From showsnob.com
https://showsnob.com/2019/04/17/black-summer-season-1-episode-4-recap/

Black Summer S1 Ep 4: Alone
*******

Black Summer season 1, episode 4 recap: Alone

by Bethany Lewis

While Sun and William are holed up in the diner, Lance just can’t catch a break as he spends the day unable to evade a single zombie on Black Summer.

Go East: Sun and William try to sneak out of the diner and head east, but as they set out the zombies come rushing them from around the corner, forcing them back into the diner. Frustrated, they sit down in a booth, rejoining the other three people also stuck in the diner on Black Summer.

Alone: Lance isn’t dead after all! Just left for dead. He wanders around the school, sits down in the library, and picks up a book to read. Almost immediately he can hear distant screams and banging. He tries his best to ignore it, almost physically tries to hide inside the book. After a while, he can’t take it anymore and leaves the library.

He climbs up to the roof and is able to climb a water pipe back down to the ground outside. As he is about to leave, the children execute the other man they’ve been keeping captive, setting the new zombie after Lance. They cheer as Lance runs away, able to evade the zombie by weaving through the neighborhood. Once Lance has a chance to slow down and look around him, he’s in a completely deserted street and completely alone.

Dog: Lance wanders around town looking for someone, anyone to team up with. He’s maybe not so good on his own. He tries various shops and doors, but there’s no one. He starts yelling, hoping someone will hear him and reveal themselves. He finds an unlocked car with keys, but the engine won’t start. Then a dog runs by, but refuses Lance’s calls to come over, which is especially depressing. Lance tries his luck at a grocery store and discovers that it’s strangely totally unlooted.

Oasis: Lance goes shopping. Beer, cereal, canned goods, crackers, water. He’s pretty satisfied with himself. He starts to take his items through the checkout – a force of habit maybe – and then remembers he needs a can opener. As he’s finishing his shopping, though, a zombie comes in the store and Lance is on the run again. He’s chased to a yard of school buses, where he climbs on top of one and decides just to sit down and wait up there as the zombie tirelessly tries to reach him. He seems safe enough for now, as the zombie doesn’t seem able to climb up, but Lance definitely doesn’t look relaxed.

Thank you: The zombie forgets about Lance long enough for him to think that he can sneak away, but instead he ends up teaching the zombie how to climb onto the bus. Lance dives off the top of the bus and crashes through the roof of a camper van. He takes off running again and tries to find safety in a firehouse. Instead, he gets cornered and decides to try to confront the zombie with an ax. He fails miserably as the ax gets caught in some clothes hangers as he rears back to swing.

Lance runs again and hides in a local library in a scene that looks a lot like the raptor/kitchen scene from the first Jurassic Park. A man finally comes to Lance’s rescue, attacking the zombie and finally killing it, but not before he gets bitten. Lance, grateful but practical, thanks to the man just before striking at him with a blunt object while his back is turned.

from Den of Geek:
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/black-sails-finale-review-viii/

Black Sails S1 Ep 8
*******

The Black Sails season 1 finale wraps things up in a blaze of glory! Bring on Black Sails season 2! Here's our review of the finale...



Well, I said they couldn’t do it, and I was wrong. Black Sails managed to end the season with a huge ship battle (knew that would happen) AND a dose of history. I’m referring, of course, to the 1715 Spanish Treasure Fleet. Google it. The entire fleet (5 ships, historically) sank off the coast of Florida in a hurricane. One of the ships was, in fact, named the Urca de Lima. This was one of the most powerful influences on the pirates in the Caribbean.

How, you ask? Because the money was, just like in the show, laying out on the beach, or in very shallow water. And news got out. “Hey, dude there are millions of dollars laying on a beach, with a huge wrecked ship right there to mark the place!” Adventurers came from all over the world. The Spanish came too, of course, with an army. So the scavengers formed their own army and they fought up and down the beach, pausing only to pick up gold, dive for it, or send slaves diving for it if the water was too deep. (Who cared if a slave died of the bends?)

The end result was pretty much a draw. The scavengers got about a third of the money, the Spanish the rest. But because so many otherwise honest men had seen the piles of treasure, and had fought to make it their own, many pirates were forged in those battles. These men “acquired” boats and began to rob passing ships.

So, I’m looking forward to that next season.

I’m also pleased to see some history coming out of Charles Vane’s story line. Nobody ever actually took the fort from Hornigold, but Vane’s tactics are sound. Land on the other side of the island, march cross country, and attack the fort from behind. This was the method that Captain Morgan (yes, the guy on the rum bottle) used to decimate the Spanish. In Black Sails, it’s a great way to bring Vane back and shatter the balance of power.

In addition, Vane’s men have surely never seen anything as nice at Nassau’s main brothel, and it will be interesting to see what goes down on that score. Vane can control these men, but will he? Especially since he’s on the outs with Jack and Anne. I loved the way he told Rackham off. “You will never serve under the black flag again.” It’s enough to make a man WANT to be a pirate again, when a lot of guys would have thought that running a whorehouse was the perfect job to last a lifetime.

Vane’s finally worked out his relationship with Eleanor, too. “I think you’re tired of fathers telling you what to do.” The man who’s already been through hell trying to lead the woman he loves in the way of true freedom… Doing whatever she damn well pleases. Eleanor, of course, is stuck with Vane now, whether she wants him or not.

And the main course of our feast, of course, was Flint.

Flint will make an excellent head of government. Rather than being two-faced, he’s up to something like five, and he inspires treachery and backstabbing in all around him. I’m terribly sorry to see Gates go. I liked him. And I dearly loved watching him sit in Flint’s leaking cabin, drinking fine liquor and talking about old times.

Flint’s steadfast determination to start a fight with the Spanish warship really played out true. All his past catches up to him, but he just keeps moving forward. For once he was running a decent strategy, too. With the stern-work on the Walrus she really looks like a Spanish ship, and having her “attacked” by her consort the Ranger was the perfect way to get the real Spaniard in close.

All the tension over Silver, and his remembering of the correct co-ordinates worked well for me, too. He’s on Flint’s side, if no one else is, because only Flint can keep him safe. And Randal, who is just so much fun. “You’re welcome.” And hits the man with a wooden leg. That missing leg just haunts me. When will Silver lose his? Maybe never in this show. But the possibility of it keeps me interested.

So. A couple of weeks ago, I was starting to worry about where all this was going, but this is the best ending to a TV show I’ve seen in quite a while. Everybody is in crisis, all of the crises are drawn perfectly from the character’s previous actions, and hell is just over the horizon. Well done!

from AVClub.com
https://www.avclub.com/american-gods-gets-the-plot-rolling-again-in-the-unsee-1846152843

American gods S3 Ep 4: The Unseen
*******

American Gods gets the plot rolling again in “The Unseen”

By
Ani Bundel
1/31/21 8:05PM

Ricky Whittle and Bruce Langley star in American GodsPhoto: Starz


“That’s for lynching me, peckerwood.”

This week’s American Gods opens with the arrival of the Orishas in America, the gods and goddesses of Yorubaland, the ancient deities worshipped by many of those who were brought over in slavery, and who they prayed to in their terrible new surroundings. We’ve seen them before, in Shadow’s visions mostly, but this is the first time this season we’ve been given a proper introduction to Oshun (Herizen Guardiola), Yamoja (Bridget Ogundipe), and Aye (Karen Glave). Also, your ears do not deceive you, that is Wale as Chango, leading the chants over “Wade In The Water.”

Bilquis’ apartment is covered with blood, but it turns out it’s not hers; nor did Technology Boy kill her. Like Shadow, he arrived too late. He’s also suffering a few crossed wires and digital scrambling from that mind-whooping she gave him back in the premiere. Rewinding security footage reveals Bilquis took down several of her attackers before being hauled away by Bill Sanders’ people. To be specific about it, his eldest daughter, Alexandra’s, people. After hinting around all season, viewers also finally learn that Bill Sanders wasn’t any wealthy tech guru but the billionaire philanthropist who founded Levitech computing systems.

Technology Boy won’t let Shadow head off to rescue Bilquis without him, since he needs de-scrambling. He’s useful, too, even if he absorbed Sanders’ phone by accident. The two of them capture one of Alexandra’s security detail, who sings like a canary once he sees the New God in all his digitized glory. Bilquis is locked away in Hoboken, where she’s praying she is not alone.

Mare of Eastown S1 Ep 5: Illusions

from Vulture.com
https://www.vulture.com/article/mare-of-easttown-episode-5-recap-illusions.html

Mare of Easttown S1 Ep 5: Illusions
*******  

Mare of Easttown Recap: Jump In Together
By Roxana Hadadi


Photo: HBO Max

Rest in peace, Colin Zabel, hero detective. I really did not see that coming! I screamed! Good-bye, Evan Peters, you were good in this role and I hope you escape from the Ryan Murphy universe more often!

(Also: I don’t know any more than you do regarding Colin’s fate, definitively; I haven’t seen screeners past episode five. But it looked to me like Colin got shot through the left cheek, which I’m assuming was fatal.)


