The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: 2022
-
This episode feels oddly short like they knew they needed to keep the big action finale, so they cut material from before it. It’s a good episode—much better than I’d have been expecting had I known A.C. Bradley’s name was on the writing credits (she wrote a lot of “What If,” which is a very…
-
Usually, when “Evil” veers too far into Catholic Church propaganda, Katja Herbers remarks about them all being a bunch of pedophiles or pedophile enablers. I can’t remember if she mentioned they killed hundreds of indigenous Canadians and buried them in holes. She’s not in the scenes she needs to be this episode to make such…
-
I’m just going to assume the first OWN episode of “All Rise” was some kind of “new network” pilot. Because this episode’s not just a lot better, it doesn’t even feel like that episode. Maybe because there’s not constant, overblown music. But also… Wilson Bethel’s got a goatee in this episode, and Simone Missick’s hair’s…
-
Silly me, when I wondered how things could get worse for everyone on “The Boys,” I didn’t realize it was going to be everyone everyone, including Antony Starr’s psychotic Superman analog. He’s just become to de facto CEO of the superhero pharmaceuticals company (sycophant Colby Minifie gets the title), and he doesn’t, you know, know…
-
Well, here’s where it turns out “Orville: Season Three: New Horizons” is not making Penny Johnson Jerald the de facto series protagonist. Instead, Jerald’s in a scene or three but entirely superfluous to the main plot. Though the main plot is also entirely superfluous, so she didn’t miss much. I wonder if this episode would…
-
So, there was an end credits scene in the first episode of “Ms. Marvel.” It gets recapped in this one’s intro; there’s no end credit scene in this episode. Marvel/Disney+ needs some consistency, warning, or not to drag out the end credits to make the run times look longer. The scene introduces Damage Control agents…
-
The opening titles for this episode show up about halfway through the forty-five-minute episode. They’re full “movie” credits, getting all the guest stars, going through the entire crew; big stylistic flex because “Evil” knows it’s earned it, at least for this episode. The action starts right where we left off, Katja Herbers and Mike Colter…
-
The Witch: Part 2. The Other One starts with a flashback to the very late nineties or very early aughts—someone’s still got a cassette walkman, but MP3 players do exist. Now, The Other One is a sequel, but it’s a “start from scratch” sequel, so for a while, it seems like this story will be…
-
“Ms. Marvel” gets off to a reassuringly confident start. The only obvious complaints are entirely superficial—don’t promise The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights as a recurring theme song and then not follow through. Secondly, Disney+ needs to more accurately report the run time without credits. I was expecting something like an hour-long first episode. Instead, it’s an…
-
"All Rise" isn't a guilty pleasure so much as I don't want to miss seeing leads Simone Missick and Wilson Bethel act. The show's frequently got ups and downs, but sincere performances go a long way. The show double-weathered the COVID-19 lockdown, first with an adjusted first season finale, then a second season made during…
-
Following the conventional (Dan O’Bannon) wisdom about second acts ending with things in the worst shape for the heroes… it’s hard to imagine how “The Boys” will further ratchet the situations before the season finale. Everything has gone wrong across every storyline, gloriously so. No pun intended. There are two main plots, two subplots. Or…
-
We’re firmly in season three with The Boys now, with this episode setting up a couple longer storylines and a few immediate ones. First, the world’s reacting to Antony Starr going megalomaniac on live television—the white men positively responding because they’re garbage—and Erin Moriarty discovering she no longer has any leverage thanks to her better…
-
I guess the next episode will be the deciding point—or at least forecast it better–but this season of “The Orville” isn’t treating Penny Johnson Jerald as the “heart of the show” so much as its protagonist. This episode, like last, is mostly about her, which is excellent. Jerald’s fantastic; there’s also some subtext to nineties…
-
“The Staircase” finishes with some highs and lows. It’s got Odessa Young’s best acting in the series and some truly phenomenal work from Toni Collette. Young’s gets to be less problematic than Collette’s, as show creator, episode director, and credited writer Antonio Campos gives Collette a hackneyed final scene. It should be series-best work from…
-
Okay, so Toni Collette’s work subplot and the bat infestation in the attic have gone unaddressed to this point because they figure into the eventual motive. One of the reasons I didn’t have any interest in “The Staircase” was Collette playing the victim; it meant all her acting would be for naught. Almost to the…
