All Creatures Great and Small (2020) s03e05 – Edward

It’s a great episode; easily the best of season three. The show takes a big bite into a challenging, oft-avoided subject—Anna Madeley’s character’s estranged son (Edward)—she called the cops on him when he robbed her previous employer. I think these are season one details, then in season two or maybe a Christmas special, the son was supposedly going to visit but never showed up.

This episode opens with Madeley taking the train down to meet him—Conor Deane’s voice accompanies her, reading his letter inviting her to hang out at a station. He’s in the navy now, so he’s making a connection. Madeley’s left instructions for the boys—just Callum Woodhouse and Samuel West because Nicholas Ralph and Rachel Shenton are up at her family farm—baked the son’s favorite cookies, and set off.

Once she arrives at the station, she meets a young woman, Lara Steward, working at a volunteer tea stand. Steward’s friendly and considerate, drawing Madeley into a more revealing conversation about herself and her relationship with Deane than we’ve ever gotten before. “Creatures” decided to give Madeley an episode on this subplot, and it’s a rousing success. Madeley’s fantastic.

But it’s not just a Madeley character development episode; there’s also loads for Woodhouse and West. Starting their day, West decides Woodhouse will handle all of Madeley’s duties. Woodhouse isn’t happy about it, but when schoolboy Austin Haynes shows up with a ticket for a day in the vet’s office (presumably a prize at the Christmas party), he changes his mind. Watching West be miserable showing some kid around the practice will be great.

However, it turns out Haynes is knowledgeable about animals and keen to learn more; he really wants to be a vet, and West loves finding this unexpected kindred spirit.

It’s a touching arc, which gets more complicated as Woodhouse goes from amused to indifferent to jealous.

Then out at Shenton’s family farm, she and Ralph check in to see what little sister Imogen Clawson’s been doing since the season premiere. Dropping out of school, it turns out, which upsets Shenton. It’s unclear why because Shenton never gets a scene not supporting Clawson and Clawson barely gets any scenes. Shenton and Ralph share some knowing looks, but he’s in the episode even less; it’s Madeley’s episode, and even the stuff with Woodhouse and West is a relief valve for her plot’s intensity.

Excellent script, credited to Karim Khan (his first credit on the series).

The show (and Madeley) have been building this episode since the first season; well worth the wait.

My Life Is Murder (2019) s03e06 – Bride to Bee

Last episode, we found out Lucy Lawless’s fashionable curmudgeon (her costumes are phenomenal this season) hated Christmas. This episode, we open with her hating on summer. To cheer her up—after a muted flirtation about being on an ice cream date—copper Rawiri Jobe gives her a case: a bride dying at her own wedding, allergic to bees, and stung.

Rich kid groom Reef Ireland is convinced his dad, Stephen Lovatt, killed his fiancée. She’s the only one who made it to the aisle; all his other girlfriends took a payoff. In addition to Lovatt, who screams guilty, there’s Shavaughn Ruakere as the suspicious wedding planner and Jaime McDermott as one of Ireland’s exes, who appears to still be in the picture. Olivia Tennet plays the victim’s business partner, who’s tried to save her but someone tampered with the EpiPen. It’s a tight mystery—script by Jodie Malloy and Paul Jenner—with some amusing investigation scenes, particularly for Ebony Vagulans and Tatum Warren-Ngata.

Warren-Ngata still isn’t much of a character with Vagulans around, but—once again—no one’s much of a character this season, no one except Lawless. The two sidekicks go off and have an adventure, leaving Lawless to interview Lovatt and Ruakere multiple times, and it works out… it’s just different. It’s not really an ensemble, but since Lawless doesn’t hang out with the sidekicks outside the occasional coffee or apartment-based scene, it feels a lot more like one.

We also get a lot more character development for Lawless, who bonds with groom Ireland, talking about her own wedding and giving some long-delayed backstory. But to an absolute stranger and non-recurring guest star; in other words, while the audience is getting to know Lawless’s character better, the other characters are not. It’s a shift.