In hindsight, maybe the indicators were there for Colin’s exit. He made his peace with Mare’s tunnel vision during their date, he came clean to her about what really happened with that case that got him the wunderkind label, and he kissed her. His “How do you know what I want?” was cheeky and flirty, and while I’m not entirely sure how much Mare seriously considered him romantically before or after their awful date, I don’t think she disliked the kiss. And I think his murder will weigh on her for a long time. How could it not? She steered the investigation, although officially suspended. She went into Wayne Potts’s (Jeb Kreager) house, knowing that she didn’t have a gun. I’m not saying Mare caused Wayne to shoot and kill Zabel; of course, she’s not responsible for his actions. But why not disengage from the house, keep eyes on it, and immediately call for backup? Why not ease up, instead of further instigate?

On the flip side, though, Katie and Missy were there, and they needed help. The banging of that pipe was impossible to ignore, or pretend to ignore. If Colin and Mare left, what’s to say that Wayne wouldn’t have immediately gone into that basement and killed Katie and Missy, like how he killed Hillary, the young woman he abducted and impregnated — and whose missing-persons case Mare knows about, but has made no progress on? There’s no good choice here.

Before “Illusions” takes us to Bennie’s Tavern, the episode wanders through small-town life in Easttown. Erin’s death and Katie’s and Missy’s disappearances aren’t forgotten, but the reality is that life goes on. Not for everyone, of course; goodbye to Mrs. Carroll, who never found out who graffitied breasts on that shed and who died of a heart attack while driving to buy cereal. Sorry that your husband Glen (Patrick McDade) had an affair with Helen and decided to come clean about it at your funeral!

Other than that, though, time moves forward, for better and for worse. Siobhan’s relationship with Anne is now established enough that the latter is hanging out at the Sheehans’ house, and that Siobhan tells Frank about her. Frank, meanwhile, is on rocky ground with Faye, who fails to check out their wedding venue. The Rosses are dealing with marital strife: John is cheating on Lori, and Julianne Nicholson really puts some bone-deep exhaustion into how she asks their son Ryan (Cameron Mann), “Is your dad doing it again?” Will Lori really want to take in DJ, per Kenny’s request, on her own? Won’t the Hinchey parents be devastated by that? And Ryan is working through some crap, too, attacking a bully at school who picks on his younger sister Moira (Kassie Mundhenk). I’m sincerely hoping that other kid got suspended too because jeez, did he suck. To bring it all back to our central mystery, does this burst of violence mean that Ryan is a suspect in his cousin Erin’s murder? I don’t think so. I’m leaning more and more toward the obvious suspect from the beginning: Dylan.

Now, I don’t want to dismiss the fact that Billy Ross, John’s brother and Kenny’s cousin, seems shadier and shadier. After Erin’s mother died three years ago, Erin lived with him for a little while, and although he “can’t remember” for how long, Lori offers that it was at least for a few months. Kate Winslet did a very good “Mare is thinking so hard!” face during this scene, and I mirrored it on my own couch! I’m not sure the timing adds up regarding DJ’s parentage, but could this experience have something to do with that engraved necklace Mare found hidden among Erin’s things? If Mare really threw Billy’s beer bottle away instead of grabbing it to test for DNA, I would be shocked.

But in reality: Mare doesn’t have anything on Billy, and we don’t, either. What we do have, though, is a certain timeline of the night provided by Deacon Mark to Father Dan. Mark says that Erin called him after the altercation with Brianna, Dylan, and Sean (Sadat Waddy), asking for a ride home. While Mark was driving Erin home, she received a text message “from someone asking her to go to Brandywine Park,” and the text message made her “hysterical, just hysterical.” “She stormed off,” Mark says, leaving her bike in his trunk, which he later threw into the river — but no, Mark swears, he didn’t kill her.

If we are to take Mark at his word, someone lured Erin to the place where she was shot. Who was it? My current theory is that it was Dylan, telling Erin that he was not going to pay for DJ’s ear surgery — or maybe even that he wanted to break up with Brianna, and wanted to get back together? What could have made Erin “hysterical” enough that she would derail going home? Whatever happened, it’s clear that Dylan, Jess, and Sean are in on something together, and that Jess has been taking instructions from Dylan regarding what to tell Mare about Erin’s journals and that necklace (“Nothing, just like you said”). Could she also have told Mare about, say, her suspicions about Frank, or Erin’s SideDoor account, because Dylan told her to? Was Jess deceiving Erin while she was alive, too, by pretending to be her friend? Was Dylan dating Brianna just for a cover story? How much dishonesty is going down here? And what was the picture that Jess pocketed from one of Erin’s journals?

Maybe all this obfuscation legitimately derails any progress Mare might have made on the case, and I’m going to assume losing Colin hurts the case, too. Before Colin’s death, though, he and Mare click together as a cohesive investigative partnership. Mare’s old CI Tammy (Rosa Arrendondo) connects them with another sex worker, Allie (Bronwen O’Connor), who was attacked by a white man driving a blue work truck, near the area where Missy would later be abducted. The incredibly resourceful Allie wrote down part of his license plate; Colin gets seven hits back from the Pennsylvania DMV; and so Mare and Colin start knocking on doors. Their conversation with Potts had a real Silence of the Lambs vibe, with Colin and Mare pushing further into the house and noticing little clues that told them this was their man, and then with the chase scene that put Mare in contact with the abducted women. Director Craig Zobel staged this well, and although I doubted that Mare was going to die because the lead character in a show named after her is not going to pass away in the fifth episode out of seven, there was some genuine tension and fear to her evasion of Potts.

But then Mare gets her hands on Colin’s gun, and then she shoots Potts enough times to kill him, and then she waits for the police to come, and then she thinks of her son, and of the invitation he extended to her in the video of his seventh birthday — footage that Siobhan was using in her documentary about her brother. “Let’s jump in together,” Kevin had (literally) said to her so many years ago, and now Kevin is dead. “Let’s investigate together,” Colin had (figuratively) said to her only weeks ago, and now Colin is dead. Mare stands alone, and it seems like a lonely place to be.

A Different Line of Work

• I know I’m a pessimist, but this seems like a useful reminder about life, just in general: “Doing something great is overrated. ’Cause then people expect that from you, all the time. What they don’t realize is you’re just as screwed up as they are.”

• Another reason I think Deacon Mark might be innocent: the way Erin wrote about him in her journal. “Deacon Mark says I am too thinky. He is really nice but I don’t know about God too much.” Nothing too impassioned there, nothing enraged or enamored. Just a girl writing somewhat blandly but honestly about someone she’s trying to trust. I’m not suggesting Mark is innocent of whatever potentially happened at his last parish, but I just don’t think he was harming Erin.

• Not loving how John basically refuses to acknowledge that Kenny was abusive toward Erin: “Erin was tough, like her mother.” Sure seems like the extended McMenamins and Rosses turned a blind eye to what was going on in that house.

• Meanwhile, a seeming breakthrough from Mare in therapy this week, as she shares with her therapist that her father killed himself, that she herself has had depressive episodes, and that she worries the family’s mental health struggles were what led to Kevin’s addiction and suicide. Given all that, the tight grip she’s holding on Drew is a little more understandable.

• Shoutout to Tammy, living her best life and proving that sex work is work: “I have a few older gentlemen I visit once a week and tickle their balls. Hey, it pays the rent!”

• I’ve asked this before, and I’ll ask it again: How did Dylan’s very nice parents produce such a terrible-seeming son? He threatens Brianna, he pockets the money for DJ’s ear surgery, and he probably won’t actually use the cash for the surgery since DJ isn’t his biological son. You seem terrible, buddy!

• “After they die, everyone’s a saint,” Helen says of Mrs. Carroll. Is that some sort of foreshadowing about Erin?

• Also about Erin: If she never met with any clients as part of the SideDoor website, where did the money for DJ’s ear surgery come from? Is that what Uncle Billy is being so weird about?

• Do we really think that Dennis (Jim Scopeletis) was the “ferret” man Mrs. Carroll’s granddaughter saw outside her window? Wasn’t that in the morning, while we’ve only ever seen Dennis trying to find his way back home at night?

• Kudos to Neal Huff for all the meaning he imbues into “with” when his Father Dan asked what exactly Deacon Mark meant by saying he was “with” Erin the night she died.

• Also kudos to Evan Peters, for his two very different line deliveries of “Holy shit!”: his impressed reaction to Mare dressed up for their date, and his shock at her admission about framing Carrie for drug possession.

from Den of Geek
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/fargo-season-3-episode-8-review-who-rules-the-land-of-denial/

Fargo S3 Ep 8:
Who Rules the Land of Denial?
*******

With the help of a new friend, Nikki evades dangerous hunters on a thrilling new Fargo!
By Nick Harley|June 8, 2017|



At the end of last week, Nikki laid unconscious, helpless as Varga’s men stormed the bus intent on killing her. After making such a fuss of Mr. Wrench’s reappearance, speculating about how he connected to our other established characters, and worrying so much about Nikki’s vulnerable state, it didn’t even occur to me that the two were chained together. I overlooked that Wrench didn’t have such an elaborate part to play in this season’s narrative, other than to ensure Nikki’s survival.

