Mare of Easttown (2021) s01e05 – Illusions

“Mare of Easttown” is going to be seven episodes. Episode five here resolves at least two big subplots and positions Kate Winslet for the mother lode of character development in the next two episodes. It seems very unlikely Winslet will get any of that character development, as “Mare” is so impatient in its execution. Despite Winslet being an executive producer along side director Craig Zobel and writer Brad Ingelsby, they don’t trust her unless she has a Kramer moment every seven to nine minutes.

Kramer as in Winslet does something only Winslet can do in this part, which is usually yelling at someone or reacting to something. It’s a real bummer when they then close the episode on Winslet hearing a flashback in her head, one the audience is familiar with because Winslet’s been peeking at daughter Angourie Rice’s secret documentary project for high school about her dead brother and its made Winslet less resistant to therapy even though she was only performative in her initial resistance because she’s a narcissist with a brand.

There’s a very big finale to this episode and a lot for everyone—the audience and Winslet—to process. The audience has just found out “Mare” is even more merciless than previously implied and Winslet’s life has gotten a lot less complicated.

There are some other super-functional developments in the other plots, like dead teen mom’s baby daddy Jack Mulhern forcing her best friend, Ruby Cruz, to destroy evidence. We also find out Mulhern doesn’t have the alibi he said he had. And there’s a lot more with the suspicious deacon (James McArdle, who’s either not good enough or perfect, it’s hard to say) and then the third suspiciously behaving guy introduced a few episodes ago. He’s got some big secrets about the dead girl too.

Good scenes for Jean Smart this episode. Her trip to the hospital last time is completely forgotten, as are Winslet’s concerns about daughter Angourie Rice dating a college junior. The episode opens with a car accident and an accidental death, which provides a lot of the non-procedural drama this episode. And culminates in Winslet—still suspended from the police force and presumably qualified immunity—breaking into someone’s house and assaulting them.

It’s all good though (in fact, it’s what makes Evan Peters forgive Winslet for humiliating him on their cringe date). Winslet is the whirlwind he wants to destroy him, he keeps telling mom Deborah Hedwall, who appropriately hangs the sword of Damocles over his head whenever he starts rambling.

“Mare of Easttown” is in the finish now. There’s absolutely nothing to suggest Zobel and Ingelsby are going to close it any better than they’ve run it so far. The real question is will Winslet’s performance end up being a waste of time. The promise of “Mare” is it adding up but its creatives don’t even seem to know math exists.

Mare of Easttown (2021) s01e04 – Poor Sisyphus

If “Mare of Easttown” were an ensemble show, this episode would be Enid Graham’s spotlight. She gets a suspicious phone call ransoming off her daughter—Graham’s daughter is the Three Billboards daughter, versus the show’s Laura Palmer—and spends the episode fretting over stealing from her job to pay the ransom. Unfortunately, the show’s only got so many characters of a specific demographic and both director Craig Zobel and writer Brad Ingelsby are profoundly obvious, so the perpetrator is obvious. And then if it’s not obvious, they go and make it more and more obvious, then even incredibly awkward and problematic in the end.

The episode’s got time for Graham and everyone else (though Julianne Nicholson just gets to play sidekick to her family after being sidekick to Kate Winslet) because Winslet’s on the bench. No more police investigating. None. Except, wait, since the show’s going in hard on work sidekick Evan Peters being hot for Winslet, he’s obviously going to let her question witnesses with him. He’s even going to leave her alone with the witnesses so she can ask unofficial questions. Because he’s going to ask her on a date. It’s actually really cute. “Mare” does its prestige well. Like, it’s manufactured but it’s really well-done. Heirloom furniture, which is actually a far more accurate way to describe shows meant for infinite binge streaming than I intended.

Anyway.

