What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

From decider: https://decider.com/2022/01/16/euphoria-season-2-episode-2-recap/

Euphoria S2 Ep 2: Out of Touch 

By Fletcher Peters

Following suit with the last season of Euphoria, Episode 2 of the second season has yet another Nate cold open. Yeah, he’s still alive. While I’d love to say I’m happy with Jacob Elordi getting plenty of screen time, watching Nate is like feasting your eyes on a fish as it guts itself — with a plastic butter knife. And without any of the enthralling childhood backstory playing into the episode, the inner-workings of Nate’s mind get pretty creepy.

Still, it makes Euphoria as watchable as ever, because here’s what’s going on in Nate’s perverted little lizard brain: He’s in love with Cassie (Sydney Sweeney). Like, love love. It’s an infatuation that feels partially based in selfishness, a desire to make himself feel more successful. He continuously has dreams of Cassie pregnant, screaming for him to hold her as she gives birth to their gross baby. It’s sooooo (x100 more O’s) weird. But Nate’s magnetism towards Cassie only elevates her separation between her and the other characters.

Maddie (Alexa Demie), of course, is the largest issue. Even though she’s living in the lap of luxury babysitting for rich families, she’s not quite satisfied with her life. What does she need? A raging, abusive idiot boyfriend like Nate. She’s going to get back together with him. A brilliantly near-sighted Demie is the only person who could play this complete foolishness off Maybe, Nate reckons, his life would be different if he had met Cassie instead of Maddie. He wouldn’t be so intense, so cruel — for lack of a better term, fucked up, if he had been with a sweet girl like Cassie. But now, a whole slew of problems stand in the way of his path to reconciliation, with Maddie just the start. Season 1 has set up a real vat of problems for Nate (his father’s perversion ranked at the top), and while he fights back against his dark side, he’s got the sweet Cassie by his side. It feels a little like the “She was his queen… and god help anyone who dared to disrespect his queen” meme of the popular kids.

Back to the, er, “normal” side of Euphoria. Tension is already escalating between reunited couple Rue (Zendaya) and Jules (Hunter Schafer), thanks to newbie Elliot (Dominic Fike). The brilliance of this love triangle plays out in tucked away corners, rather than in public spaces and easy-to-target betrayal. Rue isn’t doing anything wrong, per se, but she sneaks away for more alluring hobbies with Elliot (see: drugs, deep conversations, freedom) instead of being with Jules. And Jules, thanks to Hunter Schafer’s Florence Pugh-like wobbly frown, rips at the heartstrings. She wants to be the cool, easygoing girlfriend. But her heart is shattering.

While the first episode of Season 2 painfully ignored Kat (Barbie Ferreira), her Episode 2 arc is somewhat redeeming. The catalogue of “You got this, girl!” women exemplifies what Euphoria does best: introduce random, glitzy crap with no explanation, somehow managing to make it purposeful and fun every time. Did we need these women to show Kat’s emotions? Could the scene have just been a gossip-fest with Maddie and Cassie? Maybe. But why not make it weird? Weird is fun. Weird is Euphoria.
The only problem seems to be that Kat’s Ethan (Austin Abrams) dilemma tears her away from the rest of the mangled drama, yet again. While Maddie gets her own fun little plot — she’s obsessed with the wardrobe of the woman she’s babysitting for — she’s still tied into the Cassie/Nate/Cal drama, thanks to the fact that she’s got her little paws on the Jules and Cal (Eric Dane) recording. Maybe Kat will poke her nose into the Rue/Jules/Elliot triangle. Either way, if Lexi (Maude Apatow) can make her way into the main storylines, Kat should be able too as well.

Speaking of Cal, I would pay to not have to see him on my screen anymore. I get why he’s important to the story — I really do. But does he have to be the adult Euphoria character with the most screen time? He should be just a bit more evil, creepy, or maniacal. While the set-up surrounding Jules’ recording is daunting, and key to Nate’s current arc, Cal has grown stale. We got a bit of Colman Domingo‘s wise old Ali this episode, but Euphoria needs to do better by its adults if they’re going to play such important parts in the high schoolers’ storylines.
By far the best source of anxiety to come out of Episode 2, though, is the budding war between the Howard sisters. Cassie has been depressed in the wake of her break-up with McKay, and instead of helping her sister out of a rut, Lexi has absolved herself of all sibling duties. Now, with nowhere else to go, Cassie melts into Nate’s bloody fists instead. When Cal swings by the Howard household to prod them about who beat Nate up, the sisters take defiant sides against one another. Lexi stands by Fez (Angus Cloud). But Cassie gives him To cement their dispute, Lexi finally takes matters into her own hands — or, at least, attempts to — by going to warn Fez about Cal. As she does so, Cassie flounces off with Nate for another tearful escapade into bad decisions. I’m more excited to see where this Lexi vs. Cassie feud goes than I am to see Maddie’s inevitable rage over the whole situation. Neither Lexi nor Cassie knows that the other is flirting with one side of the disaster. When the other finds out, all hell will break loose. I can’t wait.

Some stray strands of tittle-tattle we’re expecting to hear more about in the episodes to come.
Faye at Fezco’s: This isn’t a huge deal, but Faye (a magnificent Chloe Cherry) has reared her head again in Episode 2. She’s crashing at Fez’s place, which, if nothing else, gives us more insight into how sweet Fez is. Maybe he’ll tuck me into bed one day.

Maddie’s Babysitting Gig: The whole party sitch in Episode 1 had me gritting my teeth from start to finish, but Episode 2 was much more calm — except for a brief five minutes when we think Maddie’s about to get busted by her new employer. After the whole thing unfurls, the mom employing her as a babysitter requests Maddie’s help with a zipper. She thanks Maddie for her kindness. There’s an odd bit of chemistry between the two. Maddie wants to get pregnant now too? Something has to happen here.

Nate Still Fantasizing About Jules: As Nate has his gonzo hospital bed fantasy about Cassie, there’s some intermixed cuts to Maddie. Which makes sense, because she’s, you know, his ex. But every once in a while, the dream world cuts to Jules, too. That’s not over, is it?
Rue’s Mom and Ali: Right. These two are flirting now?

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

from Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/article/you-recap-season-3-episode-8-swing-and-a-miss.html

You S3 Ep 8: Swing And A Miss

By Jessica Goldstein

As you all know, I believe You can only achieve its full potential when it stops hedging and just goes FULL BATSHIT. Well, it took eight episodes into a ten-episode season, but it is finally happening!

Let’s get into this whole open-marriage thing. I am both stunned and not at all surprised that Joe, who hilariously refers to himself as a “serial monogamist” (he’s a serial killer), thinks that opening up a marriage is what you do to save a dying relationship. Of course, Joe — whose brain is warped from spending all its formative years having zero healthy social interactions and learning everything he’d ever know about relationships from books published before women had rights — cannot even get to the place of like, “Hey, that’s not for me, but I totally get how it could be great for someone else” with the not-exactly-revelatory notion of consensual non-monogamy. I wish we could spend more time with Love’s voiceover in episodes like this one because everything Joe wants to say and do is so obvious, and her deal is much more intriguing to me. For instance: She seems genuinely more excited about the whole thing, but is that just an act for her own nefarious reasons (her attraction to Theo, her strategic intimacy with Sherry) or is it real?

I thought Joe planned to open up the marriage just to have sex with Marienne with Love’s blessing, but apparently, what he wants to do is open up his marriage so it falls to pieces so that it is easy for Love to break up with him. I mean … I feel like we’re making this a lot harder than it needs to be, Joe! Joe’s lack of self-awareness is sometimes what makes this show so funny. Still, in situations like this, it is just deeply annoying to listen to him talk about how Love used to be a “free spirit,” and now his life SUCKS. It’s definitely because SHE is the problem, not because Joe is fully demented and insatiable.

Joe carefully brings up James, Love’s ex, now that he has it on good authority that Love killed him. All Love reveals is that James got cold feet about having a baby, that he “used his sickness as a shield” so she could never really express anger toward him. Joe’s response to this, internally, is, uh, oh yeah, you definitely killed this guy. Love decides that swinging “isn’t me,” and Joe amends that to “it isn’t us” because he has already forgotten the lessons of therapy and how “we” is individuality erasure.

Is anyone surprised to know that Joe entered Marienne into the illustration contest behind her back? I hate when things like this happen on shows, and the person who had her boundary totally violated just decides not to be mad about it. This is a red flag, Marienne!!

