriguing.

Great editing from Bob Eisenhardt and Adam Kurnitz. The cutting is so good—and the integration of the uncredited footage is so impressive—they get a pass on the silly filters the film uses at times–even oil-painted tragedies.

Director Chin’s also got a photography credit—he’s also a character in the picture, never mentioning he was making the movie at the time—along with Clair Popkin, and the footage is absolutely stunning. There’s nowhere near enough of it, but it is gorgeous.

When in Chile, visit the Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park. There, saved you ninety minutes.

Wait, wait, wait. I’m not forgetting these bits. Sorry.

The film’s real bad at portraying how Chileans feel about the Tompkins’s work. Everyone in the film is pro—one guy says the way they acted before was nationally embarrassing—and the ex-president, Michelle Bachelet, might be the only time the movie passes Bechdel (emphasis on the might; everyone else definitely fails). But then Life keeps subtitling Chileans speaking English because their accents are… too accent-y? It’s condescending. Then when Kris Tompkins dedicates something to all the Chilean staff, she mentions her husband (deceased) and someone else. The someone else gets all the cheers from the audience.

So, little weird.

But, depending on the cast, I’d probably watch the mini-series. Douglas and Kris Tompkins are absurdly photogenic, which Douglas seems to have leveraged his entire careers, so it’ll be a difficult casting.

Actually, no, wait. Sam Rockwell and Sarah Paulson.

Grantchester (2014) s07e06

Something’s obviously going on when this season finale’s murder mystery is about halfway through the episode. The mystery’s sequel to a previous episode this season; a copycat killing has happened, only Robson Green didn’t give out some of the details, so it can’t be a copycat. The plotting is trope-y but not the details. There’s still some real personality to it.

There’s also a Christian fundamentalist psycho killer (run, run, run away) on a show about a vicarage. It works better than the last time the show dealt with problematic godliness (a homophobic Black curate from a British colony). It’s also exceptionally terrifying because there’s one of the Grantchester flock out to off the unsuspecting vicar. I don’t think. Considering Tom Brittney’s once again a failed Grantchester vicar this episode—he gets blotto, smokes cigarettes, but doesn’t listen to jazz because he knows he can’t handle that life—it’s nice he gets to do something for the first time in the series.

While the entire second half of the episode, which includes a fast-forward epilogue, is about closing “Grantchester” down enough if it doesn’t get another season, there are also some shoehorned-in threads while the murder mystery’s still happening. Tessa Peake-Jones gets her season-long cancer plot resolved, with, unfortunately, some very middling writing for her. The show skipped important parts of her story since the last time she got a subplot, and they don’t make up for it here. It’s the season finale, and it’s outstanding business, so let’s get it resolved, however abruptly.

It’s a particular bummer for Peake-Jones and Al Weaver’s relationship, one of the season’s early focuses. During this episode’s first act, he’s oddly disconnected from her plot, which makes sense pragmatically—he’s got an entirely new subplot this episode to finish off his season and, potentially, his character—but not in terms of narrative.

Weaver’s new plot is caring for the unhoused people in town, an arc he kind of started a few episodes ago, but they never did anything with until now. Thanks to Weaver, an amusingly overwhelmed Oliver Dimsdale, and a lovely Nick Brimble, it works out okay, but it’s still a rush job.

Green’s got the truncated mystery plot, little bit of action, little bit of family comedy. It’s not a lot (though he gets some good material in the epilogue), especially if it ends up being the last episode.

Brittney’s non-murder mystery-related plot involves apologizing to Charlotte Ritchie for being a shitty suitor as she prepares to leave forever. Ritchie gets a couple adorable scenes with son Isaac Highams, who’s appropriately wiser than the adults when needed. Ritchie has a good half episode, though the resolution’s a little contrived before the epilogue.

The epilogue does bring back Brittney’s family, who went unmentioned this season even though last season had set step-sister Emily Patrick as some kind of recurring character. Maybe they just couldn’t get the whole supporting cast together because of Covid-19.

It’s a nice finish to the season, with some very sturdy acting from Green throughout. Thanks to Christian serial killers and fast-forward epilogues, Brittney gets an easier character development arc than the last episode implied. Still, he’s definitely come into his own as a new kind of Grantchester vicar.