There are journals in the current case. Are they important? We don’t know yet because in addition to Graham’s thriller arc, there’s also Angourie Rice’s “dumping my bandmate girlfriend for a college girl D.J.” arc, which ends with an actual ambulance. Why does it need an ambulance? Character development for Winslet. Again, if Zobel were at all original or if Ingelsby could admit he plots better than he writes and asked for help, “Mare” could easily be a great modern noir. The show wastes its actors even when they’re excellent—Nicholson, Peters, Jean Smart—because it’s all about Winslet doing a transformed woman thing. Winslet doesn’t walk all over the actors, she’s acting well with them–it’s just how Zobel’s shooting it. I mean, maybe it is a vanity project, but it’s not an undeserved one, further complicating it. But all this tragedy circling Winslet like sharks, it’s just to give her reaction material and reaction material is Ingelsby’s version of character development.

The episode’s got its moments. There’s a lot of good acting. It’s just… manipulative as all hell. Especially with the Room reveal at the end.

Mare of Easttown (2021) s01e03 – Enter Number Two

I’m distressingly in tune with Brad Ingelsby’s plotting. Just as I was thinking they were going long in not resolving last episode’s cliffhanger—in fact resolving one of the other, less important (to lead Kate Winslet) cliffhangers first—Julianne Nicholson shows up to tell Winslet her ex-husband, high school teacher David Denman, is rumored to be the father of dead teen mom Cailee Spaeny’s baby. So Winslet storms over to confront Denman—he lives in the house behind hers, which was previously theirs—and humiliate him in front of their daughter, Angourie Rice, and his new fiancée, Kate Arrington, and Arrington’s visiting son.

The scene plays like Winslet’s wrong to be upset Denman lied to her about the extent of the relationship he had with the student, regardless of whether or not he sexually abused the kid. It’s sadly hilarious how apathy is the goal for every character in “Mare” because Ingelsby can’t imagine them any other way. It’s not cynical so much as misanthropic. Actually, no, wait, it’s intentional enough to be cynical. I forgot about dead mom’s baby daddy Jack Mulhern’s parents (Jeremy Gabriel and Debbie Campbell), who are totally fine and seemingly don’t realize their son’s a shithead. Campbell’s a mom—“Mare” is all about being a mom or grandmom or great-grandmom—and there’s a humanism to her and Gabriel. It’s maybe the only example of slippage in “Mare,” which is otherwise rigidly precise in its narrative.

Simultaneous to Winslet’s investigation of ex Denman, she and sidekick Evan Peters (who has a truly great scene this episode, not quite on par with Winslet but closer than anyone else has even gazed) also start looking into Catholic deacon James McArdle, who was super suspicious last episode and now it turns out he was the last person to talk to the dead girl. “Mare”’s been fairly Catholic to this point—scenes at the church, crucifix imagery, Winslet having a cousin priest (Neal Huff)—and it goes right in on the “well, actually, the Catholic Church is an international pedophile ring” at the drop of a hat.

Now, obviously, no complaint there, but it’s a move.

The episode ends on the series’s biggest cliffhanger so far—we’re about to start part two of “Mare of Easttown;” there will undoubtedly be lots of great acting from Winslet, possibly some great acting from Peters, a fairly predictable murder mystery, and some particularly soulless soap opera stuff. If it were better, if director Craig Zobel weren’t aping better directors before him (and, well, someone rewrote Ingelsby’s scenes for him), “Mare” could be great noir.

Instead it’s watchable HBO.

Mare of Easttown (2021) s01e02 – Fathers

Lots happens this episode. An impressive amount of rising action, both in the case (teen mom Cailee Spaeny’s murder), Kate Winslet’s custody of her grandson (because mom Sosie Bacon is a junkie and Winslet’s son is dead), and then Winslet’s romantic subplot with Guy Pearce. We also get like three suspicious dudes, one out of the blue, one too thinly suspicious for it to really matter (maybe), and then one a Catholic priest.

Not to mention Evan Peters joining the show as Winslet’s work sidekick. See, even the police chief (a better than he needs to be because the material’s tepid John Douglas Thompson) can’t call in the forensic team until Winslet’s on the job so she can’t really talk off him. But Peters, a young turk detective from the county (Scott Turow should be proud his county versus city copper bureaucracy has so changed the genre), he’s a good sounding board. Peters is doing the earnest skinny socially awkward smart guy thing, which just makes “Mare” even more cop porn. But he’s very likable and is able to keep up with Winslet, whose dedication to the part is simultaneously performative (no pun) and sublime. It’s one of those Oscar bait performances where you can’t deny the singular achievement of the performance.

