The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: 2022
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This episode down-shifts the action a little, leveraging returning guest star Benedict Wong—who star Tatiana Maslany frequently breaks the fourth wall to comment on appearing—without moving any of the subplots forward. Other than Mark Linn-Baker’s too understated sitcom dad in the real world bit. He shows up for a scene to Wrecking Crew-proof Maslany’s apartment…
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Since “My Life is Murder” started as a relatively straight Melbourne-based mystery procedural, I don’t know if they would’ve done a horseback riding episode first season. I don’t think they did one last season. But they have so much fun with it this time; I imagine it has to be because star and executive producer…
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Last season’s Christmas special ended with World War II getting started (or as close as they could get to the war starting without it starting); this season begins with the recruiters in Darrowby, but the vets are exempt from service. It’s a running subplot throughout the episode, initially very gentle, as Nicholas Ralph discovers you…
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“Resident Alien”’s been leaning on the soundtrack a lot this half-season. Usually, it’s too much country country rock, but this episode’s got some great songs, used to excellent effect. It’s like someone didn’t like how they were doing it and fixed it. Thank goodness. There are only a couple more episodes this season, so it…
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I haven’t been betting against Lion & the Eagle. The first issue assuaged any Aftershock fears I was having after writer Garth Ennis’s horror comic for the company. The second issue was excellent. I fully intended to be Ennis war comic weeping the next and final issue. But I wasn’t expecting Ennis to do anything…
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Since Covid-19 doesn’t exist in either of “Kevin”’s universes, I forget this season is their Rona season, and it might have affected how they plotted the season. Because even though last episode had a surprise party gone wrong plot, I also forgot “Kevin” sometimes does sitcom tropes in their “sitcom” part of the episode. The…
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There are three big swings in this episode. Two are significant but subtle; one is not subtle at all. The first involves Annie Murphy and Candice Coke. They’re teaming up for the day to put together a party for Mary Hollis Inboden’s birthday, which no one knew about until the day before. Murphy and Coke…
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I’m pretty sure this episode of “She-Hulk” is the first time the MCU has acknowledged white males aged eighteen to thirty-four are entirely pieces of shit. There’s a bit with the news showing Twitter posts complaining about She-Hulk, then the MCU version of the Wrecking Crew is a bunch of Trump voters who’ve decided to…
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This episode’s a mad-libs of murder mysteries; the victim’s found in a statue, one of the suspects is a billionaire tech jackass, and there’s an environmental angle in addition to a jealousy one. None of those items listed actually have anything to do with the actual motive. I forgot why the killer did the deed.…
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I didn’t understand what Eric Petersen was saying when he says, “Pal-o-ween;” I thought he meant Halloween, and then the dialogue implied he thought every month with a thirty-first meant that day was Halloween. I figured out what had happened quickly, but it was strange because it wouldn’t not fit the show. Petersen’s regular but…
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If “Resident Alien” keeps bringing Sarah Podemski back as a regular recurring, she needs to have some kind of name credit. Podemski plays Kayla, one of Sara Tommy’s cousins (or not); regardless, they’re both Native and interested in historical and cultural preservation, which is why Podemski’s important to Meredith Garretson’s new subplot. She and husband…
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Thor: Love and Thunder ends like all Thor movies, promising the next one will—finally—deliver on the promise. The first movie follow-up fumbled when co-star Natalie Portman didn’t rate an Avengers 1 gig, the second movie when Portman didn’t rate an Avengers 2 gig, the third movie had Avengers 3 entirely upend it (with Portman not…
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First things first, “Kevin”’s not grungy, it’s bitchin’, and I’m a dirty bird for worrying otherwise. Secondly, it really feels like they had these first two episodes of the season and picked the wrong place to cut between them. This episode addresses and resolves most of the problems with the first episode. It also gives…
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Between “My Life Is Murder” season one and season two, lead Lucy Lawless moved the production from Australia to New Zealand, which meant significant life changes for her character. Her sidekick, Ebony Vagulans, came over to help her out, and the show’s second season had a gentle plot about Lawless moving back home. And then…
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This episode runs an incredibly (no pun) brief twenty-two minutes. There are end credits and a mid-credits sequence (which belongs in the episode proper) but also a long re-cap, so twenty-two minutes. Sitcom-length. Only “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” doesn’t feel like a sitcom. It does at times, and it’s definitely a comedy, but it needs…
