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

From the Review Geek: https://www.thereviewgeek.com/hightown-s2e7review/

06/12/2021 by Greg Wheeler

Hightown S2 Ep 7: Crack is Wack

Episode 7 of Hightown Season 2 begins with Char wandering aimlessly on Thanksgiving. With her sister dead, Char arrives in prison and lets her uncle know that Aileen has been killed. Off the back of this, Char wants to give up. “In chess sometimes you lose a piece, but there’s still a game.” Her father says, reminding Char that she’s top dog and needs to start acting like it.

Meanwhile, Jackie continues to fly off the deep-end, drinking and playing football on the beach. She’s still hanging around her father and his new bit on the side. Unfortunately this drinking soon leads to snorting coke. And then that turns to smoking crack later on.

Elsewhere, Renee finds herself conflicted over whether to leave with Ray on Thanksgiving or stay with Frankie, who’s wound tighter than a spring. Frankie is ready to pounce at any moment, and a pretty alarming scene transpires when Frankie Jr, knocks a toy into the guy. He stands up, seething with anger and ready to flip out. Instead, he composes himself and tells Renee to look after her son.

Alan’s Thanksgiving is interrupted by Jorge’s old car rocking up in the airport. When Alan shows and checks the trunk, there’s nothing there. Alan isn’t the only one rattled though, given Osito tries to throw a bone to Janelle, giving her a new Ford Explorer. She points out how inappropriate this is and denies the gift – but does tell Osito about an upcoming raid on his block the following day.

After surviving the raid, hiding his stashed drugs, Janelle and Osito end up kissing later that day.

Alan turns his attention to Frankie’s place and confirms Jorge’s car is at the airport. He wants to know who parked it there, but Frankie demands he leave. However, he’s definitely rattled. Sitting at the table, Frankie decides that he and Renee need to visit Charmaine asap. Somehow Renee manages to slip by Ray’s place for a quick hookup before they do so too. Once there, Renee reveals that Alan showed up at the house earlier on and she’s worried.

In the morning, Jackie wakes up to quite a commotion going on downstairs. Her father owes Petey – their dealer and party-host – 80 bucks. He suggests Jackie get cozy with him to pay their debts. This absolutely disgusting low-life soon shakes Renee to her core, as she realizes her father doesn’t care about her. Not really.

Off the back of this, Jackie leaves and phones Vince, the guy from the AA meetings. She admits she’s hit rock bottom and needs to get with the program. Properly this time. In order to do that, she wants him to be her sponsor.

Only, Leslie suddenly shows up at her door. She’s not there for personal reasons though, nonchalant to what’s going on between them. Instead, Leslie wants Jackie to try and find Daisy, confirming that Jorge has gone missing too.

A livid Charmaine shows up at the club. Frankie demands to know where Jorge is, and decides they’re going to shut down the operation. Instead, Char remains dead-set on keeping the drugs going in the cape. Frankie makes a split second decision and decides that Renee should fill in for Jorge and take his spot.

Ray continues to play both sides of the field. At the end of the day, he wants his job back and to be a credible officer again. And clearly, Ray will do anything to get back there.

He meets Renee and tells her that Jorge is a CI working for the DEA. Showing the tracker under her car (which he put there of course) is enough to convince Renee that he’s telling the truth. In doing so, Ray convinces Renee to be an informant for him and to reveal everything about Frankie’s operation. That way she can buy some immunity for herself and buy them some time.

That evening, Frankie takes Renee out to the middle of the woods. He’s got news about Jorge. With Renee all alone, she’s forced to walk toward an abandoned caravan…where stacks of cash are hidden. It turns out this is Jorge’s go-to spot for when things get hot. As the money and gear is still there, it means someone has killed him. We know who… but can Renee hold her nerve?

The Episode Review

If you’re going to do a descent into drugs and come out needing help, this is the way to do it. Unlike season 1’s misuse of Jackie, as she acted like a complete tearaway and caused no end of problems, this second season has handled her far more elegantly.

There’s some genuine empathy toward her plight this time, especially as she reaches out to Vince and asks for help. She knows she’s f**ked up but the fact she still has a badge shows there aren’t any long-lasting consequences for her actions. At least not yet anyway.

Meanwhile, Ray proves that he’ll do anything in his power to get back to the top – even selling out Renee to do so. It seems he’s been playing a very long game with her and now all the pieces are starting to align. It definitely makes a lot more sense why he’s still so willing to accept her back, and you can sense this is going to blow up in Renee’s face in a big way.

There are still elements of this season that don’t quite work, like the whole Janelle and Osito angle. It’s hard to believe that a woman working in a prison would be duped so easily by someone as sleazy as Osito. It just makes her look weak and devalues her as a character.

Either way, the ending certainly hints that things are about to get hot in the kitchen. Can Renee withstand the heat?

Black Sails S3 Ep 2

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

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

By TS Rhodes

January 31, 2016|

Black Sails opens this week with a nice dream sequence in which Miranda Barlow climbs out of the sea and tries to talk to Flint. The eerie lighting, inexplicable action, and slow movement made for a great dream. I tried to read her lips, but could not. Whatever she’s saying will either be a cleaver revelation or impossibly obvious. I’m hoping for the former.

Of course, being me, I was also looking at Flint’s shirt. It’s a nice shirt, though I think it was cotton, not linen. It’s one of the more accurate pieces of male fashion on the show. (I also spent a certain amount of time looking at Captain Jack Sparrow’s shirt, back in the day. That one WAS real linen. Yum.)


I just want to say it again – the pirate fashions on this show are sexy as hell, but they bear little to no resemblance to what these guys really wore. Actual shirts of the day came in white, or possibly red checked (for working class guys.) Black shirts are an invention of pirate costumers. Yes, it looks tough, but guys back in the day didn’t want to look tough. They wanted to look gentlemanly. Pirates wanted to have pale skin and lace shirt fronts and white shirts because that’s what rich people wore.

They also didn’t wear black because black is HOT. I once went to a Renaissance Faire wearing a tunic that was half black, half red. The black side felt like a freakin’ toaster oven. People who work outside in the summer don’t wear black. They also don’t wear leather pants. (I love you Charles Vane, but your pants are wrong.)

That said, there are some lovely clothes in this episode. Silver looks very plush in his new coat.

Silver also has an interesting observation about the pardons that Hornigold was offering last week. Why DIDN’T Flint’s crew take the pardons, and then just go right back on the account? Well, it being Flint, we know why. Flint is still trying to nation-build in Nassau, and he wasn’t going to show weakness to Hornigold by surrendering. He isn’t going to buy into the pardons that were his idea in the first place. And the Ghost of Miranda is a great reminder why.

It’s ironic that the historical Hornigold was the guy who had the idea of taking pardons whenever they were offered and then going right back to robbing folk.

I dig Flint’s reasoning, and I dig his trip into the storm. At first I had hoped that the two ships would battle each other and the elements, but that’s an end-of-season type of event. It’s a good storm, with some great effects, and a real proper buildup. It also shows off the ship rather well.

One thing that always bugs me though is how empty the ships always seem to be. No cargo, no people. We were just told that there are 80 men on Flint’s ship. Where are they? Sure, a few are on the deck, and a few more are in the rigging (not enough, but several) but where are the rest? They aren’t on the crew deck. Bones chased them out of there. They had better not be in the captain’s quarters. And they sure as hell aren’t in the Orlop deck helping Silver and his friend to plug the holes in the ship.

Now, I don’t want to be too hard on the show. What happens to Silver is beautifully done and heart wrenching. But there should have been more guys working to make the ship watertight. I mean, that’s kind of important. And, by the way, that’s why ships have carpenters.

I had a bad feeling about Woods Rogers. He looked so… square jawed and clean in the opener. This episode, in a really nice piece of makeup/camera work, his scars (physical and/or spiritual) are showing. It’s one of the best, most interesting scars I’ve ever seen. Bravo on that

They even got the names of Roger’s ships right. Another bravo.

Also bravo to the unfolding story of Eleanor and Vane. It’s all plausible, in this world. They’re trying to make Rogers and Eleanor look like they’re going to be worthy adversaries, but she’ll eat him alive. The revelation of his weakness are well played, and I’ll enjoy watching him go down.

Back in Nassau, things go along in the piratey chaos they always have. Jack, who’s trying to defend his money, is getting more and more nervous about this, but he should be used to it by now. He’s got a great quote when arguing with Max about Anne, “She’s got a long future with you or a short one with me.” It’s the pirate creed – a short life but a happy one.

More and more I like this non-historical Jack Rackham (though he, man of the mustache, is also letting his chin bristle more than usual. More Blackbeard’s disease?)

Clothes-loving me also loves Jack’s new coat. I’ve been digging a lot of Jack’s clothing. His former coat, pale, limp linen, not only mirrored his limp prospects, it was historically accurate.

