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Silo (2023) s01e10 – Outside
“Silo” ends its first season on a massive cliffhanger. Massive in terms of physical scale. In many ways, it’s a soft cliffhanger. People may be in immediate danger, but it’s unclear how much they know about it. The show also manages to low-key tie into the Apple Vision Pro, which is kind of cool, though the future tech is decidedly non-Apple. The first scene has Rebecca Ferguson still hanging out with hacker Will Merrick and ne’er-do-well Rick Gomez and they’re watching stuff on square monitors. Merrick and Gomez quickly disappear from the episode, which then becomes all about how Ferguson’s going to reveal what happened to Rashida Jones and David Oyelowo.
Except not really. I mean, we do find out what happened to them, but Ferguson doesn’t. We, the audience, have a better handle on some of the reveals than she can because, well, her understanding of reality is minimal. We do find out how some of the more active deceptions are taking place; it’s a great episode for Tim Robbins. “Silo” has had a full cast with folks who never really got to shine—Gomez, for instance, has been regular in most of the opening titles and hasn’t had squat. Avi Nash seems to have been red herring. At least Chinaza Uche gets some more to do—with promises for next season—but he’s left mostly unresolved. The episode juggles perspectives—Ferguson, Uche, Robbins—before settling on Ferguson and Robbins.
Harriet Walter and Ferguson’s original supporting cast shows up for a bit. They get some okay character arcs for the episode, with Walter getting a huge arc but not actually much to do onscreen because it’s got to all be about the final reveals. There’s a really nice small part for Clare Perkins as one of Walter’s old pals; hopefully, they get to do more next season, but at this point… it’s impossible to know. Next season can go all of the ways.
Iain Glen shows up for a scene, and while it’s nice he and Ferguson get to play reunited dad and daughter, he’s still got that terrible accent.
Common has an okay episode, though all of last episode’s character development implications get paused here. Even when he’s interacting with Uche, separate from pursuing Ferguson, we’re not getting the character stuff.
There’s just too much going on and not a lot of time to do it. Outside runs around forty-five minutes, so short even for a “Silo,” and the last five to ten are all about the reveals and next season hints. There are numerous chase sequences through the episode and full-on action set pieces—director Adam Bernstein does a fine job; I was thrilled to see his credit in the titles. He’s got an unfair advantage in being the most recent director, but he’s “Silo”’s all-around strongest director. He gets Ferguson not to fall into accent hijinks when Glen and Walter tempt her.
Ferguson gets a fairly nice arc for the season, too, especially considering she didn’t take over the show until episode three, and even then, there was major sharing for a while.
“Silo” has worked out. The overall structure could be better (those first two episodes centering on other characters never paid off long-term)–especially since Bernstein approaches it as a noir, where they could’ve done a flashback thing throughout better–but it’s definitely worked out. And the stakes have been reset for next time, so the wait for season two’s should be bearable.
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023, James Mangold)
Dial of Destiny opens with a very long prologue flashback to 1945, setting up Harrison Ford (a CGI-de-aged Ford) having Toby Jones as a best buddy in the forties during the war and running afoul of Nazi scientist Mads Mikkelsen. The flashback’s technically successful; de-aged Ford looks pretty good (the eyes are off, and the expressions are static), but the sequence itself is kind of pointless. It’s ostensibly to start on an action sequence with Ford, but it’s a tolerable action sequence. Director Mangold—the first and presumably last director to pick up Spielberg’s whip for a theatrical Indiana Jones—will do great action sequences later on, but this first one feels like a video game cutscene. And having a computer-generated lead certainly doesn’t do anything to dissuade that feeling.
But once they’ve established Ford and Jones know each other, Jones is obsessed with Archimedes’s Antikythera device, and Mikkelsen is also after the Antikythera, the flashback’s done its work, and it’s time to jump ahead twenty-four years. Ford’s already done the Indiana Jones legacy sequel, which turned canon on its head, and now they’re doing a second legacy sequel, but it’s also basically a legacy sequel (coming fifteen years after that entry). So we’ve got all sorts of first act establishing to do: Ford’s been a settled down college professor for ten years, happily married to Karen Allen for some of them, but after son Shia LeBeouf died off-screen in Vietnam—he enlisted to piss off Ford which fails some basic logic tests if you start doing the math on LaBeouf’s age, but whatever… he’s not back.
