from Vulture.com
https://www.vulture.com/article/snowpiercer-season-1-episode-4-recap-without-their-maker.html

Snowpiercer S1 Ep 4: Without Their Maker

Snowpiercer Recap: Sake Bomb
By Hillary Kelly


Photo: TNT

Snowpiercer isn’t great TV. It’s entertaining as hell, and sometimes puzzling, and often a weird, steroidal, accidentally campy version of the film and graphic novel it’s based on, but nobody is hailing it as Emmy-bait. And yet the in-your-face structure undergirding the entire enterprise — this giant rolling metaphor for our class- and race-partitioned society — may be the best bit about it all. This episode, not even halfway into the season, essentially wrapped up the murder mystery I expected to play out for six more hours onscreen. What’s left is the real meat of the show, an entirely unsubtle message, so loud that the people wayyyyyy in the back can definitely hear it: It’s time for an uprising. Don’t just eat the rich, slice them open like a long strip of glistening sashimi and then delicately chew them up with a glass of sake as a chaser.

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Admittedly, it’s satisfying this week to have an outlet for this kind of righteous rage, even if it’s muddled up in a seemingly pointless murder plot. So first let’s work our way through that.

Nikki Genêt is dead as we expected, with a slit throat and all the accompanying sprayed blood. We’ve seen the killer’s face, but his identity is still a mystery to Layton and Melanie, so the investigation must go on. Luckily, the fracas that broke out during Fight Night necessitated the shutdown of all the “borders” in the train, so if a first-class passenger is the killer, as Terence explained to Layton last episode, they at first believe he’s most likely in the first-class car.

The plan is to sweep the train, from the Tail forward, and although Ruth resists (it would be very “unpopular” to wake fancy people up in the middle of the night), Melanie eventually agrees that Mr. Wilford would want it done. In the midst of the first-class middle-of-the-night fruit-and-eggs police shakedown, LJ admits that Eric, her bodyguard and the man we all know is the killer, didn’t come home last night. A quick turnover of his quarters yields a j-hook, a metal bar that beekeepers use to lift the frames that house hives. Whether or not he is supposed to have used it to chop off body parts is unclear, but if he found the j-hook in the discarded hives wrapped up in third-class storage, they surmise, he may be there now.

Till and Oz give chase, first through a crowded third-class car and then, after Eric grabs Jinju and holds her hostage, down into the subtrain. A classic standoff ensues, Eric stupidly shoots the side of the train (for unclear reasons), and he’s then taken down. By axes. Damn.

Back in the Folgers’ first-class carriage, Layton wiggles information out of a snitty and over-confident LJ. First, that she and Eric have had a little fling going on, despite the fact that she was a child when he first came to work for her family. And secondly, that he killed at LJ’s request. That’s why the sawed-off limbs seemed as if they came from a different crime scene than the chopped-off dicks. Eric took off arms and legs to hide the dead. LJ took off penises just, as Layton says, “to feel something.” Neat and tidy, it’s all wrapped up. Eric dies. LJ goes into a cell.

But the backdrop this half-baked murder plot plays out against is the the real beef of Snowpiercer, the uprising of the demoralized against the morally bankrupt.

Think of it this way: In its very last gasps of breath, as an unprecedented cold swept the globe and made the Earth entirely uninhabitable, one of the last things humanity did was to make sure everyone knew their proper place in the post-apocalypse. It sold tickets to salvation. It inserted chips in people’s arms to control where they go. If you wanted to survive but didn’t have thousands stashed away to pay your fare, well, they’d just murder you. There were riots as the shivering masses hoped for survival. That’s part of the reason I appreciate how unsubtle Snowpiercer is about the disparity in stakes between the have-alls and the have-to-bow-downs. Because as you’ve noticed this week, if you have eyes and care to open them, the world is just as unsubtle in its unfiltered violence and oppression. Sure, Snowpiercer is a sci-fi rendering, but its origins are all real-world.