Watching Wrench and Nikki work together to evade Yuri and his nameless henchman in the woods was the most suspenseful sequence that this season has offered. Many people have complained about Fargo’s slight dip in quality, but I think it’s been blown out of proportion. This season still has memorable characters, quirky asides, and a tangled web of plot; it just hasn’t offered the same sort of menacing presence as Lorne Malvo or Hanzee – until now. The hunters from Peter and the Wolf kill actual hunters, using their crossbows to stalk Nikki and Wrench, waiting to strike. Finally, the blood starts pouring, arrows are shot, axes are thrown, and Nikki and Wrench emerge scathed, but breathing, as Yuri escapes barely alive and the henchman lay dead. It’s a thrilling bit of violence, but it’s not nearly as interesting as what comes after it.

Surfacing from the woods, Nikki and Ray discover a nearly abandoned bowling alley, except for the workers and a man at the bar, Ray Wise playing the same man Gloria encountered in Los Angeles. However, this time Wise’s appearance is far more conspicuous. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Wise’s character is either Death incarnate or God himself. Discussing reincarnation, speaking Latin, and holding a kitten he decided to name Ray, Wise’s character appears to tell Nikki that he has decided to spare her and Mr. Wrench from death so that they can strike back against the wicked. When Gloria mentions that she’s in a bowling alley, Wise incredulously asks “Is that what you see?” Were Nikki and Wrench in some sort of purgatory? It seems likely, because when Yuri enters, Wise forces him to confront a woman and Rabbi from his past, and later in the episode, it’s revealed that Yuri didn’t return. It’s like he was sent to hell, forced to answer for his sins. This also begs the question of why Gloria encountered this man, and does it have anything to do with Gloria going unnoticed by motion sensors and the like?

The rest of the episode takes place after Sy is poisoned by Varga on Christmas Day. A time-jump to March occurs where it’s revealed that Sy still remains in a comma, though not much else has changed. Let me just let my reviewer bias out and say that I loathe time-jumps. Typically, it allows writers to cheat ahead and avoid working through the story that they’ve cornered themselves in, but in this instance, so little about our characters and their circumstances have changed in the three months’ time that it doesn’t feel like a shortcut, it just feels pointless.

Gloria and Winnie are still hot on Emmit’s heels and Varga is still pulling the strings at Stussy Lots, the only new development is that someone, most likely Nikki, is seriously trolling Emmit. First, they replace his car with Ray’s old beat up Camaro. Then, all the photos in Emmit’s office are replaced with images of the stamp. Finally, when Emmit falls asleep in his home, he wakes up with a fake mustache glued on his face to resemble his brother. Not calmed by another one of Varga’s random anecdotes and too smart to take the drugs that he’s peddled, Emmit lets his guilt get the best of him, and the episode ends with Emmit entering the police station to confess.

After last week’s light offering, this week felt substantial and sets the season up well for its final two episodes. I especially liked this week’s Coen homages. The innocent bystanders to the prison bus flip meet the same fate as victims from the original Fargo film. Also, the bowling alley scene is shot exactly like The Dude and The Stranger’s meeting in The Big Lebowski. It will be interesting to see if Fargo will veer into courtroom drama territory or if Varga will dispatch of Emmit before he gets them both in trouble. Also, Nikki is still out there plotting her revenge; will she be able to get to Emmit if he’s in a holding cell? I just hope my poor guy Sy wakes up.

from Showtime.com
https://www.sho.com/black-monday/season/3/episode/4/seven

Black Monday S3 Ep 4: SEVEN!
*******

Mo tries to keep up with Nomi but he comes to realize that time catches up with us all when he finds he can’t party like he used to. Meanwhile, Dawn’s attempt to get him to slow down backfires. Elsewhere, Pastor Newell’s funeral planning goes off the rails and ends with a bang.

 THOR #7-14: PREY

Written by Donny Cates

Penciled by Aaron Kuder and Nik Klein

Published Sep 2020 - April 2021

   Thor has been feeling a little unworthy lately. After throwing Mjolnir down to earth and transforming an unassuming mechanic into an Asgardian warrior, Thor is forced to stare down Dr Donald Blake. Once just a fake vehicle Odin created to teach his son a lesson, the doctor is now very real. And VERY PISSED. What happens over the next few books is a pretty good fight but newsflash.. in the end, Thor wins. An amazing story by Donny Cates and awesome artwork to boot.

from syfy.com
https://www.syfy.com/the-expanse/episodes/season/2/episode/8/pyre

The Expanse S2 Episode 8: Pyre
*******

Asurvivor of the Ganymede attack wakes up among his fellow refugees. They're on a rescue ship in the Belt, and there aren't enough supplies to go around. The man, Prax, is looking for his daughter, Mei, who was at the clinic in Sector 4 during the attack. He sees a familiar face, Doris, who tells him that Sector 4 was destroyed. Mei is gone.

On Tycho Station, Diogo is in custody for helping Dawes escape with Cortazar. Fred Johnson grabs Diogo by the throat and leans on him for information, but Diogo is defiant. He tells Fred to go back to Earth, his real home. Holden demands to know how Dawes was able to escape. It seems that he had some kind of inside help, and a few eyes look to Drummer with suspicion.

Dawes sends a message to Fred, accusing him of lying about having destroyed the ProtoGen weapon (the Protomolecule). Dawes chalks this up to Fred's Earther nature. The Belters, Dawes says, refuse to be under anyone's thumb. He pledges to hand Fred's secret weapon over to his fellow Belters.

On the rescue ship, Prax and Doris lament their refugee status. It'll take a generation to rebuild Ganymede. Where can they go now? Doris proposes the notion that Mars could use a couple agri-techs like them. Prax is reluctant but agrees. Doris thinks they could start over together and touches his hand, but Prax pulls back.

On Tycho, Naomi secretly checks on the location of the Protomolecule torpedo she hid out in space. She briefly considers sending it to Ceres, but reconsiders.

In some secret corner of Tycho, a group of Belters, including rabble-rouser Staz and Edin, listen to a bootleg feed of Dawes' message to Fred Johnson. They seem especially interested in this weapon Fred kept from them.

On the refugee ship, the Earth-bound and Mars-bound ships are here. Prax attempts to board the ship for Mars with Doris, but the Belters in charge won't let him because he's not an Inner by birth (he was born on Ganymede). They say goodbye through the door, and it looks okay, until the Mars-bound refugees are suddenly shot out of the airlock! "Inners wreck Ganymede" says one of the guards as Prax looks on in horror.

Naomi and Samara are checking the exterior antennae on Tycho for signal records of Cortazar's communications so they can find out where the Protomolecule is. While they do, Drummer tells Naomi about how she and Dawes found Fred on Ceres and recruited him. Drummer tearfully expresses her loyalty to Fred. The women then find out where the Protomoleule signal was coming from: Ganymede.

Prax ends up on Tycho station, still in a daze from what he's seen. He tries to report the crime the Belters on the refugee ship committed, but he doesn't even know the name of the ship he was on. There's nothing the doctor can do about it.

Holden and Naomi put their heads together to figure out how the Protomolecule ended up on Ganymede. They find a ProtoGen connection in one Dr. Lawrence Strickland, a pediatrician in a clinic on the station. They see a photo and identify one of the men with Strickland as a survivor on Tycho station: Prax.

While Fred and Drummer have a disagreement about refugee placement, Staz leads a group of Belters to storm the control deck, aided by the Edin, who appears to be the Tycho crew member leaking information to Dawes. Fred and Drummer are taken captive as Staz demands the stockpile of nukes.

Holden and Naomi find Prax among the refugees and grill him about Strickland. Prax says Strickland is merely his daughter's pediatrician, though he also calls him a "gifted geneticist." Naomi takes Prax at his word, and in searching the footage from Ganymede, they see Strickland take Mei out of the clinic. Prax, realizing his daughter might be alive, begs Holden and Naomi to take him with them.

Staz threatens to kill people if Fred keeps stonewalling him. Staz prods Drummer to join them, but she refuses. So Staz shoots her in the gut!

On the Rocinante, Alex finds Amos and tells him people need their help. Amos, still feeling out of it and considering getting the Cortazar procedure on his brain, says he doesn't feel like it, and he and Alex get into a fight. Alex and Amos get back on the same page once they learn about the attempted coup. Amos space-walks to a switch where he kills the oxygen to the control deck. As Staz, the rebels, and Fred all begin to pass out, Fred is able to knock Staz's gun away from him.

Holden and Alex lead the charge onto the deck, where they capture the rebels. He tends to Drummer first, and as he leads her away, she grabs Alex's gun and shoots both Staz and Edin in the head. So there ends that uprising.