Instead, Dial of Destiny introduces Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Jones’s grown-up daughter, who’s also after the Antikythera. After her is Mikkelsen, who spent the post-war being coddled by the U.S. government so he could get them to the moon before the Russians. He’s got a Black woman CIA handler (Shaunette Renée Wilson, who brings more to it than the role deserves), a redneck henchman (Boyd Holbrook, who maybe shouldn’t have trusted Mangold it’d be a good part), and a giant (Olivier Richters) helping him in the quest. Dial pulls no Nazi punches—it’s a Disney movie, after all, and they’re fighting fascists in real-life these days—but it’s fairly tepid with the American race relations. Holbrook really doesn’t like Wilson because she’s Black (and a woman), but he can’t say anything because political correctness. Meanwhile, Mikkelsen isn’t the standard Indiana Jones Nazi… he’s even more invested in the ideology than most. Because Nazis, even removed from the mid-twentieth century, are really dangerous and shouldn’t be ignored or placated.
Waller-Bridge shows up in New York City for Ford’s retirement—which seems to have been decided after they filmed Ford giving a lecture on the morning of the Apollo 11 parade (he’s telling the kids what’s on their final, but he’s apparently leaving right after that class)—and asks for his help with the Antikythera. Only she’s not being super honest, and since it’s 1969, Ford can’t just Google her.
The adventure will take them to North Africa, then the Mediterranean, where they can pick up various sidekicks, and there will be time for cameos from the other movies. Though very limited cameos; the franchise put all its eggs in a LeBeouf-sized basket last time, after all. Waller-Bridge has her own Short Round (spoiler: no cameo from Ke Huy Quan, which is too bad) in Ethann Isidore. And then Ford brings in Antonio Banderas to help just when it seems like there’s no more room for supporting characters.
The film will have some big third act surprises regarding supporting cast introductions, but the second act is where Dial of Destiny’s gears work up their momentum. Turns out Mangold can direct character-paced action scenes (something entirely missing from the opening), and Waller-Bridge and Ford are fun together. Though when it’s them and Isidore trying to beat the Nazis to the treasure, it’s painfully obvious the franchise missed a big opportunity for Indiana Jones Family with Ford, Allen, and, well, LeBeouf, I guess. Thanks to Waller-Bridge, it still works out with Dial’s configuration, but it’d have been nice for the four screenwriters to come up with a less comprised story.
In all, it’s mostly a success. The technicals are all sturdy without being exemplary, with Phedon Papamichael’s photography being the easy standout. John Williams’s score isn’t bad. It isn’t particularly good, but it isn’t bad. Excellent costumes from Joanna Johnston, which compensate for Adam Stockhausen’s surprisingly pedestrian production design. Thank goodness Papamichael’s lighting it.
Once he gets to act the part instead of his CGI counterpart doing it, Ford has some good moments. It’s a rough part, mostly because he’s trying to incorporate so much hackneyed plotting from previous entries. Waller-Bridge is tabula rosa and can zoom past Ford, but she keeps pace with Ford thanks to her timing and Mangold’s direction. He maintains a steady clip at eighty years old (playing seventy), but there aren’t any Indiana Jones endless punch-outs this sequel. No Ben Burtt punches.
Mikkelsen’s great. Isidore’s fine. Banderas is fun. Holbrook’s a good piece of shit? Maybe don’t get typecast. And good little turn from Thomas Kretschmann in the prologue.
Dial of Destiny is too long, too digital, and too trepidatious.
But, otherwise, it’s aces.
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A Yank in the R.A.F. (1941, Henry King)
Betty Grable has a rough time in A Yank in the R.A.F. through no fault of her own. Her love triangle arc is the only thing going on for long stretches of the film. Despite being about brash narcissist Tyrone Power (the Yank) going over to England and joining the R.A.F.—while the U.S. was still operating under the Congressional Neutrality Acts (so pre-pre-Pearl Harbor)—Power doesn’t really have much of an arc. He’s eventually got the war story love triangle arc, as he and his commanding officer (the objectively less handsome and charming John Sutton) compete for Grable’s attentions. Power has a leg up (no pun) since he and Grable were together a year before when he ditched her for a long weekend to cat around with someone else.