Especially if they get another season. It’ll be too bad if they don’t, but it’s also a very nice conclusion and setup. No playing chicken here.

Oh, and besides an actual “Sidney” name-drop at one point, there’s also a lovely, old school Grantchester river montage (to help the fast forward along). It’s a very “Grantchester” finish.

Grantchester (2014) s07e05

“Grantchester” is rarely as subtle when focused on character development than in this episode. Credited to Richard Cookson, the script weaves leads Robson Green and Tom Brittney’s romantic woes underneath the mystery A-plot, which isn’t a surprise. The surprise is just what the episode will do with the result; the episode goes from being a relatively traditional outing to Brittney’s most significant episode of the season in terms of character development.

Since there’s been no mention of his family—specifically his inappropriately amorous step-sister—this season at all, and with this episode resolving Green and Kacey Ainsworth’s two seasons-long troubled marriage arc, it feels like “Grantchester” has settled all business from before this season.

After an amusing introduction to the eventual murder scene, the episode begins with Green and Brittney getting together a picnic for Green and his kids. Charlotte Ritchie brings the kids over, and she and Brittney have a little talk about their encounter last episode. He’s after friendship, she’s after romance, they’re going to go with the former.

Only then his latest ex-girlfriend, the very engaged Ellora Torchia, appears and tells him she’s left fiancé Michael D. Xavier (who’s also Green’s new boss). Does Brittney want to run away with her?

Before Brittney can process this new information—Torchia and Xavier have been missing from “Grantchester” the last couple episodes, with Green usually just missing Xavier at the office—there is, of course, a murder. And the suspects are Brittney’s pals from the old folks’ home, Bruce Alexander and Anna Calder-Marshall. They’ve done a runner, making them the (very unlikely) prime suspects.

The episode juxtaposes Alexander and Calder-Marshall’s almost entirely offscreen adventuring with Green and Ainsworth, and Brittney and Torchia. There are some comparisons so obvious even the characters remark on them, but it’s usually understated. Green and Brittney have a friendship arc—Torchia’s return makes things awkward for Green at work—but they’ve also got a class one separate from any romantic partner quibbles. Green and Ainsworth’s plot will have some of those class issues running under it as well; it’s an incredibly well-thought-out plot.

No wonder there’s no time for Tessa Peake-Jones and Al Weaver. Weaver doesn’t even appear in the episode, and Peake-Jones only gets a couple short scenes, including a fantastic one opposite Green. They rarely get enough time together, so it’s very nice when they do. There’s a quick check-in on her ongoing season plot, which at least comments on Brittney’s character development arc (if not directly affecting it). Weaver’s presumably just off at the cafe. “Grantchester” seems to have forgotten how to do six-episode seasons after getting eight last time. They’re out of room here.

This season started with Brittney maybe prematurely acting like a “real Grantchester vicar” (meaning jazz, booze, and man-slutting), and it turns out he might not actually know how to lead that life. But thanks to the major changes to the characters’ situations in the last season or three, his inadequacies might run even deeper.

There’s one episode to go, and the show’s operating with a mostly clean slate now, so it’ll be fascinating to see where they go. Especially since they’ll be setting up the prospective eighth season.

Some outstanding acting this episode from Green, Ainsworth, and Ritchie. Great guest spots from Alexander and Calder-Marshall. And Torchia and Xavier, who presumably won’t be in town much longer, both have their best episode here.

It’s such a good episode the omissions don’t matter. Well, as long as they don’t bungle the finale, I suppose. But they’re going into it far stronger than I’d have expected.

Grantchester (2014) s07e04

The mystery plot is particularly good in this episode. And it's all about the vicarage. Maybe the location was busy for the first two episodes of this season; they're very much back to services, with Tom Brittney giving a couple sermons. He's also potentially hiring a new curate (Tom Glenister, briefly returning from last episode). Brittney takes Glenister to visit Al Weaver, which is just set up for Tessa Peake-Jones's subplot. She still hasn't told anyone but Weaver about her cancer diagnosis.