Now he’s got a new coat and it’s gorgeous. A fop’s take on a military coat, it has embroidery in all the wrong places and tassels – dammit, tassels decorating the button holes. It’s flashy and wild and impossible and delicious. And another hint that Jack isn’t going to fit in well with this military stuff.

(Generally, the women’s clothes are much more accurate than the men’s, possibly because it shows of so much bosom. I love Max’s dress in this scene so much I’m thinking of making a copy for myself.)

Lastly, after flirting with a Vane/Blackbeard showdown, we got a buddy reunion. Love Blackbeard’s entrance. The man – the historic man as well as this incarnation – had style. Vane has abs to die for, and he has menace to spare, but Blackbeard has style.

He also speaks truth when he talks about what made the pirates great. It was the desperation of men who were against the wall. You become a pirate when you have nothing left to lose, and men who have nothing to lose fight like demons.

Now the pirates have cash to spare, and they’ve been living a little soft – for pirates. Will they come together and fight? Will Black Sails defy history and let the pirates win? Or will Rogers and his offers win their hearts?

I’m ready and eager for the next shot.

Courtesy of Starz, we have a behind the scenes look at the episode’s big storm, too!

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

Dopesick S1 Ep 8:
The People vs Purdue Pharma (Finale)

From the Review Geek: https://www.thereviewgeek.com/dopesick-s1endingexplained/

17/11/2021 by Greg Wheeler


Dopesick has been an absolutely devastating watch and after 7 weeks of this rollercoaster ride, everything comes down to this final chapter of the tale.

We begin in 2019 with a big demonstration from protestors, chanting against Richard Sackler and taking to the streets. With 400,000 dead, Big Pharma’s greed has finally come back to bite them. Among those is Diane, who remains determined to see justice dealt for Betsy and so many other boys and girls like her.
What happens to Finnix in 2002?

In 2002, Finnix faces the harsh realities that as long as he’s on Suboxone, he won’t be able to get his medical license. With relapsing a very real possibility, he tries to work out what to do next.

Out in the waiting room he finds a girl called Elizabeth Ann, someone he actually helped deliver when she was a baby. She’s in a rough way, very clearly hooked on Oxy.

Finnix eventually heads over to see Jerry and Diane. There’s certainly no love lost between them, especially given Finnix was the one who prescribed Oxy to her in the first place. His words fall on deaf ears, with Jerry telling Finnix to go on and live his life.
How does Richard Sackler deal with the lawsuits?

Richard Sackler learns about the 10,000 signatures and the mounting pressure against him. He tasks the executives with heading down to Virginia and meeting those in Appalachia head-on. Of course, the community’s concerns falls on deaf ears and in turn, the execs read out an open letter about how they’re not going to take any further action. To try and sweeten the deal, they decide to donate $100,000 to their community.

Of course, this is just them paying the guys off. At the same time though, the money would actually do a significant amount to help the community.

Sister Beth though is the voice of reason, not content to watch this manipulation play out. She decides she’d rather “die in hell than take their blood money.”

Off the back of this, Sackler learns about John Brownlee and how there’s going to be a massive investigation into Purdue now. Also, more importantly than that, he learns John, Rick and Randy cannot be bought out. To try and deflect this, they bring Rudy Giuliani (the Mayor of New York) into this to swing things in their favour. However, it’s clear there’s a storm coming.

Realizing this, Richard takes himself out the limelight and steps down as the President of Purdue Pharma.

Does Billy sign the NDA agreement?

Amber is flying high, celebrating her promotion. Billy is deliberating over whether to join her or not, eventually called into Martin’s office regarding the missing training tapes.

He’s threatened with being sued and Purdue decide to terminate his contract right there and then. They also chalk this up to his “negative attitude.”

Just before Billy leaves, he’s pressured into signing an NDA agreement. If he does, he’ll get a $75,000 settlement. Purdue refuse to let him see a lawyer and pressure him to sign.

The next scene we see him leave the office but late on we do get our answer – Billy refuses to sign the NDA agreement and instead, stays quiet.

What are on the training tapes?

In 2006, Randy and Rick show off those false testimonies in Congress to Purdue. Purdue Pharma try to weasel out of this with a financial incentive of $10 million but they’re having absolutely none of it. The guys are definitely onto something but they need more; something emotional that will completely rock Purdue to their core.

This inevitably comes off the back of Randy and Rick visiting Martin, questioning him about the company. Martin mentions the missing training tapes and that, in turn, leads them to Billy. It’s here we learn he never signed the NDA and that he’s still got the tapes. After some persuasive pressuring, Billy posts the videos to their office.

These training tapes very clearly show off fraud and how the company intentionally misled and lied to their sales reps.

Do Randy and Rick get a conviction from Purdue?

There’s a lot of risk with indictments and it could well be that Purdue go to court and don’t get a conviction. Alternatively, Purdue offer to settle for a massive fine and minor misdemeanors for the execs in charge.

John meets with Randy and Rick, telling them he’s made the deal. Three executives will have three years probation, 400 hours on community service and their careers in pharma will be over. The trouble is, all of this will still see the Sackler family remain where they are, leading very wealthy lives.

Purdue continue to drag their heels over signing, with Howard Udell’s attorney wanting to delay things and talk further. John Brownlee is having none of it and despite Main justice pushing back, Purdue eventually sign. Off the back of this, a list of US attorneys are presented to be fired, including John Brownlee.

What happens in court?

Fast forward to 2007 and the three executives are led into the court where they hear numerous witness testimonies from those sons and daughters that have been killed from Oxy. The plea deals go through but Richard Sackler continues to push Oxy being sold and in higher doses.

Randy, Rick and Bridget all meet and toast to their win. They haven’t won the war but it’s a solid win in this battle against Purdue. They’re unsure whether Purdue will go down but with convictions now brought against them, that could well be a very real possibility.

How does Dopesick end?

Fast forward to 2019 and 2020; the Sacklers get away with their riches but Purdue is taken out the equation completely. The company is forced to hand over all their documents and to pay up $4.5 billion.

As news of this spreads across the different communities, we cut to Finnix who manages to get his medical licence back. After helping Elizabeth Ann off Oxy, he now runs a treatment center, Mountain Ridge Wellness Center, helping others get over their addictions.

The Episode Review

Dopesick comes to a close with a sobering and heart wrenching final episode, finally seeing Billy do right by his morals. At the same time, Finnix also manages to turn his life around, making peace with the horrors of Oxy and leading the charge at this rehab clinic.

The case against Purdue Pharma does finally get some headway but, as per the norm, those at the top still keep their riches and their jobs. Alongside Big Pharma, another industry that’s just as crooked is that of videogames. I won’t dive into that here but suffice to say, those at the top somehow still get to keep their jobs and riches despite widespread corruption and criminal offenses. Anyway, I digress.

This final episode brings the case against Purdue to a close, with a nice toast between Rick, Randy and Bridget to typify that. For them, the sense of justice is stronger than the payload and sometimes money can’t just be used to wave everything away.

Dopesick has been a stunning series, shedding light on the opioid epidemic in America and using its various timelines to really hammer home the devastating effect this has had on the American community as a whole.

Dopesick is certainly one of the best shows this year and while the ending is conclusive, it would be nice to see it return in an anthological format, tackling another drug or hard-hitting topic like this.

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

Evil S1 Ep 11:  Room 320

from Tell Tale TV: https://telltaletv.com/2020/01/evil-review-room-320-season-1-episode-11/


January 10, 2020

Janelle Ureta

Thank GOD, Evil is back.

We need the hopeful horror on Evil Season 1 Episode 11, “Room 320,” so we can, dare I say, enjoy the world and its terrors.

The winter premiere hollers back to many plot and character details from the first ten episodes.

One way Evil proves itself to be a five-star show is that the references to previously shown points aren’t summative or a flurry of flashbacks.

The story is being woven before our eyes. It never stops generating and revealing new patterns, even when the thread is from the first design.

It’s strikingly fresh for including so many referential pieces!

“Room 320” masterfully uses sound to horrify.

The squeaky shoes are the clearest example, those are KILLER KEDS!

The bouncing ball in the hollow hallway, the syrupy way Nurse Bloch says, “now, David,” and the rusty wheels on the pleading patients’ beds as they roll by spread an invasive and cringe-worthy fear.

As a result of the focus on sound effects, Evil expands our sensory experience of evil. David lets us in on his fever dream experience, which is the perfect way to play with the senses of fear.

The lines between reality and fantasy, dream and wakefulness, truth and deception, are hazier than ever. The exploration of the distance between these dualities is just one of the epically rich spiritual journeys Evil allows us to take.

Evil has yet to reach the absolute apex or climax of its power as a television program. For now, we get to enjoy each hour, arrested in awe.

Okay, let me come down from my metaphysical TV high so we can talk about these fantastic characters.

The main trio of evil hunters isn’t susceptible to easy typification. They are each simply too complicated and unknown to be labeled.