So while everyone does get good material, they rarely get it in the same scene as one another. It almost feels more like a Covid season than the previous one. This season’s only got four more episodes, and even though there’s been Vagulans’s mystery trip and some other threads, it doesn’t seem like there’s going to be a season arc. With more character moments for Lawless than usual.

We’ll see.

Red Room: Trigger Warnings (2022) #2

Red RoomTrigger Warnings 2

I don’t think I’ve cringed as much during a Red Room since the first issue. Maybe it should’ve come with a Trigger Warning–wokka wokka.

But, no, it’s more just the relentlessness of the Red Room footage. Creator Ed Piskor once again splits up the pages; in the top left, he’s got a suicide note from a couple late teens Red Roomers; it’s all text on a smartphone. The issue opens with the cops finding their hanging bodies. They’ve killed themselves, unable to keep running from the police.

So top left, there’s the Notes.app suicide note and manifesto, then the rest of the page is the teenagers’ story. It’s a classic boy meets girl story; they’re high school seniors, he’s already dealing for someone tangentially Red Room-related, and she’s always been curious about snuff movies. When they happen to see some guy murdered for stealing his girlfriend’s husband’s comic books (Piskor geeks out this issue, including a great-looking Spidey head), the boy realizes the girl’s a kindred psychopath.

They don’t go straight to YouTube snuff movies; they escalate as they try to escape a bad situation. Until that point, the “philosophy” of the note matches the action close enough, but then Piskor starts to explore the cracks. There are disconnects between the two narratives, and they keep growing.

The reveal isn’t unpredictable; Piskor goes out of his way to forecast it, as he makes his protagonists more sympathetic than usual. They’re just psychopaths in a bad situation. Better luck of parentage, and they’d be cops or lawyers.

Now, once their Red Room careers start, Piskor does their videos in the center of the page, and it’s the most intense the comic’s been in ages. What’s so good about it is how Piskor’s controlling that intensity. He’s using it to jiggle the narrative impact, page after page. It’s excellent comics.

Red Room’s something else.

Werewolf by Night (2022, Michael Giacchino)

It’s not going to seem like it in a few paragraphs, but I am a fan of director Giacchino. Or, more accurately, I am a fan of Giacchino’s directing. Werewolf by Night is easily the most interesting MCU project in the brand’s fourteen years. Most of the credit goes to director Giacchino, who does a phenomenal job directing and… a better-than-expected job scoring.

The music’s good enough I didn’t think it was Giacchino, until I realized it was just lifting from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Still, impressive. Most impressive when adjusted for Giacchino’s scale.

As a composer, Giacchino does forgettable variations on John Williams themes, the immediately forgettable, entirely perfunctory MCU scores, and bad Star Trek music. Is he the most prolific of his similar blockbuster bland colleagues? Not worth looking up. He’s not even one of the better ones.

But, damn, does he love movies and know how to make them. Or at least one. Technically, of course, it’s a “Marvel Studios Special Presentation.” Think a longer “Charlie Brown” special. It runs approximately forty-five minutes, plus minus all the translating credits (sadly, no credits scenes, either), so they’re not calling it the first Disney+ movie. It’s not even the longest Marvel episode. It’s just… a special. And very special.

Night opens with narration explaining we’ve veered into the dark side of the Marvel Universe—the Dark Universe, as it were, or Avengers Dark. In forty-five minutes, the MCU loops Universal’s monsters movie reboot dreams and the Warner Bros. JLA Dark dreams, which they gave up on, more times than it takes Superman to go around the Earth to turn back time.

A group of monster hunters is getting together; see, thanks to “Witcher,” they can just say monster hunters. The monster-hunting patriarch has died, and the anonymous hunters are vying for the mantle; if they win, they get the Bloodstone and possibly an appearance in a Captain America movie. Bloodstone was a Captain America thing in the eighties.

There are six hunters, all unknown to one another. Laura Donnelly plays the only one not anonymous. She’s the patriarch’s estranged daughter. Harriet Sansom Harris is the widowed evil stepmother.