The long, tastefully lit hallway that leads to the first-class dining car is lined with art: van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring. The kinds of immediately recognizable pieces that tourists buy in postcard form, that people like the Folgers would probably say they “acquired” to save from destruction, but which we can better describe as looted from humanity so the greedy rich can keep it entirely for themselves. Their carriage itself looks like a Ritz Carlton suite, all textured beige drapery and a curving staircase. The Folgers have as much space (if not more owing to the upstairs) for four people as the Tail has for a hundred-plus.

As Layton questions LJ (which of course stands for Lila Junior, I am hoping in a nod to the greatest fictive snob of all-time, Sweet Valley High’s Lila Fowler), she turns out every trick in the Demanding Rich Girl playbook. She alternates between banal cruelty (opening the curtains to remind Layton of her ready access to sunlight) and coquettish suggestion (dancing around like a suggestive little nymphet). The dynamics couldn’t be more clear: a filthy-rich teenage white girl feels so sure of her power over a black Tailie that she spills her guts about being a murderer. She thinks the raw silk pillows that cushion her parents’ couch and the icy crystals that hang from their chandeliers are proof of her invincibility. She tries to foist Layton over a barrel, offering him guns for his revolution in exchange for silence about her crimes. She’s dumb enough to believe he’d walk into that agreement.

Melanie, too, has a convoluted sense of power. We know, thanks to some rather conspicuous costuming choices, that she went to MIT and studied engineering at Yale. She’s the head of hospitality for Wilford Industries not just because of her regal bearing and ability to soothe the tempers of first-class passengers incensed about overcooked prime rib, but due to a combination of her deportment, her hard skills, and some special relationship with Mr. Wilford, whether he is dead, exiled, or never existed at all. She was also, she suddenly reveals this episode, “born on a dirt farm in eastern PA,” and she encourages Layton to be the first-class passengers’ “worst nightmare from the tail.” She also is, essentially, Mr. Wilford, the voice of the train and the voice insisting that “balance,” aka black jello slime for the Tail and custom-made omelettes for first-class, must prevail.

It’s really no surprise that she assigns Layton to The Drawers after slipping him a roofied sake. He’s served his purpose and restored order. He also, she tells him like a classic villain, “knows too much.” Too much about how the train works, for sure, but specifically that he knows there is no wizard behind the curtain.

What she doesn’t know is that Josie has infiltrated the train, set up a line of communication with an apprenticed Tailie, and now has access, rage, and that little slip of paper letting her know that Layton is missing. And that the revolution is about to begin.

 from EW.com
https://ew.com/recap/the-sinner-season-1-episode-2/

The Sinner S1 Ep 2: Part II

The Sinner recap: 'Part II'

Did Cora and the man she murdered have a history?

By Molly Fitzpatrick 

August 09, 2017 at 11:02 PM EDT

CREDIT: PETER KRAMER/USA NETWORK

The Sinner

S1 E2

 

Netflix, USA (Via Cable/Satellite Provider), Microsoft Store, and 

To the murder of Frankie Belmont, Cora Tannetti pleads guilty. The judge tries to talk her out of it: She has no criminal record, she can’t explain the murder, and yet she’s forfeiting her right to a trial. She could spend the rest of her life in prison. Concerned by Cora’s behavior, the judge orders an examination to determine her competency — which Detective Ambrose, lurking beardily in the back of the courtroom, seems pleased about. His partner, Detective Dan Leroy (Dohn Norwood), correctly guesses that Ambrose had something to do with the judge’s decision.

Mason and a young policewoman recognize each other near the courthouse entrance — they went to high school together. She takes him out a side door to avoid the press waiting outside. Later, he’ll get back to work installing air conditioning (or is it heating?), only to hear the homeowner whispering on her phone that she recognizes him from the news and feels “creeped out.” In a flashback, we see how Cora and Mason met, at a restaurant where she waited tables (a job she got through her aunt) in the city. He told her she should be a hostess at a “fancy 30-dollar salad place,” and that he’d gladly pay the steep price if she worked there.