In the aftermath, Amos welcomes Prax to the Roci, Holden and Naomi pledge not to keep any more secrets, and Fred tells Holden that if he leaves to search for the protomolecule on Ganymede, he won't be welcome back on Tycho. Holden expresses his doubts that Fred will even be in charge when he gets back.

from EW.com
https://ew.com/recap/star-trek-picard-season-1-episode-6/

Star Trek Picard S1 Ep 6: 
The Impossible Box
*******

Star Trek: Picard recap: To thine own self be true
By Nick Schager
February 27, 2020 at 07:15 PM EST



CREDIT: MATT KENNEDY/CBS


It’s Picard to the rescue in this week’s episode of Star Trek: Picard (“The Impossible Box”), but only after Soji comes face-to-face with the traumatic memories haunting her — and, consequently, the truth about her inherent nature.

A shaken Soji awakens after suffering a recurring dream in which, as a child (Ella McKenzie) on a rainy night, she walks down a long, dark corridor toward her father’s workshop, where she sees him behind a row of orchids and, upon entering, is yelled at — thus ending the reverie.

Narek is beside Soji in bed, and under the covers, he kisses her and admits, “I want to know every little thing about you.” Soji thinks Narek suspects she’s an imposter because all Romulans love secrets. He says everyone is hiding something, whether they know it or not. Despite pressing him on the issue, however, he won’t reveal his actual name — the one that’s reserved for the individual to whom a Romulan gives his or her heart. Before leaving, he suggests she speak to her mother about her dream.

Chatting with Picard, Jurati says that Maddox’s death was “harder than I could have imagined” (but obviously not too hard, since she killed him!). Picard confirms that Soji is onboard the Artifact. Though he doesn’t know why she’s there, he’s not looking forward to joining her. “My last visit to a Borg cube was not voluntary … they coolly assimilate entire civilizations, entire systems — in a matter of hours!” he cries, still distressed by his assimilation ordeal years ago. “They don’t change; they metastasize.”

Much to Jurati’s chagrin, Elnor perceptively states about her and Picard, “He can’t see you’re also haunted by something you’d like to forget.”

Troubled as she might be, Jurati later encounters Rios on the deck, shirtless and kicking around a soccer ball (some Earth sports have apparently endured). Over swigs from his flask, she confesses, “I’ve never slept with the captain of anything before.” Jurati knows that having sex with Rios is a bad idea — she says her “superpower” is recognizing mistakes as she makes them — but does so anyway, to ease the fact that she feels “hollow, hopeless, alone, afraid.”

Narek finds Rizzo waiting for him in his room. He reports that he’s making progress with Soji, and she once again mocks him for having feelings for the female synth (which Rizzo refers to as “It. A program. A machine”). Narek is sure that, since every element of a synth is designed for a specific purpose, there must be a reason Soji is having dreams. He surmises that they’re manifestations of her subconscious, which has developed as a means of reconciling the synthetic and human parts of her mind. If he can get her to talk about her dreams, he can unlock her core secret: namely, the location of her homeworld, where the rest of her artificial kind can be found (and destroyed).

Rather than using subterfuge to gain access to the Artifact’s Borg Reclamation Project, Picard opts to do things the Qowat Milat way — “by being perfectly open.” He has Raffi, still on a smoking-and-boozing bender following her disastrous meeting with her son Gabriel, call up an old Federation buddy and ask for diplomatic credentials. That request doesn’t go over well. Yet since La Sirena is about to be in breach of galactic treaty by entering Romulan space (thereby threatening war), Raffi’s friend relents and grants Picard access. Afterward, Rios helps Raffi back to bed, and she opens up to him about her son before passing out in a haze of guilt and anguish.

Soji tells Narek that she had the dream again, but that when she talked to her mom about it, she fell asleep. He reveals to her that every call she’s had with her mom lasted only 70 seconds. Soji can’t believe this and later calls her mom again. She becomes immediately drowsy, such that stabbing herself in the hand can’t keep her awake. When she rises from her slumber at her desk, she scans her family photographs, childhood drawings, and necklace to verify their age, and learns that everything she owns is only 37 months old. Unsurprisingly, this revelation causes her to freak out.

Plagued by flashes of his Borg past, Picard orders Elnor to remain on La Sirena no matter what happens. Upon beaming to the Artifact, Picard is greeted by a friendly face — Hugh, who understands what the hero is going through. “Coming back is hard, I know. This is the last place any of us would want to see again.” Nonetheless, they’re not alone; there are plenty of XBs (i.e. “ex-Borgs”) on the Artifact. Picard informs Hugh about his search for Soji. Hugh says that he not only knows her, but he’s also had a hunch she might be in danger, especially because of the young Romulan spy (i.e. Narek) who showed up two weeks earlier pretending that he wasn’t asking questions about her.

Picard visits the Borg Reclamation Project, and is heartened to see that Hugh’s work is truly undoing the assimilation perpetrated by the Borg. This proves Picard’s fundamental belief that “They’re victims, not monsters.”

Soji recounts her (self-)discovery to Narek. He deceptively theorizes that someone may have implanted her with false memories, as a means of using her to find something on the Artifact. Although it’s traditionally only available to Romulans, he says Soji should partake in the ancient Romulan meditation practice of Zhal Makh in order to unlock the true meaning of her dreams.

In the Zhal Makh chamber, Soji follows Narek’s instructions and is transported back to the dark hallway we saw at the episode’s opening. He asks her questions and counsels her to push past the point at which her father yells at her and the dream ends. Soji does this, entering her father’s workshop. She sees that his face is blurred. Worse still, behind her father’s row of orchids is an operating table featuring a wooden doll-like Soji in unconnected pieces. Narek has her look up through the ceiling’s window, and she spots two red moons in an atmosphere wracked by lightning. “It means you found home,” Narek states about her vision.

Picard and Hugh find Soji’s room in disarray. A scan indicates that she’s nowhere to be found on the Artifact. “I believe she’s close to discovering who she really is,” Picard intuits.

Back in the Zhal Makh chamber, Narek explains to Soji why she imagined her father working on an artificial version of herself: “Because you’re not real. You never were.” He says farewell and locks her inside the room, leaving behind his toy puzzle box, which emits a deadly gas. This activates Soji, and she uses her super-android strength to punch and tear a hole in the floor and escapes. Freed from her confinement, she’s also now back online, so Hugh and Picard race to find her.

That doesn’t take long, since Soji plummets through the ceiling and lands right in front of them. Picard quickly convinces her that he not only knows her but is there to help; showing her Dahj’s necklace, which is identical to her own, does the trick. Soji races off with Picard and Hugh as Romulan guards follow in pursuit.

Hugh takes to them to the Artifact’s clandestine Queen Cell, which both he and Picard remember despite the fact that they’ve never visited it (a byproduct of their time spent as part of the Borg hive-mind collective). Hugh activates a spatial trajector that will beam them anywhere within a 40 light-years range. Picard contacts Rios and tells him to meet them at the distant planet to which they’re headed. However, their travel is momentarily delayed by the arrival of Elnor, who couldn’t resist helping Picard. While Picard is frustrated by Elnor’s heroism — and by his desire to stay and fend off more incoming adversaries — he’s forced to acquiesce to the warrior’s wishes.

As Elnor and Hugh cover their tracks by hiding the Queen Cell and prepare to fight more Romulan enemies, Picard and Soji travel through the spatial trajector.

Captain’s Log:

-We still don’t know why Jurati murdered the man she supposedly loved (Maddox), but her habit of offing men she cares about can’t bode well for Rios.

-Though the Artifact has served its narrative purpose well, it’ll be nice to see Soji — and the show — explore a somewhat different environment.

-That said, it’s hard to believe Elnor will be left behind for good, given that Picard has, regrettably, already abandoned him once before.

from Vulture.com
https://www.vulture.com/2018/08/the-sinner-recap-season-two-episode-two-part-ii.html

The Sinner S2 Ep 2
*******

The Sinner Recap: What Happens in Mosswood …
By Kenny Herzog


Photo: USA Network/Peter Kramer/USA Network

Much like Keller PD coming across Julian’s duffle bag at Mosswood, this episode left us with a lot to unpack. Actually, the boy’s luggage was conspicuously light on personal effects. The heap of shirts and jeans was barely indistinguishable from his foster home’s pile of second-hand outfits. Not exactly evidence that Vera’s attending to her son’s needs any more concertedly than his interim state wards. Which is precisely what worried the judge at his custody hearing, which did not go well for Vera, who was woefully underprepared to prove that Julian is suitably sheltered and schooled at the commune.


Never mind Harry, who’s starting to wonder exactly what fresh hell this 13-year-old confessed — scratch that, confessed then alleged — double murderer endured growing up at 90 Osborne Road, the only child among a village of meandering transcendentalists. It doesn’t help matters when he realizes that shorn-headed communite Jes (with one s, thank you very much) is fashioning the purple-pendant necklace slain member Bess was wearing in one of her personal photos. Or that Jes was practically quaking, desperate for direction about how to not tip these detectives off to the fact that, duh, Bess and Adam and Julian were so never coming back. The missing piece is why, and at who’s urging, were all three of them in on it?