However, Ben shows up as Ben the Magnificent on the episode and that may be my favorite Ben. Aasif Mandvi is hilarious as a comic. Evil takes advantage of Mandvi’s maturity as a comic performer by allowing him to be serious in his role as Ben, even when he is being funny.

When Ben puts on the VR mask and pretends to be an eight-year-old girl, it’s rather funny. He goes there with his cadence and how he’s moving his face and mouth. He is into it.

But, it is never an act. He isn’t doing a bit, even as Ben doing a bit.

The line is razor-thin, but he walks it perfectly. Like Katja Hebers as Kristen Bouchard, Mandvi lets Ben be quirky, strange, goofy and grounded.

It is no secret that I adore Ben and Kristen together. So, it may be some fantastical thinking, but I swear I could feel the heat of jealousy emanating off of Kristen when Mira shows up and has a spark with Ben.

Rewatch it! I am NOT just seeing things!

Judy is super hot and was Kristen before Kristen was Kristen. However, Kristen does not put off a jealous vibe, even though Judy was clearly very into and close with David.

Why could that be? Perhaps because there is clearly no lust between Judy and Ben for Kristen to be jealous of? COULD. BE.

Even if I am reading too much into Ben and Kristen’s behaviors, this ship has me whipped, it is just fun to watch all these delicious personalities interact. Every new combination is rich and often playful.

The joy pockets between the horror are a salving reprieve. There isn’t a show out there that maintains such a balance.

I am so grateful that the episode opens doors, even as some mysteries are solved.

The connection between Ghana, Rose390 and David’s stabbing helps us thread together some things and feel like there are answers, even if they aren’t simple in the least.

There is security in that as a viewer. Evil is going to tie up some ends.

The Parable of the Weed that is referenced throughout the episode is a fascinating focus to bring to the final episodes of the season.

The weed is in the lives of the trio. It arrived when they were sleeping. We have explored Kristen’s and now David’s dreams. There is so much there.

Their desire for each other is a HUGE thing that really grew in their dreams or hallucinations.

I hope that we get to take a deep look at Ben’s dream state to see how he is involved and if he needs to do some weeding too.

Evil continues to deliver shock, fear, philosophy, and HEAT. The stars (all five of them!) have aligned for this incredible show.

Confessional

Eew, Harlan’s maple syrup analogy is disgusting.

Here is the bible quote: “Jesus told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.'”

I actually feel bad for Tara Summers who plays Nurse Linda. I will never be able to see her in anything else without feeling rage and fear.

We totally get why Judy needs a day away to meditate. The world is an ish show.

Dr. Boggs to the rescue! Mira to the rescue! Professionals being ethical and actually good at their jobs to the rescue!

Kristen’s hands on David’s face. That’s the confession. Her hands.

Dexter S1 Ep 10: Seeing Red

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

Dexter S1 Ep 10: Seeing Red

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Red_(Dexter)

When a key to a hotel room is delivered to Miami police inside a jar of blood, Debra and Doakes visit the hotel and find a room completely covered in blood. Dexter is sent in first to investigate, but seeing the blood-covered room brings back a repressed memory from his childhood—sitting in a pool of blood at the age of three—causing him to run from the scene. The forensics team surmises that the blood came from at least five different bodies, although none are in the room. Since there were only one set of footprints in the room, they assume that the victims were killed elsewhere and their blood spread around the room by the killer. Debra suggests that the Ice Truck Killer, who has had five bloodless victims, may have been responsible.

While dating a woman in a bar, Batista sees a prostitute with a prosthetic hand and fingernails painted in the same way as the Ice Truck Killer's first victim. Working on a hunch that the killer is an acrotomophiliac, he speaks to Debra's boyfriend Rudy, who he doesn't realize is the actual Ice Truck Killer. Rudy cooperates upon realizing that Batista does not know his identity. Later, Batista is stabbed in a parking lot by a masked man; he manages to elbow him in the face before two men scare the attacker off. Minutes later, Rudy—who had earlier fallen out with Debra due to secretly having dinner with Dexter—arrives with flowers. They kiss, but Rudy backs away complaining of a cut lip, suggesting that he was Angel's attacker.

Rita finds out that Paul is pressing charges against her for assault. She talks with a lawyer, who tells her that since she invited Paul into her house, she cannot prove that her intent was to defuse the situation. At a hearing, it is revealed that Rita violated her and Paul's custody agreement, making his case against her even stronger. When Paul drops by Rita's house to return their children, he threatens Dexter when the two are alone in the kitchen. Dexter responds by hitting him with a frying pan. Paul loses consciousness, so Dexter drives him back to his hotel and frames him for drug abuse. Dexter alerts the police and Paul is sent back to prison. With encouragement from Rudy, Dexter returns to the bloody hotel room, where he relives his repressed memory: the murder of his mother with a chainsaw when he was three.

Fargo S4 Ep 10: Happy

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

Fargo S4 Ep 10: Happy

from ew.com: https://ew.com/tv/recaps/fargo-season-4-episode-10/

By Nick Schager

November 22, 2020 at 11:12 PM EST

War has finally broken out in Kansas City between Josto’s Italian crime clan and Loy’s gangster family. That means everyone is now in immediate danger, although by the end of “Happy” — the season’s penultimate installment — a solution to the conflict materializes from the unlikeliest of sources.

Sensationalistic headlines married to dead-body photographs overlap with striking slow-motion images of gunmen firing at each other — a montage that also includes shots of Josto and Gaetano, Loy, and Ethelrida, who shares an intense staredown with Oraetta.

After gazing at one of his dead fiancée’s figurines, Weff and his men break up Josto and Gaetano’s festive meal and haul them off to jail, with Josto blowing the cop a kiss on his way out. In their Gadfly Hotel suite, Loy gets a haircut from Buel; she doesn’t tolerate him bristling at her craftsmanship.

Loy and Buel meet with a cigar-smoking African American man in a dapper suit named Lionel “Happy” Halloway (Edwin Lee Gibson), who’s accompanied by a lackey holding pictures of two older African American gentlemen (presumably, his superiors). Loy begins by confessing that what happened to Happy’s cousin Leon (i.e. that he was belt-whipped by Loy) deserves a conversation. Happy hears Loy is losing the war, to which Loy replies, “You’re always losing ‘till you win. That’s why it’s called an underdog.” Happy opines that where he’s from, they take the counsel of their elders, “like a rock knows it’s river.”

Happy conveys that his people — fathers, grandfathers, sharecroppers, “men born to bondage” — think Loy is getting a big head for attempting to escape the darkness by stepping into the light. Loy objects to this perpetual-servitude-style thinking. Buel says Happy and the Cannons are family (she and Happy’s wife are “like sisters”), and she asks for Happy’s help in the campaign against the Faddas. Loy needs short-term muscle from the country to make himself look formidable. He doesn’t think he can push the Faddas out of town, but he needs them in their place and suspects New York won’t tolerate this war much longer.

Following Buel’s declaration that the Italians killed her son (she still believes Satchel was murdered by Constant), Happy confers with his photographs. He agrees to Loy’s proposition (“Two weeks”) and asks Loy to make things right with Leon. Once Happy is gone, Buel states they need to finish the Faddas off quickly. Loy worries that if Josto and Gaetano are killed, New York will simply send others to replace them. Buel doesn’t care: “I want justice for my boy. And then we make a deal.”

Post-train station shootout, Weff returns to applause at the police station. Captain Martin Hanhuck (Guy Van Swearingen) informs him that the mayor called to congratulate him, but warns Weff about double-crossing the underworld (“If you bite the hand that feeds you, you’re going to feel the burn”). Weff gets a call from Josto, who threatens to deliver a personalized bullet to him, as well as to send records of his payoffs to the mayor. Weff hangs up on him, which sends Josto — in his office now — into a rage.

Ebal tells Josto that New York wants this “noisy” war wrapped up. Gaetano agrees, cautioning his brother that the battle is bad for business (“You make it personal. It can’t be personal”). Josto believes they need to kill Loy and replace him with someone more manipulatable; when Ebal’s New York-sent henchman Joe Bulo (Evan Mulrooney) asks what this means for Loy, Josto replies that it probably rhymes with “flurder.” As for Weff, Josto sneers, “Nobody turns their back on us and lives.”

As Satchel steals a milk bottle and makes his way down a long country road, Ethelrida scans through old newspaper obituaries. Later, on the funeral home porch, she asks Dibrell if she thinks Aunt Zelmare is okay; Dibrell replies that there’s no trap her sister can’t squeeze out of or hole she can’t fit into. More pressing, Ethelrida asks if the family is really cursed. Sighing, Dibrell recounts the story of Ethelrida’s great-great-grandfather, who came to Mississippi in chains via a ship captained by evil Theodore Roach, who laughed as a raging storm threatened to kill all of his slaves. Ethelrida’s great-great-grandfather strangled Roach to death, and ever since, the family has been haunted by his specter. Dibrell says she smells and hears him more than she sees him — he’s the scent of low tide and the sound of creaking ropes and waves — and Ethelrida admits that she’s recognized his ghostly presence as well.