"Grantchester"'s got alternating C plots this season: there's Peake-Jones and cancer, then Robson Green and Kacey Ainsworth's marital woes. This episode starts with Peake-Jones as the main subplot, switches over to Green and Ainsworth, then is back to Peake-Jones for the finish.

It balances out nicely—with some great acting from Peake-Jones and Nick Brimble (as her husband)—because the Green and Ainsworth subplot echoes in the main mystery plot.

The victim this episode is the husband of one of the church ladies, who Brittney thought he knew well, only to discover they've all got secrets from him. Except for Oliver Dimsdale (Weaver's beau), the lone dude in the group. Louiza Patikas plays the controlling leader of the group, with Lauren Douglin and Sophie Fletcher as her chief sidekicks; Alaïs Lawson is the youngest, a French girl who Patikas micromanages the most.

Brittney thinks he knows all of them, only for the murder to reveal he's completely unaware of what's going on with his parish. Green's even surprised at how out of touch Brittney is with the goings-on amongst his most needful "customers." Though at this point, there's no longer mention of Brittney not hanging around the station to help Green with investigations; Green's new boss doesn't put in an appearance this episode (or last), and junior officer Bradley Hall is back to hanging on Green's every potential compliment.

The mystery reveals things about the victim, the victim's wife, and the three other women in the church group; lots to unravel, lots of well-acted drama. Patikas proves a deeper character than implied initially, and she's terrific. The murder arc ends up far more haunting than it originally seems like it'll turn out.

It also ties into the Green and Ainsworth subplot. Brittney and Charlotte Ritchie are convinced all Green and Ainsworth need is a nice night out and set them up, unknowingly, on a double date. Ritchie realizes Brittney sometimes defaults to vicar behavior when things go wrong and right for certain attendees, making him less than sincere when he needs to be. Unfortunately, the episode leaves that development hanging for next time, instead toggling back over to Peake-Jones's. It's an okay move (the Peake-Jones subplot does take precedent), but they seem to be dragging out Brittney and Ritchie's flirty friendship.

Even with the frayed subplots, it's another good episode. Though it's only a six-episode season this time, so they're nearing the finish, and almost everything outstanding is very outstanding.

Lost in Space (2018) s01e05 – Transmission

Even though this episode opens with Parker Posey trekking back through the forest after watching the Robinson kids hide the robot last episode… it seems like more time has progressed than a few hours. Unless all the survivors moved all their space-campers (the Jupiter space-camper) to the same campground overnight and legitimately elected, but dipshit leader Raza Jaffrey has got a plan for communicating their mothership.

They're going to build a tower and put a bunch of lights at the top and hope the mothership sees them from orbit. There aren't any establishing shots of the tower during construction, which makes it kind of hard to visualize, but director Deborah Chow instead focuses on Jaffrey being a jackass and how much better it would be if Robinson dad Toby Stephens was in charge.

It's obvious stuff, but it's also totally fine. Compared to the other guys, Stephens is definitely a winner.

After Posey's walk through the dewy woods, the action cuts to Molly Parker. She will have a solo mission this episode, something to do with her calculations of the planet's changing seasons. They're changing way too quickly. Juxtaposed with Parker going out and investigating, there are flashbacks to her relationship with her kids on Earth, scenes where Stephens just happens not to be there. First up, we discover Maxwell Jenkins was born premature and in a NICU, and so obviously, Parker was going to fudge his scores to make sure he got to get lost in space with the rest of them. Later, there's more with the other kids and shade at off-screen Stephen's expense. Maybe not the best flashbacks, but okay.

The majority of the episode's character development and it all happens onscreen. Taylor Russell and Ignacio Serricchio become erstwhile friends and allies. Hopefully, they don't have a romance because Serricchio's fifteen years older than Russell, who's twenty-four playing an eighteen-year-old, so he looks a full eighteen years older than Russell. We also get Serricchio finding out Posey's still alive—or, more, vice versa—and some drama from that interaction, especially since it gets Russell suspicious.

Meanwhile, Mina Sundwall spends most of her time flirting with Ajay Friese. Friese is Jaffrey's son, and Jaffrey's an asshole to his kid. Good enough banter and Friese calls Sundwall on her brattiness.