“Part II” of season two is, if such a thing can be ascribed, vintage Sinner. As with its provocative predecessor, there are all sorts of literally nightmarish bogeymen, flashes of future victims disappearing behind doorways, cultish gatherings where ritual turns into something sinister and dark. What it’s missing to this point is executive producer and season one star Jessica Biel, who was so strange and sympathetic and broken as Cora Tannetti. (Maybe we’ll still get a cameo from Cora, who could be a far less lecherous Hannibal Lecter to Harry’s wayward investigator?) Harry’s connection to Julian as a fellow foster-home vet with shadowy (to use Vera’s favorite phrase) childhood trauma is a fine surrogate for his and Cora’s dynamic, but jury’s still out on whether Natalie Paul’s Heather Novack is a compelling secondary grown-up lead.

Heather certainly shares plenty in common with Harry though, not least of which is her dad Jack’s complicated, shared past with Harry. The two awkwardly tap dance around whether to go on a fishing expedition while standing across from each other’s bedroom entrances in a shot that can’t help but make one wonder how close they came to living in the other’s skin. All this early talk and imagery of explosions and fires and days of Keller yore will coalesce and boil over soon enough.

Meanwhile, at Jack’s restaurant, Heather lets it slip that they’re onto Mosswood within earshot of Jeannie the waitress (played by Glory Simon, whose slim film résumé happens to include the eternally twisted Chuck & Buck), and it’s not a surprise when the press start hounding poor Officer Brick for comment before long. Heater, as it turns out, has plenty she’d rather not speak about herself, but we all know every character’s shadow self is hurtling toward the light before season’s end. Memories begin to surface of the night she and high-school BFF (and maybe lover, but it’s hard to tell whether Heather was just first making those feelings known) Marin (Mindhunter’s Hannah Gross in another excellent casting choice) get stoned and trespass on Mosswood turf. Next thing you know, they’re in a ceremonial circle watching hippies toss family photos and wrist watches into the fire. Hannah unburdens herself of an heirloom necklace from her mother and wanders off into a mysterious shed with a curly coiffed Lothario who looks precisely like Bachelorette contestant (and, incidentally, alleged sexual harasser) Leo. Heather’s subsequent, present-day return to that building — and the strange, scarred monolith inside it — was all very True Detective–esque and, this being The Sinner, signaling something worse than we could imagine.

All roads point back to Vera, who, as played inscrutably by Carrie Coon (even if Vera’s not quite written as carefully as Fargo’s Gloria or The Leftovers’ Nora), is prone to having any number of motives and mindsets projected onto her. Is she truly Julian’s mother, and raising him the way she knows how without the need for outside intervention? (And we know how Julian feels about outsiders.) Is she a crazy kidnapper sending her quasi-adopted son off for some kind of insane sacrifice at Niagara Falls? Or whatever her relationship to Julian, is she stripping him of choice by controlling his mind and having him punish those who don’t live the commune’s code? (Danny the sex offender best tread lightly.) Perhaps the real focus should be on Beth and Adam, and what their instructions were versus what they intended to carry out. And goddamnit, did the old dude with the ponytail poison them after all, and Julian really is innocent?

Times like these can make you pound your first and crow, “Stupid TV show.” But The Sinner is smart, and it will start to dig out truths like a cloaked night-stalker puncturing Julian’s flesh searching for God knows what. Not to worry. As Vera reassures us, “I know where the monster is.”

Apart From All That

• Jack is packing some solid girth.

• Yes, Harry, I’m assuming Interlogica was a tech company.

• Chief Lidell best cough up what he knows about Mosswood stat.

• Something tells me Harry may join this cult.

• More info to come on Kyle Cummings, Caleb etc. one assumes.

• Any guesses as to what Vera whispered in Julian’s ear?

• If Harry’s childhood was that bad, couldn’t he have moved further than four hours away?

• That sure was one conspicuous linger on the side of the road leading up to Mosswood.

• The most interesting revelation of all might be what took place pre-Mosswood at the Coldby Conference Center.

• Ya know, Adam was only there for a few months … maybe he was the one who was supposed to be sacrificed?

from Showsnob.com
https://showsnob.com/2019/04/15/black-summer-season-1-episode-2-recap/

Black Summer S1 Ep 2: Drive
*******

by Bethany Lewis

As two groups of characters separately make their way to the stadium, they witness and encounter numerous dangers along the way on Black Summer.

Drive: The Korean woman, Barbara, and the man who beat up Barbara’s hijacker continue to drive along the road. Both women are a little wary of the man, but he promises that he’s a good guy and that he won’t rape either of them. Somehow the women don’t seem soothed by this statement. But he does seem like a good guy, and despite Barbara’s worry about being left behind, he promises not to dump her. His name is William and the Korean woman’s name is Sun. As Sun takes over navigation, they discover that they are being followed by a sinister black truck on Black Summer. They are worried about being hijacked for their gas.

Nature Show: Meanwhile, Rose’s group continues to walk along as they witness a number of disturbing events. A woman and her daughter sit in a car, brandishing a gun threateningly when Rose tries to stop and help them. They watch two people get split up when they are attacked by a zombie and one of them gets caught, the other one tries to help but is forced to abandon the friend to save himself.

Bicycle: William decides that the road they are on sucks, despite it being the most direct route to the stadium. Sun tries to argue with him when he turns down a different road but he assures the women that he knows the area and that his way will be better. Immediately after this statement, they are attacked by a group of stone-throwing locals who barrage the car as they drive along the road. They escape in a panic and run over a bicycle that gets caught under the car.

They stop so Sun can pull the bicycle out, but it’s jammed pretty hard. She is able to pull it out just as a zombie comes running after her. As they drive away, the zombie hops on the car and they have to maneuver to ram him off. After all their trouble, William admits that his route sucked after all and promises that next time he’ll listen. They stop the car to look at the map when the black truck reappears and idles behind them threateningly.

The Others: They think about getting out an confronting the people in the truck, but decide just to drive on instead. The truck follows ominously. They speed up and the truck follows. They try to outrun them and the truck follows. Eventually, they lose them along the streets of the suburbs, hiding down an alley as the truck passes them by. They continue on their way to the stadium.

Follower: Rose asks Spears some very practical questions about ammo and the authorities that they might be able to contact for help. Spears tells her that they’re on their own, just like the soldier at the last checkpoint said. They come across the same car they saw before with the woman and her daughter, only this time the woman is missing and the daughter are accompanied by three burly men, The car passes them by and there’s nothing they can do to help the girl.

Last Stop: As William, Sun, and Barbara drive along they bond, sing, and let their guard down. Suddenly the truck is upon them and ramming them from behind, trying to force them off the road. The best they can do is fight back, so William tells the women to buckle up and starts ramming the truck back. As they speed along, distracted by the fight, they approach a concrete roadblock and both cars run headlong into it. Barbara doesn’t have her seatbelt on and flies through the windshield and dies instantly. The truck’s driver also dies and soon the surviving occupants of both vehicles join together to evade their zombified friends as they barricade themselves in a nearby diner.

Iron Man #1-5: Big Iron

IRON MAN #1-5

Written by Christopher Cantwell
Penciled by Cafu
Published Sep 2020 - Jan 2021

   After being dead and then making the realization he was actually just an AI, Tony seems to have brushed off his past with Arlo Stark and now attempts to embrace the menial tech that made him Iron Man in the first place. Now sporting some old school Mark suits, he's appriached by capital investors, one of which turns out to be an android version of Korvac. Now using Tony's hookup Hellcat, the android has built some kind of electric bank that he plans to take on Galactus with, for some reason. Tony better work quick though. His hodge podge team up of Misty Knight, Gargoyle, Frog Man and Ben Reilly already appears to be in danger. What will happen next? Only one way to find out...

from Den of Geek:
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/black-sails-vii-review/

Black Sails S1 Ep 7
*******

Black Sails episode 7 brings home the bacon, fried by a one-legged cook. Here's TS Rhodes' review!
By TS Rhodes|March 9, 2014|




This Black Sails review contains some spoilers.

Flint’s return to Nassau on the latest episode of Black Sails gives a good reason to re-hash the events of the last 24 hours in-show. Eleanor describes her effective actions, and Flint keeps his mouth shut about the fact it took him 8 hours to think of chopping through a wooden deck.

Silver gets a chance to show off, too. After a couple of episodes in the background, poor one-legged Randal is awake and asserting his place in the crew. “You’re a thief!” can cause a lot of conflict in a pirate crew, and since Silver really is a thief, he’s got a lot to lose. His desperate maneuvering is a delight to watch, and Randal’s stubborn refusal to back down from his accusation is both in character and a perfect foil for the waterfall of Silver’s words.