Harris makes the first act of Werewolf. She’s hilarious and scary, especially once the corpse puppet gimmicks get started, which must be seen versus described.

Gael García Bernal plays the lead, one of the monster hunters, but he’s got a different reason for being there and a secret all his own. He and Donnelly become allies as the other monster hunters hunt one another and their prize, a mysterious beast in a labyrinth-type hunting ground. They also get a couple great character moments together.

In addition to Giacchino’s direction, all the technicals are outstanding, particularly Maya Shimoguchi’s Art Deco production design. Zoë White’s (mostly) black and white photography captures it beautifully, especially the blacks and whites.

The special’s got numerous secret weapons, starting with the monster they’re hunting, but Donnelly quickly becomes invaluable. Since Bernal’s hiding things from the audience and everyone else, Donnelly gets to be de facto protagonist for a bit. It works out.

Werewolf by Night’s a great first outing for the MCU’s “Special Presentations,” but it’s exceptional work from Giacchino. Maybe he should give up his day job and focus on his strengths.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022) s01e08 – Ribbit and Rip It

A couple things to get out of the way again for this episode. During Tatiana Maslany’s perfect beyond words Ferris Bueller “go home already” fourth wall breaking (she’d already inhabited the part, now it’s time for her to bend the devices to her will), she says next episode is the “finale.” They’re doing another scene to get them there. And the hook for next episode’s good. It’s not perfect, but it’s coming at the end of a transcendent accomplishment: “She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law” just perfected the superhero show crossover episode.

Well. Sort of. I mean, I think they did it once before, and I think it involved the same other half of the crossover, “Daredevil” Charlie Cox, making his big return to the proverbial tights after showing up in the latest Spider-Man, answering the question of whether or not the Netflix Marvel shows “count.” They do for Cox, anyway.

And it’s no surprise why. It’s a magnificent return, starting with him and Maslany facing off in court. Her client (Brandon Stanley playing the perfect dipshit) is suing superhero fashion designer Griffin Matthews for faulty jet boots. Even though Maslany also frequents Matthews’s establishment (he’s designing her lawyers’ gala dress, in fact), she’s stuck trying to case. She wasn’t expecting a New York City lawyer who can tell when people lie just from their heartbeats.

It gets more complicated after Maslany and Cox have drinks—I’d forgotten how wonderfully slutty Cox plays the part, seducing Maslany with the potential of using her powers for good. Between that soulful moment and Cox saying “Sokovia Accords,” the MCU suddenly gets that “street level” thoughtfulness it’s been missing since… well, always, actually. At least outside Netflix.

Anyway.

Because it’s a crossover, they’ll have to costume up at some point, but because it’s a first-time crossover, they’ll have to be enemies at the start.

It’s glorious, even if director Kat Coiro should’ve done at least one bad-ass “Daredevil” long fight instead of just joking about them.

The next episode’s going to be a whopper based on the cliffhanger, but between this episode and the last, “She-Hulk”’s earned itself all the seasons. Though the four-minute setup should’ve been a mid-credits sequence; someone needs to rethink the MCU show’s lengthy end titles.

It had so better end with “She-Hulk Will Return in She-Hulk: Season Two.” It so better.

She could also move to New York and do a season with Cox. Whatever. But they’ve finally hit that sincere and unique sitcom level; they need to keep it going.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022) s01e07 – The Retreat

I’ll disclose I did not go into this episode without expectations. A friend said it was when “She-Hulk” hits its full potential, and he’s entirely correct. I just didn’t realize how much the show was going to include in that potential. This episode gets silly and soulful in a way reminiscent of the Dan Slott comic (he gets a towing company named after him in the MCU), but with Tatiana Malsany’s Year One character experiencing it. With the best use of MCU legacy goods to date.

I am speaking, of course, of Mister Timothy Simon Roth, who’s been having a rough time of it—actual good performance-wise—for some time now. When he was in Incredible Hulk, it was a hail-marry villain casting, back when good villains supposedly mattered in superhero movies.