Love waffles on the marriage-opening thing and goes back to Joe to say that she wants to be FUN and WILD and let’s be real, don’t Cary and Sherry seem so much more interesting now that we know they swing? They talk about their fantasies and decide to talk to Sherry and Cary. I absolutely love how prepared they are for this whole arrangement, complete with an NDA (even though, as I understand it, NDAs are v difficult to enforce). Am I very grossed out by the way Sherry and Cary feed each other baked goods? Yes. But do I love how speedily they abort this whole mission when they can sense that Love and Joe aren’t in a solid enough place to swing? Also yes. And: Extra points for the way Cary says, “a bisexual man is a truly optimized man.”

There’s a whole thing with Marienne’s custody hearing and Joe being a character witness that I’m going to mostly ignore because (1) it’s boring, and (2) you know the drill, she is going to get her hopes up and then the judge will rule against her so that Joe is “forced” (chooses of his own free will) to do “something” (murder) to Ryan to “save” (ruin) Marienne and Juliet’s lives. Back to the fun stuff: Love and Joe trying to spice up their “dull” (FULL of homicides) relationship.

Love tries a little role-playing scenario in the yard that becomes real when Theo, wearing a Jason-Sudeikis-at-the-Emmys-style tie-dye hoodie, throws a football right by her, thinking her come-hither was for him. Theo realizes that Joe is watching them, and he leaves, and I write in my notes: THEO SAVE YOURSELF FROM THESE PSYCHOS, PLEASE. Joe, who tells us he feels nothing watching this, pretends to be jealous so Love will be turned on and they can be WILD. Love decides this one orgasm means she and Joe are on solid ground; let’s text the sitter and do this thing!

Theo figures out a way into his dad’s office and sees the full surveillance setup. Though I initially thought he was horrified by his dad spying on the whole town, it appears he is MORE horrified by the video capturing Joe punching the wall very close to Love’s face. Matthew tells Theot that he is looking into Love because she’s connected to Natalie “and to you.” Theo cannot stand for this slander and screams that NONE of this will bring Natalie back. Matthew responds by telling Theo to pack his shit and go back to his mom’s.

It’s date night at the Quinn-Goldberg residence! It would be at the Conrads, but they’re redecorating. (“Elon’s decorator is brilliant, but he’s so slow.”) The Conrads have many suitcases that we will soon learn are full of a bunch of interesting pharmaceuticals and sex toys. Joe’s absolute horror at seeing a smattering of vibrators and dildos is so funny to me. Joe! Grow UP. This is very much someone whose entire concept of sex is like, reading Jane Austen novels where having your fingers brush against a lady’s gloveless hand is basically third base.

Sherry and Cary have all these rituals to get in the zone, including full-body shimmies for “total liberation.” Their safe word is “hakuna matata.” Joe watches Love and Sherry dance and is suddenly reminded that he loves his wife.

The men go off to one room where Cary shows off his caboodle of meds, offering Joe a pill that “boosts testosterone like a mofo.” Then Cary strips completely and jerks off into a mirror: “If you don’t want to fuck yourself, how is anybody gonna want to fuck you?” Joe is saved from this encounter by a phone call from Marienne, who says that Ryan sent an anonymous email out to all her contacts with those explicit photos of her, an EXTREMELY fucked up thing to do that Joe is rightly outraged by. (That said, California has decent nonconsensual pornography/cyber exploitation laws, so maybe Marienne would have a case?) Marienne tells Joe: “The thing about being married is they know you so well they can use it for the rest of your life.” Joe should say that shit in a MIRROR. Marienne could use a friend right now, but alas, Joe is in the middle of an orgy. Is it an orgy with four people? Or just a foursome? Cary takes Joe’s phone to put it in a vault downstairs. Oooooh boy.

The couples reunite, and Love is so much more into this than Joe, but everybody is just powering through. I appreciate that Sherry asks multiple times if something is wrong — for someone who started the season seeming totally self-absorbed and mean, she is at least being empathetic and paying attention here — and Joe says he’s just not used to having an audience. So Sherry tells him: Look at your partner. And Joe’s mind wanders to a deeply boring fantasy where Marienne is literally wearing a white dress under the library’s construction paper butterfly tree. Are you KIDDING me? Love’s happiness melts off her face, and she shouts HAKUNA MATATA and bolts.

Love, of course, can tell that Joe is thinking about someone else. Joe denies it, but things escalate until Love shrieks: “I KILLED NATALIE FOR YOU!” A beat and they wait, in horror: Did the Conrads hear them? They return upstairs with a meat hammer hidden behind Joe’s back. Sherry has a tell of touching her elbow when she’s lying. Time to feel them out.

Sherry and Conrad pretend they’re ready to get right back in it, but Sherry hugs her elbow, and BOOM, we are in a real-life Hunger Games! Love grabs a knife while Cary sprints downstairs. Joe stabs him with some broken glass pieces. They both pick up those arrows from the hunting trip. In the end, Joe bashes Cary’s head until he is unconscious, and Love strangles Sherry until she passes out. I am very curious to know if any or all of this was caught on by a surveillance camera playing on a live feed in Matthew’s office. The whole sequence is INSANE and precisely the kind of thing You should be doing all the time!

Joe and Love put the Conrads in the human aquarium and then have the best sex of their lives. (Well, Joe did take that testosterone.) Joe is horrified to make the extremely no-duh discovery that their love language is violence.

Joe is scrubbing blood out of the car at five in the morning when a drunk Matthew moseys by. He wants Joe to know, he thought he heard someone scream. Joe says it was just “harmless shenanigans,” but I think Matthew is ONTO him.

Love has apparently forgotten all about how Joe was thinking of someone else during sex, also with someone else. She is too busy thinking about how she put her best friend in a cage and doesn’t know what she’d ever do without Joe, the only person who can help her commit this seemingly endless string of assaults and homicides. Joe is like, oh shit, that reminds me I have to go to a custody hearing, lol.

He returns to the bakery, and they check the baby monitor, where we see Cary and Sherry pacing around, banging on the glass. The bad news is, it’s not clear how they will get out of there alive. (Will they find one of the hide-a-keys?) On the bright side, Love has never been more in love. And what’s more important, you know?

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

from EW: https://ew.com/tv/recaps/the-sinner-season-3-episode-8/

The Sinner S3 Ep 8

By Matt Cabra

March 27, 2020 at 12:11 AM EDT

The Sinner's season finale gets off to an appropriately scary start. Jamie has fully embraced his dark side. Sporting a black beanie and squatting over an army of scrambling ants, he hauntingly recites "...prickly pear...” A few feet away, the Dorchester police captain's blood seeps into the sand-trap.


Burns celebrates his deadly attempt to get Detective Ambrose's attention with a meal. While methodically munching his food at a diner, he glares at a young woman snapping selfies with an impressive stack of strawberry pancakes. Police cars race by the window, sirens blaring, as they head to the Twin Oaks golf course.


At the scene, Ambrose takes a moment with his recently murdered boss while a forensics team waits in the wings. Detective Soto's on the scene. Harry tells him to take the lead. “You're in charge now. That's what the captain wanted.” An envelope addressed to Ambrose is discovered on the body. There's a paper fortune teller inside with four names written on its flaps — Sonya, Eli, Harry's daughter, and the captain. The latter has an “X” through it.



Harry immediately gets on the horn with his daughter to ensure his family's safety. Meanwhile, Jamie turns his phone off while waiting outside Eli's soon-to-be-dismissed karate class. The Dorchester PD discover his last location was near Ambrose's family. Harry hits the road while putting in a warning call to Sonya. “He's targeting people he knows are important to me.”


When he arrives at his daughter's house, he tells the worried mom his suspect is baiting him. He promises to find Eli. Back at Sonya's, the artist's enjoying a cup of tea despite Harry's insistence she get the hell out of there. It's not long before Jamie lets himself in. “You know I'm here to kill you.” As he waxes philosophical as only he can, she tries to talk him down. He walks away — “You shouldn't have stayed here” — before pulling a knife from his jacket.



She warns him the police are on their way. He chases her around the kitchen table, then pins her to the floor, blade at the ready. The cavalry crashes through the door to find an out-of-breath Sonya on the floor. She's unharmed, but Burns is in the wind. Back at the station, Harry checks in on her and asks why she didn't heed his warning. Sonya says she couldn't resist. “It was like a test. I wanted to survive it.” She urges Harry not to face him alone and make the same mistake she did.



In the station's command center, officers and detectives scramble to determine where Burns is and what his next move might be. Ambrose insists his suspect isn't trying to escape but is planning something in Dorchester. “He's making a point. He wants to torture me, bring me to the edge, where he is.”