Winslet and Peters interview all the teenagers—including Winslet’s daughter, Angourie Rice, who didn’t tell her mom about seeing Spaeny right before she died—and it’s a good sequence. It’s a classy but not too classy montage sequence, showcasing the tragedy of the teens in this failed town. I’m not sure the utter lack of empathy every single teen feels for the dead girl is supposed to be part of it or if it’s another unintentional dig on the tragedy of the American dream, but it’s something. It just feels so literary. Director Craig Zobel and show creator Brad Ingelsby really do know how to make it feel prestige. Even if the plotting is so much better than the scripting.

No big montage finale, but a series of little scenes setting up more of the series, like victim’s dad, Patrick Murney, confronting his number one suspect, the baby daddy (Jack Mulhern); even though Murney’s a dangerous mess, Mulhern’s such garbage it’s hard to be sympathetic at his plight. But also Eric T. Miller threatening Winslet for arresting daughter Mackenzie Lansing for a caught-on-tape assault, which is Jim-dandy behavior in "Easttown." Winslet’s got a real humanist, progressive reaction to it, which just fits into the prestige.

And then there’s a great cliffhanger, after one and a half other solid cliffhangers.

It’s rote but a not not compelling rote. The show—the mystery, the soap—is just a showcase for Winslet’s exceptional acting.

WandaVision (2021) s01e07 – Breaking the Fourth Wall

I’m going to be very basic about “WandaVision” and the reveals in this episode. The show’s been very subtly leveraging one of the cast for a big turn—with this alternating intensity device—and it works and it’s the only easy out I’d be okay with. It was rumored a few weeks ago but I didn’t pay attention, even though apparently it’s very comics accurate. At least per a little bit of Googling. I hadn’t realized there was a comics accurate thing they could do, figuring they’d just, you know, do House of M a little different. Bit smaller.

But it does certainly foretell a not particularly deep conclusion to the series. While my knee jerk is it’s Disney, what were they really going to do, I do have sympathy. I did once scream “are you <insert expletive here> kidding me” at Vanilla Sky. So I get it.

Now I just want to bask in the tone-shifting glory of “Breaking the Fourth Wall.” Their sitcom riff this episode is what I assume is “Modern Family;” single camera, interviews with the characters as asides, occasionally risqué jokes run through a couple filters. Elizabeth Olsen spends some of her part of the episode reflecting on the previous one—we don’t get a resolve to the cliffhanger, picking up the next morning—and while she’s doing absurdist pastiche, she’s really good. Not as a “Modern WandaVision Family” mom caricature, but as her character trying to reason through it. It just occurred to me during the episode we’ve never determined how she’s experiencing life in the Hex either, outside the instinctual controls.

I’ll bet the series is going to rewatch well. Though I’ll also bet the scene where we find out Kat Dennings somehow has seen Avengers: Infinity War so she can tell Paul Bettany how he died in the movie plays just as shrug. Like… was it broadcast? Can they establish it? It goes on for so long it’d have worked better if Dennings had turned to the camera, winked, and reminded us we could watch it on Disney+ whenever we wanted.

Otherwise, Bettany and Denning are fantastic together. We’re in the endgame of “WandaVision” now and Bettany knows something’s really wrong and knows he can’t leave the Hex, so he’s impatient and confused but still in a sitcom. It works out. And Dennings can easily handle this comedy stuff. Her timing’s wonderful.

Meanwhile, we get some big developments on Teyonah Parris’s arc, including a perfectly eighties—perfectly Marvel Comics—sequence in a superhero origin story, complete with affecting Captain Marvel sound clips. It’s awesome bigger scale superhero stuff confined quite naturally to a TV screen. Really cool.

Other regular cast members are gearing up for duty in the rest of the series presumably, with Josh Stamberg not learning anything and starting to concern his subordinates as his secret plan becomes clear, Evan Peters getting a part-time job subplot (though you have to wait through credits to find out what, so make sure to stick around), and then Kathryn Hahn babysitting Julian Hilliard and Jett Klyne while Olsen does her mindfulness sitcom mom thing. Hahn’s so good. Just so good. She gets to do a lot of winking at the camera thanks to the format and it’s incredible.