Ethelrida asks if they can cast Roach out, and Dibrell muses that Zelmare once tried to take him, but was unsuccessful because Roach likes “sunshine.”

The two are joined on the porch by Lemuel, who’s finished with his work, but willing to stay and keep guard. Dibrell warns him not to get any ideas about Ethelrida and then goes to make dinner. Ethelrida tells Lemuel that she wants to see his father, Loy, because she’s worked out how to get her house back. Oraetta appears in an all-white coat, fancy hat and gloves, and demands that Ethelrida come to her apartment for a discussion. When Ethelrida refuses, Oraetta makes a crack about Lemuel being her boyfriend (he claims he’s more of a “suitor”) and then freaks out, demanding that Ethelrida return Donatello Fadda’s ring.

Oraetta’s threats make no impact on Ethelrida, who’s ready to go to the police about the nurse’s stash of poisons and victim mementos. “The devil’s got a special place in hell for small minds who betray their betters’ trust and take advantage of their charitable acts,” spits Oraetta, snidely remarking that there’s a particular “word for you” (i.e. the n-word). Ethelrida says that term doesn’t apply to her; it was invented to make those like Oraetta feel bigger.

Oraetta leaves after whispering, “What does it feel like to be so sure you’re right and know that nobody cares? I’ll see you in your dreams.”

Josto meets with Happy and Leon, the latter of whom is going to be Josto’s handpicked replacement for Loy. Leon is sad he can’t kill Loy twice, and Happy demands all of Loy’s territories, as well as the east-side slaughterhouse, as compensation for this treacherous takeover. Before Josto can agree, his future father-in-law Milvin bursts in and causes a scene. Moving to the bar, Milvin profanely announces he’s calling off Josto’s wedding to Dessie. Josto is stunned that Milvin is too stupid to take advantage of the situation to get more out of their arrangement. Milvin continues with the racist barbs until Gaetano punches him in the face, twice — which wins over Josto.

Loy hears from Opal that Weff raided the Faddas’ Apex Vending Machine Company and that the Italians later met with Leon (“skunk’s gonna skunk”). Staring out a window, Loy muses about how Buel birthed Satchel without making a sound. “On my best day, I’m half as tough as that. And this ain’t my best day. No siree. That’s behind me, I think.” Satchel is also pretty tough; confronted by two racist hayseeds in a pick-up truck, he scares them off by pulling a gun on them and proclaiming, “This is my world. I’m the boss. I tell you what to do.”

Chauffeured home by fellow cops, Weff is haunted and panicked by the sounds of Loy, Josto, and Defy’s voices in his head. He’s right to be paranoid since Josto and company are stationed at his house. While waiting, Gaetano recalls being strangled by the father of his first love at the age of 11 and killing the man with a shard of broken glass. Josto understands that this is why Gaetano was sent away as a kid to Sardinia. When the war broke out, Gaetano was orphaned and forced to eat bark from trees for three weeks, wearing a dead man’s shoes. Josto comfortingly reminds him, “We’re here now” and gives him a hug.

Weff finds his apartment ransacked. Noises from outside indicate he’s still in imminent peril, and he flees out the back of the building to his car. There’s no escape, though; sitting in the driver’s seat, Weff hears his dead fiancée singing to him as Gaetano approaches. Three shots later, Weff is dead. On his way back to Josto, Gaetano stumbles and falls, which inadvertently causes his gun to go off and blow his brains out. Josto is stunned and flees.

A POV shot leads us into the funeral home, past slumbering Lemuel, up the staircase, and into Ethelrida’s bedroom. There, Oraetta looms over a sleeping Ethelrida, holding an enormous syringe. Before she can use it, Roach’s ghost appears behind her, causing the nurse to scream and run back to her apartment, where she finds the cops waiting to arrest her for the attempted murder of Dr. Harvard (who’s apparently awakened). Ethelrida watches from

her porch as Oraetta is taken away.

The next day, Ethelrida visits Loy in his hotel suite. She impresses him with her knowledge of the painting he has — a copy of Henri Regnault’s 1870 work “Summary Execution Under the Moorish Kings of Granada.” She asserts that her parents earned the right to their house, and still own the deed and pay taxes on it. Loy doesn’t budge at this, nor at the bill she presents him for funeral services for the 27 men he’s lost in the gangland war.

To convince him, Ethelrida hands over Donatello Fadda’s ring, elucidating that its pricelessness has to do with its prior owner, Oraetta, who had a fondness for pocketing keepsakes from her murder victims. She says that if Loy returns the house to her parents and forgives their debt, “I’m going to help you win your war.” He promises that if she can do that, she can have anything.

At that, Ethelrida shows him the Donatello Fadda obit that proves it is, in fact, the late mob boss’ ring, and they smile at each other.

Oh Geez!

Ebal’s New York henchman, Joe Bulo, will one day grow up to be the same character played by Brad Garrett in season 2 of Fargo.

While being taken out of her apartment in handcuffs, Oraetta lets out an “Oh geez!” — a nod to the original Fargo’s use of that exclamation, which also serves as the title of these very footnotes.

Nobody

Nobody (2021)

from the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/movies/nobody-review.html

‘Nobody’ Review: A Wolf in Wimp’s Clothing

Bob Odenkirk plays a family man with a secret past in this slick, shallow thriller.




Bob Odenkirk in “Nobody.”Credit...Allen Fraser/Universal


By Jeannette Catsoulis
Published March 25, 2021

Updated July 28, 2021

As slick as a blood spill and as single-minded as a meat grinder, “Nobody” hustles us along with a swiftness that blurs the foolishness of its plot and the depravity of its message. A series of cartoonishly rapid cuts introduces Hutch (Bob Odenkirk), a mild-mannered suburban schmuck whose identical days flip past in a haze of chores and a vague desk job. His sighing wife (Connie Nielsen) and teenage son (Gage Munroe) regard him with something close to pity — especially when he balks at attacking two luckless home invaders. His son is fearless; Hutch is frozen.

A journey from emasculation to invigoration, “Nobody” harks back to the vigilante dramas of the 1970s and early 80s. Unlike the would-be heroes of those movies, though, Hutch has no real excuse for the savage spree he instigates and perpetuates. (His family is unharmed; what’s wounded is his ego.) Moreover, Hutch is not who he seems, his secret past seemingly known only to his wily father (Christopher Lloyd) and adoptive brother (RZA). So when he boards a bus, splashing its interior in the blood, teeth and tissue of a passel of Russian gangsters, his lethal skills are as unsurprising as his ultimate satiety. He might emerge bruised and battered, but — after seeing him calmly empty the bullets from his gun before the brawl — we know that’s how he likes it: He wants to feel the damage he’s doing.

Flashy and cocksure, “Nobody,” written by Derek Kolstad (the narrative engine of the “John Wick” franchise), sprints from one dust up to the next with winking efficiency. However disreputable its hoary thesis — that real masculinity resides in the fists — its director, Ilya Naishuller, knows how to make a film move. And this one races by: The stunts are ultrasmooth, the dialogue glibly economical and Pawel Pogorzelski’s camera is agile and ruthlessly focused. As the bodies mount and Hutch becomes the target of a karaoke-singing Russian mobster (a charismatic Alexey Serebryakov), the movie feebly tries to pardon Hutch’s implacable brutality.

“I’m a good man, a family man,” he informs an adversary. But he’s a counterfeit regular guy in a movie that’s openly contemptuous of such men, a sleeping assassin who’s finally free to scratch a long-suppressed itch. (Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme singing “I’ve Gotta Be Me” during his transition is not exactly subtle.) Now, at last, Hutch is alive; more important, now he’s a man.


from Decider: https://decider.com/2022/01/22/nobody-hbo-max-review/


By John Serba @johnserba Jan 22, 2022 at 6:00pm

Now on HBO Max after a theatrical run in early 2021, Nobody is a wiseass action movie starring Bob Odenkirk, the longtime funnyman character actor (and comedy writer, don’t forget) who broke big playing iconically sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Casting him as the lead in a what-if-John Wick-was-a-comedy exercise — scripted by Wick writer Derek Kolstad, notably — surely plays against type, but most of the fun here is seeing Odenkirk go brutal while playing a schmuck who turns out to be not much of a schmuck after all.

NOBODY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Punk-rock icon Henry Rollins once wrote a nasty little screed titled “Family Man” featuring the seething line, “family man, I want to crucify you on your front door with nails from your well-stocked garage.” Well, Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) has a well-stocked garage. His suburban-dad routine is numbing bullshit: Bus, desk, spreadsheet, dinner, take out the trash, no sex with his wife (Connie Nielsen), wake up, bus, repeat, repeat, repeat. He can do an impressive number of pull ups though, which makes us pause.