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“Resident Alien” takes a big turn this episode. No spoilers, but it will make some casting interesting down the line. I also don’t know if it’s original to the show or from the comic book; I never made it “this far” into the comic, though I got pretty far, so it’d be towards the end…
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It’s too bad the special effects weren’t affordable in 2013 because “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” seems like it could’ve changed the outcome of the early Marvel Studios TV offerings if they’d been able to make it happen. The show’s fun, easy, and accessible, with lead Tatiana Maslany providing just the right combination of snark and…
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“Kevin Can F’’k Himself” picks up right where the show played chicken with renewal at the end of last season. Dopey sitcom sidekick Alex Bonifer discovered his sister, Mary Hollis Inboden, and his best friend’s wife, Annie Murphy, were planning on killing his best bro. So he broke character and tried strangling Murphy; Inboden smacked…
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The Prometheite is a spiritual remake of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s not an adaptation or even a reimagining. Creator Ari S. Mulch breaks apart pieces of the novel and general Frankenstein pop culture lore, examines and considers them, then reconfigures some for use, some for discarding. So The Prometheite is entirely its own piece, albeit…
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Besides one to two songs too many—seriously, “Resident Alien,” but your composer to work—the show’s entirely back on track after last episode. There are some considerable plot developments, but everything’s through a character development lens. The show does continue to adjust plot trajectories, however, as sheriff’s deputy Elizabeth Bowen takes it on herself to figure…
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This issue’s one part history lesson, one part ground situation establishing, one part war action. The Chindit forces are moving into position now, airdropped behind Japanese lines to wreak havoc. Writer Garth Ennis tells most of their successes in summary, outside the opening battle sequence, where artist PJ Holden reveals how glorious and gory the…
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There are some fine performances this episode, but the whole thing seems strangely off, starting with the opening involving the kid who gets lost in the mines back in the thirties. It’s been a setting detail from the first season, but now we’re seeing it happen for some reason. By the time it’s relevant, the…
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“Evil” leans heavily on this season finale being a transitory one, making efforts to close off some strangling story arcs. There’s some more complicated Katja Herbers and Mike Colter making eyes at each other; she, of course, doesn’t know his demon is just her in a schoolgirl outfit, which gets touched on this episode. Nun…
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There is more “All Rise” coming. While the OWN website says it’s a ten-episode section season, IMDb has all the titles for next season, whether it’s a three and a half or a four. I’m fascinated by the show’s production timelines, going back to the end of first season when Covid-19 lockdown changed the show’s…
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“Resident Alien” returns with a lot of laughs but even more heart. There are some really, really good laughs, too, like when Alan Tudyk plays impromptu marriage counselor to Levi Fiehler and Meredith Garretson. Despite the outrageous events of last episode—an alien baby hatching, eating mammals, mind-melding with Tudyk, escaping after a bad guy shoots…
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Eat. Bang! Kill. ends better than I was expecting. While the sludge monster, Mephitic, holds Harley prisoner and tries in vain to find a way past her poison immunity, Ivy teams up with Vixen for a rescue mission. Along the way—pretty early on—Ivy meets Vixen’s girlfriend and starts getting insight into how healthy relationships work.…
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The Lion & the Eagle is oversize; bigger, squarish pages. Artist PJ Holden doesn’t fill the larger canvas with more panels, instead increasing the panels’ sizes, filling those larger pages with bigger content, not more content. Holden also does a lot of top-third double-page spreads; he’s clearly thinking it through. So it’s unfair when the…
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I want to be more enthusiastic about this episode of “All Rise,” but I don’t trust the show anymore. They’ve resolved Simone Missick’s extra-marital flirtation arc with (not appearing this episode) Sean Blakemore. Again. They promise this time. For sure. This time it’s over. For sure. The resolution arc involves Missick’s husband, Christian Keyes, who…
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For a show about literally Satanic demons and humans cannibalizing each other to serve their dark lords, “Evil” hasn’t had any significant cast deaths. Certainly not any of the leads, none of the supporting regulars; I don’t even think they’ve had a repeat guest star die off. Well, unless you’re killed by one of the…
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Prey is roughly thirty years late. It’s a Predator prequel with ties to the existing franchise (mainly the second one), but it’s a conceptual no-brainer and one they’ve been doing in the Predator licensed comics for decades. The movies established the Predators had been to Earth before, so why not show one of their earlier…
The Stop Button 