Ambrose goes to see Cora to ask her why she’s pleading guilty. Why not try? Plead temporary insanity! Something! If the Twinkie defense worked for Dan White, maybe the slicing-a-pear ennui defense could work for Cora. “Why not fight for a shot at reuniting with your family?” Ambrose asks. “What makes you think I want my life back?” Cora answers. In her mind, she returns to a childhood memory: Her parents are fighting because her mother insists on letting Cora’s sick sister Phoebe sleep with them, so Dad sleeps in the tiny twin bed opposite Cora’s. Hmm.

Cora’s bloody visage is printed on the cover of a newspaper that is clearly supposed to be the Post (“BLOOD BATH BEACH” reads the headline, which I give a C-). The man who seems to be the police chief — though maybe he’s just the county’s loudest police officer — is worried that this sordid affair will discourage the “leaf peepers” from visiting this fall. And if Cora’s case goes to trial, they’ll have to establish motive.

Ambrose sits down with Leah Belmont, who’s looking bedraggled and exhausted in a hospital gown. Frankie never mentioned Cora, she says, but she did know that he had an “intense connection” with a woman years before they met. There was something wrong with her. There was an accident. “It almost ruined his life,” Leah says.

Our intrepid detective is staying with Detective Leroy’s family, and his idea of being a gracious guest is wandering the backyard in the middle of the night admiring the stars in only a pair of boxers. “You doing more of that plant whispering s—?” Leroy asks the next morning. As it turns out, Ambrose is staying there is because his marriage is on the rocks, and in couples therapy, his wife Faye mentions that she woke up alone in a hospital recovery room after a knee replacement because he was home spraying his dogwoods for anthracnose. That’s a dealbreaker, ladies. But Ambrose is so determined to reunite with Faye that he drives to his dominatrix-slash-waitress friend’s restaurant to break things off in person. “Text me next time,” she says.

Childhood memory alert: Cora watches a circle of people saying a rosary over Phoebe, who has on a oxygen mask on. Seemingly cool and sane Aunt Margaret sneaks Cora a chocolate bar before she heads home to the city: “Eat it before your mother finds out.” Alone in her bedroom, Cora removes thick blankets from a box to reveal a secret little-girl treasure trove beneath them: mascara, nail polish, bracelets, and a coin purse, among other innocent contraband. She places the chocolate bar inside.

Back in our timeline, Ambrose is pushing Cora to find out if there was a history between her and Frankie. He won’t stop until she tells him something. Is she just going to let her family suffer, without explanation? “I met Frankie on July 3,” Cora says abruptly. That shuts Ambrose up. The story goes like this: Five years ago, at a bar called Carl’s Taproom, Cora met a guy named JD and his friend over Fourth of July weekend. They all took pills and drove off in his car — a black truck with a white top — to somebody’s house. They spent the night together. She remembers only an orange carpet and that song (by the man’s own band), playing over and over again. Two weeks later, she discovered she was pregnant, but she didn’t have his number. And in trying to track him down, she found out “JD” was a fake name.

Thanks to her nutso Catholic upbringing (as a nutso Catholic myself, I use the term “nutso Catholic” advisedly), telling her parents about the pregnancy wasn’t an option. Neither was abortion. Instead, she stepped in front of a car. When she woke up in the hospital, she had a fractured hip, a concussion, and no pregnancy. “I used to pray a lot when I was little,” she tells Ambrose. “What kind of a God kills your baby but lets you survive?” At least the cops have a story now, but Ambrose is less than 100 percent convinced that this adds up. (Recap continues on page 2)

But he has other things to attend to first. At a family gathering, Ambrose gives a pair of binoculars as a birthday present to his grandson. The kid isn’t exactly thrilled: It’s not the Star Wars Legos he wanted. At least Harry and Faye, while doing the dishes, bond over how annoying their progeny is and how much they enjoy each other’s company. He tells her he wants to move back in.