One night two armed burglars break into the house. His teenage son (Gage Munroe) tackles one, and he stops himself from whanging a golf club against the other one’s skull. The thieves get away. Hutch used restraint. He chose to de-escalate. He chose peace over violence. He did the wise, reasonable thing, like a total complete utter wimp. And now, his wife stacks 18 inches of pillows between them in bed.

Hutch sinks low. He’s a military veteran, but was just an auditor. So his son instead writes about his uncle for a school assignment, because he was “a real soldier.” His young daughter laments that the robbers took her kittycat bracelet, and that seems to be Hutch’s last straw. Hoping to find the perps, he starts turning over stones, and that’s when you get the feeling he’s going to find a big ugly squirming grub under there — but surprise, he’s not the type to run screaming from some larvae. Oh no. He’s on the bus late at night and five drunk young thug types get on and eyeball a young woman, and that’s just the thing to scratch Hutch’s itch. He takes a few punches and gets moderately stabbed, but you should see the other guys. A few fractured noses, busted arms, smashed windpipes, gruesome dislocations and other miscellaneous injuries later, it seems as if a long-dormant beast inside Hutch is starting to Hulk the f— out.Photo: Everett Collection

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Nobody blends Wickisms with the protective-father fodder of Taken and the I’M-NOT-IMPOTENT insistence of male-rage sagas like Falling Down and Death Wish.

Performance Worth Watching: Odenkirk is perfect here. PERFECT. You loved him before, and after this, you’ll love him more.

Memorable Dialogue: Hutch, in voiceover, staring down five assailants: “I hope these assholes like hospital food.”

Sex and Skin: None, although I imagine our boy Hutch surely gets a little somethin’ after the credits roll.

Our Take: Is Nobody satire or male revenge-fantasy fodder or violence for violence’s sake? Yes, yes and yes. It begins by skewering a dichotomy: the emasculated male who does the right thing for the betterment of his family and the collective human experience, and is rejected by the world for it. This conundrum is presented as idealism vs. cruel reality, a twisted commentary on the state of pacifism in the face of the ugly truth. Fodder to ponder, no doubt — and the next thing you know, we’re laughing our asses off as we watch Odenkirk put some deserving shitbirds in traction, which is the kind of thing we among the middle-aged laundry-folding flabby-midsection men wish we could do, the fantasy we indulge while we yank and yank and yank and can’t get the goddamn mower to start, forcing us to smack it with the socket wrench we barely know how to use and give up and call a mechanic. (Maybe I’m seeing more of myself in this than I’d care to admit?)

There’s a great scene here in which Hutch interacts with a neighbor who struts his testosterone-fueled manhood by showing off a vintage muscle car he inherited from his dad, who he says wasn’t much of a father, which surely explains the guy’s macho-braggart tone (“It goes zero to 60 in I’M ABOUT TO FIND OUT!”). It goes without saying that this guy’s car is better than Hutch’s car by about 300 horsepower. Contrast that with the moment where Hutch’s daughter, who’s maybe seven or eight, is the only person in his life who shows any faith or confidence in him. “You scared?” he asks, and she replies, “Why would I be? You’re here.” She really wants a kitten, and he agrees. There’s no reason he can’t find the sweet spot between alpha and beta.

Of course, all this is sort of undermined by the second and third acts, when we learn that Hutch is much more than just a khaki-pantsed milksop and has a secret past as a bulletproof hero, which exactly zero of us are. Director Ilya Naishuller (Hardcore Henry) drops the yimmer-yammer inner-life self-analytical crapola — go tell it ta ya analyst, ya crybaby — and delivers satisfyingly visceral action as Hutch seeks to ruthlessly exterminate a bevy of ruthless Russian mobsters in order to keep his wife and kids safe (with a little help from Christopher Lloyd, who steals a scene or two playing Hutch’s pops). Slightly muddying the message doesn’t stop Nobody from being a consistently amusing, fast-paced slice of neo-genre entertainment that kind of irresponsibly asserts that violence begetting violence is perfectly fine if it’s set to a killer soundtrack (Pat Benatar!) and represented by a guy who can be funny and tough as leather at the same time. Got it: Tongues firmly in cheeks then.

Our Call: STREAM IT, then go chug some brewskis. Nobody is wild, OTT fun that might not work without Odenkirk’s full-bore performance.

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

The Expanse S3 Ep 7: Delta-V

from Den of Geek: https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-expanse-season-3-episode-7-review-delta-v/

By Michael Ahr

May 24, 2018|

At the end of “Delta-V,” the young pilot Manéo enters the Ring and decelerates so drastically that his body is reduced to jelly by Newton’s laws of motion. In a similar fashion, the second half of The Expanse has changed direction so abruptly that it’s a good thing we’re in our crash couches because this almost feels like we’re starting over with a new season. With months having passed since the events of the last episode, we have to wrap our heads around a massive Ring in stable orbit near Uranus, the passing of power on Earth from Sorrento-Gillis to Avasarala, a documentary crew onboard the Rocinante, and the departure of Naomi to the newly christened Behemoth. It’s a lot to absorb, but the narrative manages to hold together despite the g-forces involved.

The vignette unfolding on the Y Que is a nice way to frame the latest news cycle in which the protomolecule Ring takes center stage and Holden is even more famous in the system than he was before. Néo a.k.a. “Supa Star” is trying to break records and impress his Evita, but he can’t capture anyone’s attention with everyone focused on the Ring and the new peace as everyone races to learn more about it. The compressed months of his journey fit nicely with the time jump between episodes, and his decision to go through the Ring almost seems obvious despite the artifact’s unknown nature. But the outrageous nature of his death creates the perfect shocking ending that sets up completely unpredictable consequences to come.

And speaking of unexpected, the sudden rise of Avasarala to the height of power, although perfectly logical, seems meteoric even with the unmasking of Errinwright’s conspiracy. However, her new position explains Anna’s presence on the UNN Thomas Prince, which in turn provides an excuse to speculate on the metaphysical nature and origins of the protomolecule now that it has formed itself into a shape that’s less organism and more mechanism. The pastor is still missed at home, but with our attention now turned once more to what the protomolecule wants, her higher-order perspective is welcome.

The only part of the drama unfolding near the Ring that actually does seem rushed in this frenetic re-focusing of the central conflict is the one involving Melba, who inexplicably leaves the Thomas Prince to plant a bomb on the Seung Un. Readers of the Corey novels know the reasoning behind her actions, but with all the various ship names and new characters floating about, it’s difficult for the average viewer to place this act in context. Melba seems very nervous and displays abnormal strength in killing her boss to cover up her sabotage, but it wasn’t all that clearly expressed exactly what was happening, either for neophytes or readers of the books. Perhaps the moment could have been saved for a later episode when there was time to concentrate on it?’’

More successful was the introduction of Monica, the reporter played by Defiance’s Anna Hopkins, who is making a documentary about Holden and his crew in exchange for their legal fees in fighting against a Martian government seeking to reclaim the Rocinante. Whether she and her nosy camera operator are flirting with Amos or spying on Alex’s conversation with Bobbie (who’s back with the MCRN, interestingly), the filmmakers give us further insight into the crew as they struggle with the spotlight. Plus the seeds of something shady with the blind camera guy as he fiddles with the ship’s maintenance controls promise more intrigue to come.

Of course, the documentary will be missing the perspective of Naomi who decided last week that it was time to reforge her connection to her OPA past, and having her work alongside the wonderful Camina Drummer on the refitted Nauvoo soothes any separation anxiety viewers might feel with her away from her Roci family. Now that she’s among her own people (with spectacular new hair), Naomi’s more exaggerated Belter patois is noticeable and appreciated. It was always a puzzlement why she didn’t talk that way before, and now it makes sense: when in Rome… Drummer’s aggressive leadership style contrasts nicely with Naomi’s more tempered approach, especially once Ashford, played wonderfully by David Strathairn, comes aboard.

Lest we forget that Anderson Dawes is now cooperating (but also vying for power) with Fred Johnson to portray the OPA as a legitimate system power, the presence of Ashford on the Behemoth is rife with political implications. But even though he’s clearly a plant of the more radical OPA factions, he disperses wise advice to Drummer even as he undermines her authority: an interesting dynamic! Bringing Diogo back as Ashford’s enforcer is certainly another step up for this black market water thief, but his entertaining interactions with Miller back during the Eros adventure ties in nicely with the episode’s bombshell ending.

That’s right, Thomas Jane is back as Miller, the mumbling, hat-wearing Belter detective who persuaded Julie Mao to steer Eros toward Venus, saving Earth from an extinction level collision with the asteroid. Whether Holden is just imagining him, hallucinating him, or something else entirely is part of the fun of this new development, but in the meantime, this is a character that was missed, and it’ll be great to see back in action again. Hopefully, he’ll have a thing or two to say about what the protomolecule is up to, if his return has anything to do with the alien influence.