“WandaVision”’s got two more (I thought it was eight, it’s nine) and it seems very likely they’ll get it done inventively and successfully. They could tank it, sure, but they’ve ably weathered their biggest reveal and have come through fine.

WandaVision (2021) s01e06 – All-New Halloween Spooktacular!

I’m not going to write it but there’s a very good academic paper called “The Blipped Hero: Why Marvel Can’t Do a Heroic Age, in Comics, Film, or Streaming.” Also this would be the perfect time for Sentry to do the hero stuff, because then Randall Park can do an “Agents of Atlas.” More than anything else so far in the Marvel movies… “WandaVision” is getting to the verisimilitude. And it’s actually incredibly impressive. This episode’s really impressive for a number of reasons, but the way this episode in particular addresses the “reality” of the Marvel stuff… Josh Stamberg’s able to do a person as a caricature as a person and it covers a whole lot.

Though the episode also starts the deep dive in Elizabeth Olsen’s headspace, thanks to guest star (or new cast member) Evan Peters. While husband Paul Bettany is way too busy being suspicious about the whole suburban paradise thing, Peters is cool with it (as in cool with Olsen having apparently engineered the whole thing) and he’s there to give Olsen a sympathetic ear.

But the episode doesn’t open with the resolve on Peters’s surprise appearance in the previous episode’s cliffhanger—instead there’s a “Malcolm in the Middle”-esque (I think) opening titles sequence, quickly centering on the antics of twins Julian Hilliard and Jett Klyne. The episode opens with them trying to figure out what’s up with their weird slacker uncle Peters while mom Olsen and dad Bettany get agitated with one another and try to mask it for the children’s sake. Hilliard and Klyne only have to run the episode for a while but they’re really good. The script—credited to Chuck Hayward and Peter Cameron—does an excellent job with the kids, particularly at the beginning, particularly since the episode delays any resolution at all to Peters.

It’s Halloween, after all, and everyone’s getting ready for trick-or-treating. Except Bettany, who’s got neighborhood watch duty even though Olsen doesn’t want him to go but isn’t willing to have a free will conversation with him. Of course, it’s going to turn out Bettany isn’t on duty and he’s instead investigating their strange suburban paradise, finding its uncannier cul-de-sacs and avenues, where Olsen apparently can’t keep the Matrix running at full power and the mind-controlled people just stand in place. It’s an excellent sequence, with Kathryn Hahn’s (sadly) only scene being the capper. There’s some excellent acting this episode from Olsen and Bettany, but nothing really compares to Hahn’s sequence. The episode relies heavily on Hahn for haunting and disturbing and she does wonders.

There’s also all the stuff with Olsen and Peters, where he talks to her plainly about the situation—Olsen seemingly mind-controlling a whole town, not to mention resurrecting first a dead Bettany, then a dead Peters (umm, with an asterisk I’m not sure “WandaVision” is ever going be able to address but at this point skies the limit)—and it gives Olsen a lot of excellent dramatic acting gristle. This episode is the one where I’m getting much more confident “WandaVision” knows all its doing. It’s just doing more than Marvel movies have ever done so… brave new worlds and all that.

I haven’t even gotten outside—literally—to Stamberg’s military operation to take out Olsen and save the day. Though apparently he’s more concerned about getting Bettany back because then they won’t have to buy vibranium from Wakanda or something. There’s a little lot for Teyonah Parris, Randall Park, and Kat Dennings to do—including some forecasting about Parris’s (potential) superhero future and the promise of another guest star next episode—as they have to rebel against Stamberg. After Parris and Park sort of running the subplot, Dennings gets the emphasis and is quite good in a very different setting.

“WandaVision” has taken it up another notch (there’s also a whole thing with the Halloween costumes, including a very appropriately cringe-y look into the kinks of Olsen and Bettany as nineties sitcom parents) and it hasn’t just easily surpassed its source material, it’s refined them into something real and good. For the first time, I’m confident they’re not going to screw Olsen over by the end of it (which I also realize means I could end up extremely bummed).