Whenever Power has a scene where the story’s not following him, the introduction involves him trying to pick up on some lady. Nurses, mostly, but also British housewives. Given Grable’s working nights singing and dancing in a night club and doing Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) work during the day, she’s got dancing friends around, but they’re the only women Power doesn’t pick up on. The script feigns he’s a hopeless flirt—I mean, he’s Tyrone Power, after all, is he going to waste those gifts on one woman—but then he’s very intentional about catting around. It’s shitty.
Of course, all the dudes feel pretty entitled when it comes to Grable. Not dudes who know her, either. While she does meet Sutton at the airbase, he goes to call on her after drooling over her night-club performance. The recurring gag is fellow airman Reginald Gardiner is Grable’s biggest fan and, despite working with both Power and Sutton (even before Power and Sutton work together), he can’t get an introduction. In a better movie, Grable and Gardiner end up together, mostly because he’s got nothing insincere to woo her with. Power woos her with him being Tyrone Power and their physical chemistry—making things awkwarder is how well Power and Grable play together (at least at the beginning), but then he’s just a manipulative, sometimes way too physical prick–while Sutton’s a rich British gentleman. He can marry her and turn her into… well, if not a capital l lady, at least a lowercase l one. The film skirts around the respectability angle a few times, but it’s still there.
And still problematic.
In addition to having the most sympathetic characters, Grable and Gardiner easily gives the film’s best performances. Sutton and Power are both too shallow, albeit on opposite ends of the pond (pun). Sutton’s performance doesn’t have any passion or implication of it. As a result, when he courts Grable, she’s left mooning over someone who does nothing but try to negotiate a marriage contract with her. But he and Power also don’t bicker about R.A.F. business. The title’s A Yank in the R.A.F. and all, but Power’s experiences don’t matter until the third act when he gets to show those Germans what an American can do.
Another strange, timely aspect–Yank is all about showcasing the British war effort (with some phenomenal aerial photography), but it’s also about how they’re a bunch of wimps who will need the U.S. to save them one of these days. Sadly Power never reminds anyone he’s why they’re not speaking German from last time (also, the way the opening narration says “current war” is chilling).
But Power doesn’t have an arc, either. Yes, he gets more serious about his duties. But immediately. He’s supposedly the best flier the R.A.F. has got if they’d only give him a chance. It doesn’t go anywhere. He and Sutton go through a whole crash-landing arc, and it doesn’t go anywhere. At best, Power’s arc is meandering. More often, it’s either entirely stalled or entirely beside the point, so the film can focus on Grable having to choose between the dreamboat who mistreats her and the stiff upper lip who can buy her all the ponies she’ll ever want. Or something.
Grable does admirably well—she even keeps it together for the finale’s multiple big disses–and Yank’s often a great-looking film. Not sure why director King decides, somewhere in the second act, to try for moody lighting, though. Cinematographer Leon Shamroy ably pulls it off, but it just distracts. Though it’s distracting from Sutton and Power being dramatically inert, so… success?
But the version where Grable and Gardiner–Showgirl in the W.A.A.F.—is probably much better.
This post is part of the Betty Grable Blogathon hosted by Rebecca of Taking Up Room.
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Catwoman (2002) #12
Ah, the days when the first part of an arc was really the first part of an arc. This issue opens with Selina—as Catwoman—chasing a kid through the streets of Gotham. He’s in Alleytown, a frankly gorgeous but rundown and dangerous neighborhood in Gotham. Artist Cameron Stewart busts ass on the scenery, so much so it’s like they should’ve just set the arc in Paris. But, no, it’s in Gotham. And we see more traditional Gotham towards the end of the issue when Slam’s out getting wasted and telling Holly how much he luvs Selina.But Alleytown is this architecturally distinct neighborhood where Selina—in her narration—describes spending some time as a youth. At first, it seems like writer Ed Brubaker is going to delay revealing the connection, but as things progress, we eventually get the backstory. Selina’s trying to figure out what’s going on with a rash of pickpocketing–there’s something very strange about Leslie Thompkins and Selina ratting out Leslie’s pickpocket—a Black kid on a skateboard–to the cops, especially since Catwoman is all about how the cops are dirty. The kid still manages to get away, thanks to some quick thinking on his part, so Selina has to go investigating while in costume.