-
If someone wanted to take the time—and I’m not suggesting it—analyzing “The Staircase” ’s moving thesis about subject Michael Peterson (Colin Firth in his future Emmy-winning performance, not undeservedly) as the series progresses might be interesting. This episode’s where the show wants viewers to feel bad for ever thinking Firth could’ve killed Toni Collette, even…
-
Everyone gets a consequential arc this episode. Well, every one of the Boys. Chance Crawford’s dopey Aquaman is relegated to an in-world TV commercial for a Lifetime movie (equivalent) as setup for Antony Starr’s arc for the episode. It’s Starr’s birthday, which means the media empire aligns to promote him; only this year, everyone remembers…
-
So, the present action of “The Staircase”—minus Colin Firth flashing back to being a kid with a shitty dad so he could grow into a shitty dad himself—starts in fall 2001 and goes to 2017. This episode begins in 2004 when Firth’s character has been in prison for six months. Meaning the trial took more…
-
“The Boys” get back at it a year after last season. Much of this episode is setting that new ground situation. Jack Quaid is working for Claudia Doumit at the Department of Meta-Human affairs or whatever, unaware she’s an evil super-powered lady; Quaid’s happily dating Erin Moriarty. She brings him along to her superhero society…
-
The episode begins in the near present with Colin Firth and presumably new wife Juliette Binoche headed off to court. “Staircase” isn’t ready to tell us what Firth’s up to in 2017, so the documentarians take Binoche aside for an interview on this momentous day. Throughout the episode, her monologuing for the interview about justice,…
-
This episode’s mostly about Colin Firth’s sex life. Assistant district attorney Parker Posey’s determined to expose Firth as a practicing bisexual, pursuing past partners, and so on. But it’s not just Posey’s even too bigot-y for 2001 North Carolina investigation; the episode focuses on it from Firth’s perspective too. While wife Toni Collette is stressing…
-
So the person who looks the most like Rosemarie DeWitt but can’t be Rosemarie DeWitt is Sophie Turner. I then thought Maria Dizzia was Rosemarie DeWitt, but no, also not Rosemarie DeWitt. This episode of “The Staircase” has opening titles, which the first episode did not, and they’re a who’s who of actors I hadn’t…
-
I don't know anything about the actual "Staircase" case. My wife offered to tell me, and I said I'll wait until after the show; the only information I did get was the parents at the center of the story—Colin Firth and Toni Collette—adopted orphaned neighbor kids, which doesn't seem to matter yet. This episode quickly…
-
“The Orville”’s back, with a bewildering addition of a subtitle: “New Horizons.” First, why? Second, it’s the show’s presumed final season; adding “New” to the title suggests they’re trying to get more people watching, so again, why? Finally, this episode’s a direct sequel to events in the previous season; not the season finale either, it’s…
-
Downton Abbey, the film franchise, has some singular traits (they’re not all problems); most of them related to it being an immediate sequel to a television show, but also the television show’s viewer demographics. Thanks to those demographics, A New Era can get away with a slightly disingenuous subtitle—it’s more of a “sure, maybe, come…
-
The first half of George Carlin’s American Dream is a history lesson. Big history and little history; it’s the history of comedy in the second half of the twentieth century; it’s the story of Carlin and his family. It’s the story of his career and how success changed his life; how some things got better,…
-
“The Equalizer” wraps up season two with a cliffhanger; it’s been renewed for two more seasons, which means it’s safe for a good while, so it’s a playing renewal chicken cliffhanger. Though it is kind of perpendicular to one. No spoilers. The cliffhanger’s manipulative but also not. It’s predictable (the scene leading up to it…
-
Doctor Strange and the Maddening Mouthfuls of Multiverses is barely a sequel to the original Doctor Strange outing, which is fine; the original was six years ago, and star Benedict Cumberbatch has gotten more mileage out of his non-solo appearances. However, given it’s a sequel to the Disney Plus show, “WandaVision,” which was a deliberate,…
-
I’m sure it’s happened before, but this episode has a guest star who appeared on the eighties “Equalizer,” too. In the first scene of this episode, Queen Latifah meets with spy guy Neal Benari to check up on her nemesis, who’s overseas after killing Chris Noth (offscreen). Presumably, we’ll get some sort of return visit…
-
I can only assume the cast getting teleported away at the end of the feature story will matter in later Earth-Prime issues. Maybe they’re doing the Arrowverse version of the Beyonder. While I’ve been aware of the series (an “in-continuity” comic story for the CW Arrowverse shows, which are all now mostly canceled), I didn’t…
The Stop Button 