Childhood memory alert: Cora’s mother, of course, found that bundle of treasures. “You have got to be stronger than this…One bite of this chocolate, and he could take Phoebe’s life,” she says. At Mom’s urging, Cora buries her keepsakes in the yard.

Mason returns to a memory of his own: having sex with Cora. She freaks out when he initiates oral sex, smashing his head between her thighs. Outside of Memory World (can you tell I am growing increasingly tired of Memory World?), Mason’s policewoman friend interviews him. Did Cora ever mention a JD? “No,” he says, shaking his head less than convincingly. In turn, Mason begs her for some information, anything to go on. Who’s this JD? She gives in, telling him Cora got pregnant from a one-night stand with him. Mason is rocked by this revelation.

Ambrose digs through the case’s neatly bagged evidence until he finds a phone. “Do you know how to get the music off of this?” he asks another cop. He drives to Carl’s Taproom, listening to Frankie’s song in the car all the while. The bartender there recognizes Cora both from a photo the detective shows her and from the news. She remembers she came on the Fourth of July (I guess, conveniently, this bartender has an eidetic memory). Cora had been dancing with another girl “so sauced she couldn’t stand up straight.” There was a guy with them, too, but not Frankie. The man was blond.

Ambrose’s next stop is Frankie’s parents’ house. They never heard their son use the nickname JD, and they refuse to believe Cora’s story. “Frankie was good. He was too good. Even as a child, all he ever wanted to do was help people,” his distraught mother says. Stranger still, Frankie’s father has documentation to prove that Frankie was working at a volunteer clinic in Los Angeles the summer Cora says they met. And that’s not all. Detective Leroy has been sleuthing himself, discovering that (a) no area hospitals have any records of Cora being admitted after a car crash and (b) Cora’s parents are not, as she told the police, dead. They’re alive and well, living just half an hour away.

Cora returns to her cell from the shower to find the mattress and bedding stripped from her bunk. “As long as you’re a loner, they’ll push you around,” says a fellow prisoner. Childhood memory alert: Cora’s mother, visibly upset, tends to sores on Phoebe’s back. Cora tries to comfort her, but it’s no use. Cora’s mother blames her yet again for Phoebe’s illness, demanding she tell her sister why she’s so sick. “Because I’m a sinner and I took the chocolate from Aunt Margaret,” Cora says. That night, she digs up the chocolate. Cora eats it under cover of darkness, defiantly staring up at the house.

In another interview with Cora, Ambrose asks why she lied about her parents and the pregnancy. He insists he’s trying to help her; she tells him he’s full of s—. Ambrose plays Frankie’s song on his phone as he presses her yet again on the events leading up to the murder. She insists he turn it off. He turns it up. She’s lost in a new iteration of her recurring vision: a blond woman leading her downstairs and two people having sex. Then Cora flies into a rage, beating Ambrose’s chest with her fists and screaming that she’ll kill him.

Mason pays a (thankfully less violent) visit to Cora himself. Why didn’t she tell him about the pregnancy? And why did she lie to the cops about Frankie? “I know JD,” Mason says. “He’s got that truck. I knew some of his friends before we met.” Did JD hurt her? She says it doesn’t matter anymore. But he insists it does. Mason, apparently up for some Hardy Boys-style investigating of his own, goes to see an old friend to ask if he remembers JD. He’s still around, the friend says, and not too far away. Cora’s husband requests an introduction.

Ambrose carries his suitcases back into the house, where he and his wife share a peaceful dinner. But their meal is interrupted when a bird flies into their sliding glass door. Ambrose gently picks it up (in the words of Michael Scott, you can’t get diseases from a bird). “Come back,” he whispers, and it soon perks up, flying off seemingly unharmed. “Metaphoooooor,” the birdsong might as well whistle through the wind. As the Ambroses get ready for bed, Harry notices the scrapes and bruises Cora left on his chest.