With help from Leslie and (an off-page) Bruce Wayne, Selina is converting an old church into the new East End Community Center, where kids can learn from famous artists for free, amongst other activities, and stay out of the streets and out of trouble. Selina’s using the diamonds she stole in the last arc, though—as always—Bruce spends more on batarangs than she did on getting this community center set up. Even though he’s not in the comic, it’s another reminder that Batman’s a dick.
It’s a good issue—Stewart has a lot of fun toggling between the action and the talking, especially once he gets to juxtapose a Slam fight scene and a Selina fight scene. Selina meets an old friend—while the cliffhanger is Holly meeting another old friend—only Selina’s old friend is actually a villain out to get her. Brubaker wastes no time on that reveal, with the flashback covering Selina’s youth in Alleytown and her old friend Sylvia, who exited Selina’s life sometime before Batman: Year One. Only Sylvia’s working with a mystery big bad (it’s not a mystery to me, either thanks to distant memory or just the teasers about the next big bad in previous issues, not to mention the Secret Files).
And it’s all set up. It’s Brubaker arranging the pieces on the board to play with in the rest of the arc. There’s the community center, Sylvia, the pickpockets, Holly’s mystery guest star, and Slam being in love with Selina; we’re in for a big, character-driven arc.
And I think I just remembered something terrible will happen before it’s over. Something really terrible.
I can’t wait, but also… it’s going to be rough.
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Silo (2023) s01e09 – The Getaway
Did they somehow convince Rick Gomez he would have a more significant part in “Silo,” or did his agent just do an excellent job getting him into most of the episodes even though he really doesn’t have anything to do. He’s the guy with the beard who owes Rebecca Ferguson a favor from episode three (or four). Or maybe it all happened off-screen. At this point, he’s just a familiar face (not name, partially because his character’s name is so bland it’s immediately forgettable), even though he’s now figuring into the conspiracy plot.
Tangentially, of course. He’s a function of “Silo,” not a supporting player.
The episode opens with a rather lackluster resolution to the previous episode’s high-tension cliffhanger. I think it’s one of those cliffhanger resolutions where there wouldn’t have been a cliffhanger if they’d shown the characters’ points of view last episode.
But, as usual for two or three episodes now, everyone is after Ferguson as she’s trying to figure out the secrets of the “Silo,” specifically the ones on a mysterious hard drive. The hard drive’s been around since the first episode since it was—temporarily—Rashida Jones’s show. Now we find out the hard drive’s got even more history, with hacker Will Merrick now involved. He’s not just the only one who can hack it for Ferguson—though most of the episode’s about her hacking it on her own—he’s also the one who sold it to Ferdinand Kingsley (who shows up for a brief flashback cameo) sometime before the first episode. It’s all connected.
Most of the episode’s actually about Common and Chinaza Uche. They’re not working together—Common blames Uche for letting Ferguson escape (while she was just taking advantage of his debilitating illness)—but they’re both trying to find Ferguson. Common’s arc is more about his work-life balance, specifically Tim Robbins thinking he cares too much about his family to be a good villain–outstanding performance from Alexandria Riley as Common’s wife this episode. Pretty much everyone still alive gets something to do this episode, whether it’s Harriet Walter reminding everyone she’s still around, Avi Nash sucking up to Robbins when confronted about his friendship with Ferguson, or Common ominously interrogating Iain Glen.
Caitlin Zoz has one heck of a scene. She’s Uche’s supportive wife, who ceases to be supportive and starts berating him, specifically about his mysterious impairment—“The Syndrome,” which I’ll bet doesn’t get covered until season two—and it’s a wildly different scene for Zoz. Until this point, she’s been Uche’s cheerleader, which was one-note, but at least she wasn’t a one-note harpy. Many of the people “Silo” has introduced over the season—other than most of those they’ve killed off—turn out to be very disappointing human beings. If no one dies next episode, it might even become the series’s new trope.
But it’s a good episode. Ferguson gets a decent arc, though there’s some iffy accent work—not iffier than usual, it’s just a big scene, and I was hoping she’d nail the accent. i.e., drive a nail through its heart and bury it somewhere. But, no. There are still some bad accents.
I wish I could remember more about the Wool adaptation to know if they’re wrapping up the first book or if they’re dividing it between seasons. There are some potentially big reveals coming next episode, but I’m not sure they will be very good. “Silo” will handle them perfectly well—unless something goes very wrong. I think the show’s on solid enough footing these days; nothing can derail its momentum.
Knock on wood.
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