So, yes, it’s a lot to take in. At times during the episode, the narrative threatened to overwhelm even the most exposition-phobic viewer, but it managed to hold fast to its thrilling pivot into the new story arc for the most part. By necessity, specific plot points overshadowed others, but presumably the next few episodes will cushion the impact of the 90-degree turn so we don’t end up like so much bloody paste on the wall like poor Néo. We’ve come to trust The Expanse as it has shifted from alien virus to killer hybrids and now to mysterious space ring quite smoothly, and the mystery of the alien organism/technology continues to create a singular focus for one of the most compelling sci-fi dramas on TV.

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-6-w-o-m-b.html

You S3 Ep 6: W.O.M.B.

By Jessica Goldstein

Flashback Joe is reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower because of course he is. The gentle nurse Fiona gazes upon him and shares her sad little sandwich. Her nook is a haven at the Queen’s Gambit Tranquilizer Den for Separating the Weak From the Merely Abandoned, but alas, she cannot save herself, for young Joe sees that her wrists bear the wounds of some gross MAN who hurts her. By the end of the episode we will see Joe, a child, tell this adult woman that he and only he really sees what’s happening to her and that she shouldn’t take back her shitty, undeserving boyfriend. I mean, yes, but also: easier said, buddy! These blast-from-the-past scenes are even worse than Don Draper’s Little Whorehouse on the Prairie memories, which is really saying something.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have some issues with how this series handles partner violence. Namely, that so many women in the show are in abusive relationships, and that they either fail to escape these relationships OR their way out of them is always … Joe, who is ALSO abusive!! In this episode, we learn that Marienne’s ex-husband (played by Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s A+ Scott Michael Foster) abused her and manipulated the system in his favor to keep her from getting full custody of their daughter. But JOE and JOE ALONE will fight for her. This has gross echoes with season one’s Claudia, mother of the stairwell urchin, whose abusive boyfriend gets murdered by (who else?) Joe. Also consider the litany of abusive and gross men in season one: the grope-y book agent, the perv-y professor who tries to screw Beck, the abusive uncle Beck tells us about. Or season two’s Hendy plotline, which, again, was “resolved” not by Delilah’s reporting but by Joe killing Hendy. And we can’t leave out the urtext here: Joe’s mom, “saved” by Joe, who shot and killed his abusive dad, or just one of her many boyfriends, I actually can’t remember. (Plus, let’s not forget that before Natalie got the axe, she was essentially being surveilled 24/7 by her husband, which is not not abusive behavior, and she was on the verge of using Joe as an escape from that situation.)

It’s just a lot of women experiencing abuse for a show that wants to be soapy, wild, and ridiculous in a dark-but-still-fun way. And: The show intends to deconstruct these tropes about men saving women and reveal them for the twisted truths they are, right? Meanwhile, You has most of its women “saved,” however problematically (primarily by homicide) by Joe. Instead of by, I don’t know … other women in their lives! Most of the women who try to save — Candace, Delilah, Peach — get killed before they can. What do you all think? How is this landing with you?

For now, let’s retreat to a safe space: the library. Joe has decided that Marienne, who “likes flaws and whimsy,” is “deep.” Good lord. He breaks into her house to sniff her pillows but, more importantly, to find out WHY he feels the need to break into her house and sniff her pillows. He hides under the bed when she gets home and watches her get undressed (“Okay, now you’re just playing with me,” he narrates to a woman who doesn’t know he’s there) and receives a text from Love. Love, to whom Joe must prove he is a devoted husband, for reasons.

Back at home, Love ignores Theo’s texts and is gazing at that classic plot device: a pregnancy test. I mean, there’s no way she’s pregnant because the show isn’t going to give her character two babies; they’re too annoying to deal with when the story needs to move forward, and television is generally too conservative to let a Sacred Pregnant Woman get her hands as dirty as Love does. But before the inevitable fake-out, we are treated to an entire episode of Love wondering who the father is!

Love deals with her confusion by texting Forty. She has his phone in her nightstand. I, for one, would not put such damning information in a text message with such a stalker-y husband. Not to MENTION her next-door neighbor who made his fortune in tech surveillance and whose wife you literally murdered.

Love has to go to Glamma Dottie’s vineyard for its big opening weekend, a goddess-y girlboss-y summit. Before Love leaves, she hears Lorde’s “Supercut” blasting from outside, and I write in my notes: I swear to God if this fucking teen is holding a Beats Pill over his head outside her window, I will kill him myself and then, yup, that’s exactly what he’s doing. NO ONE DOES THIS. The only good part about it is when Theo says he thought this was something she’d like because of the “rom-coms of her generation,” and Love is like, I am NOT that old, lmao. Theo says Love is the only person he can talk to. I say: Theo, see a therapist!

Theo demands to know if Love thinks of him when she has sex with Joe, “because yours is the only face I see.” Joe and Love then have sex while thinking about their separate obsessions, and again I wonder why they don’t just have an open marriage? If they can negotiate corpse disposal and homicide coverups, I’m pretty sure they could navigate polyamory!

Meanwhile, Matthew has hired an investigator to look into his wife’s murder. The attorney from his company — FINALLY, someone is talking to counsel — advises against this. It is a massive PR problem already, and he will only make it worse. But Matthew is a man obsessed, and, in his defense, he is correct.

Love arrives at Casa Gaia Vineyard with Henry in tow. I love that she wears breezy white tops and bright colors at home, but she shows up in all black whenever she is forced to do something with her parents. (Same sartorial strategy for the “wellkend” last season, remember?) Glamma is wearing a velvet mustard-colored blazer that I love. She is in full Moira Rose mode talking about her wines and the “Women Optimizing Motherhood and Business summit,” a.k.a. “WOMB.” I’ll give this to Glamma: She knows what she’s doing. She sees right through Love’s “I’m doing a mini-detox” and goes right to “is it Joe’s or that neighbor kid’s baby in there???”

The WOMB summit is about what you’d expect. Love decides to call bullshit in the middle of a reading on The Secret of Joy, puncturing all these empty aphorisms with smug confidence until the speaker turns it around on her and asks if maybe Love likes to “sabotage [her] own happiness.” Love storms out and is, hilariously, swiftly accepted back into the fold by Glamma and Sherry, both of whom want Love to participate in a little IGTV interview where Glamma just outs Love’s pregnancy on live internet. Love flips out, and Glamma holds her ground: Love’s marriage is full of problems; Love herself is an “ungrateful little bitch.” I am very intrigued by how Glamma hints at some nefarious dealings in her own past (“You have no IDEA what I had to do to give you the world”). And Love immediately gets her period afterward. Well, time for some wine!

Apparently, on You, virtually any substance or illness will make you hallucinate because Love gets so drunk she imagines her dead brother sitting opposite her in a bubble bath. I feel like TV shows need to hire adult siblings as writers — especially adult siblings of the opposite sex because if I were in a bubble bath and I opened my eyes to find my brother sitting across from me, I would NOT respond by flinging my naked body across the tub to embrace him. Hallucination Forty tells Love that Theo “kind of reminds me of me” and that Joe cannot be her soulmate because he, Forty, is her real soulmate. WHY does this show keep walking right up to the idea that Love and Forty were Flowers in the Attic style gothic horror incest siblings without following through?! This show is at its best when it goes FULL crazy. This 75 percent crazy is just icky.

While Love is away, Joe digs through Marienne’s office and finds a lawsuit accusing her of child endangerment. Joe decides that he can’t have anything to do with “your planet of red flags” and assures himself he’s over Marienne. This determination lasts all of 20 minutes because while he’s downstairs shelving books, he hears shouting from above. Ryan — the channel three news guy we saw earlier this season — is the ex, yelling that Marienne doesn’t HAVE any rights because she’s a “fucking junkie.” Now that Marienne is a damsel again, Joe loves her once more.

Honestly, this whole thing where Joe is just now putting together his mommy issue patterns … I mean, really? Have we not known that this whole time? Joe believes this no-duh revelation has FREED him. But then that night, there is a library crisis: the sprinkler system malfunctions, water water everywhere, and while attempting to salvage books from the wreckage, Joe and Marianne confide in one another that they were both foster kids who were never hugged but instead tenderly caressed every book they ever read. It’s so on the nose that I write in my notes: Is Marienne maybe out-Joe-ing Joe? Is she playing a part to make him fall for her so SHE can kill HIM? But probably not.

Anyway, Marienne and Ryan were both using when their baby, Juliet, was born; Ryan got clean first and got full custody. Joe, given this very brief update on Marienne’s complex history, understands completely. Joe demands someone stop Ryan from manipulating the justice system, and HE is that someone! Marienne is seeing a lawyer instead, thank God. The sprinklers go off again, and they make out in the fake rain like two teens in a Taylor Swift song. It’s all a dream until Joe realizes with horror: “Oh shit, Love is going to kill you.”

Love has a vicious hangover and a surprise visitor in the morning: Theo, whom she drunk-texted last night. (Though first, she sees Sherry, who tells her that soulmates are “bullshit” and that loving someone long-term is about choosing them over and over. Actually, great advice; thank you, Sherry!) Theo is here with some news: His dad is investigating everyone in the neighborhood. Including the Quinn-Goldbergs.

