Deadpool #7-10: King Deadpool Vol 2

King Deadpool Vol. 2

Written by Kelly Thompson
Art by Gerado Sandoval

Collects Deadpool (2019) #7-10.

It's a love story, Deadpool — just say yes! Elsa Bloodstone the monster hunter is dying, and the only one who can save her is…Wade Wilson! What has gone wrong with Elsa's mystical, magical Bloodstone gem? What can Deadpool possibly do about it? And what is the actual truth of the Bloodstone curse? Scandal, betrayal and a dimension full of hideous goo all await — it's gonna get messy! Then, the King of the Monsters takes on the King of the Dragons! An evil, ancient cult wants to kill Deadpool. An evil, ancient space god wants to kill Deadpool. Why does everyone want to kill Deadpool?!?

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

From Vulture.com: https://www.vulture.com/article/fargo-season-4-episode-4-recap-the-pretend-war.html

Fargo S4 Ep 4: The Pretend War

Fargo Recap: A Burning Ring of Fire
By Keith Phipps


Photo: Courtesy of FX

Before getting into this week’s episode, “The Pretend War,” it’s worth pausing for a moment to consider the split-screen transition devices the series has been using all season. They’re both elegant and ominous, never more so than in this week’s opening, which checks in on most of the major characters in the moments after Zelmare and Swanee’s raid on the Cannon safe house in between shots of Christmas decorations. The device has featured a few dual compositions, most memorably one that positioned Josto opposite Loy, but it’s mostly employed triptychs. That’s better suited to this season’s narrative. This season is about a struggle between Josto and Loy, sure, but all these other elements keep getting into the mix, like Gaetano and Oraetta and the gun-toting Bonnie-and-Bonnie pair of Zelmare and Swanee. There’s always an X-factor throwing off the balance. It’s never just about two sides clashing.


It’s not even clear who’s in charge of each side. In another sit-down between consiglieri, Ebal and Doctor Senator make a tense effort to keep the peace before tensions between the Faddas and the Cannons get too out of control. This time it’s Ebal’s turn to monologue. Recounting his experiences as an immigrant to Doctor, he recalls puzzling over the phrase “American values,” ultimately concluding that “to be an American is to pretend.” It’s an act of roleplaying that involves sustaining an attitude that you have a right to be here, that you’ve always had a right to be here. Ebal says he has no problem with that, but he can’t pretend that the two sides are at peace when they’re really at war (an exchange that gives the episode its title).


The only problem: He doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. Sure, in a memorable early scene, the Cannons surrounded a Fadda truck smuggling weapons beneath a load of oranges in a flaming ring, sent the driver off to a fiery death, and branded Constant’s face with the barrel of a gun, but they were reacting both to Zelmare and Swanee’s safe house raid and a failed hit on Loy’s jazz-loving son Lemuel. With no knowledge of how much Gaetano was flexing his muscles and trying to push Josto off the throne, Ebal came to the meeting unprepared. “It seems to be that you aren’t tracked in on all the critical goings on in your house these days,” Doctor tells him, an apt summary of the chaotic state of all things Fadda these days. Or, as Loy puts it, nobody seems to know if the “ape or the pipsqueak” is running the show.

Loy’s well-equipped to take advantage of the situation, even if he’s slow to act. Maybe he’s too concerned about the well-being of his family to lash out. Or maybe he still has designs on expanding the legitimate wing of the Cannon syndicate, even if the banks don’t seem interested in the way-out “credit card” idea he and Doctor are championing. Or maybe he’s just smart and wants to stay that way. “Nobody’s dumb and smart at the same time,” he says, and Loy’s not dumb. He quickly susses out that the safe house raid, though bloody and costly, is “just some crime.”

Instead of coming at Josto, he tries to get at him via Rabbi, a perceived weak link and a man with whom he’s developed a certain amount of understanding (even if that doesn’t stop Loy from cutting him, with both a knife and his words). It also doesn’t take him long to figure out that Thurman, as harmless as he seems, has shown up at his house with the safe house money. (Though, to be fair, Swanee’s vomit definitely looked potent enough to survive Zelmare’s attempt to clean it of blood and fumes). Will he be smart enough to survive the coming storm? TBD. After taking possession of 300 guns, he sends 200 north to Mort Kellerman, a Fargo gangster, at a bargain price in return for his loyalty. We met the ill-fated Kellerman in Fargo’s second season. Loy seems to have picked the wrong team.