The fact that Randal now has one leg, and wants to be a sea-cook echoes Silver’s own future. In twenty years, he’ll have a crutch of his own, and be a very fine cook indeed.

Vane’s story finally starts to make some sense here, too. It seems his past is slavery, chains, and if we can believe actor Zach McGowan’s elegant, subtle sneer, degrading abuse. This explains why he needs to be beaten into the ground before he fights at his maximum. I enjoy a good fist fight, and this one was a lot of fun to watch. Watching Vane come back from the ground he was buried in was icing on the cake.

I should note here that the “logwood cutters” were a thing back in the 1700’s. Most of these men were runaway bond servants – in effect, white slaves – who banded together along the coast of modern-day Belize, harvesting a particular type of timber that was exported to Europe where it was burned for its pleasant odor.

Some pirates stopped here and lived for a time. And when the Spanish came in to chase them off (they were mostly English, squatting on land that was claimed by Spain) they obtained boats and raided up and down the coastland in revenge.


Men like this gave us the word “buccaneer,” as they fed themselves mostly by killing wild pigs and smoking the meat to make “boucan” or bacon. (Bacon and pirates. Yum.) Their 18th century English dialect still lives in the accent of the people of Belize. Go there on vacation and you’ll hear people speaking the way real pirates did 300 years ago.

I enjoyed all the scheming done by the crew of the Walrus. DeGroot doesn’t like Silver, and wants to prove him guilty of theft, but everyone knows that they need Flint and Silver to catch the Urca and all its gold. Dufresne is developing as a real character. From the moment when the camera homes in on him during the attack on the Andromache, showing the viewers exactly how it feels to take part in your first pirate attack, to this episode, when he takes off his glasses and stops being just a clerk, it’s all logical, smart and true. Just goes to show that chewing through a man’s throat with your teeth really changes a person.

Flint’s words to Billy, “I am your king!” are coming home to roost. We’ve always known what he wants… A pirate nation with himself as king. The problem is, that’s not what the pirates want. Billy didn’t want it, Gates doesn’t want it. “We call no man our master, no lord and no king,” says the pirate song. Flint’s done some bad stuff to his crew, and they plan to kill him for it. And for Billy. Flint can’t die, but we’ll see what happens to everyone else.

Love the explanation for why he and Eleanor don’t hook up. I’ve been wondering. The fatherly kiss says it all.

And lastly, the comedy. I asked for it and Starz delivered…. Not exactly heat between Rackham and Anne Bonny, but something. It worked for me. I’ve wanted to know what was going on in their relationship, and this takes me forward just the way I wanted. It’s a special relationship where the woman is the muscle, and it takes a certain kind of man to let her be. Apparently, in this case, it also means a guy who has trouble keeping it up. Don’t get me wrong, I respect a man who can follow when a woman wants to be in charge. And I don’t mind seeing this relationship unfolding the way it is. Anne has the street smarts and Rackham schemes for the long run. But he’s no killer. His assertion to the whores that he has slit a man’s throat and slept well that very night just makes me certain he’s never done any such thing.

So Anne likes Rackham because he lets her lead, and because she can depend on him to always choose her, even though she might wander. And Rackham likes Anne because she’ll take care of the gory details, and keep coming back in spite of his “disabilities.” This looks like a functioning couple.

But they’ll never excel at running a whorehouse.

from AVClub.com
https://www.avclub.com/american-gods-delves-into-ashes-demons-and-comes-up-1846103302

American gods S3 Ep 3:
Ashes and Demons
*******

American Gods delves into “Ashes & Demons” and comes up with its best episode in years





Ricky Whittle stars in American GodsPhoto: Starz


“Do the words ‘Rest in Peace’ mean nothing to you people?”

I have been hard on American Gods since the end of season one. The sheer scale and speed with which prestige TV took over the landscape guaranteed there would be at least a few spectacular disasters and flame-outs. But this was a show with so much potential, and to see it not just wasted but thrown away because people behind the scenes made bad decisions was painful. But hope springs eternal, and though season two was a hate-watch affair, I took on covering season three because I believed this show still had it in there to find its way back to good. And this week, that faith in the old gods and the new was rewarded.

Moreover, that moment comes when the show needs to readjust due to the continued behind-the-scenes turmoil and turnover. Season one had the incomparable Kristin Chenoweth as Easter, part of the Old God clan, fooled into joining Odin’s War. With the actress long gone, the show has added in Demeter this season to fill that same role, another goddess of the harvest, just from a slightly different part of Western Europe.


The mystic opening takes viewers to 1765, Western Pennsylvania, as a desperate American settler slaughters her last pig in prayer that the ancient ritual will bring food to her starving children. It was the kind of sudden creation that made the first season sing. Sometimes the world moves in mysterious ways, and faith and pig entrails can bring a goddess (played here by Gwynne Phillips) to the most unexpected of places.


But as we’ve seen this season, an opening isn’t enough. For instance, the premiere started with another ritual of this kind, with Odin and his goth rockers. But then it didn’t bother to go anywhere with the concept or have much else to offer. (This episode did follow up with the news that most of the band, Blood Death, was murdered. I assume this is a strike from the New Gods, but that remains to be seen.) This week followed the intro directly by bringing forth Blythe Danner as the now-aged Demeter. And it took fans to Purgatory, finally giving actress Emily Browning something worthwhile to do.

Before we get to This is Your Life, Laura Moon, let’s talk about the fiery crackle between Danner and McShane, which gives this episode some much needed energy. Odin’s plot, as usual, is pretty straightforward. Get Demeter to leave her home in the Haven Glen Retreat by hook or by crook. When hooking doesn’t happen, he goes full crook, forging marriage certificates (well, Cordelia does the work), trying to get custody from her conservator, Larry Hutchenson (Sebastian Spence). But Demeter has no interest in leaving. Like so many other old gods, she’s found a small patch that works for her. Put away in an old folk’s home for mentally disabled and dementia patients, she’s been able to get these forgotten, lonely old ladies to believe in her, make offerings to her as crafts. It’s not pig entrails, but she gets by. And she’d rather stick to getting by than trust Odin and his calla lilies, and risk getting involved in a War of indeterminate reasons.

But as good as it is to see McShane getting back as good as he gives on-screen, the episode is buoyed by other parts of American Gods picking up. I knew Laura Moon wouldn’t stay dead when she turned to dust in the premiere. However, discovering her in a Great Glass Elevator hurtling into space was a pleasant surprise, as was the delightful faceless bureaucracy of Purgatory. From the color cardholder system to the morphing door numbers, this was better than the show’s been in a while. Even The Nothing made a cameo appearance from The Neverending Story. My little ’80s heart approves.

So it turns out when you go to Purgatory, you wind up having to hang out with the A/V Guy and a 1940s Usherette and watch a VHS taped film reel of your life, displayed via overhead projector. Yeah, I’ll go with that. What does not check out is Laura’s version of events in her childhood. She attempts to narrate her own story the first time, making herself the architect of her own misfortunes. It’s a story that some might buy, knowing how her life ended. But of course, it isn’t that way, a fact she could have learned before dying had she only gone to therapy. Next time, instead of Git Gone, try therapy.


All this hustle and bustle leaves little time for the continuing strangeness in Lakeside, where Alison’s disappearance is rapidly turning the corner into murder mystery territory. It’s not Fargo-level, by any means, just a changing headline to reveal a bloody scarf was found in the woods. But Anne Marie’s interruption of poor Sheriff Chad ahead of the search for the missing girl with her little cameras so she can get everyone to develop the film at her store is certainly Coen-lite in the best way. Also, I assume Shadow falling asleep while looking at the town newspaper back issues featuring the disappearance of a different teenager years ago is significant.

But it seems like Shadow’s adventures in this white wonderland are taking a back burner, as his dreams lead to Bilquis calling out for him. Last week, I mistakenly thought her vomiting after absorbing her tech guru lover was a sign of pregnancy. (It’s lazy TV storytelling shorthand, forgive me for assuming.) But it seems to have been a more emotional reaction. After all, in Vegas, she was swallowing strangers. She didn’t care about them or their families. This, on the other hand, was her patron, and now his grand-daughter wants to know where he is.


Despite Cordelia and Odin telling Shadow where to find Bilquis, by the time he arrives in NYC, it’s too late. Technology Boy has already broken in, and his bloody hands suggest Bilquis’ endless hunt for those who will worship her is over.
Stray observations
Anne Marie’s argument that taking pictures with your phone is so much work because “then you have to send them” had me in stitches.
“Lakeside’s still in America, right?” Sheriff Chad’s conversation with Shadow marked the first scene all season where the show confronting the inherent racism in the situation doesn’t feel forced.
What’s with the running burglaries taking place in Lakeside anyway? Four in the last month!
Laura discovering Purgatory meant getting a closet full of Git Gone, which was super great.
Stop stealing things from people who are knitting! Knitting takes concentration, it’s rude.
The trip to Purgatory felt like what I imagined riding in Willy Wonka’s Great Glass Elevator must be like in the never-properly-adapted Chocolate Factory sequel. Why aren’t we getting that instead of this Wonka Origin Movie nonsense?
Demeter, like Beyoncé? Honestly, now I need Beyoncé to turn up as a New God, join forces with Dominique Jackson, and kick everyone’s asses.
Also, how long until Cordelia snaps? I give it two more weeks.