While Harry and his team mobilize, Jamie's sneaking past the patrol protecting his wife. Whatever he's got in store for Ambrose, it seems he wants to see Lela one last time. He goes to their closed, glass patio door. Lela spots him and approaches. Without words, they share a tender, tearful moment, placing their hands together, with only the glass between their palms.


As Soto holds a press conference at the station, Harry's phone rings. It's Eli's number. He picks up. Jamie's on the other end. “You're getting low on milk, Harry. You might want to pick some up," he teases, before instructing the detective to go home (without back-up) if he wants to see Eli again. Harry grabs his jacket, quietly leaves the police station, and heads home.


Outside the residence, Harry exits his car, carefully shuts its door, and draws his weapon. He skulks around the house's exterior in the moonlight. He sees Eli, staring out the window, looking terrified. Before he can signal to his grandson, Jamie gets the jump on him. Upon repeatedly whacking Harry with a fireplace poker, Burns is able to grab the detective's gun. He points the pistol at him, ordering him inside.


He directs Harry to put Eli in a chair facing the wall with headphones on his head. Ambrose sits on the stairs behind the boy. Burns gestures the gun toward an item. “I made that one just for you. For tonight. Pick it up.” Ambrose reluctantly takes the item in his hand. It's a paper fortune teller. Three of its four options ensure Eli's safety. “One says Eli dies,” explains Burns.


The pair argue back and forth, Jamie insisting he play the game, Harry refusing to. Burns continues to press, recounting how Ambrose betrayed him. “I'm on the f---ing edge because of you. I want you to play the game!” The detective won't comply. “I want you to look death right in the face,” Burns says, before turning the pistol on Eli. He threatens to pull the trigger if Ambrose doesn't play the game, then fires a shot above him. Harry calls his bluff. Jamie turns the gun on him, then points it at his own head. Harry tackles him, taking a slug to the shoulder in the process.


He tells his grandson to run and get help while he stumbles close behind him. He then heads for the woods, Burns — with pistol secured — gives chase. He fires a shot at Harry, who's taking a look at the hole in his shoulder. Jamie trades the gun for a very big stick and starts hitting Harry. Ambrose sneaks in a shot with a rock and takes the opportunity to run back to the house.


Of course, Harry's got a combination safe that holds his back-up snub-nose. He enters the combo just in time to grab the gun and point it at Jamie, who's pointing a pistol right back at him. Burns cuts the showdown short, putting his gun down, and unloading a clip full of Nick-inspired BS instead. “Until you bring what's unconscious into consciousness, it will control your life. And you will call it fate.”


He wants Harry to admit they're the same. “Nick was my fate and I am yours. You can't outrun this.” As he continues to badger, maybe hitting a little too close to home, Harry becomes increasingly annoyed. He shoots Jamie in the gut but immediately looks surprised as if he couldn't control himself. He calls Soto and requests an ambulance.


Jamie's scared, begging for help. His wound is gushing. Ambrose applies pressure with a towel. He apologizes to Jamie. Burns becomes more terrified when he loses feeling in his legs. A far cry from Nick — who seemed to welcome death while bleeding out on the hood of his car — Jamie reacts just as you'd expect a gunshot victim to react. He's crying, terrified, emotional. Harry tries to calm him down and calls Soto back to check on the ambulance.


Jamie asks if help will arrive on time. Ambrose doesn't answer him. As Burns coughs up blood, it becomes clear he's not going to make it. With absolute terror in his eyes, he pleads, “I don't wanna die. I don't wanna die.” Ambrose desperately attempts to comfort him, continually assuring him he's not alone. Jamie asks Harry to hold his hand. As the last bit of life drains from Burns, Harry caresses his head and tells him everything's going to be okay. It might not be the ending fans were hoping for with Jamie, but there's no denying his extended death scene packs one hell of an emotional punch.


Sitting in the ambulance that arrived too late, Harry stares at the blood caked into the crevices of his hand. As Burns' body is wheeled out, Soto arrives. He informs Harry that Eli is safe. Ambrose confesses he “made a mistake” and will have to report to FID. “I don't think you'll have to worry about that,” responds Soto.


The next day Harry — complete with cast, sling, and crutches — arrives at Sonya's. They drink and prepare dinner before diving into some real talk. Sonya shares that she saw Lela in town and she seems to be hanging in there. The conversation quickly turns to the bigger elephant in the room. “I keep thinking about him,” she says, before asking what he was like at the end. After a lengthy pause, a somber Harry responds, “Scared.” He then begins to sob.


With tears welling in her own eyes, Sonya goes to him. They gently hold heads, bring their faces together, and The Sinner's third season cuts to black one last time.

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

from Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/article/the-book-of-boba-fett-recap-season-one-episode-three.html

The Book of Boba Fett S1 Ep 3:
The Streets of Mos Espa

By Keith Phipps

“Let the wookiee win,” C3-PO famously advised R2-D2 as the latter threatened to beat Chewbacca at a game of holochess. Though Chewbacca’s anger didn’t look like it should be taken lightly, he never really seemed like the sort of wookiee who would tear the arms out of the sockets of his opponents. Half-collie, half oversize teddy bear, Chewbacca looked cuddly even in the midst of battle. The same can’t be said of Krrsantan, the wookiee assassin who tears Boba Fett out of the tank where he sleeps (and dreams a series of flashbacks that fill in his backstory), nearly kills him, then fights off seemingly everyone who lives in what used to be Jabba’s palace before getting dropped in the vacant (for now) rancor pit. Wookiees: Don’t take them lightly, especially when they’re getting paid to kill you.

It’s not much of a mystery who sent Krrsantan — the Hutt twins fess up to it in a later scene — or why. That’s made clear by an opening scene that doubles as a reminder that Boba Fett might have successfully seized Jabba’s throne, but seizing power and maintaining power aren’t the same thing. In the episode-opening briefing / info dump, 8D8 recounts that Fett’s immediate successor, Bib Fortuna, learned this quickly. Incapable of Jabba’s iron-fist approach, he relied on “uneasy alliances” between three families, each allotted a portion of Mos Espa to call their own. This obviously didn’t work out for him. That’s what kind of leader Bib was, and now 8D8 tells Fett, “Everyone is waiting to see what kind of leader you are.”

Good question. Apparently, he’s the sort of leader who doesn’t mind following up on the complaints of price-gouging water merchant Lortha Peel (Stephen Root), who opens his meeting with the daimyo by telling Fett, “With apologies, sir, no one respects you.” Negged into action, Fett shows up outside Peel’s place of business to personally chase off the “urchins,” a “street gang of insolent youths” Peel describes as “half-man, half-machine.” But really, they’re mostly mods. From the dapper costumes to the rebellious attitudes to the colorful scooters equipped with a multitude of mirrors, the ruffians plaguing Peel look like they’ve been pulled into Tatooine straight from Quadrophenia. Do they dance to Motown B-sides and the Who? Do they battle Tatooine’s equivalent of rockers?

Those answers, if we get them at all, will have to wait, though it looks like the insolent youths will be with Fett for a while. Rather than running them off, he gives them jobs. (After the Gamorrean Guards, it’s becoming a pattern.) And rather than take Peel’s side, he admonishes him to cut his water prices. Really, what choice do they have but to steal at those rates? (True, they can afford those scooters and seemingly expensive body modifications, but Peel’s rates are crazy.)

Bedtime means flashback time for Fett, and this episode’s vision of the past finds him remembering what happened after the great train robbery of the previous episode. Triumphant and looking sharp in his Tusken robes, Fett takes a bantha to town to meet with the Pyke Syndicate, whose representative seems reasonable enough but refuses to pay tribute to Fett and the Tuskens because he’s already paying the Kintan Striders, the biker gang with whom Fett clashed in the previous episode. Vowing to take care of the Striders, Fett returns home only to find that his whole adopted Tusken tribe has been slain, with Kintan Strider graffiti left behind at the crime scene. Looks like this just got personal.

But that will have to wait. Ripped from his reminiscence, Fett suddenly finds himself wet, mostly naked, and fighting a wookiee. The battle moves throughout the palace until, with the help of Shand, the urchins, and the Gamorreans, Krrsantan is contained. It’s such an upsetting situation that Fett can’t bring himself to eat much of his breakfast feast before he’s interrupted by some unexpected visitors: the Hutt twins.

