Superman & Lois (2021) s01e05 – The Best of Smallville

Way to go on the distracting cliffhanger, “Superman and Lois.” After a reasonably complicated—so many emotions—episode, the cliffhanger is a hard, survive-or-perish number for one of the characters. Maybe not the most fragile character, though the episode does put likable if uneven Sofia Hasmik in more danger than is preferable. But still.

Hasmik’s got the indomitable reporter arc this episode. Elizabeth Tulloch’s having a combination date night and mom night, so Hasmik picks up the slack. Only Hasmik doesn’t have a Super-beeper. She’s following recently returned from the dead Clayton James, who’s the prime suspect in a town arson job. It leads to a very contrived Superman fight sequence, which proves a nighttime flying fight at super-speed in a cornfield (so the corn debris can garble the fight visuals) is not a good Superman fight sequence. It’s too bad because otherwise, Rachel Talalay’s direction is pretty good. I remember when she started on “The Flash” for the CW; she was terrible.

Though she’s not very good with the actors. They don’t need a lot of help this episode—the heavy lifting is Inde Navarrette being way too aware of having an alcoholic dad, Erik Valdez, and a callous mom, Emmanuelle Chriqui, is going to do her damage. But Jordan Elsass has his first string of selfish teenage boy scenes; Elsass had been the ever considerate super-twin, so it’s kind of a breaking bad arc. Elsass is fine and has the requisite emotion, especially with the previous episodes’ character development, but Talalay doesn’t know how to help the performance. Baby steps, I guess. She does direct the heck out of the Tulloch and Tyler Hoechlin scenes.

And Hoechlin does a lot better this episode. Possibly because there are a bunch of flashbacks to his teenage years. They hired very teenage Dylan Kingwell for the flashbacks. Kingwell’s playing older than Elsass and Alex Garfin, but he’s clearly younger. Maybe the Kryptonian aging thing—which they use to explain Hoechlin looking early thirties but playing mid-forties—means Kingwell looked thirteen when he was eighteen, which would explain why (unseen) flashback Chriqui dumped him for Valdez.

A couple developments on the Chriqui and Valdez front, in addition to Navarrette’s awareness. Valdez gets wasted because his best friend is in critical condition after the aforementioned fire. Chriqui gets shitty with him about all of it, making her a lot less sympathetic than usual. She’s also changed her mind on (also unseen) Adam Rayner because he’s performatively nice. Meanwhile, Valdez—playing a cracker—drunkenly sings Navarrette a Spanish lullaby, so maybe there’s more to his backstory. Smallville’s got enough Black people in supporting parts to suggest the white people leads aren’t all a bunch of racists, but there aren’t any Hispanic characters so far. It’s a diverse but not inclusive show.

Michele Scarabelli—who appeared in the pilot—is very good as Ma Kent in the flashbacks. Especially since Kingwell’s a little asshole. “Superman and Lois” is, in addition to being about Superman being a C- dad, is about Superboy being a dick teenager to his widowed mom. Interesting flex.

Oh, and Wolé Parks finally comes back. Daisy Tormé is terrible as his digital assistant. It’s hard to be so bad as a digital assistant the performance makes the regular actor better, but Tormé’s awful enough. Parks isn’t very good, though. It turns out—thanks to a reveal—the part’s tricky, and Talalay doesn’t direct actors, so maybe he’ll get better.

Interesting show canon details—Smallville was incorporated in 1949, so long after Action Comics #1, and Lex Luthor does exist. Somewhere out there.

The family drama, albeit unevenly executed at times, is compelling. “Superman and Lois” might finally get going in a few more episodes. Might.

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s06e02 – Meat: The Legends

I wasn’t thrilled when I saw Rachel Talalay’s name on the director credit but it’s good direction (not just for Talalay but in general). The episode is split between the Legends in the fifties trying to find an escaped alien and Caity Lotz and Adam Tsekhman crash-landing on an alien world. Lotz and Tsekham are a very funny odd couple. Their storyline, involving Amelia Earhart (Jennifer Oleksiuk), is somewhat lacking but Lotz and Tsekhman have a lot more chemistry than it seemed last episode when they got paired off.

The main story is about an alien goo in the secret sauce at a hamburger joint. While Jes Macallan (assuming the team leader position quite well) frets about using new cast member Lisseth Chavez to communicate with the goo to find Lotz—it’s barely a plan—the rest of the cast makes themselves comfortable at the burger joint. At least, Nick Zano, Tala Ashe, and Shayan Sobhian. Everyone else—Matt Ryan and Dominic Purcell—just sort of roam around, getting the occasional one-liner.