But no spoilers.

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016, Bryan Singer)

X-Men: Apocalypse runs over two hours, which is surprising because–while the movie does plod along–I didn’t realize it plodded along for quite so long. I guess the first act is more successful in hindsight than while it plays out.

This entry takes place, pointlessly, in the early 1980s. Oscar Isaac is the blue mutant Mummy, back from the dead to take over the world. He enlists four people to help him. One of those people is Michael Fassbender. He’s got a wife and kid since the last movie. Seeing Fassbender’s retired mutant terrorist now a doting dad somewhere in the Soviet Bloc is kind of neat. Fassbender’s exhausted this time around. Playing second fiddle to Isaac, most of Fassbender’s eventual performance consists of reaction shots. At least during the first act, he gets something to do.

But I got sidetracked. I wanted to count the characters. We’re up to seven. Yes, seven. Bad guys and people related to the bad guys. Isaac’s other lackeys get even less to do than Fassbender, though Alexandra Shipp does get a couple scenes to act in. She’s good. Olivia Munn has maybe two scenes with acting and she seems like she’s good. Shipp at least gets an arc, Munn doesn’t. Ben Hardy’s the other lackey. He’s awful. Luckily, he has even less to do than Munn.

But there are also a lot of good guys. Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult are all back. Each is good in parts, none of them has a good part in the script, none of them has a character arc. Evan Peters is back, Rose Byrne is back. Byrne has nothing to do. But she manages. Peters has a bunch; he’s great. Kodi Smit-McPhee is another new addition. He’s actually great, which is a surprise in this film. Other new additions Sophie Turner and Tye Sheridan are both bad, with Sheridan being infinitely worse than Turner. And she’s still pretty dang bad.

Great photography from Newton Thomas Sigel. Tired music from John Ottman. Tired direction from Singer. Apocalypse doesn’t really have a story for Isaac outside lame world domination, so screenwriter Simon Kinberg and Singer just pack it with characters.

See, I forgot. I was supposed to be counting. It’s something like fifteen characters. It’s way too many. If the acting were better, they might carry it, but it’s not. And even though Turner and Sheridan, as good guys, get more to do than Munn and Shipp, it’s not character stuff.

X-Men: Apocalypse is a lame, by the numbers superhero event picture. Fassbender looks painfully contractually obligated to participate, with McAvoy and Lawrence hiding it a little better. Hoult is the most enthusiastic and, when one gets bored watching the film, he does imply seeing these characters together should be special. It isn’t, but what if it were?

Oh, and Isaac. He’s actually good. His part is terribly written, terribly directed, with dumb audio effects in post, but he’s scary as an immortal, evil Smurf.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014, Bryan Singer)

There's a fair amount of mess in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but it’s often good mess. It’s also intentional mess because it’s a time travel picture. If you remember any of the previous X-Men movies, lots doesn't make any sense. But it also doesn't matter–director Singer and screenwriter Simon Kinberg rely heavily on a viewer's shaky memory of the franchise.

Future has a good pace and some good sequences. Not a lot of them, unfortunately; the big finale is a disappointment, for example, with Singer trying to emphasize a personal story there. Only that personal story hasn't really been important to the rest of the movie because it's all been about the end of the world.

All of the stuff in the apocalyptic future is goofy. There's a lot of murky CG and unmemorable supporting cast in busy fight scenes. Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart look somewhat lost in the confusion.

The acting quality varies. Hugh Jackman has fun, before the script demotes him. James McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult are both good. Evan Peters gets the best sequence, Michael Fassbender gets the worst. Fassbender gets the shortchanged throughout the picture. While he’s really underused, he does get a couple excellent scenes. Big villain Peter Dinklage is awesome. Jennifer Lawrence is mediocre. Everyone in the future except Elliot Page is bad. Like I said, it's just too goofy.

Good photography from Newton Thomas Sigel, bad music from John Ottman.

Though any ambition beyond franchise revitalization is disingenuous, the film definitely entertains. Sometimes distinctively.