They’re very sorry for trying to kill Fett and bring a gift appropriate for the occasion: a new rancor (as well as a new rancor keeper played by Danny Trejo). After informing Fett that Mayor Mok Shaiz has made an arrangement with another syndicate, they tell Fett they’re peacing out back to Hutta, that he should consider leaving, too, and that he can do with Krrsantan what he likes. What he likes, it turns out, is to let him go with the “from one bounty hunter to another” understanding that the murder attempt was strictly business. Fett’s really not interested in exacting revenge or committing any acts of violence he doesn’t have to, is he?

Clearly, Fett needs to look into what’s up with Mok Shaiz and his competition. Before that, though, he wants to spend some time with the rancor, which, its keeper informs Fett, is depressed. Rancors, it turns out, are naturally peaceful, emotionally complex creatures capable of bonding with humans (which would explain the tears in Return of the Jedi). Fett’s quite taken with the rancor and, in what might be a bit of foreshadowing, announces he’d like to ride the rancor as the witches of Dathomir are said to have done. It’s going to take some work, but it looks like Fett’s willing to put in the time.

But first, it’s off to see Mayor Mok Shaiz, who’s apparently too busy to meet with Fett, per his assistant. In fact, the mayor isn’t there at all, and the assistant takes the opportunity to flee the scene before it gets too intense. This leads to a chase through the streets of Mos Espa, one that director Robert Rodriguez uses as an opportunity to throw in every city-chase scene cliché ever put to film, from fruit stands to falling scaffolding to delivery men carrying fragile objects through the street. It’s fun, but it doesn’t end well for the mayor’s assistant. And the episode ends on an ominous note for Fett and his growing circle of friends. It turns out the mayor’s meeting is with a syndicate Fett already knows: the Pykes.

Bantha Tracks

• When Fett sees the stormtrooper helmets on pikes, is this the first time he’s made aware that the Empire has fallen (or at least doesn’t exert the iron grip it once did)?

• We get two references to Tatooine once being covered in water. Is this trivia, or will it play a role in the story?

• So after spending all that time getting to know this Tusken tribe and their ways, it looks like The Book of Boba Fett is just fridging them to give Fett a more personal stake in the fight to come. They seemed more than just plot devices, but perhaps not?

• That said, there’s a mystery here: Yes, the scene of slaughter bears is the tag of the Kintan Striders, but could it be someone else? Maybe the Pykes? They have everything to gain by pitting the Tuskens against the bikers, and it would echo the Empire’s habit of trying to pin crime scenes on the Tuskens, as seen in the first Star Wars movie.

• Nice to see Root and Trejo (whose arrival was probably inevitable given Rodriguez’s involvement with the series).

• Fett puts a lot of trust in her, but are we sure about Shand? She’s a tough customer and has always seemed more invested in power than friendship. It might be worth keeping an eye on her.

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

from EW.com: https://ew.com/tv/recaps/hawkeye-season-1-episode-3/

Hawkeye S1 Ep 3: Echoes

By Chancellor Agard

December 01, 2021 at 08:23 AM EST

This is the episode everyone has been waiting for — or at least fans of Matt Fraction and David Aja's Hawkeye run. (Are you tired of people mentioning that excellent comic book series yet?) With episode 3, titled "Echoes," Hawkeye the show puts its own spin on Hawkeye #3, which saw Clint Barton and Kate Bishop caught in a delightfully chaotic and trick-arrow filled car chase with the Tracksuit Mafia; it's one of the most memorable sequences in the entire comic book. Of course, the show alters the reason for the destructive high-speed pursuit because it's not telling the exact same story as the comic. Even though the constraints of live-action television prevent the show from reaching the same heights as the comic book version of the sequence, it still manages to produce something pretty clever, fun, and definitely surprising.

But, episode 3 isn't just about the car chase. "Echoes" is focused on two things: Introducing Alaqua Cox's Maya Lopez and, more importantly, deepening and softening Clint and Kate's dynamic. The hour is mostly successful on both fronts, especially on the second. That being said, it's not a completely satisfying installment because it ends rather quickly after the lengthy action sequence. The conclusion feels rather abrupt and as though an entire act was chopped off to make this cliffhanger possible. Nevertheless, it's still fun — so let's dive in.

"Echoes" opens with a flashback to 2007 where we meet a young Maya, who is deaf and learning how to navigate the world with the guidance of her father, William (played by Zahn McClarnon). In the comics, Maya, who goes by the alias Echo, has the ability to perfectly copy other people's movements, which makes her quite a skilled fighter. We get our first hint of this skill in a flashback to a martial arts class when she watched one of her classmates perform a move and then used that move against him when it was her turn to face him in the ring. From there, the action jumps forward to the post-Snap period when she was forced to watch as the Ronin killed her father and his men. That explains why she is so interested in Ronin's apparent return: she wants her revenge.

In the present, Maya confronts Clint and Kate, who are still tied to mechanical unicorns, and interrogates them about Ronin. Clint tells Maya that Kate isn't actually Ronin and the real one is dead because Black Widow killed him. Of course, that's not literally the truth, and Maya doesn't buy it, but it's figuratively true to some extent. By both bringing Clint back into the fold and sacrificing herself on Vormir in Avengers: Endgame, Black Widow forced Clint to abandon his murderous persona, so to some extent, she did kill Ronin. Naturally, Clint, who isn't one for words, can't say all of that.

The softening of Clint and Kate's relationship begins right before Clint breaks free of his restraints when he tells a somewhat frightened Kate to draw on her overconfidence to get through this next bit. Once Clint escapes, the action starts.

Directors Bert and Bertie make clever use of the Tracksuit Mafia's hideout. I particularly loved how the abandoned store shelves looked like a maze as Clint tried to evade the goons. Of course, he's eventually spotted and starts using anything he can find as a weapon, including a stuffed unicorn. (In the comics, Hawkeye turned things like collar-stays and his own fingernails into deadly weapons.) And things get really exciting once Echo joins the fight and smashes Clint's hearing aid, which is one of the smartest decisions in the episode because it allows the show to play with sound and silence in both Maya's scenes and Clint and Kate's interactions since Clint is almost deaf without it.

Anyway, once Clint recovers his bow, he frees Kate with a stylish mid-backflip shot, and Kate enters the fray and shows off even more of her skills — from the way she swings around a pole and sweeps a goon off his feet, to how she use a shopping cart while fighting Maya's right hand man. The takeaway from those two moments in particular is that Kate is just as smart and resourceful of a fighter as her mentor. This is what makes the fight scene so effective. Yes, it's entertaining, but it's integral to fleshing out Kate and Clint's dynamic.

The two archers eventually hop in a car, and the Tracksuit Mafia gives chase. As I mentioned above, the ensuing car sequence is fun, but definitely not as wild as the comic book version. That being said, there were several moments that delighted me: the playdough arrow; the rope arrow that yanked a bunch of Christmas trees into the Tracksuit Mafia's truck; and, of course, the truly clever Pym arrow that Clint breaks out at the end of the sequence. If you had asked me to guess which trick arrows would be in Clint's quiver, I definitely wouldn't have suspected a Pym-branded arrow that can increase the size of another arrow. Genius stuff on the show's part! (I'll admit I'm not entirely sure I believe the MCU version of Hawkeye is playful enough to come up with all these arrows, but I'm not going to dwell on that too much.)

The car sequence also highlights how close Kate and Clint are becoming. Even though Clint can't hear a word Kate is saying, which is the source of much humor, the two are still on the same page throughout. And once the action is done, that connection continues as Clint essentially starts repeating things Kate says because he didn't realize she said it already and, more importantly, tells Kate she wasn't wrong when she declared herself to be one of the world's best archers.

Thankfully, comedic banter and mutual appreciation isn't the only thing that's used to cement Kate and Clint's bond in this episode. Before they fix Clint's hearing aid, Kate is forced to help her near-deaf idol through a heartbreaking phone call with his youngest son Nathaniel. Jeremy Renner does a great job of conveying how much it pains Clint to hear his son tell him it's okay if he won't make it home for Christmas, and Hailee Steinfeld perfectly relays Kate's sympathy for her role model. Speaking of which…

After fixing Clint's hearing aid, the duo get breakfast together and the conversation becomes unexpectedly deep when Clint admits that he doesn't believe he's a role model, which says a lot about how Clint views himself and the work he's done as Hawkeye. I'm definitely interested in seeing whether Clint's opinion on this point changes over the course of the show. I mean, it has to, right?