The burger joint plot line is mostly about Ashe and Sobhian figuring out how to work together without pestering each other, which provides a nice bit of character development with Zano’s roller-skating waiter in the shorty-suits providing the comic relief. Eventually the entire town becomes meat-hungry almost zombies (zombies who can run—and, presumably, recover from their meat lust) and raid the burger joint, requiring everyone to work together as a team. There’s a bit of a deus ex machina moment but it’s fine. I mean, Ashe and Sobhian are going to be the Wonder Twins, after all, some narrative shortcuts are fine. Especially since the plot device is a welcome cameo.

Chavez does rather well in her first outing on a mission (rather than being a mission), bringing the right amount of personality to the fight scenes and so on. I’d been a little worried last episode they’d pair her off with lovesick Zano but if it’s in the cards, it’s not yet. Chavez’s character arc is all about working with the Legends in general and Macallan specifically, with Chavez the only one being frank with Macallan (minus Purcell for a beat and also minus knowing it’s “Legends” so there’s time traveling chicanery in their futures).

The fifties tone is great. Talalay brings a whole bunch of energy to it, even though they’re basically at one time specific location—the burger joint and its parking lot—and otherwise they’re at various residences, which don’t need much time adjusting.

I was on board with the season’s gimmick—outrageous aliens in history—just because it’s “Legends,” but this episode shows they’re going to be imaginative with it; I’m a lot more confident, particularly since the show took the time with Sobhian and Ashe. Now they just need to figure out what to do with Zano. Especially with Chavez playing sidekick to Macallan.

And great guest turn from Kirsten Robek.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e03 – Puppet Patrol

Try as it might, this episode doesn’t lose all the second episode gains over the pilot. It does seemingly revolt against them—facing off team mom April Bowlby with serious superhero Joivan Wade but have it be all about how she’s just too negative and, like, needs to get with the team spirit stuff. Maybe do some cheers. And it’s all they’ve got, Wade and Bowlby, who are pretty much the only reliable actors “Patrol”’s got. Especially after this episode.

They’re stranded in a motel where they can argue and ostensibly character develop—if they’re trying to play up some kind of romantic thing, there are going to be numerous hurdles but it’d be a big swing if they try it (last episode didn’t exactly imply it but there was some passive energy in that department). The rest of the team—Diane Guerrero, Matt Bomer, and Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan as Robotman—is in Paraguay looking for Alan Tudyk, who was last seen there eighty years earlier or so. We saw Tudyk arrive there in flashback—speaking of Tudyk, he’s not narrating this episode; Wade does the opening recap but the narration only made it two episodes.

Wonder what that note from the focus group says.

Anyway.

Robotman and company—Robotman predated Hellboy, right, has there ever been any discussion of their similar personality types—infiltrate Nazi scientist Julian Richings’s superpowers clinic (amusing but not good enough bit part for Alec Mapa as a guy who’s been saving up for some powers and now it’s finally time). There’s some character revelations, some wanton destruction, and a really convenient Dr. Manhattan chamber for Bomer to play around in as he tries to get rid of the electrical being living inside him….

It’s Bomer’s episode. He gets all the flashbacks, covering him being terrible to both lover (Kyle Clements) and suffering wife (Julie McNiven). Bomer’s not good. The material’s not good, but Bomer’s also not good. He exceeds the range required for muffled Invisible Man guy. Not so with the dramatic. It’s not well-written, it’s not well-directed, but Bomer also can’t do it.

The character—not taking the more asshole moves in the flashback into account—gets empathy, but Bomer’s performance doesn’t get the requisite sympathy. He’s just not good enough.

If you’re good with Nazi jokes… there’s a great puppet show?

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s01e06 – An Exorcism in Greendale

The opening showdown with Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) confronting Ms. Wardwell (Michelle Gomez) about Wardwell being a witch, spying on Sabrina, saving Sabrina from the sleep demon. Wardwell gives her a questionable tale about how she’s fulfilling a promise to Sabrina’s dead dad to protect her, which Shipka doesn’t quite buy and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be buying it either. But am I not buying it because I’ve read the comic and know more of what’s up or because of the show’s handling of Gomez, who’s definitely “protecting” Shipka but also actively working to harm those around her.