This episode mostly takes place at Roth’s retreat, where he has group therapy for powered individuals, including Asgardian refugees, so alien species as well. And, presumably, daywalkers.

The episode starts with Maslany having a pop music romance montage with Trevor Salter, culminating in their first adult sleepover. Only then Maslany doesn’t hear from him for the whole weekend; Sunday morning rolls around, and instead of Salter lighting up her phone, it’s Roth’s probation officer, played by John Pirruccello.

Maslany and Pirrucello head to the retreat to investigate some discrepancies in Roth’s power inhibitor, where they discover more than meets the eye.

Sorry, wrong franchise. For now, right, Disney?

Anyway.

There are some surprise returning guest stars—who Maslany breaks the wall to contextualize—along with some breakout “problem” supers, like Joseph Castillo-Midyett. He wants to be a swashbuckler, but everyone assumes he’s a matador; he’s got some kind of laser sword. His best friend’s an Asgardian man-bull named Man-Bull (played by Nathan Hurd). But is it a front for something nefarious, or is it on the level?

The episode addresses pretty much all the outstanding concerns, like Maslany’s experience of living She-Hulk: Year One, but also what tone the show’s going for. There are big, terrible developments on the misogynist Star Wars fan bros front, with Ginger Gonzaga, really only showing up to remind Maslany (and the audience) about it, but “She-Hulk”’s got a lot more going on.

Series best direction from Anu Valia and a genuinely superb script, credited to Zeb Wells. Maslany’s got her best scenes, including as She-Hulk (they up the CGI for her close-up monologuing). It’s so good.

“She-Hulk”’s arrived even better than expected, promised, or hoped; where’s the season two announcement? Hell, where’s the season three announcement

All Creatures Great and Small (2020) s03e04 – What A Balls Up!

No avoiding Nicholas Ralph’s desire to join up anymore. It’s front and center, complete with the questionable choice of playing instrumental cadences in the background when Ralph’s thinking about it. They only do it twice—maybe three times, and I’ve blocked one—but it’s the worst creative decision I can remember on the show.

Thank goodness the interludes are brief because it doesn’t take Rachel Shenton too long to figure out what’s up. Ralph’s been miserable with his genius idea to test the local cattle for tuberculosis, even getting in trouble with the Ministry of Agriculture, plus he’s also feeling like a heel for not going and fighting. He just doesn’t think he’s doing anything important.

Or something. It’s unclear because Ralph still keeps his own counsel, even as everyone else is in desperate need of talking. Shenton’s suddenly worried about her marriage to Ralph, even as they prove themselves a well-suited couple. Anna Madeley’s friendship with Will Thorp is getting near romantic, something Madeley’s been trying to avoid, but it’s finally hit the inevitable stage. Callum Woodhouse is fine, actually; he’s finally feeling comfortable and confident. However, Woodhouse’s confidence and Ralph’s busyness mean Samuel West doesn’t feel in charge of the practice anymore, so he takes to fussing on very special guest star Derek (as the profoundly adorable Pekingese Tricki Woo).

In addition to taking Ralph out of town to the previously unseen ministry (which West speaks about in hushed, fearful tones), the episode’s also got the first swearing I can remember on a “Creatures,” albeit old-timey British swearing. Adrian Rawlins guest stars as the blowhard Ministry guy who is sick of Ralph screwing up his paperwork on the TB testing. Rawlins is hilarious, with more depth than initially suggested.

There’s a lot of depth throughout the episode. Shenton finally gets her own arc, post-marriage. Madeley’s romance arc is devastating. West’s adorable with the dog and has a whole range of stifled emotions.

There’s an action sequence, which is phenomenal—director Andy Hay gets more drama out of thirties automobiles on a picturesque English roadway than most get out of fighter jets or spaceships. Woodhouse has a wonderful subplot, lots of good direction, and lots of good acting. Sophie Khan Levy is back as the rival vet’s daughter, who West learns is friendly with Woodhouse.