From there, Kate and Clint decide to break into Eleanor's apartment so that they can research Maya's right-hand man and Jack in the security firm's database. Unfortunately, Kate gets locked out of the system, and Clint finds himself on the other end of Ronin's blade, wielded by Jack right as the episode cuts to black. On the one hand, that's a pretty good cliffhanger. On the other hand, I was surprised when the episode ended right there because it felt as though something was missing. B+

Batman (2016) #70-74

BATMAN #70

“The Fall and the Fallen” begins! This is the one you’ve been waiting for! Now that Batman has escaped the “Knightmares,” he’s starting to see the forces rallying against him—and that his father from another universe has joined the other side. The Caped Crusader finally digs into the mystery of how Thomas Wayne, a.k.a. the Flashpoint Batman, escaped the collapse of his dimension and ended up in this part of the Multiverse. Get all the answers in this new five-part story paving the way for the next big BATMAN event!


Art by:Mikel Janin
Cover by:Mikel Janin
Variant cover by:Leinil Yu
Written by:Tom King
On Sale Date:
May 1 2019

BATMAN #71

“The Fall and the Fallen” continues! Will it be father and son working together, or tearing each other apart? When it comes to the Waynes, expect a little of both. In the quest to get Bruce Wayne to hang up the cape and cowl, Thomas Wayne is going to have to use a little tough love. Only, not all the muscle behind it will be his own.

Art by:Mikel Janin
Cover by:Mikel Janin
Variant cover by:Frank Cho
Written by:Tom King
On Sale Date:
May 15 2019

BATMAN #72

“The Fall and the Fallen” part three! Is this the end of Gotham City? Bane’s army of villains is taking over the city, and Batman’s back is against the wall. With all the things Bane has done to him over the last year—from breaking up his wedding to trying to assassinate Nightwing, and then invading Batman’s mind to expose his most terrible fears—could this be the worst hate the Caped Crusader has ever encountered?


Art by:Jorge Fornes, Mikel Janin
Variant cover by:Michael Golden
Written by:Tom King
On Sale Date:
Jun 5 2019

BATMAN #73

“The Fall and the Fallen” part three! Is this the end of Gotham City? Bane’s army of villains is taking over the city, and Batman’s back is against the wall. With all the things Bane has done to him over the last year—from breaking up his wedding to trying to assassinate Nightwing, and then invading Batman’s mind to expose his most terrible fears—could this be the worst hate the Caped Crusader has ever encountered?
Art by:Mikel Janin
Cover by:Mikel Janin
Variant cover by:Ben Oliver
Written by:Tom King
On Sale Date:
Jun 19 2019

BATMAN #74

“The Fall and the Fallen” concludes with a father-and-son showdown. Flashpoint Batman reveals his fiendish reasoning for dragging Batman into the desert, and who is in the coffin they’ve been dragging along with them. But is this a step too far? It’s Bruce Wayne versus Thomas Wayne for the right to wear the cowl, and all of Gotham City hangs in the balance!
Art by:Mikel Janin
Written by:Tom King
On Sale Date: Jul 10 2019

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

from Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/the-witcher-recap-season-1-episode-4-of-banquets-bastards-and-burials.html

The Witcher S1 Ep 4:
Of Banquets, Bastards, and Burials

By Scott Meslow


If Geralt’s last adventure was a fantasy-flavored whodunit, this one is a fantasy-flavored comedy of manners. At the request of Jaskier — who has slept with the wives of many noblemen and fears the husbands are ready to kill him — Geralt agrees to attend a royal ball at Cintra, which is being held to settle on a husband for Princess Pavetta, the daughter of Queen Calanthe.

The Witcher’s chronology has been needlessly convoluted so far, but the events of this episode bring some clarity. Calanthe, who died by suicide in the premiere episode, is younger, cockier, and at the height of her power here. Her daughter, Pavetta, is in line for the throne, and Pavetta’s daughter — Princess Ciri, the star of her very own story in her very own timeline — hasn’t even been born yet.

But as interesting as it is to cobble together The Witcher’s chronology, the real joy in “Of Banquets, Bastards, and Burials” comes from the wackiness of this mostly self-contained story itself. As a grumpy, antisocial outcast whose best friend seems to be his horse, Geralt could hardly be less suited to the elaborate social graces of a stuffy banquet, and The Witcher deserves credit for taking what could easily be another grim-and-gritty fantasy drama and having some fun with it.

I think The Witcher tends to work better when Geralt is a supporting character in someone else’s story, and this episode really belongs to Jodhi May’s Calanthe. The Queen of Cintra comes into the ballroom in armor and covered in blood, having left the battlefield and walked directly into the party she’s throwing for her daughter. Though there’s theoretically a competition among a whole host of suitors for Princess Pavetta’s hand in marriage, it’s all a sham: Calanthe has already decided her daughter will marry Crach an Crait, a drunken idiot who will benefit the kingdom by providing a useful political alliance.

Pavetta is understandably less than pleased about her boorish husband-to-be. But as Calanthe shoves her unhappy daughter toward an unhappy marriage, an unlikely suitor emerges: Duny, a dashing young knight with the head of a hedgehog.

In case that last sentence didn’t sink in, a dashing young knight with the head of a hedgehog. It is deeply weird, and it absolutely rules. And to Calanthe’s great displeasure, Duny has a legitimate claim to marry Pavetta: a social contract called the Law of Surprise. It’s a fairy-tale-esque wrinkle of the Witcher universe, in which one person who receives a great service from another grants them a boon. The trick is that neither the giver nor the receiver knows what the boon will be until it’s given. In this case, Duny saved the life of Pavetta’s father and was promised something unexpected — which, in this case, turns out to be his daughter.

You might assume that Pavetta would rather not marry a man with the head of a hedgehog, but it turns out she’s in love with Duny, who has a hedgehog head only because of a curse. The real obstacle is Calanthe, who is so incensed by this deviation from her plan that she orders the soldiers in the room to kill Duny where he stands and then — after Geralt intervenes to protect Duny — tries to kill him herself instead. The near murder is only stopped by Pavetta, who reveals a supernatural power very much like Ciri’s, which knocks everyone back in a single glass-shattering scream. When the dust settles, Calanthe agrees to honor the Law of Surprise, and the curse on Duny is lifted. (I preferred the hedgehog head, but whatever.)

Meanwhile, it’s been 30 years since Yennefer endured her enchantment and graduated from magic school, and life at court hasn’t exactly turned out the way she dreamed. When we revisit Yennefer, she’s stuck at the side of a spoiled queen named Kalis, who has a newborn baby girl. Unfortunately, her husband wanted a boy, so he sends an assassin to get rid of them both.

And so The Witcher gets the chance to show off its location budget with Yennefer frantically teleporting the queen from place to place and the assassin using his own magic to follow close behind. The chase ends on a beach with the queen dead and Yennefer cradling the body of the infant girl. Yennefer gave up her ability to bear children in exchange for her enchantment, and it briefly looks as if this might be the child she can’t bear herself — but the baby turns out to be dead as well, and after a bitter monologue about how it’s probably better to die than live as a woman anyway, Yennefer buries it on the shore.

The death of the baby feels like a cruel kind of cosmic joke — a reminder from the universe to the sorceress that she chose a different kind of life. As with the implicit question of what separates a human from a monster, which has been threaded through the entire series, The Witcher is teasing at an interesting question throughout “Of Banquets, Bastards, and Burials”: Is fate inevitable? Or is “fate” just an excuse people use because they hate the idea that their lives are dictated by a mix of blind chance and the unforeseen consequences of their actions?

Back at the banquet, Duny thanks Geralt for saving his life by invoking the Law of Surprise. And in yet another twist of fate, the boon turns out to be the unborn child in Pavetta’s womb — who we already know will turn out to be Ciri, the girl with whom Geralt’s present-day story seems deeply intertwined.

Was this fate all along? This is a fantasy series, so destiny and prophecy play a disproportionate role — but there’s plenty of room for good old-fashioned human hubris to muck things up too. From our perspective, we can appreciate the direct consequences that will come from actions that no one, including Calanthe, can yet recognize. In the midst of the ball, Calanthe’s needlessly antagonistic (and very public) shot at Pavetta’s suitor from Nilfgaard quickly becomes an afterthought once Duny storms in. But we already know where this is going, and this story might have turned out very different if Calanthe had the wisdom to realize Nilfgaard was an enemy she didn’t want to make.

Stray arrows:

• In general, Ciri’s story is moving much more slowly than Geralt’s or Yennefer’s, and this is another episode where we don’t get much. In a magical forest called Brokilon, Ciri and Dara meet a group of dryads (female forest dwellers with vaguely defined magical powers). The dryads offer Ciri some water that will make her forget her troubles; it doesn’t work, so they invite her to drink the sap directly from the tree instead, which sends her on a mental trip to a desert with a magic talking tree in the middle of a dune. Meanwhile, the Nilfgaardians use their own magic to track Ciri to Brokilon, so that battle probably looms on the horizon.