Ambrose has Leroy meet him at the station late that night. He’s had an epiphany: The song triggers Cora. They review Ambrose’s injuries and the security footage of Cora attacking him. She struck him seven times, in exactly the same pattern as the seven stab wounds that killed Frankie Belmont.

from Vulture.com
https://www.vulture.com/2019/03/american-gods-recap-season-2-episode-3-muninn.html

American gods S2 Ep 3 - Muninn

American Gods Recap: Ticket to Ride
By Brian Tallerico

American Gods
Muninn

Photo: Jasper Savage/Starz

One of the problems with season two of American Gods becomes incredibly resonant in the third episode. This is a book and show about a journey more than a destination. Think of the number of scenes set in moving cars speeding through the heart of America. When a drama is more about what takes place between plot points than the actual plot points themselves, it requires a stylish, nuanced hand to make that work. And that’s what’s missing from season two. Again, we have characters in cars talking about deep things on the way from Point A to Point B, but the more conventional approach visually and in terms of dialogue doesn’t work for a narrative that simply needs to be unconventionally told.

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So, three episodes into season two, we have a classical “divide the characters” episode — one that separates its cast, even though we know they’ll all be reunited before long. Anansi has straight up disappeared, but Mr. Wednesday collects the parts of Laura Moon’s body after the train crash that ended last week’s chapter. With Mads’s help, they head off to Ibis, who rambles a bit about death and the fact that Laura is quite literally rotting away. She needs a jumpstart, and Wednesday knows a way to accomplish that while also knocking something off his own to-do list in the upcoming battle of the New Gods vs. The Old Gods.

There’s one God who has kind of flip-flopped in this two-party system, Argus Panopties. The God of Surveillance has been around for centuries and has been envisioned and worshipped as an all-seeing force long before the word Surveillance was tied to CCTV and the NSA. Living a miserable existence of futility, totally blind and only really able to live in his memories, Argus could become a useful tool for the New Gods. And so he must be sacrificed, and Wednesday knows that a sacrifice could give Laura’s heart the jumpstart in needs to stave off the maggots. Mads ain’t interested and so heads off in his own to get to New Orleans, stumbling into a series of bad luck events like a stolen car with a dog in the backseat, a boat that he lights on fire, and a tour bus full of religious rockers. Discuss amongst yourselves which fate is the worst.

Meanwhile, Shadow Moon is left to fend for himself after the train crash, stumbling to safety, trying to get to a place called Cairo, Illinois. Wednesday and Laura could have just taken him, but Shadow needed another test. He finds his way to a gas station and tries to pull a classic 10/20 grift — charm the clerk in such a way that she doesn’t realize you gave her a $10 when you ask for change for your $20 — but someone else notices his scam and one-ups the trick. Shadow ends up hitching a ride with the woman who blew up his grift, a woman named Sam Blackcrow. She takes his Polaroid, calls him on his shit, and doesn’t seem to have Godlike powers. One wishes the writing were better, but it is nice to see Whittle open up a bit as an actor in these scenes, and he pairs well with Devery Jacobs. At least they have a different energy than the rest of the season to date — more playful, natural, and relaxed.

That’s three arcs, but “Muninn” has two more subplots with which to play. First, Salim and Jinn end up at a strip club called the Corn Palace, seeking Odin’s spear Gungnir, and, second, the “villains” of the season get a key player in the return of Media. Played unforgettably by Gillian Anderson in the first season — taking on iconic roles like Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball — the Goddess of Media has been reimagined as Goddess NEW Media, who seems to have sprung fully formed from Instagram and is now played by Kahyun Kim. Any comparison to what Anderson did in season one is a bit unfair, but New Media’s debut is still a bit lackluster. New Media was a powerful force in season one, arguably even more so than Mr. World, whereas the vision of her in this episode is more in line with Technical Boy. In fact, he’s challenged by her very existence as he seems to think he serves the same purpose, and the writers have yet to really convince us he’s not wrong.