Turns out it doesn’t matter because Gomez joins Shipka’s witch gang by the end of the episode and it works out, albeit with Gomez as an unrevealed black hat in the operation. Because it turns out Shipka’s going to need all the witch help she can get this episode, as she tries to organize an exorcism to save friend Lachlan Watson’s possessed uncle, Jason Beaudoin.

What’s interesting is how right after Gomez goes from lying to Shipka about her backstory, Shipka goes and hangs out with her friends—Watson, Ross Lynch, Jaz Sinclair—and finds out whatever demon is possessing Beaudoin has been terrorizing them in their dreams. At this precarious moment in their friendships, Shipka proceeds to gaslight her mortal pals about the demon invading their dreams. It’s maybe the first time on the show Shipka’s ever appeared unsympathetic. It’s frankly disquieting to see her do it. Sure, she runs home and tells her family she’s got to save the humans and all but… still.

Especially since Shipka’s then got to back things up with Lynch especially, as he thinks he once saw the same demon in the mines, not yet realizing they really are just tunnels to Hell and who knows who he would’ve seen as a kid. Lynch and Shipka then go down into the mines to try to figure out what happened to Beaudoin, which at one point gives Lynch the great line, “this isn’t The Goonies.” Even if it doesn’t seem like the right line for a sixteen year-old in 2018 to spout.

Meanwhile Sinclair has a weird freakout she’s not religious enough.

Lots of Exorcist references throughout the episode, including a great shot of the suitcase and some not so welcome projectile vomit. The way the exorcism plays out with Shipka, Gomez, and aunts Lucy Davis and Miranda Otto is fabulous.

Even with the iMovie Vaseline smudges appearing at the end, it’s definitely the best directing I’ve ever seen from Rachel Talalay. Though I didn’t know she directed it when I was watching, so maybe I wasn’t looking out for issues as much. It’s a good episode. Though I wish Watson’s arc, which involves Beaudoin being… gay maybe… possibly queer… ish, was better. Whatever Joshua Conkel and MJ Kaufman are trying to do there doesn’t work. Especially with Beaudoin’s demon calling Beaudoin a sodomite, especially with Sinlcair’s religiosity becoming a plot point.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991, Rachel Talalay), the home video version

For the first third of Freddy’s Dead, I blamed Lisa Zane’s bad performance on Talalay’s truly awful direction and Michael De Luca’s lame, if enthusiastic, screenplay. During the middle third, when the film flips between exposition and poorly done dream sequences, I started to change my mind. Not in the positive; Zane never connects with the character’s place in the film. When Zane’s shooting Robert Englund’s Freddy with a crossbow, it’s supposed to be funny. But Talalay can’t direct absurdist humor, De Luca’s absurdist humor isn’t actually funny, and Zane isn’t playing for the joke. It’s a lame joke, but it’s a joke. And no one gets it. Unless the point of Freddy’s Dead is to be a complete misfire, in which case, mission accomplished.

After watching the film–for something like the fourth or fifth time, I saw it in the theater–I discovered I was watching a home video version, approximately ten minutes shorter than the original release. I assume they cut out character development. It probably would’ve been bad character development, but it might have at least made the film seemed like it was trying. Talalay can’t do anything. She’s not good at anything, at least not when it comes to presenting it to the audience. The sets are cool–C.J. Strawn’s production design, if one considers the absurdism of the script, should work a lot better than it does.

Englund’s bad, but he’s clearly aping for the camera. De Luca moronically does a character arc for Englund–the boogyman explained, over and over–and Englund visibly doesn’t know how to play some of those scenes.

Yaphet Kotto is okay for a couple of his early moments, when it seems like he might go all Parker on Freddy Kruger. By the end of the movie he’s bad, but because he’s still around and De Luca and Talalay don’t have anything for him to do.

I wonder if the original version is better or worse. It’s not like more time with any of the characters seems like a good thing. Though Shon Greenblatt at least improves throughout. He’s awful at the beginning and almost likable by the middle. Almost.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare’s bad. It’s often amusing in its badness–until the finale, when Zane puts on her 3D glasses (as does the viewer) and it just gets protracted. Englund and Zane don’t have any chemistry. He’s trying desperately, she’s not trying at all. A better performance by Zane in the last act would have helped a lot.

Maybe it is more appropriate for it to fail on all levels, over and over again.