Jenkins's plot has him wanting to tell Stephens about the robot and never getting the courage. Posey also snoops on that subplot, using it to cause some drama. Really get to see Posey machinating this episode.

The ending is an unexpected (though forecasted) action sequence with heavy Jurassic Park nods, like straight riffs on scenes. Chow's very intentional about it in the direction, but then composer Christopher Lennertz doesn't lean into the John Williams-esque stuff he's done before. It's also weird a little later when there's a big Spielbergian "boy and his robot" moment.

It actually made me wonder if they shouldn't have tried harder to make the movie feel like Spielberg. Maybe they would've gotten a sequel.

The episode definitely has a different feel than the previous ones—the now enormous background cast—but "Lost in Space" still seems to know where it's going.

In the Heights (2021, Jon M. Chu)

In the Heights is anemic. Tedious and anemic. There are some good performances—Jimmy Smits is great, Gregory Diaz IV seems to be good (he doesn’t get a lot of acting to do), and Daphne Rubin-Vega similarly would be good if it weren’t for Chu’s terrible direction. But since Heights is all about Anthony Ramos and his charmless proto-romance with Melissa Barrera and both Ramos and Barrera give the most middling performances amid numerous middling performances… the acting is a wash.

Supporting romantic players Leslie Grace and Corey Hawkins are much better than Ramos and Barrera (they seem to enjoy each other’s company and both—particularly Hawkins—try with the acting) but they disappear in the tacked-on third act so there’s no way they can save it or even help it. Same goes for Diaz, Smits, and Rubin-Vega… they’re all absent for the big finale. Instead, it’s all about Ramos and Ramos is pictured in The Antonym Finder next to transfixing.

The film tries multiple narrative structures to force a dramatic arc. There are book ends with Ramos telling the story to a bunch of kids, who we’ll learn a little bit more about throughout the protracted two and a half hour runtime whenever the movie needs to get its pulse up with a reveal. But then there’s also an impending citywide blackout (or so the title cards keep saying) along with it being very hot, though the heat doesn’t really factor meaningfully into the action. It’s not like there’s less singing and dancing based on temperature. It’s not like when it’s hotter Chu all of a sudden can compose a better shot.

In the Heights is like a badly done Pepsi commercial (very specifically Pepsi, Coca-Cola would’ve done a better job, especially with the CGI). Chu’s use of the Panavision frame is… well, not disappointing; it’s a predictable, constant fail. It’s clear from the start Chu’s not going to direct the film well (somehow his over-the-shoulder shots manage to be worse than the boring dance numbers) so it doesn’t disappoint but it never gets any better. There’s no show stopping number. There are a few where maybe it should be a show stopper, but Chu’s never any more or less interested in the content, which really hurts Rubin-Vega and then Grace and Hawkins (who get the showiest number, a CGI-fueled dancing on a building sequence where Chu and company can’t make it as convincing as the old “Batman” wall-climbing from the sixties; I guess it’s good to know Warner Bros., as a film studio, really just doesn’t care about special effects, be it wizards, space wizards, or musicals).

Olga Merediz is another of the “ought to get a show stopper” but her big number is an abject whiff. Though Merediz’s performance is wanting. About a quarter of In the Heights’s cast can work without acting direction from the director. Merediz is not in that quarter. But she still ends up sympathetic thanks to her big number flopping.

Bad editing from Myron Kerstein, bad use of incidental music, bland photography from Alice Brooks.

For the first fifteen minutes, it’s possible to keep the synapses firing wondering what a good director could do with the musical adaptation. Then the next two hours and five minutes wondering what an even barely capable director could do with the rest.

I started the film wondering if Chu’s ever seen a good musical, I left wondering if he’s ever seen a good movie.

There’s a great cameo from Marc Anthony, who—like a handful of the cast—belong in a better film. Unfortunately, Anthony’s opposite Ramos in the scene so it sadly ends up in this one.

All Rise (2019) s02e17 – Yeet

“All Rise” wraps it all up, giving the entire regular cast some closure (save Marg Helgenberger, presumably because they couldn’t book the necessary guest star on short notice). But even Reggie Lee is back—he got suspiciously promoted off the show either last episode or the one before—but he’s just there to say hi. The episode’s definitely a series finale, including a literal wrap party, but it’s not series finale. Some of it is still season finale. Next season seems like it would’ve been about Simone Missick having to defend her seat on the bench.