The arc with the New Gods and that of Wednesday/Laura intersects with the physical form of Argus, who now looks vaguely like a character that should have been played by Pruitt Taylor Vince hooked up to the Matrix. He’s bald, seems kind of sticky, and has eyes popping up all over his body. And he’s hooked up to a massive series of wires, being used and abused by the New Gods. Not for long. After a series of interludes in which Wednesday and Laura travel through Argus’ memories (sorta, not really, it’s a poorly done way to get in some history about the library of Alexandria), they end up in the same room as the Technical Boy and New Media. While New Media is trying to jack into the visions of Argus and create some sort of two-way street of inter-power — she speaks of being able to see all the users who love her on social media, which sounds terrifying — Laura stabs Argus in the neck, killing him and kickstarting her heart.

Finally, our main characters of Shadow Moon and Mr. Wednesday are reunited in Cairo. Odin tells his man that he can leave in the morning if he wants. But something is going to happen tonight. Hopefully, it’s something interesting.

Further Prayers

• One of the reasons it’s so hard to let American Gods go is not only the quality of the first season and the source material, but the fact that this ensemble can sometimes break through the mediocre writing. Despite the horror stories of cast annoyance at the direction of this season, it’s not something you can see on the screen. One would never say Ian McShane or Emily Browning are phoning this in. They’re just not being given the same quality of material to work with. When you can see on McShane’s face that even he has given up, that may be the time to jump ship and delete this from the Series Manager. But as long as a show has an ensemble this capable of delivering the goods, it’s easier to hold onto hope.

• Speaking of ensembles, where’s Bilquis? She was one of the most fascinating characters in season one, and then wasted as a plot device in the opening of this one. Hopefully, she returns — in season one form — soon.

• Last note on acting: Devery Jacobs makes a solid verbal sparring partner for Ricky Whittle. It’s interesting that the episode in which we meet the replacement for Gillian Anderson is stolen by a different supporting actress.

• How are fans holding up? Are you committed enough to make it through the season? Thinking of bailing? Hopeful or cynical? Let us know in the comments.

The Trial of the Chicago Seven

 from RogerEbert.com
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-trial-of-the-chicago-7-movie-review-2020

Reviews

The Trial of the Chicago 7

"***"

Brian Tallerico October 16, 2020

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“The whole world is watching!” This iconic chant from the protest movement of the ‘60s is featured multiple times in Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” The timing of the film's release as laws against protest movements in the United States gain traction and one of the most important elections in the country’s history looms on the horizon is not a coincidence. Sorkin and Netflix, where the film will premiere on October 16th after a three-week limited theatrical run starting today, understand the timeliness of their project. It is meant to spark conversation about how far we’ve come since the riots of 1968 and subsequent trial in Chicago of the men accused of conspiring to provoke violence in the streets. And it is an accomplished ensemble piece, thick with great performances pushing for space in the same frame. The weight of the subject matter combined with the intensity of the acting here will be more than enough for some people, and I expect a few awards-giving bodies, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it all felt a little too refined and manufactured. That Sorkin sense that everyone knows exactly what to say and do in any given situation, even as they express doubt with perfect diction and vocabulary, fits perfectly for a story like the invention of Facebook in “The Social Network” or even the birth of Apple in "Steve Jobs," but the protest movement and the government’s attempt to quell it should be more organic than this film ever even flirts with being. It looks and sounds great, but should it?