Chloë Mi Lin Ewart has the script credit again. It’s shaping up to be her season–this episode’s terrific.

Even with those lousy music choices.

My Life Is Murder (2019) s03e05 – Silent Lights

It’s a Christmas episode—or the closest (I think)—“Murder” has ever gotten. From the first scene, we find out Lucy Lawless is a Grinch, which comes as no surprise. She has a series of rambling complaints about Hallmark holidays, but basically, everyone forgot about her. Except for Ebony Vagulans and Lawless didn’t appreciate it (plus, it all happened off-screen). Vagulans is back in the apartment with no information about the Paris trip. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be a subplot, but I didn’t realize they were going to forget it. Not to mention since returning, Vagulans doesn’t have any character development going on. She’s just comic relief.

Ditto Tatum Warren-Ngata, as Lawless’s temporary replacement operative who’s back for a scene again. She’s gone from being part of the team to being a convenient foil; the suspect, an absolutely phenomenally bro-y Ido Drent, has never seen Warren-Ngata while Lawless and Vagulans have been around already. Rawiri Jobe’s barely around either, having Christmas-ed away. Martin Henderson, as Lawless’s brother, shows up in the epilogue, and again the emphasis is on Lawless being abandoned for Christmas. Scrooge bah humbugged one too many times.

Oddly, the lack of material for the supporting cast is because Lawless gets some more character development. The show’s first season had her constantly coming across fellow widows, but it hasn’t been a theme lately. And it’s still sort of not because even though Lawless is interested in supporting recent widow Ginette McDonald, Lawless doesn’t share her own story, just her sympathy. Great subplot, especially since McDonald’s fantastic.

She and her dead husband went overboard with Christmas decorations, pissing off the hipster bros and broettes who’ve moved into the neighborhood. They’re vegan, they’re influencers, they’ve got Ring cameras; it’s a hilariously itemized list of twenty-first century annoying. I don’t think Drent ever says “blockchain,” but only because no one wants to talk to him very long.

McDonald’s husband fell off their roof while adjusting the Christmas lights; she’s convinced Drent or his wife, played Michelle Langstone, had something to do with it. Lawless finds enough oddness—and rudeness from Drent and Langstone—to investigate.

Robbie Magasiva and Tai Berdinner-Blades play the other, sweeter but still hipster neighbors.

Drent’s a great heel, Magasiva’s good, Langstone and Berdinner-Blades are on the negative side of flat. It doesn’t matter—they’re playing caricatures—but still.

It’s another good episode for Lawless, and there’s plenty of excellent material for some of the guest stars, but the supporting cast is on the bench here.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022) s01e06 – Just Jen

Are self-contained wedding episodes a thing? This episode of “She-Hulk” breaks the fourth wall so Tatiana Maslany can tell the audience it’s one of those episodes. Those being self-contained wedding episodes, which—if they are a thing—I have many questions about. Like do they usually involve random guest stars with no bearing on the series, who’ve either never been on the show before or have no dramatic impact whatsoever?

It’s a perfectly good lawyer and Maslany character development episode, but it’s also a bizarre one if it’s supposed to be a trope.

So Maslany goes to her childhood family acquaintance’s wedding as a bridesmaid. Patti Harrison plays the bride. Eh.

Harrison’s obnoxious (getting married on a Thursday), and Maslany wants to show her up by going as She-Hulk. But then Harrison bursts into tears, and Maslany agrees to play human for the wedding. Except then powered but not super villain influencer Jameela Jamil shows up to take her revenge on Maslany. Can Maslany make it through the episode without getting angry? Will cute boy Trevor Salter still like Maslany when she’s angry? Why so many rhetorical questions?

Because rhetorical questions are a slippery slope.

Anyway.