By the harsh light of day, Joe tries to resign from the library. But Marienne won’t let him. They swear they would never do anything to hurt each other’s kids. Joe swears to himself that he will find a way to have Marienne and prevent Love from ever hurting her.

Reunited at home, Love tells Joe about Matthew’s P.I. and offers this convenient idea: taking advantage of Theo’s crush on her. “I could pretend like he had a chance,” she says in the most unconvincing manner. But Joe is too blinded by his own self-interest to see through Love’s whole deal, so he eagerly agrees. What a team these two make.

The Morning Show S1 Ep 7: Open Waters

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

The Morning Show S1 Ep 7: 
Open Waters

from ew.com: https://ew.com/recap/the-morning-show-season-1-episode-7/

By Jodi Walker
December 06, 2019

Henceforth, this episode of The Morning Show shall be known as Succession Lite. To wit: There are clandestine meetings in abandoned parks, casual coups planned over street falafel, and many matter-of-fact discussions about divorces while wearing gorgeous wide-leg pants. But while, say, Alex and Chip could fit right in on Succession with all their scheming and self-serving, on The Morning Show, there’s also the Bradley-and-Chip side of things — oh, they of bleeding hearts and morality tales.

It’s not an insult to say that The Morning Show sometimes comes off as a lighter version of Succession; it’s just that The Morning Show can never fully commit to the salacious thrill of greedy power-grabs and failed conniving because the story it’s actually telling more successfully is the moral struggle with it all. Its seventh episode paints a picture of a group of people who have spent years of their lives protecting a corporation that they’re now realizing will never protect them back. The Morning Show has taken up all the space in these people’s consciousness, so much so that it’s pushed them out of their own lives.

“Do you ever just not know who you are or what you want — all of the sudden you just don’t feel anything?” Alex asks Bradley after having to tell her daughter that she’s getting a divorce from Jason. Watching Bradley try to remain kind while also being like, “No, not at all,” is quite fun, even amid all the sadness, and I wish there was a little more deep-diving on that kind of conflict over the late-night coups in this episode. But as it is, the hour opens on Cory and Chip discussing how to overthrow Fred as head of UBA, and quickly moves to Bradley literally meeting Mitch in the shadows of Central Park.

After reaching out to her at the end of the last episode, Mitch lures Bradley to a park with promises that he can tell her the full story of how his misdeeds at The Morning Show went down, who knew, and who covered it up. But it’s clear that Mitch still doesn’t think he did anything wrong in using his power and untouchability as lead anchor to sleep with younger women working on the show — he just wants revenge, and he wants it on The Morning Show. Mitch tells Bradley that he wants her to interview him on the show so that they can “lift the veil that protects the corporate public master who, quite frankly, run the whole runs the whole f—ing country.”

But, investigative journalist extraordinaire that she is, Bradley sees through Mitch’s pleas for truth-telling. “You’re not doing this to be altruistic, to take down the big, bad executives at UBA,” she tells him. “You’re doing this because you’re hoping to be exonerated, and I don’t want any part of that.” Mitch assures Bradley that he has proof and witnesses to back up his story, including a woman he had relations with who “basically used [him] to get a career bump.” Oh! Yes! I’m sure that’s how you see it, Mitch!

Bradley doesn’t flat-out say no, but she also has the show to consider now, and all the people who work there that she’s grown to care about it. She and Alex bonded in the previous episode over Alex’s fear of Lizzie blaming her for the impending divorce — and indeed, that was a valid fear. Lizzie is extremely upset when Alex and Justin tell her they’re getting a divorce, saying that Alex has never made them her priority over her job. That’s how Alex ends up posing her “Do you ever just not know who you are?” question to Bradley, and Bradley ends up becoming her sort-of confidante, and somehow a plan is made for them to co-announce it live on air after writing a segment at Alex’s house over dinner. Besties!

But not everyone is feeling so supported. While the show is airing the next morning, Chip gathers his writers and producers to talk about which segment they should fill an empty spot with. Mia pushes for one of Bradley’s, while a younger writer named Nicky stands by a segment on climate change. As tension builds, Nicky suggests that Mia take her lips off Chip’s ass: “Everyone already knows that’s your specialty.” Nicky quickly apologizes, and Mia says they should move on, but Chip stays silent for a moment, and then tells Nicky to pack his things; he’s fired. “I’m being punished for saying to her face what every single person has been saying behind her back for 18 months?” Nicky asks incredulously, which is clearly in the script to make Mia feel isolated, but it also makes me realize that The Morning Show uses “18 months” as a frame of reference a lot, which no adult human has ever used to categorize time unless referring to a baby.

For example, I recall Claire saying that she’s worked at The Morning Show for 18 months — sure, okay — and as we know, somewhere in those 18 months she began dating Yanko the Weatherman. Now human resources has emailed them both asking for a meeting, and it… does not go well! At least not for Claire, who is much less keen to officially declare their relationship than Yanko the Weatherman. He tells H.R. that he slowly became friends with Claire because when she would do research for him, “She was willing to listen and genuinely engage with my work, which is not always the case — people rely on the weather, but they have a problem taking it seriously.” Yanko loves the weather so much.

Claire corroborates Yanko’s story to H.R. in her own unique Claire way: “His brain is just really f—ing sexy.” Claire is insistent that she’s the one who pursued a romantic relationship with Yanko, and is clearly on the defense from the moment she enters the room. But even though her defensiveness isn’t particularly helpful to the situation, she has a right to be uneasy about declaring their relationship. When the woman conducting the interview tells Claire it’s her job to “examine whether the two of you working in the same environment is sustainable,” Claire assumes that she means she’ll be the one who’s fired if it seems unsustainable, and storms out of the meeting.

So, that’s one weatherman whose future is looking a little questionable… and what about the rest of the Morning Show cast and crew, you ask? Well, Daniel is being wooed by Audra, who calls him just the “beautiful, deep-feeling, boring man who loves hard news” they need over at Your Day America. And then there’s Chip, who tries to use his interview with Maggie for this eternally ongoing Bradley profile to also float the idea that there might be a little smoke around the idea of UBA being incriminated in the Mitch allegations, and perhaps Maggie might like to sniff out that fire for New York magazine.

But Cory warned Chip — he told him over the best falafel in the city (“I read about it on Eater!”) not to chase Fred out in the open unless he was sure he had the ammo to take him down. Maggie can smell Chip’s desperation, telling him that no one grows a conscience about being complicit in a multibillion-dollar corporation’s misdeeds overnight: “You grow a conscience when someone from that corporation gives you permission to have one.” Cory’s commitment to keeping Chip on if he’s able to usurp Fred is Chip’s permission, and now that’s the story Maggie’s onto.

Even with all this going on, the cast is able to come together to take some big-happy-family promo shots for the new Mitch-less Morning Show marketing. However, in the middle of said photo shoot, a highly disgruntled Mia comes over the intercom system in the studio. You see, yet another man in the control room has alluded to everyone knowing about the former relationship between her and Mitch, also noting that Nicky was just making a joke and saying he shouldn’t be fired for saying what everyone else is thinking. Cool!

Mia takes a beat, then picks up the intercom microphone: “This is Mia Jordan — I’m the scorned, oversensitive woman who screwed the lead anchor to help her career, and got him fired when he didn’t want to leave his wife, and now I’m out for blood, so everyone with a dick better be careful because she hates dicks now.” Mia says she knows what everyone is saying about her relationship with Mitch, and how she got Nicky fired, and leaked the Mitch story to the Times, and is probably the Zodiac killer. She could deny all the gossip, which is mostly untrue, but she’s too tired, and what would be the point, anyway? “Everybody’s already decided what to believe.”

While everyone listens in shock, Mia pleads for them to just let her move on with her life. “We are all just people who want to do our jobs, do good work,” she says. “So that’s what I’m gonna focus on… because I’d like to be known in this world for something other than f—ing Mitch Kessler, and I think I deserve that opportunity.”

She certainly does, but I hate to break it to Mia, that Mitch Kessler stench seems nearly impossible to shake. Much like the show that made him famous, Mitch has infected all of these people’s lives, and taken up space that should have never belonged to him. Even in her divorce, Alex not only has to account for how it looks for The Morning Show, but what it says about her and Mitch. A scary public relations company tells her that the only way she can be seen as anything but a heartless, high-maintenance workaholic is if it came out Jason cheated on her with a younger woman — in which case, the caveat would be that she also seems pathetic — and no matter what, people are going to read into the fact that she’s filing for divorce just a few weeks after Mitch.

Even Alex’s daughter wonders if there’s anything there.

Alex shows up at Lizzie’s boarding school dorm room unannounced with pizza, and that is very much the wrong move. Lizzie is still really upset, and her mother trying to smooth things over by saying she knows that it hurts does nothing to make Lizzie feel better, and everything to suggest that Alex just wants to assuage her own guilt. Alex insists to her daughter that she has tried to save the marriage, that 25 years is a long time, and that she can’t even explain how lonely she’s been. After Lizzie says she’s still too hurt to see any kind of bigger picture, Alex pleads, “We’ve always been there for each other, you’re my baby — let’s just not do this right now.”