• We finally get a little more backstory on why the witchers are dying out: Per Geralt, a devastating attack on Kaer Morhen — a place where witchers, including Geralt himself, were created and trained — has made it impossible to bring new witchers into the world.

• Jaskier’s “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher” seems to have caught on — a whole tavern full of people enthusiastically join in for a sing-along.

• Bathtub scenes are a big deal in the Witcher franchise, and this is a pretty good one. Even Geralt can’t resist the allure of a wooden tub filled with chamomile.

• A helpful toast from Geralt that you can memorize and use whenever you raise a glass and find yourself tongue-tied: “At your final breath, a shitless death.”

• Jaskier on Geralt’s reluctance to interfere in the banquet: “You never get involved. Except you actually do. All of the time.”

• I’m warming up to Henry Cavill’s Geralt, and he absolutely nails the simple, deadpan line reading when he realizes the Law of Surprise will grant him Pavetta’s unborn child: “Fuck.”

• How many points does a manticore have, anyway?

Wolverine (2020) #8-12

Wolverine (2020) #8

Published: December 30, 2020
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Penciler: Adam Kubert, Viktor Bogdanovic
Cover Artist: Adam Kubert

CELEBRATING 350 ISSUES OF THE SOLO ADVENTURES OF WOLVERINE! Someone's making moves against WOLVERINE'S old crew TEAM X, and it's leaving bodies dropped and artifacts stolen. A mystery unfurls as Logan picks up the scent of his old compatriot, the mutant known as MAVERICK! Don't miss this special over-sized issue celebrating Logan's history while kicking off the next arc and serving as a jumping on point for new readers!

Wolverine (2020) #9

Published: January 27, 2021
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Penciler: Adam Kubert
Cover Artist: Adam Kubert


WEAPON X - TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER! WOLVERINE's back in MADRIPOOR for an underworld criminal auction specializing in super hero artifacts that will surface more than just bad memories for the mutant formerly known as WEAPON X!

Wolverine (2020) #10

Published: February 24, 2021
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Penciler: Adam Kubert
Cover Artist: Adam Kubert


JUST LIKE THE BAD OLD DAYS! WOLVERINE gets into a jam with his old Team X compatriot MAVERICK…but the reunion won't last long if they can't break free of the LEGACY HOUSE!

Wolverine (2020) #11

Published: April 14, 2021
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Penciler: Scot Eaton
Cover Artist: Adam Kubert


SNIKTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE! WOLVERINE takes the fight to the vampire nation in a quest to stop DRACULA's plot to co-opt his mutant healing factor! But what sacrifices and moral compromises must be made before humans and mutants see the dawn?

Wolverine (2020) #12

Published: May 19, 2021
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Penciler: Scot Eaton
Cover Artist: Adam Kubert


LAST BLOOD! A last-ditch effort will put WOLVERINE and LOUISE within fanging distance of DRACULA…and a betrayal that will tear through the X-books!

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

from Ready Steady Cut: https://readysteadycut.com/2021/06/17/recap-black-summer-season-2-episode-7-netflix-series/

Black Summer S2 Ep 7: The Lodge

June 17, 2021Daniel Hart

Episode 7 looks to be the standout episode — the horror is in the silence and the uncomfortableness of comfort. This is Anna’s chapter and shows how it is her time and no longer her mother’s story.

The episode opens up with Rose opening a large oven and taking out a cake. The title screen “Lodge” pops up. The chapter then flits back to Rose, Anna, and the man who led them here entering the lodge for the first time. As they enter the lodge, the man is happy and hysterically laughing. It seems way too good to be true. There’s food, water, electricity, well-lined beds — it’s the m***********g dream in the midst of an apocalypse. But it feels weird how heavenly the place is and clean when the world has collapsed. They pick their hotel rooms to rest, and despite it being nice, you can sense that Rose and Anna are in shock, which keeps their emotions suppressed.

A hot shower and a comfy bed

The title screen “Sweet Dreams” pops up. Rose enjoys a hot, clean shower, and you can sense the relaxation oozing her. She probably hasn’t felt this freedom in a long time. Surprisingly, Anna asks her mother if they can leave the next day — she doesn’t seem to be in a rush to shower either. Rose hugs her and lets out a deep sigh — she tries to remind her when she used to lull her to sleep with songs, but Anna doesn’t want to break emotionally. Eventually, the mother and daughter have a rare laugh together. Rose tells her not to worry about the next day because they’ll get on the plane eventually. She tells her daughter to get sleep first, and she’ll take first watch, but Anna says she is not tired. She has her eyes fixed on the lodge door.

Rose reminisces about the times she used to make up stories for her at bedtime, but ironically, it makes her fall asleep, while Anna still has her eyes fixed on the door.

The distant banging noise

The title screen “Ghosts” pops up — Rose is completely asleep, but Anna is awake, still looking at the door — she isn’t used to sounds of running water and the whirring of a fridge. Her brain is engineered to survive and only survive. She hasn’t had a normal childhood. She hears banging in the distance, so she straps a weapon around her shoulder and leaves her mother in the hotel room. Anna navigates the corridors to see where the banging comes from. Eventually, she makes it to the restaurant. A door has been left open, and the wind keeps making it bang against the frame. Anna shuts it tight. And then she looks outside and sees her reflection in the window, and she screams, but silently — it’s awful seeing a young person go through this trauma.

Noises part 2

The next morning, her mother is still asleep, and Anna is extremely panicky because she believed someone tried to open their hotel room door. She knocks on the man’s (Boone) hotel room and enters — he is still asleep, so naturally, she feels someone is in the ski lodge. Anna once again finds a door that is open, smashing against the frame in the wind. She can hear zombies gnarling in one of the hotel rooms, and the sinister music starts playing.

“Sup Rose”

At the midway point, two paths merge unexpectedly, and it’s a test of character for Anna more than Rose.

The title screen “Ressurection” pops up, and Rose finally wakes up from her long sleep. It takes her a while to come round, and she takes a gulp of water. That’s when she realizes Anna is not in the hotel room. She checks to see if Boone is with her daughter, but then she hears Anna shouting for her. She runs downstairs, and Spears is there with her.

“F**k the airstrip.”

The title screen “The Last Supper” pops up; Rose, Anna, Boone, and Spears enjoy a range of good food at the ski lodge. Boone is still excitable about the supplies they have got for a year, but the others are not impressed by his excitement. Spears is still infected and suffering as Rose eyes him up. He asks Boone if he has checked all the rooms, but Anna says he hasn’t and some infected people are here. Spears entertains Boone and says he might stay there for “all the nights” that is possible and says, “f**k the airstrip,” as he’d rather have a roof over his head and a hot plate.
You are dying

Anna asks the right question, “and then what?”, but Spears claims there is no airstrip. Boone disagrees and says the airstrip is close. Anna says they need to go to the airstrip to get on the plane, but Spears and Boone question whether they need to leave the place at all. Anna raises it’s easy for Spears to say “stay put” because she knows he is dying. Rose tries to stop her from saying it, but she says it anyway. Spears talks about when he was laid in a ditch, dying, and that he heard his mother’s voice, begging him to repent before it is too late. Anna walks off with her shotgun.

It’s interesting to see Rose very quiet throughout all this — the comfort of the ski lodge is her weakness, but she will only let her daughter’s wishes be a priority.
Rose said she has no choice

Rose tells the table that her life has one meaning, and it’s her daughter, so everyone else can “get the f**k out” as it’s probably going down. She tells Spears that she isn’t sorry for leaving him behind, as she had no choice. Spears says, “bygones,” just like Braithwaite said to him in the previous chapter. The title screen “Dessert” pops up. Rose stands outside the oven, watching the cake bake. While taking it out of the oven, she hears a gunshot — she rushes out, and Anna has killed Spears — she tells her mother, “we’re leaving. Anna is in control now.
The ending Black Summer season 2, episode 7

The title screen, “The Valley,” pops up — the trio head to the airstrip. Suddenly, Boone runs off. The title screen “Rest” pops up, and there’s a flashback. Anna walks into the restaurant in the ski lodge with her shotgun, and she asks Spears where her mother is. Spears explains that every time he closes his eyes, he feels like it will stay that way, but then he wakes up; he wonders if he’s waiting for someone.