Sorkin wastes no time throwing viewers into the chaos of 1968, introducing viewers to the key players in what would become known as the trial of the Chicago 7 as they plan their trip to the Windy City to protest the Vietnam War during the Democratic National Convention. Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp) encourage peaceful protests with an emphasis on the young lives being lost in an unjust war. Yippies Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong) have a more chaotic approach to protest, arguing that dismantling the system only happens when it’s disrupted first. David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch) is a family man who assures his wife and son that nothing dangerous will happen in Chicago, as Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) promises he too will be in and out without much fanfare.

Of course, everyone knows what happened in Chicago in 1968—chaos erupted multiple times, leading to riots that caught international attention. Sorkin starts his film months later, with an angry Attorney General John Mitchell (John Doman) tasking Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Thomas Foran (J.C. MacKenzie) with the case of their lives, trying the men he believes were responsible for the unrest. The power has shifted from LBJ and AG Ramsey Clark (Michael Keaton) to Nixon and Mitchell, and they want to use Hoffman, Hayden, and the rest as examples of what will happen to those who protest the war. Mark Rylance plays the main attorney for the seven, William Kunstler, and Frank Langella is phenomenal as Judge Julius Hoffman, a man who teeters on that dangerous edge between incompetent and evil.

Clearly, this is a powerhouse cast, and they all relish the opportunity to chew on Sorkin’s timely and provocative language. There’s really not a weak link in terms of performance, and several of them shine in unexpected ways. Strong finds a winning vulnerability in Jerry Rubin; Rylance nails Kunstler’s increasing exasperation at a broken system; Mateen II’s simmering rage at even being dragged through the process is palpable; Redmayne finds the right key for Hayden’s righteous intellectualism; Keaton is perfect in only two scenes. There are such wonderful individual moments and beats in “The Trial of the Chicago 7” that just watching it as an acting exercise makes it worthwhile.

It’s when one considers the overall picture that things get a little hazy. The problems stem from Sorkin the director, not Sorkin the writer. Perhaps because of the importance he places on a script he’s been developing over a decade and has even more weight with the increased protest movement in 2020, Sorkin gets too precious with his characters and dialogue. It’s too polished—there’s no dirt under any fingernails, even Jerry and Abbie’s. Even a place that self-identifies as the Conspiracy House feels like a perfectly-lit set. These men were facing actual prison time and they very clearly understood their role in history, protest, and even public opinion of the Vietnam War, all during such a messy and uncertain era. But the stakes feel minimized here for that sheen Sorkin does so well, and it doesn't have the emotional impact it should. A different director might have allowed the story to breathe outside of the razor-sharp dialogue and might have reined Sorkin in on some of the overwrought theatrics of the final act.

Still, there’s much to admire in individual beats of “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” I never would've guessed how much I would enjoy a hippie buddy comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen and Jeremy Strong. Mark Rylance proves again why he’s one of our best—he’s the standout of the ensemble when it comes to making Sorkin’s dialogue sound like it’s actually being thought of just before it’s spoken. Frank Langella perfectly captures how dangerous it can be when incompetent men hold an amount of power that they’re incapable of really comprehending (read into 2020 politics what you will). All of these elements and more make “The Trial of the Chicago 7” into an engaging drama, but one that could have been as impactful as that unforgettable chant if it was more willing to embrace imperfection. The whole world may be watching, but what are they going to feel when they do?

 From Showsnob.com
https://showsnob.com/2020/12/03/amazon-primes-feed-season-1-episode-9-recap/

The Feed S1 Ep 9

Amazon Prime’s The Feed season 1, episode 9 recap

by Wade Wainio4 months ago Follow @wade_wainio

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Episode 9 of Amazon Prime’s The Feed sees Kate jeopardized by a Taker possessing a loved one, and Danny takes a major risk.

If you’ve kept up with The Feed, you’ll know that a virus is coming through The Feed, with its users’ minds being overrun by people called “The Takers.” Basically, they are body snatchers. Episode 9 begins with Danny Morris (Shaquille Ali-Yebuah) concerned for Cass (Ursula Holliday), who has been incarcerated under suspicion of being possessed by a Taker. Meanwhile, Kate (Nina Toussaint-White) is busy trying to escape Martha (Carlyss Peer), who is now smashing through a door with an ax, Shining-style.