From Vulture.com:
https://www.vulture.com/article/the-nevers-finale-recap-season-one-part-1-episode-6-true.html

The Nevers S1 Ep 6: True
*******

The Nevers Part-One Finale Recap: On the Origin of True
By Amanda Whiting


Photo: HBO Max

Last week, I opined that the world of The Nevers was contracting in ways that made plotlines crisper, relationships more legible, and the general flow of information easier to follow. I nearly felt that if a stranger asked me the question What is The Nevers about?, I could give them a perspicuous if lengthy explanation. Oh, how man makes plans, and Joss Whedon laughs. This series is completely batshit.
My Week In New York
A week-in-review newsletter from the people who make New York Magazine.


Let’s begin at the end. We finally have an answer to the riddle of Mrs. Amalia True’s origins, the reason why she’s so good at close combat and so bad at adhering to Victorian mores. Her real name is Zephyr Alexis Naveen and she’s a stripe with the Planetary Defense Coalition, some kind of supranational armed forces protecting galanthi in Earth’s apocalyptic future. Stripes are worker bees. They take orders and GSD. This squares with Amalia’s rudderlessness — she’s a wartime soldier marooned on the front without a mission.


How does Zephyr come to occupy the petite frame formerly belonging to a widowed baker? For that, we need to take it back to the beginning of The Nevers Part One finale. When the episode opens, parachuters are drifting toward war-torn Earth. There’s ash in the air and fires burning and very little light by which to make out the entirely new cast. I momentarily thought I’d pressed play on the wrong show. The reason I knew in my heart it was the right show is that it didn’t make any goddamn sense.

The hints that Zephyr — whose name we don’t learn until much later because, in the distant future, names are too sacred to even be uttered — is/was Amalia come fast. There’s the familiar worrying of her fingers, for one, and a conspicuous cynicism. Soldiers from the PDC and enemy combatants from the Free Life Army have convened on this particular map dot because some scanner suggests the presence of galanthi. There’s a lot of crosstalk about what to do and who to call, but it’s basically impossible to recap given no one uses each other’s names. Most of the new characters die anyway.

We do hear about parallels to what’s happened in Victorian England. There’s a medic (or “knitter”) who is a “spore” — a slur for someone who has been “empathically enhanced” by the kind of glowing dust that gave the touched their turns. As the knitter and Zephyr explore the lab, they find a cabinet of antiques — brass binoculars, fabric umbrellas, and other Victorian curios. In a sign of how far this Earth is from the one we know, a PDC soldier mistakes a vegetable garden for a galanthi. She’s never seen either before.

A search of the facility turns up a door that’s not on the schematics and behind that door, the only remaining glananthi on Earth. The objective of Free Life is to destroy the galanthi; their hatred is a mix of xenophobia and religiosity, not unlike the Victorian purists. The PDC want to protect the galanthi — their last hope for a better world. At some point, someone says the word “portal.” The galanthi wanted to build one, maybe to bring more galanthi here. Kill the galanthi, close the portal, obliterate hope and achieve world peace, or so goes the Free Life thinking. Nevermind that the world would still be a hellhole.

There’s in-fighting and crossfire and someone somehow turns on the portal, which goes the other direction. More galanthi aren’t coming; this galanthi is leaving. The knitter is shot and dies before she can tell Zephyr her name. A despondent Zephyr drinks some kind of poison, I’m guessing, based on the yellow and black labels. She closes her eyes around the same time the portal gets firing, and the galanthi hugs her in its blue glow. But what if the reason for all those Victorian bric-a-brac is that the portal doesn’t go in or out, but back? To 1893 specifically, at the exact moment the butcher’s widow plunged herself into the Thames. Zephyr becomes Amalia in some sort of happenstance cosmic suicide pact (I think).

For no real reason, this week’s episode is organized into chapters. That one was called “Stripe”; the next is called “Molly.” Molly’s is a sob story. She’s an Irish baker living in London, who apparently doesn’t know her financiers from her canelés. (Did a script supervisor not notice they subbed the pastries?) For unrelated reasons, Molly’s soon to be out of a job. The man she loves hasn’t the money to marry her; the butcher she marries instead is an oaf. She’s barren. The butcher dies, leaving her a mountain of debt, and, oh yeah, the guy she loved is now wealthy and his wife is expecting. Molly — we’ve seen this bit a few times now — jumps into the river with a lilting brogue and emerges with Zephyr’s wide-open American vowels. Naturally, she ends up in an asylum. Welcome to Chapter 3: The Madwoman in the Thames.

Zephyr thinks she’s in some kind of historical fantasy simulation. She meets a pre-Maladie Sarah, who she thinks is part of the sim, too. I do not need to tell you how infuriating it is for a character to introduce the possibility that everything is a simulation this deep into the season, yet I will: It’s maddening! We know the broad strokes from here. Horatio becomes Molly’s doctor and then her boyfriend. She explains that an alien rained superpowers on people, and he takes the news on the chin because she’s hot. To escape the asylum, Zephyr lays off the morphine and quits cursing. Over the course of a pronunciation and etiquette montage befitting Eliza Doolittle, she transforms into Amalia True.

A few other little fires of intrigue are extinguished in Chapter 3. We learn that Dr. Hague is the leader of the team responsible for Sarah’s descent into Maladie and that Amalia threw her to the wolves to save herself. Mrs. Bidlow plucks Amalia from the asylum once she gains a reputation for handling the touched patients. She’s been complaining she lacks a mission; now, Bidlow hands her one. Amalia and Horatio christen the orphanage before the first charge, Penance, can arrive.

A title card tells us that Chapter 4 is called “True” and if such a lazy transition device is worthy of a splashy HBO production then certainly I can justify using it here. We’re back in the more familiar Victorian past on the day of Maladie’s execution. Last week, we watched Penance’s rescue attempt; this week, we follow Amalia & Co. as they try to reach the galanthi underground.

The Royal Army site that was meant to be deserted is, in fact, not. There’s fisticuffs to be sure, but Penance’s super-drill works well enough that Amalia eventually falls down a half-dug hole in a manner that calls to mind the action-adventure film Congo, starring Laura Linney opposite a gorilla that knows sign language. In fact, the general tone of this episode’s special effects can best be described as very 1995.

Amalia finds the glowing blue orb, which doesn’t do anything, so Amalia yells at it like it’s a piece of broken tech — “PC Load Letter.” “I left Penance because you said come find me,” she pleas, but nothing. Her accent breaks, and she’s Zephyr again. “It should have been someone else,” she says. But to do what? “Someone not broken,” she says. But what broke her? “You should have brought Nitia,” she says. But how does Zephyr know her name? This is the problem with Amalia’s origin story, which shores up the practical but never answers for the metaphysical. Amalia is broken and pugnacious because she’s a time-hopping American Rambo called Zephyr, but what happened to make Zephyr the way Amalia is?

All the hollering must eventually dislodge something, because the galanthi starts to rumble and we get a helluva montage: Molly’s memories interlaced with Zephyr’s, warm memories of learning and kinship mixed with those of fighting. We see a flashback of some early moment between Penance and Amalia, right after Amalia has told her new friend everything she knows about Earth’s bleak future. Penance, pious as a Free-Lifer, thanks God for giving her “a life’s work.”

And then things get really weird. A disembodied voice asks, seemingly to Zephyr, “Do you think you were the only one who hitched a ride?” We see images of Massen and the Beggar King and Augie and Madladie and maybe, in some kind of whirlpool, Hugo Swann? It suggests that on top of the enmity these characters have developed in this world lies a layer of whatever they brought with them. If Amalia is in the past to change the future, some of these people must be here to stop her. Still, we don’t get an answer to the most relevant questions: Why Zephyr? Why 1893? Why is the galanthi’s human form a teenage polyglot named Myrtle?

Amalia escapes the cave with the help of Elisabetta Cassini, the lobotomized shopgirl who could make heavy objects defy gravity and apparently still can — a nice little reveal that Hague’s mining army might not be beyond saving. Soon enough, we’ve watched an hour of episode six only to end up at the coda to episode five. Amalia and the A-Team are patching themselves up at St. Rom’s as Penny and the B-Sides roll in from their own botched escapades.

Amalia decides it’s time to tell the St. Rom’s gang everything she knows about the future, the galanthi, and the fight ahead. She starts by telling Penance something more intimate, her real name. It’s a testament to how colossally confusing The Nevers can be that the announcement a character is going to explain to me what I just watched qualifies as a cliffhanger. (Philippa Goslett, inheritor of the mess that is Whedon’s, I forbid you from time-jumping. I deserve to hear this explanation just as much as Primrose does.)