There’s a really good resolve to the outstanding trial, which has almost the entire regular cast in Missick’s courtroom. Some good yelling banter between them, with Rachel Michelle Bathe really ramping up the animosity, which is simultaneously fun and distracting. It’s now the last episode, no one really cares too much about the trial of the week. Especially when it turns out to be a bit of a MacGuffin.

Maybe there was more to it when it fallout from the trial was going to impact next season, now it’s just distraction.

The most surprising thing about the episode is how much Todd Williams plays into it. He’s the costar, in every scene with Missick outside the courtroom, and it’s an interesting tone. Though while Missick gets the relative spotlight (top-billed, her show, even if she was out with maternity leave for a lot of the season), Wilson Bethel sort of gets to sit at the supporting cast table. Yes, he gets a bit of resolution with Lindsey Gort, but in a rather vague sense. His professional subplot also gets resolve, but it’s anticlimactic.

Worst resolve is for Jessica Camacho and J. Alex Brinson. No spoilers but it’s six anticlimactic endings in a row, without good material for either of them, not even when they try real hard. It’s a weird way for Camacho—who got to be the most active star in “All Rise” in a lot of ways—to exit. And Brinson seems entirely on fumes, even though the opening establishes it as his episode. It’s too bad, especially for Camacho, who did some really good work on the show. Brinson too but he hasn’t gotten the plot line shaft as bad as Camacho lately.

There’s been zero rumors of “All Rise” getting a streaming save, so it seems very done. It never got a fair shake; Rona hit just as it was closing the first season, the combination of Rona and Missick’s having a baby affected season two, the show creator Greg Spottiswood is a racist misogynist who made the behind-the-scenes miserable for his show about a Black lady judge with a social justice bent, not to mention lots of inclusivity. “All Rise” had it rough. It deserved a third season just for getting Rona, not to mention Spottiswood.

I’m going to miss a lot of the cast. And the potential. “All Rise” was all about the sincere potential.

Resident Alien (2021) s01e05 – Love Language

There’s a bunch of great stuff in this episode but the big win is how it’s able to stare down mawkishness for the ending, song-accompanied “what have we learned” montage. Sarah Beckett’s teleplay finds the best sincerity is from the unlikeliest source—in this case Alan Tudyk’s genocidal alien—and even though the sequence starts in the danger zone thanks to the music, it ends up being fantastic.

Because this episode does whole bunch. It introduces a new, previously unknown character–Tudyk’s wife. The human Tudyk’s wife. The dead human Tudyk, killed by alien Tudyk who then assumed his form’s wife.

It opens in a flashback so we can see the meet cute between wife-to-be Elvy and Tudyk. It’s the longest we’ve seen the human Tudyk, who’s in an art gallery after his latest divorce, talking to his society pals about his latest forensic pathology successful; Elvy’s the waitress who catches his eye, though she’s got surprises of her own. They hit it off and five years later… now she’s soon-to-be the latest divorced wife.

Except Tudyk the alien has no idea what she’s talking about and skips out on her to resolve the other cliffhanger from last episode, involving kids Judah Prehn and Gracelyn Awad Rinke sneaking into his house to find evidence he’s an alien. It’s going to take a while, but the episode’s going to settle some of the series’s outstanding plot threads. Not resolve them but get them ready for the next developments. There are seriously like five obvious plot lines running here, maybe six. Beckett’s juggling of them is very impressive; even for the show, which always juggles them well.

No spoilers but the episode addresses and soft resolves… Tudyk and Prehn’s adversarial relationship (with some great acting along the way from Meredith Garretson as Prehn’s very worried mom), Sara Tomko hiding daughter Kaylayla Raine’s identity from everyone (including dickhead ex and baby daddy Ben Cotton, back for the first time since the first episode), the toxicology report on the dead town doctor who kicked off the whole show (which involves sheriff Corey Reynolds’s unrevealed backstory, involving dad Alvin Sanders, but also ties in Tudyk and Raine), and then Tudyk’s very pressing issue of Elvy wanting to reconcile the marriage and move into the cabin with him.