The Taker Martha wants to know where Tom Hatfield (Guy Burnet) is. Simultaneously, we also see the fake Taker Max (Osy Ikhile) trying to escape from the bathtub he’s been tied to (Max’s Taker has referred to himself as “D”). Back at The Feed prison center, Sue Cole (Tanya Moodie) and Amanda Javad (Sheila Atim) summon Eve (Clare-Hope Ashitey) to address the Takers. Additionally, Meredith Hatfield (Michelle Fairley) offers multiple cures for metabolic disease to corrupt President Quan (Art Malik), so she can start a new competitor to The Feed in his country (and he gives off vibes of being a tinpot dictator).

The Feed: Thought unification modulator

Meredith wants to create a network to compete with The Feed, though even attempting it puts her in possible danger. As these initial meetings take place, Tom and Ben (Jeremy Neumark Jones) examine the hidden, underground lab of their dead dad (David Thewlis). They accidentally trigger a system called ALBA. As an added element of tension/distraction, Danny is trying to ask Tom for help.

Back at President Quan’s, Meredith is being watched by Quan’s sister, Sen (Shereen Martin). As the episode progresses, we variously hear terms one might attribute to Warner Bros.’ Marvin the Martian, such as a thought unification modulator, fetal intelligence monitoring, and genetic replacement surgery (hello, Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century!).

Specifically, we learn that the “SAVEYOU” program involved consciousness manipulation and study stored thoughts and emotions. The “Takers” are learning by themselves and ALBA cannot delete them because the file is corrupted. While these story elements aren’t crystal clear, it’s obvious that “The Feed” isn’t dealing with souls in the strictest, most religious sense of the term, but instead the concept of copying and storing intelligence, personalities, emotions (and hangups) electronically. Unfortunately, these entities haven’t exactly been playing nice.

Kate’s crisis

Let’s not forget about Kate. Naz (Wasim Zakir) shows up to find her but, unfortunately, Martha greets him. After he asks about her bleeding forehead, she tells him that she fell down the stairs. She is skeptical and wrongly thinks Kate might be a taker who attacked her. However, Martha ends up chopping Naz up, much to Kate’s horror. To make matters worse, her Feed is not currently working so she can’t immediately call for help.

However, Ben and Tom eventually leave to help her, not quite knowing what to expect. When Kate sneaks into her car, Martha stands in front of her with an ax, looking ready to take out her aggression. Of course, Kate has a car and doesn’t want Martha to endanger baby Bea, so she strikes Martha. Still, in true horror movie fashion, Martha doesn’t quite die, and jumps at Kate!

Ben and Tom finally show up for Kate and Bea, and as the imposter Martha distracts Ben with bizarre rambling about the inferiority of AI, Tom finds Kate hiding in the woods. However, after Martha offers to improve Ben’s standing by giving greater access to his father’s research, he actually leaves with her!

Saving Cass?

While The Feed‘s team is working to solve the SAVEYOU encryption, Danny, Leon (Pete MacHale), and Marcus (Toheeb Jimoh) visit Jonah (Laurie Kynaston) about rescuing Cass. They even project (via The Feed) into a room with Tom to initiate a plan, but it proves ineffective. Instead, Danny decides to get arrested to find her, getting punched intentionally and cooking up a story about possibly being a Taker.

Amanda Javad warns prisoners that they know the “SAVEYOU” program is involved in the Taker’s very existence. Also, Sue Cole utilizes a high-intensity pain device to keep them in line. Ultimately, though, Cass ends up dying in his arms as Takers are executed in their cages. It’s another solid reminder that those working for The Feed are not the good guys, either. In fact, nobody really is, which is part of what makes this such a complex story.