Anna turns to him with her shotgun, and Spears is impressed with her alertness. He tells her she was right about him not having long left. Spears feels he has found a spot to rest, but then he says, “I couldn’t myself,” and grabs the pistol and puts it down — he asks her to do it for him. Anna’s eyes well up, knowing exactly what he’s asking. Spears prepares for his death and makes a joke about still looking fly. Tears flow down Anna’s face, and Spears tells her not to leave her mother and take care of her. After what feels like an eternity, Anna shoots Spears clean.

Episode 7 is a powerful chapter, showing what this series can be capable of when the writers get it right.

KIMI (2022)

from Roger Ebert: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/kimi-movie-review-2022

KIMI

Brian Tallerico
February 10, 2022

Ruthless and precise, Steven Soderbergh’s “KIMI” is a timely commentary on isolation and intrusion. Anchored by a striking performance from Zoë Kravitz, it sees the expert craftsman working with genre again, like how he did in “Side Effects” and “Unsane,” taking a classic concept right out of “Rear Window” or “Blow Out” and making it current to the era of Covid-19 and Alexa. Some of the final act of David Koepp’s script gets too far out there, and the whole thing wraps a little tidily for a film that’s largely about how even an agoraphobic can’t actually be alone, but there’s no denying that this is a taut, fun exercise. "KIMI" is a brilliantly paced, no-nonsense gem from one of the best American filmmakers.

The vast majority of the first hour of “KIMI” takes place in one Seattle loft apartment, occupied by the single Angela Childs (Kravitz). She works for a tech company that has a life-changing product called KIMI, which is basically a version of the real-world Alexa or Siri, although this one has some twists I don’t believe Amazon and Apple have considered. The main one is that errors in communication with KIMI are handled and corrected by an actual person. For example, someone asks KIMI to order “kitchen paper” and the tech can’t figure out what that is. Angela listens to all of these soundbites and teaches the technology another phrase for “paper towel.”

Angela also happens to be extremely agoraphobic. A product of the days when no one left their apartments during the pandemic, leaving more people to stare out their windows, she developed a relationship with the handsome guy across the street named Terry (Byron Bowers), but she only sees him when she texts him to come over, and she meticulously washes all the sheets when they're done. She can’t even leave to see her mom (Robin Givens), shrink (Emily Kuroda), or even the dentist (David Wain) who thinks she has an abscessed tooth.

One day, Angela is going through her errors and hears something truly disturbing. Behind a wall of music, there’s what sounds like a scream and a struggle. She’s tech-savvy enough to play with the sound and isolate the human element, which leads her down a rabbit hole of increasing mortal danger. Not only has she caught something horrifying recorded on a KIMI, but it’s actually (and, yes, this is a bit of a coincidence that viewers just have to run with) related to the company for which she works, one that wants all of this, including some of the tech secrets of KIMI it could reveal, to go away right now.

What starts as a hyper-focused exercise in confined POV, where we feel Angela’s increasing tension as we are stuck in that loft with her, shifts in the final half-hour to become more of a traditional thriller. Without spoiling, Angela’s investigation takes her into the heart of corporate darkness before "KIMI" circles back and reminds everyone that Koepp wrote “Panic Room.”

It should be no surprise to anyone who has followed Soderbergh's career to reveal that “KIMI” is as finely crafted as this kind of film can possibly be. Soderbergh glides his camera through the loft in a way that never calls attention to his style but always feels artistically grounded. His framing is always effective, as is the razor-sharp editing he does under the pseudonym Mary Ann Bernard. “KIMI” is such a tight movie, coming in under 90 minutes and without an ounce of narrative fat on its bones. And while Soderbergh himself is the main craftsman here, credit should also go to a propulsive score by the great Cliff Martinez (“Drive”).

As for theme, Soderbergh and Koepp are careful to integrate their ideas into the storytelling instead of pausing to convey them. It’s only when one is done with the white-knuckle plotting that they realize that they’ve just seen a story with some interesting things to say about privacy and how dangerous even a non-physical space like tech can be for a woman, even one who never leaves her apartment. You don’t have to leave anymore. There’s someone watching from across the street or listening from a device on your desk.

It helps a great deal to have a fully committed performer like Kravitz, who arguably does her career-best work here. She conveys Angela’s trauma and multiple phobias without leaning on them like crutches. She deftly understands that agoraphobic people aren’t just crying in a corner of their house, finding strength within Angela’s routines in the first half of the film, which makes her commitment more powerful in the second half. Most of all, she gives a beating heart to a movie that could have been very cold and distant.

We’ve seen films about surveillance and voyeurism for generations now, but those very concepts have changed in the new millennium as technology has allowed us access to other people in a way that Alfred Hitchcock could have never imagined. I’m pretty sure he’d make something a lot like “KIMI” if he had.

Nightmare Alley (2021)

from the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jan/20/nightmare-alley-review-guillermo-del-toro-bradley-cooper-cate-blanchett

Nightmare Alley

Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett lead us into the sleazy world of carnivals, with gruesomely enjoyable performances and freaky twists

by Peter Bradshaw
Thu 20 Jan 2022 04.00 EST

Guillermo del Toro hits us with a spectacular noir melodrama boasting gruesomely enjoyable performances and freaky twists. He shows us that in spite of the old song, there are in fact a couple of businesses like showbusiness: psychoanalysis and crime. Del Toro conducts us into a fairground of fear with his usual love of the fantastical and the hallucinatory, the same adoration of classic golden age Americana and some spasms of body-horror violence. Thankfully though, it’s without the supernatural whimsy that sometimes threatens to drown his movies in twee.

Nightmare Alley is adapted from the 1946 novel by pulp author William Lindsay Gresham, who had a great fascination for the US’s sleazy carnies, circuses, travelling shows and magicians with their weird shimmer of the occult. (It’s something to ponder that, after their divorce, Gresham’s ex-wife Joy Davidman moved to England and famously married CS Lewis.) Nightmare Alley was first filmed in 1947 with Tyrone Power in the lead role, and now it’s Bradley Cooper taking on the haunted, saturnine part of Stan Carlisle, a guy with no money and a violent past who needs to disappear for a while.

Stan wanders into a travelling carnival where the most stomach-turning attraction is a haunted-house show that plunges punters into a nightmare inferno of the Last Judgment, a hideous honeycomb of bulging eyes. Stan finds that the hatchet-faced guys running things can always use people like him to help with hard, dirty work, paying a few bucks and asking no questions. But Stan is a cut above the usual hobos and losers; he’s a likely fellow with a personable manner and an inquiring mind and he’s intrigued by the cheesy mind-reading act run by Zeena (Toni Collette) and her boozy husband Pete (David Strathairn). Instantly, Stan grasps the art of the mind-reader: to learn the secret verbal codewords fed to him by his partner, but also to use his natural observant powers to see what sort of a person is in front of him and pick up on clues.

After a sinister act of violence – of which he is all too capable – Stan marries fellow carnival huckster Molly (Rooney Mara) and moves with her to Chicago where their high-class act in hotel showrooms becomes the toast of the town. And then he comes across someone else in the mind-reading game: Lilith Ritter, gorgeously played by Cate Blanchett, a fashionable psychoanalyst with peroxide hair, a slash of lipstick, a gigantic art deco consulting room and a brace of wealthy clients. She makes him a terrible offer.

This film has a horribly ingenious premise and there is something chilling in the central concept: Stan’s mind-reading spiritualist routine, though deeply dishonest, is in fact founded on a set of truths about human nature which are revealed to the seedy huckster but not to the educated person who might affect to despise the showman’s preposterous act. Every person thinks their background is their own unique secret, and everyone is indeed haunted by a certain someone, someone who is always near them (the bogus spiritualist will solemnly declare that this person has a ghostly hand on their shoulder), someone whom they love and hate at the same time. That person is a parent. And Stan’s mind-reading is, in its way, entirely genuine.

There is a brilliant setpiece when Lilith is in the audience for Stan’s classy show, smirkingly sceptical and demanding to ask the questions herself, not letting Molly use her codewords, and challenging Stan to tell her what is in her handbag. Will Stan be exposed in front of all his tuxed fans? Stan removes his absurd blindfold, fearlessly returns Lilith’s gaze and gives a magnificent reply, with intuition to rival Sherlock Holmes. Del Toro’s film shows us that Stan, and tricksters like him, are a kind of priesthood, a brotherhood of ruined and corrupt knowledge, imprisoned in a hell that only they can see.