The wedding stuff’s just okay. Kara Brown gets the writing credit, and the script goes overboard making Maslany sympathetic and Harrison terrible. I can’t remember what shitty thing Harrison’s doing, but Maslany should’ve just left at some point. Like, her only family member there is the stoner cousin, played to two or three-line perfection by Nicholas Cirillo. And then there’s a whole night with Jamil at the wedding venue (they had to get there Wednesday) where she and Maslany could bicker or something.

Plus, Jamil’s not the show’s best casting. A little goes a long way because, at some point, she has to realize Maslany can crush her head like a grape, only she never does, even though they superpower-fought in the first episode. So it’s the part too. She’s too many contradictory kinds of bad at once.

The lawyer plot has Ginger Gonzaga teaming up with Renée Elise Goldsberry to defend David Pasquesi in some divorce cases. Pasquesi’s known as “Mr. Immortal,” and whenever his wives yell at him, he kills himself to widow them and move on. Pasquesi’s great, Goldsberry and Gonzaga are an excellent team (six episodes in, and I don’t think Gonzaga’s actually helped Maslany on a case yet)—it’s the superhero lawyer show; it’s perfect.

It’s just got a weird wedding thing going on next to it. Good direction from Anu Valia at least keeps the nuptials moving along.

Then there’s a very dark cliffhanger, which again suggests Disney’s not going to shy away from the trolls in its properties’ fan bases.

Can’t wait. Hope there’s literal troll-hunting by episode nine.

Kevin Can F**k Himself (2021) s02e08 – Allison’s House

Despite the title, this episode is not about Allison’s House, though there are technically two houses in the episode Annie Murphy’s protagonist could be possessive about. It’s also not really about Murphy; it is, but it also isn’t. The show’s grown quite a bit since its first episode, with Murphy realizing her life as the “too good looking for my schlub husband” sitcom wife was all bullshit and her husband, Eric Petersen, was an obnoxious, lying man child. The first season grew Mary Hollis Inboden from supporting cast to co-lead and gave Murphy a real-world character arc with high school crush grown-up Raymond Lee.

This season’s been all about Petersen’s best friend, Alex Bonifer, realizing Petersen sucks—very simplified recap—and liking liquor store clerk Jamie Denbo, who’s stuck in a miserable marriage similar to Murphy’s. There’s some beautiful echoing between the seasons and their respective adultery arcs. In the latter half of this season, Candice Coke’s gotten a lot more to do as Inboden’s girlfriend, a cop investigating, well, Inboden and Murphy, usually unknowingly. As Petersen’s dad, even Brian Howe has gotten a character arc this season. So while “Kevin” hasn’t exactly become an ensemble show, the supporting cast has become far more critical than they started.

House shows a Worcester, MA unlike any we’ve seen before on “Kevin”—one without Murphy—and how everyone reacts to it. The action picks up six months after last episode’s surprise finish, with Inboden playing amateur P.I. and trying to track Murphy, Lee becoming her reluctant sidekick. Coke has moved in with Inboden but is getting sick of living in Worcester and wants to leave. Inboden’s reluctant, which Coke assumes has to do with “mourning” Murphy.

Meanwhile, Petersen’s milking his widower status, getting Howe and Bonifer to dote on him while dating the shoe girl from the bowling alley. Erin Hayes plays the new girlfriend; she makes an excellent impression in three scenes. Bonifer and Denbo are still carrying on, just at somewhat different speeds.

By the end of the episode, everything gets resolved. There isn’t much in the way of surprises—so they didn’t introduce multiverses or time travel, like last episode briefly implied might be possible (so, no spoiler?)—just thorough, exquisite character development and acting. Show creator Valerie Armstrong gets the script credit and makes her directorial debut with the finale. She’s off to a phenomenal start.

“Kevin”’s been an almost entirely outstanding show; Murphy and Inboden’s acting is off the charts, Petersen’s spectacular, and this season gave Bonifer, Coke, and Denbo glowing adjective turns too. The first season was a wild, dangerous ride; this season’s been a far more introspective and personal one, with the finish tying the bow.

It’s so damn good. I can’t wait to binge-rewatch it someday.