Elsewhere on this site, my colleague called The Nevers an “unimpressive monument to a storyteller whose work has meant a lot to many people, but who cannot now figure out how to rise to the moment.” To some extent, I agree. But for those of us who see the promise in what Whedon’s started here, the question isn’t whether that assessment is right but if it’s a terminal prognosis.

There is still so much good on the screen. Laura Donnelly flat-out shines in this episode, convincingly playing a shy 19th-century Irishwoman, mild as a Bake-Off contestant, a macho American commando, and the English Amalia True, a measured compromise of the person she is and the body she inhabits. The special effects are low-fi, but the sets are tremendous. And the show has its own appealing argot, even if it leans on it too heavily. When filming on season one, part two starts this summer, Goslett has a more ambitious option than picking up where Whedon left off. She gets to take a fresh run at the raw goods and rebuild.

from Meaww:
https://meaww.com/black-monday-season-3-episode-3-recap-corky-shoot-blair-murder-roger-harris-widow

Black Monday S3 Ep 3: Eight!
*******

'Black Monday' Season 3 Episode 3: Did Corky shoot Blair? Roger Harris' widow has motive

Who shot Blair in the Season 3 premiere of 'Black Monday'? Was it someone he trusts or was it someone who has the most obvious vendetta?
By Alakananda Bandyopadhyay
Updated On : 22:14 PST, Jun 6, 2021

Blair Pfaff was having an affair with Corky Harris' congressman husband Roger (Showtime)

The one thing that has occupied the minds of fans of Showtime's hit comedy 'Black Monday' has been the harrowing shooting of Blair Pfaff (Andrew Rannells) planted right at the beginning of Season 3. The show sure does love pulling at people's heartstrings but it's nothing serious enough to lose sleep over. Unless one is way too obsessed with who shot Blair, leaving him in a giant pool of blood at the end of the Season 3 premiere.

Of course, Blair survived and the latest Episode 3 of this season sees him put on quite the show to appease the RNC. But are threats to Blair's life over or should he still lay low because the murderer could be lurking around? This subsequently brings us to the bigger question of who shot Blair after that epic Season 2 finale. Was it someone he trusts? Or was it someone who has the most obvious vendetta against the young trading prodigy?


Andrew Rannells as Blair Pfaff, Tuc Watkins as Roger Harris (Showtime)

According to the official synopsis of Black Monday's Season 3 Episode 3, titled 'EIGHT!', "Dawn (Regina Hall) puts on a show at her new “job” for her parole officer, while Blair puts on a show for the RNC. Mo makes a big personal announcement, and Keith tries to please Larry. Blair shoots for political points and his electroshock therapist gets a shock of his own." Nothing seems out of the ordinary for our gang of trading geniuses, but fans of the show still cannot help but wonder if the threats to Blair's life are really over.

Taking it to Twitter, one fan suggested: "Hear me out what if the murd3rer is corkie bc she loved roger n is framing blair ... she's the only one who has access to the plane yaknow." Not that anybody needs a reminder of the devastating tragedy that was Blair's romance with the heavily closeted politician, Roger (Tuc Watkins), but some fans consider Roger's wife Corky (June Diane Raphael) might have been the reason behind Blair getting shot. As the particular user notes, Corky loved Roger despite his infidelity and sexuality. Both Roger and Blair have been married to women on the show's arc and were skillful enough to not let their spouses have the faintest idea about the affair. Or even their sexuality, for that matter.

But one master plan from Blair's end turned out to have devastating effects on his relationship with Roger, as he tried to use a sex tape of the two of them to blackmail Roger's father-in-law, Pastor Newell (Jay Romero), all for a big bank rollout. The plan backfires as the pastor ends up releasing the tape to the media, and Roger kills himself almost immediately afterward. To make things even more tragic, Blair was the one to have found his body, and that was the end of Season 2. Next arrives the Season 3 premiere and Blair is shot. It makes sense for Corky to shoot Blair considering the heartbreak, devastation and humiliating his and her husband's affair caused. Especially in the wake of losing the love of her life, it seems just right for the curious Corky to take out the man behind the expose.

Actor Paul Scheer, who plays Keith on the show, also gave some interesting insights into who could have fired the shot. “This season is a big murder mystery,” Scheer had told TV Line ahead of the premiere of Season 3. The actor had further added, "It starts off in our first episode, and then it starts tracking throughout the season. Hopefully, people are going to try to figure out who it is, because it is a person that has been on the show at one point in the last three years.” Corky, although not regularly appearing in every episode, has been a steady presence for quite some time in the show's trajectory. Is the fan who speculated she was the murderer, right?

Find out on the next episode of 'Black Monday' Season 3, airing on Sundays at 10pm only on Showtime.If you have an entertainment scoop or a story for us, please reach out to us on (323) 421-7515

Fargo S3 Ep 7: The Law of Inevitability

from Den of Geek:
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/fargo-season-3-episode-7-review-the-law-of-inevitability/

Fargo Season 3 Episode 7:
The Law of Inevitability

The fallout from last week's shocking death causes problems for everyone on a solid new episode of Fargo.
By Nick Harley
|June 1, 2017|

This Fargo review contains spoilers.
Fargo Season 3 Episode 7

Ray’s shocking accidental death last week created a wave that rocked all of our central characters this week, but somehow “The Law of Inevitability” feels fairly light in content. My notes, usually a sprawling list of plot beats and standout lines, are only a few bullet points long. The fallout from Ray’s demise spelled fear, confusion, and trouble for almost everyone, but that leaves our characters plotting their next moves rather than keeping the action going. Most of this episode’s exciting moments, including that appearance from a Fargo Season 1 favorite, come in the last twenty minutes of the episode, designating this a “resetting the table” episode.

Things begin in earnest when Nikki is found by the police in her motel room. It’s hinted that Meemo tipped the authorities off to her location, choosing to use her as a scapegoat rather than a sacrificial lamb. Sherriff Dammik is the first to interview Nikki, calling the case exactly as Varga had hoped, because he’s a “simple man.” Shea Whigham, who’s shined in Cop Car, Skull: Kong Island, and Vice Principals, makes Dammik’s “mashed potatoes” speech one of the more memorable scenes from the episode. The smaller, reoccurring characters this season have really pulled things up when things have begun feeling slow.


Gloria is desperate to interview Nikki and confirm her and Winnie’s theories, but Dammik and the St. Cloud chief are having none of it. Gloria is forced to jump through bureaucratic hoops just to get the proper paperwork to talk to Nikki. When she finally gains access to Nikki’s cell, it’s only to stop an anonymous assassin (played by DJ Qualls) from sticking Nikki with a syringe full of unknown contents. The hitman escapes, but worse than that is the fact that no one trusts Nikki’s or Gloria’s word about what happened, and the security camera mysteriously went dark during the time of the attempted murder. I’m curious to see just how this unknown assailant is connected to everything, though it’s likely that he’s just working for Varga.



Meanwhile, Emmit heads straight from killing his brother to a dinner with Sy and the Widow Goldfarp. At first bug-eyed and pale, Emmit becomes brash and rude to the Widow before she points out a bit of blood on his shirt. The false confidence quickly leaves Emmit and is replaced with freezing fear as soon as he spots Winnie in the restaurant, who’s arrived to take Emmit’s pulse about his brother’s murder. Right from the start, Emmit acts suspicious, jumping to Nikki’s motive before Winnie even reveals that Ray’s death was a murder. Thankfully Sy is able to rush Emmit away before he incriminated himself further, but the added stress of Ray’s death on top of all of their other circumstances causes the two men to bicker and then be reduced to tears. Stuhlbarg steals another scene here, making Sy’s lowest moment pathetically hilarious.

We get a little bit of a tense moment when Yuri finally heads to Eden Valley to retrieve Ennis Stussy’s case file from the police station. While at the station, Yuri comes face to face with the hapless Donny, who is easily convinced by Yuri to flee the premises without putting up a fight. Yuri pops up again later in the episode as Nikki is being transported to prison, and it’s here where things become truly intriguing. In the prison transport bus, we see that Nikki is sat next to none other than Season 1’s deaf hitman Mr. Wrench before the bus is ambushed and flips. Yuri, Meemo, and an unseen third party are the perpetrators, but I have to wonder exactly what they’re doing. It appears that their intentions are to finish off Nikki before she can spill any secrets, but Wrench’s involvement makes me question things. Could Varga’s men also be aiming to break Mr. Wrench out? Could that unseen third man be someone else from Season 1? Perhaps I’m overthinking a fun cameo, but Wrench is nowhere to be seen once the bus flips.

Though it wasn’t the most thrilling hour of the season, there were several engaging scenes powered by nothing more than solid performances. With only three episodes left, I wouldn’t expect the episodes moving forward to have such a mellow pace. Nikki will have to fight her way out of a tight situation and the walls are slowly but surely caving in on Emmit, but I guess that was inevitable.


Rating:

4 out of 5