Nightmare Alley is released on 21 January in cinemas.

from the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/movies/the-last-duel-review.html

The Last Duel (2021)

By Manohla Dargis
Oct. 13, 2021

It’s no surprise that Ridley Scott, who’s made his share of swaggering manly epics, has directed what may be the big screen’s first medieval feminist revenge saga. In addition to his love for men with mighty swords, Scott has an affinity for tough women, women who are prickly and difficult and thinking, not bodacious cartoons. They’re invariably lovely, of course, but then everything in Ridley Scott’s dream world has an exalted shimmer.

Even the mud and blood gleam in “The Last Duel,” an old-style spectacle with a #MeToo twist. Based on the fascinating true story of a lady, a knight and a squire in 14th-century France, the story was big news back in the day and has been retrofitted to contemporary sensibilities by Scott and an unusual troika of screenwriters: Nicole Holofcener and two of the movie’s stars, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Together, they tear the moldy fig leaf off a Hollywood staple, the Arthurian-style romance — with its chivalric code, knightly virtues and courtly manners — to reveal a mercenary, transactional world of men, women and power. The result is righteously anti-romantic.

Damon, uglied up with slashing facial scars and a comically abject mullet, plays Jean de Carrouges, a nobleman down on his luck who makes ends meet by fighting on behalf of the king. The machinations start early and soon go into overdrive after he marries a younger woman, Marguerite (Jodie Comer), who brightens his life but doesn’t do much for his sour disposition or unfortunate grooming. Vainglorious and petty, his lips screwed into a pucker, Jean settles down with Marguerite but seethes over his friend turned antagonist, Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver, a juiced-up Basil Rathbone), a social climber aligned with Count Pierre, a licentious power player (Affleck, in debauched glory).

It’s a juicy lineup of familiar characters who are greedier and pettier than those that usually populate historical epics. But there is no noblesse oblige or courtly love, no dragons, witchy women or aggrandizing British accents. Instead, there are debts, grudges, fights, liaisons, an occasional naked nymph and men endlessly jockeying for position. Jean marries Marguerite to boost his prestige and wealth; Jacques enriches himself by currying favor with Pierre. For her part, Marguerite is passed from father to husband, who later, in a startling moment, commands her to kiss Jacques in public as evidence of Jean’s resumed good will toward his frenemy. It’s a catastrophic gesture.

The story’s action is visceral and relentless; the atmosphere gray and thick with intrigue. Scott likes to throw a lot on the screen — the movie churns with roaring men, galloping horses, shrieking minions — which can clutter up a story but here creates insistent momentum. This churn throws the quieter bits into relief, giving you room to breathe and the characters time to scheme. These lulls also allow the filmmakers to lay out some of the brute details of everyday life in the Middle Ages, even for a noble like Jean who slogs off to war for money. In this world of homosocial relations, men continually and often violently negotiate their place among other men, and always for gain.

The script is solid, shrewd and fairly faithful to its source material, Eric Jager’s nonfiction page-turner “The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal and Trial by Combat.” The crime in question was the alleged rape in 1386 of the wife of one noble by another of lesser rank. Her husband presented the case to Charles VI, demanding the right to a judicial duel, or trial by combat. If the husband wins it ostensibly proves the truth of his claim, a.k.a. God’s will. Die or yield, he is guilty; if he survives, he will be hanged, and his wife burned alive. As Jager emphasizes, rape was a crime in medieval Europe, even punishable by death, but it wasn’t a crime against the woman but her male guardian.

Jager gives the three figures at the center of this drama their due, although, like the medieval text that inspired him, his account is weighted toward the dueling noblemen. The movie tries to more emphatically foreground Marguerite by making her a relatively equal participant in her own tragedy. It does this on a structural level by dividing the story into chapters and placing her version of events alongside those of the two men: he said, he said, she said. This splitting evokes “Rashomon,” in which various characters narrate the same crime — also a rape — from conflicting points of view, creating a sense of relative truth. But there’s no such ambiguity in “The Last Duel.”

Rape as a plot device has a long, grotesque history; it’s useful for metaphors and shocks but rarely has anything to do with women, their bodies or pain. In presenting Marguerite’s point of view — everything shifts meaningfully in her version, including how she sees her husband and the assault — “The Last Duel” seeks to upend that tradition. It doesn’t fully succeed and the movie still leans toward the men, their actions and stratagems. Partly this is a problem of history. As a 14th-century woman, Marguerite is bred to acquiesce and, for the most part, is acted upon rather than acts. While the movie is feminist in intent and in meaning, and though she’s given narrative time, she remains frustratingly opaque, without the inner life to balance the busily thrashing men.

“The Last Duel” works best as an autopsy of corrosive male power, which creates a certain amount of unresolved tension given how much Scott enjoys putting that power on display, including during the duel. The movie is weirdly entertaining, but the world it presents, despite its flourishes of comedy, is cold, hard and unforgiving. Few come out looking good, not the antagonists or giggly king (Alex Lawther), the conniving clergyman or Jean’s unsympathetic mother (Harriet Walter), a proxy for every woman who’s ever told other women to shut up and take it. Marguerite didn’t, but however blurrily history remembers her, she made her mark with a vengeance.

Hightown S2 Ep 8: Houston we Have A Problem

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

From the Review Geek: https://www.thereviewgeek.com/hightown-s2e8review/

12/12/2021 by Greg Wheeler


Houston, We Have a Problem

Episode 8 of Hightown Season 2 begin with Jackie waking up on a horrible comedown. She’s at Ray’s and it doesn’t take long for the subject of Daisy to be brought up. Given she’s missing, Jackie is adamant on finding her no matter what. She wants to throw herself into her work; ignoring the blistering pain of slipping back into the throngs of addiction again.

Meanwhile, several gunshots piece the air as Renee is rattled. Outside in the garden, Frankie begins showing Frankie Jr (who’s 5) how to shoot. Renee is shocked but for Frankie, his paranoia is getting worse. He wants to learn how to defend himself and believes that teaching this 5 year old how to fire a gun is the way to do it. Whoever killed Jorge is coming for him next, at least that’s what Frankie believes anyway.

Naturally, Frankie goes on the hunt to find the weak link in the chain. He visits Osito, who’s not best pleased that he has a new physio as Janelle is gone. Frankie accuses him of killing Jorge. Osito scoffs and plays it straight, admitting he’s not responsible but if it was him, he’d have sent a note alongside the body if it was.

Char next receives a visit from Frankie. He’s going to start driving her around, unsure whether she could be connected to all this.

Frankie isn’t the only one investigating though, Jackie continues to try and find Daisy. After talking to Daisy’s daughter, Jackie is more sure than ever that she’s dead.

Jackie feeds this news back to Ray, who quickly learns that he’s been fooling around with Renee. However, Renee’s intel is solid, with a meet at 11am the following day for the private jet. Jackie sees this as a big win and hastily visits Leslie that night to let her know. After some convincing, she agrees to set up an operation.

On their stakeout the following day, Jackie apologizes to Leslie. Leslie though admits she feels awful regarding what happened but after catching Frankie, suggests they go for a drink together to bury the hatchet. When Frankie picks up Char, he avoids the airport altogether and switches up the operation.

When Frankie heads home we find out why. He found the tracker under Renee’s car. He knows the police are after him and he’s going to do everything he can to try and evade them.

That night, Renee and Ray wind up taking, with Jackie jumping in to the call. Renee claims she doesn’t know anything about Daisy but given Ray forced her to join him on the pretense that she does, it causes everything to blow up in a big way.

Jackie heads straight over to Alan’s place, but her erratic attitude and relying solely on tips from Ray makes Alan begin questioning how sober she actually is. In fact, he’s going to start conducting urine tests on her every week to make sure she’s sober. But of course, she hasn’t been.

When Jackie heads home, Frankie is there waiting for her. He’s not alone either, but this is a warning shot – especially when he tells Jackie that he’ll see her soon.

The Episode Review

Hightown returns with another dose of drama this week, as all our characters continue to tumble down the proverbial rabbit hole. There’s a lot of contrivances with this show but the biggest by far is how Jackie has been handled. After flying off the deep end last episode, she just gets straight back into working again. That’s not how addiction works. Given she was smoking crack, which is known to be highly addictive, she’s not exhibited any signs of relapsing. At least not yet anyway. If there’s no repercussion for her flying off the deep-end then that really will be a disappointment.

The situation is really starting to heat up now though, and everything looks set for a dramatic final two episodes to the season. While this has been an improvement over season 1, it’s still not great when it comes to character development. The case itself also doesn’t feel that intense, which is strange given how many shocking twists there were during the midway point.

Will Frankie get his comeuppance or will the gang find him slip through their fingers once more? We’ll have to wait and see!