Oh, and that is super not the right the thing to say. Lizzie says she can’t believe her mom is doing this, and when Alex asks what she’s doing, Lizzie screams, “I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE CARE OF YOU RIGHT NOW!” There’s been mention that Lizzie has been going to therapy, and it’s clear she’s been working through some feelings on growing up with a mom like Alex.

Alex says she’ll leave, but when Lizzie snips that she should go lean on America, maybe they’ll take care of her, Alex whips back around, and cries, “Oh, f— you, kid!” She screams at Lizzie that she’s done everything for her, she broke her vagina “with that big f—ing head of yours,” she stayed with Jason for years while he treated her like a 5-year-old, and now she wants happiness. “Yes, I worked my ass off to get where I am, and I wanted it,” Alex yells at her daughter. “I wanted to be something in this world! I didn’t know that was a crime.”

It’s not. But it’s probably also not going to make your sad teenage daughter feel much better, especially when you take back the pizza you brought for her, and yell “F— you, kid!” yet another time before storming out.

As if things couldn’t get worse for Alex, back in the city, Bradley is calling Mitch and telling him that if he can find someone to corroborate his story, she might be interested in telling it…

That’s how Mitch winds up at Hannah’s doorstep (all those Hannah close-ups had to mean something!) saying, “Hey, kiddo… you got something out of me, and now it’s time for you to repay the favor,” like the true creep he is.

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-6/

The Sinner S3 Ep 6

By Matt Cabral

March 13, 2020 at 09:32 AM EDT


The Sinner's sixth episode finds Mr. B back in class, reminding his students to do their reading homework before dismissing them for the day. Outside of school, he leaves Lela a voicemail, begging to meet with her so he can “explain everything that happened.”

But Lela's busy. She's having a chat with Harry, who's trying to tell her – as gently as possible – her husband's a murderer. She can't make sense of it. “Jamie doesn't get angry.” Even after she'd had an affair a few years back (that mystery incident Jamie referenced last episode), her husband blamed himself and stuck with her. While baby Burns cries in the background, the two grasp for answers. The only possible clue Lela comes up with is a grade-school fight that saw Jamie beaten by a childhood friend.

Back at his new home/hotel, Jamie flashes to his college days. He's participating in a round-table discussion on Kierkegaard. The professor leading the debate is making the argument for an all-powerful god. Across from the youthful Burns, a shaggy-haired, nasally-voiced student counters the professor's assertion with snark to spare. And so begins Jamie Burns' weird obsession with Nick Haas.

Later that evening, Sonya and Harry are growing ever closer at the detective's cabin in the woods. She discusses the case, which, of course, makes him uncomfortable. The two drink, kiss, and sit in front of the fire. Outside, by the window, a seething Jamie watches them get cozy on the couch.

College-age Jamie isn't having a great day either. He's just found out his parents are traveling during his Thanksgiving break. No worries, though, as Haas insists on staying with him. After that's decided, they head to Burns' dorm room to get their Dead Poets Society on. Jamie reads Nietzsche aloud – “Brave is he who knows fear, but conquers fear” – while Nick carves “Ubermensch” into his headboard with a pocket knife. “So you don't forget.”

At Sonya's place, the artist is sketching Jamie, using the pics she secretly snapped as reference. She's interrupted by a ping from her security system. A glance at her outdoor camera feed reveals a hooded figure. It's Jamie, who lets himself in when Sonya intentionally fails to lock the door. She greets him with a shouldered shotgun, then accuses him of trespassing. He accuses her of “stalking my wife and f---ing the detective that's after me.” He spots the sketches, things get weird.

Sonya lowers the gun, picks up her camera, and begins taking pictures of him. He asks if she'll show Harry the pics. “This is about you and me,” she responds. Fast-forward a bit, and Jamie's stripped naked, posing for her, while she's taking extreme close-up shots of her unwelcome (welcome?) guest's face.

The next day, Burns has a meeting that doesn't require showing his bare backside. He and Lela are talking in a seaside gazebo. She wants answers, he wants help. He admits to the Brooklyn murder, but counters, “It was just a moment. I was so lost.” He pleads for his estranged wife's help, but it's all a little too much for the new mother. She leaves.

Jamie returns to work, where he's passing out advanced placement exams like business as usual. Emma, who he's not supposed to have any contact with, is nervous. His boss calls him from class. She's not happy he's completely ignored her request he take a leave of absence. They argue, but are cut short when Emma suffers a seizure brought on by her Adderall habit.

The next scene returns us to young Jamie's happy college days. He and Nick are peering from a bridge's ledge, looking at the water and rocks below. It's a long way down. Nick pulls out a paper fortune teller. “Pick a number. This is our mutual fate.” It reads, “Jump.” Nick takes the plunge. A scared Jamie just can't do it.

Back at the Dorchester police station, Harry's paid a visit by his daughter. She's not thrilled he punched and choked Burns in front of her son. “He liked it. He's been acting out what you did over and over.” Harry wants to talk to his grandson, smooth things over, but she prefer he not see him for awhile. Family Thanksgiving is canceled.

Meanwhile, Jamie's visiting Emma in the hospital, until her agitated mom boots him out. But that's cool, because Burns has a grade-school fundraiser to disrupt. The event is a silent auction, where a basket-full of Lela's artisanal goodies is up for grabs. She's not happy to see him. Neither is her brother. Things get heated. Jamie drops several loud f-bombs in the busy auditorium. Thankfully, good ole' Detective Soto is in the house. He escorts Jamie into the stairwell outside. Burns absolutely loses it, repeatedly smashing a metal chair into a concrete wall.

Exhausted from his tantrum, Jamie takes another mental trip back to his college days. It's Thanksgiving, but as planned, he and Haas are doing Turkey Day in the college cafeteria. Burns is upset over chickening out at the bridge. Nick gives him a pep talk as only he can. “You're supposed to be scared. That's the point. You jump because it's terrifying. You jump because you want to live.” Caught up in the moment, Jamie's convinced to go back to the bridge. While Nick sings “here we go 'round the prickly pear...,” Burns lags behind, stiff and terrified. But Nick pours on the peer pressure – “This is your moment” – and Jamie takes the leap.

While Soto's breaking down the fundraiser incident for Ambrose, he gets a call. An officer who's since been trailing Jamie says the suspect wants Harry to meet him at the school. Soto promises to track Harry's phone. “This guy's capable of anything.” Ambrose offers a nervous smile. “If you don't hear from me by the time you wake up, come find me.”

While Harry is traveling to meet Jamie, we get a quick peek at what Lela's up to. She's cleaning house...and finding the bloody tissue she'd previously used to wipe her husband's “mosquito bite.” She secures it in a zip-lock bag.

When Ambrose meets Burns, the latter seems confident and enlightened. “Things are becoming clearer now.” Convinced he and Harry are trying to work through the same sort of issues, he breaks out some Nick greatest hits. “You have to accept the fear, embrace it. You want the same thing I do, to step into the abyss and find some kind of relief. I want to show you.”

This all leads to Harry and Jamie walking through the Dorchester woods, carrying small bundles of wood and a length of hose. Burns happily recites the “prickly pear” verse Nick was so fond of. They arrive at the grave, where Jamie explains its true purpose. “It was never for killing. This is for us.” Harry smartly deduces the two used to bury each other alive, but stupidly accepts Burns' invitation to give the sick game a try. “I want you to experience it, the freedom you feel when you move past fear,” urges Burns.

It's not his suspect's words that convince him, though, but a handwritten confession he hands to Harry. Jamie promises to dig him up, but also offers the note as insurance; because letting him die would eventually lead the police to his body and the confession. Harry looks at the six-foot hole, shoves the confession in his pocket, and flips a coin to determine who's buried first. One bad coin toss later, and Ambrose is on his back, peeking between the boards while Burns covers them with dirt.

Jamie advises the detective to keep the hose near his mouth so he can breath. Lying in the increasingly claustrophobic space, Harry checks his phone. No service. The hose begins to retract from the grave. He tries to grab it, but can't hold on. Completely buried at this point, he screams for Jamie. He's met with silence before the screen goes dark.

Justice League #19-28: The Sixth Dimension

 

Justice League (2018-) #19-28
The Sixth Dimension

What did you miss? For a review of the last collection in this series, click HERE

The Justice League has the map to the Sixth Dimension in hand-and with it, they have the key to saving the Multiverse from utter destruction! Meanwhile, Superman is trapped on a world with no light and hundreds of dead Supermen! The Multiverse is teetering on the brink, and Lex Luthor’s Legion of Doom is poised for victory. The final form of Perpetua takes shape, and the DCU will never be the same again! Collects issues #19-28.