Category: 2019
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Inherit the Viper is an unfortunately titled but acceptably mediocre crime drama about rural siblings Margarita Levieva, Josh Hartnett, and Owen Teague running an opioid business. Levieva’s the merciless boss, Hartnett’s the reluctant muscle, Teague’s the enthusiastic but uninvolved teenager. Everything’s going fine—well, outside the occasional fatal overdose for customers—until Teague decides he’s got to…
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Canceled has a great sense of humor. It ends on a knowing smile but then the end credits have a few knowing big laughs. It’s about five minutes of action, real-time, as two friends (Laura Sacchetti and Maria Scenna) try to console a third (Katrina Rossi) over the loss of her favorite TV show. The…
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I’ve been trying to gin up enthusiasm to write about this “Watchmen” finale all day. Though, if I think hard enough, I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with a compliment. Something like… thanks to “Watchmen: The Series,” Robert Wisdom’s most… unappreciative recent casting is no longer “The Alienist.” Wisdom shows up in this…
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This episode of “Watchmen” gets, quite nicely, to the heart of the matter. As the episode goes through its meme-ification of Dr. Manhattan (albeit prestige HBO series starring recent Academy Award-winner Regina King memes), where King and Dr. Manhattan—who’s always visibly obscured when he’s not assuming the appearance of his surprise reveal identity—sit and talk…
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I read the first Weatherman series because Nathan Fox having a steady gig seemed like it was worth seeing. And the series was fine… I didn’t even remember it ended on a cliffhanger though. This second volume continues the action as mind-wiped former interplanetary terrorist turned weatherman turned fugitive (so he was mind-wiped out of…
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I’ve read Young Frances, which collects Pope Hats, but haven’t actually read any Pope Hats issues. Based on this issue, it’s different to the point I can’t imagine what it’s like to read Young Frances serialized, not if Hartley Lin intersperses it with his one or two page lyrical comic strips. They’re all non-fiction (or…
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It’s a good thing series creator and episode writer Jon Favreau has seen Terminator 2, otherwise this episode wouldn’t have an ending. It’s not clear who decided they ought to straight rip off the flashback sequence from For a Few Dollars More, Favreau or episode director Taika Waititi (who’s better than the worst directors on…
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Seriously, they couldn’t come up with anything better? This episode has a bunch of reveals and every time it’s… really, this reveal is the best thing presumably well-paid writers could come up with. Worse, it starts like it’s going to be a Regina King episode and therefore safe but… no. King doesn’t get her own…
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It is a dark time for the Star Wars franchise. Although the second highest grossing film franchise of all time, white men really weren’t okay with Kelly Marie Tran getting a lot to do in the last “trilogy” movie, not to mention women telling ostensible alpha Oscar Isaac what to do, and nobody wanted to…
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Did they intentionally wait until the last episode of the first season to bring in the biggest “Game of Thrones” comparisons? Like, not only is there a “Wall” to defend—sorry, sorry, a “Keep” to defend from the North (wait, wait, is it the South)—but the episode opens with Henry Cavill vs. Army of Darkness. Even…
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“The Witcher” never expressly says “we’ve been Westworlding you” but this episode is where they show how they’ve been Westworlding the viewer. It’s Freya Allan’s part of the pilot, only with Henry Cavill mixed in. It’s been twelve years since Cavill was last in Jodhi May’s kingdom, which means Allan is like eleven and a…
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So this episode, set sometime after the last episode as far as Henry Cavill and Anya Chalotra are concerned but still before the first episode as far as Freya Allan’s storyline (there’s some exposition about the political situation leading up to the attack in that first episode, but still just proper noun-filled blather), is where…
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This episode has storylines converging, something I really thought they’d wait to do until the season finale cliffhanger. Instead, Henry Cavill and Joey Batey run across Anya Chalotra in their quest for a cure to Batey’s magically inflamed throat. The episode opens with Cavill trying to find a djinn’s bottle so he can wish for…
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Is tricking a viewer with time periods called a Westworlding it yet? “The Witcher” does a soft Westworld this episode; initially I thought they were just cheap with the CGI establishing shots—Henry Cavill and returning sidekick Joey Batey go to a royal wedding auction (we get a little about the gender politics, but not a…
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Dash Shaw’s style is perfect for Clue: Candlestick. His cartooning is through, detailed, and loose. His figures seem to expand and contract as needed, when they’re pontificating they seem big, when they’re recoiling they seem small. Works with them being noisy and not as well. The comic opens with Professor Plum getting an encoded letter,…