Plus Alice Wetterlund gets a character development subplot. So basically the episodes got an A plot, two B plots, and two C plots, while developing some series plots too. Like Tudyk’s concern for Tomko. The show never gives them too much time together, but there’s always this perfect check-in and this episode it’s even more perfect because it involves Tudyk menacing abusive ex Cotton.

But wait, Gary Farmer’s around too.

It’s all so good. There’s a little iffiness about using Sanders being a shitty dad explaining and excusing Reynolds but we’ll see. I assume they’ll make it work. They make the Elvy thing work in a single episode and they’ve done a fine recovery on Wetterlund too so “Resident Alien” can handle it.

Great performances from Tudyk and Tomko, but everyone’s good. Awad Rinke’s got a big part as peacemaker for Prehn and Tudyk and she’s awesome. Excellent directing from Jay Chandrasekhar.

I’m not sure this episode is better than the last one, but it’s close enough; “Resident Alien” is already exceptional and is still on the rise.

It’s also where I’m starting to get really anxious having to worry about a renewal.

Resident Alien (2021) s01e04 – Birds of a Feather

It’s the best episode of the show so far; easily. Both writing—Tazbah Chavez—and directing—Jay Chandrasekhar. Chavez’s script is able to balance out material for the entire cast in a way the show hasn’t juggled before—front-loading the B plot with the C plot and then introducing the A plot a little later, eventually weaving it into the A plot, of course. Along the way, everyone gets something to do, usually something quite good.

It starts with Meredith Garretson and Alice Wetterlund. The episode opens with mayor Levi Fiehler inviting incognito….

Okay, well, it actually opens with the “Cheers” theme over lead Alan Tudyk having his first dream since he’s taken over a human being’s body. It’s a great sequence. It’s just a lot happens this episode and there’s even a big cliffhanger I might not even talk about. Because the stuff Chavez ends up doing with Sara Tomko is so phenomenal.

But back to Fiehler and company. He invites Tudyk to dinner because son Judah Prehn can see through Tudyk’s human form to the genocidal alien beneath and is terrified. Tudyk’s going to bring Wetterlund to keep Fiehler and his wife, Garretson, busy so Tudyk won’t have to talk to them. He’s decided humans are too noisy.

Only it turns out Fiehler and Wetterlund grew up together and dated and Wetterlund gets real drunk and pisses off Garretson. Garretson is super good in this sequence. Wetterlund sells the drunk and drunker too. Maybe the best she’s been, just acting-wise.

Meanwhile, turns out Prehn and his friend Gracelyn Awad Rinke (who gets a name this episode, right away) have got this Goonies-style plan to investigate Tudyk. Awad Rinke gets this fantastic spotlight sequence, including a scene where she runs sheriff Corey Reynolds and deputy Elizabeth Bowen.

Bowen’s going to get some stuff to do this episode and it’s a really good subplot and hopefully she’ll get more to do, but no matter what, it’s still all about Reynolds. He’s incredible. So funny.

And it’s a hard thing to get bigger laughs than Tudyk in “Resident Alien” because Tudyk gets to be outlandishly absurd and turn being outrageous into part of the joke, but Reynolds can’t ever let the tone break. Tudyk also narrates the show, so the whole thing’s structured because he’s funny and to get his laughs. Reynolds doesn’t get any of that support. It’s just him, being able to sell these incredibly goofy, hilarious lines and he always does it.

So good.

The A plot has Tomko going to her grandmother’s house on a medical visit; Grandma (a very funny Edna Manitowabi) lives on the reservation. Gary Farmer drives Tomko; they have to bring Tudyk along because he needs to administer the shot. It’s becomes this exceptionally touching, confined A plot about Tomko’s family drama and how it plays out. Really good work from Tomko, Farmer, and Sarah Podemski as Tomko’s cousin. And Tudyk obviously.

Real good stuff.

Chavez also references Tomko’s back story from the pilot, which the show hadn’t expressly tied to her current character development arc; Chavez takes care of it, making up for its absence even.

“Resident Alien” is real good this episode. The show seems to know what’s working and is leaning heavily into it. And the cliffhanger’s perfect.