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I didn’t even realize Freya Allan’s princess on the run character was missing from the episode until she shows up for the cliffhanger setup. Because Anya Chalotra’s B plot is so compelling; also Henry Cavill’s A plot. The monster plot is decent this episode. But Chalotra’s story is all about her getting to her “enchantment,”…
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Another episode another main character… this time introducing peasant girl Anya Chalotra, who’s got magical powers. She’s got a spinal birth abnormality, leading to a pretty big hump and something going on with her jaw. She’s hated by all—including her father (who’s half elf and so it’s his fault she’s got the birth abnormalities but…
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There are so many names to learn in this episode. There are at least seven principals and then there’s a bunch of supporting cast and then everyone they’re information dumping about. “Witcher” is all about the exposition. Except when it’s not and then so long as it’s not about titular character but definitely not protagonist…
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The most perplexing thing about Chasing Echoes isn’t how it got made—there’s a writer, there’s an artist—but how it got published. Specifically, the market research saying there are people who are going to buy this thing. If it weren’t for the swearing and the women always bonding over the most unrealistic sex talk anyone's gotten…
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Eve Stranger feels a little retro. Lead Eve is a woman who only can remember the last week before her memory resets. She’s an assassin or something. Some kind of mercenary. Her mission this issue is shockingly unimportant; the story skips from her getting normalized in her situation and to the mission itself. Nothing about…
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If it were my choice, I’d stop watching Watchmen: The HBO Event Series with this episode. Unfortunately I’m watching it as a social thing so I can’t get out of it. I suppose I could sleep through the rest, but then I wouldn’t be able to shit on it in a post. Because this episode…
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Does the Los Angeles court really have a bring your kids to work day? I’m less engaged with the dramatics of “All Rise,” which has Wilson Bethel hemming and hawing over whether or not to help dad Tony Denison with his upcoming trial or just abandon him and Simone Missick having to defend herself as…
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This episode feels like old home week—even though “The Mandalorian” is only on episode seven, it’s been in the weeds for three episodes so even the promise of Carl Weathers (who’s no better than before, though also no worse) at least reminds of when the show didn’t disappoint. Better, though kind of pointlessly, Gina Carano…
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Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen has fairly unsurpassable creator pedigree. Steve Lieber’s mainstream superhero outings are always visually delightful since he’s able to infuse a bit of Silver Age glee into his otherwise hyper-realistic (but still very artful) style. There’s this great page where Lieber drops the background at the Daily Planet newsroom for some effect…
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Lots of guest stars this episode—Tony Denison, Ileana Douglas (who brings so much energy to the show she ought to be added as a regular), familiar-faced Brian Howe, and then Dina Meyer for a scene. The episode’s about Simone Missick having to switch courtrooms due to a leak and then protect the defendant in a…
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This episode of “Evil” has a particular creative pedigree. Nineties neo-noir wunderkind (albeit flash in the pan) director John Dahl. Eighties and nineties sci-fi guy Rockne S. O'Bannon scripts. Seeing either of their names in the credits for “Evil” just tells of careers gone wrong; seeing both of them in the same episode, well… it…
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It is a dark time for “The Adventures of Baby Yoda.” Second lackluster episode in as many weeks, with the show creators really thinking anyone cares about the adventures of “Mando the Mandalorian” Pedro Pascal when he’s not being an adorable dad with Baby Yoda. This episode’s director, Rick Famuyiwa, isn’t much better than last…
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Everyone gets everything they want. I wanted a Tim Blake Nelson “Watchmen” episode. And for my sins, they gave me one. Turns out Nelson was in New York for the giant squid attack; as a youth he looked like a cheaper, slightly nerdier Tom Holland and was a Jehovah’s Witness out to preach last minute…
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Alien: Harvest operates at that all too familiar intersection of bad and stupid. It’s a stupid idea badly executed, though it’s not clear whose at fault for each. For instance, the short is about four survivors on a space ship trying to get the lifeboat before the ship blows up in seven (or eight) minutes.…
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Crisis: Part Three is a scant handful of okay moments surrounded by truly godawful dialogue, sometimes so bad it’s impressive the actors are keeping it together—points to Grant Gustin, Elizabeth Tulloch, Cress Williams, and Candice Patton—one inventive plotting point, a couple big nostalgia deep-dives (they really felt the need to validate “Birds of Prey” fans,…
The Stop Button 