While Loy sits and makes plans, Josto’s staying busy, albeit in ways that may not benefit his long-term survival. We find him, having presumably learned Oraetta’s name and where she lives, engaging in an afternoon tryst. Oraetta has decided to teach him a thing or two about breath play, and while their session goes quite well this time, she doesn’t seem like the sort of person who will always bring safe practices to the bedroom in the future. Even more concerning, though Josto seems not to notice it, she’s annoyed at his harsh language and suspects he might just be using her to get access to more “fluffy whiz-bang,” a habit that seems unlikely to help his judgement.

It might be a factor in his decision to go confront Gaetano after Rabbi tells him of the failed hit Josto knows he didn’t order. He stands his ground against his younger brother, who backs down. (Having a gun pressed against your testicles can make even the biggest, toughest man reconsider his choices.) But it feels like a temporary retreat. Josto’s making his family members choose sides and Rabbi, whatever his flaws, stands by Josto in the standoff. When it ends, most of the Faddas leave with Josto, but his grasp on power seems more tenuous than ever before.

It doesn’t help that Odis, his man in the KCPD, fails to lose Deafy by giving him the hot tip that Zelmare and Swanee have skipped town for Chicago. Deafy doesn’t buy it. (The “informant’s” poor performance certainly doesn’t help.) “Kansas City was my mandate and Kansas City is where I’ll stay,” he tells Odis, while also pointing out that being a federal marshal means he can always call someone in Chicago to handle it. Beyond that, Odis takes him directly to Fadda headquarters with the excuse of talking to a different tipster, Rabbi (who’s everywhere this week). That Deafy stares down both the now-marred Constant and Gaetano while recounting a story of what happened to some Italian criminals who dared to set foot in Salt Lake City doesn’t bode well for the prospect of the Faddas staying under the radar thanks to Josto’s relationship with Odis.

Their discussion also feels like an appetizer for a bigger blow-up down the line, but it’s nowhere near as ominous as what happens to Ethelrida when she reluctantly takes Oraetta up on her offer to help organize her apartment for some spare cash. The Smutny family needs every extra dollar it can get and, hey, the offer of French music and a chance to borrow some books has its appeal. Oraetta, of course, continues to be a condescending nightmare, but she accepts Ethelrida’s proposed rate and lets her be, only warning her off looking into one of the hall closets.

It’s all going just fine — until Ethelrida, maybe forgetting the story of Bluebeard, looks into that hall closet. There she finds a stash of drugs, newspaper clippings discussing a string of seemingly unrelated deaths, and rows of eyeglasses, medals, and other ill-gotten goods. It’s the trophy case of a serial killer, even if Ethelrida has only started to put that together by episode’s end. Even worse, she’s absconded with the worst possible trophy she could have taken — Donatello’s ring — and left her journal behind in the closet. This could turn ugly quickly.

If so, it’s unlikely to be the only trouble soon visited on the King of Tears mortuary. Dibrell knows right away how her husband has paid off their loan, and knows it could lead to a disaster for the family. (Their exchange gives Anji White her best moment yet after several episodes of providing strong support from the margins.) “It’ll all blow over soon enough,” Thurman says to Ethelrida, but he doesn’t sound like he believes it. And, even if he’s right, that doesn’t mean the blowing over won’t leave plenty of destruction behind.
Okay Then!

• We learn a bit more about what makes Oraetta run this episode. She’s a romantic who dreams of travel to Istanbul, an exotic place that is maybe where they shot Casablanca? They shot Casablanca in Casablanca, Josto tells her. (He’s wrong but he’s at least a little less wrong.) Nonetheless, she’s emerging as a person who’s confused her yearning to experience life in its fullness with a sense that she doesn’t need to follow the rules of conventional society. (She does not like swearing, however. She and Deafy would probably get along.)

• A couple of non-Coen homages this week. Zelmare hanging all that money on a clothesline after washing it out in a tub recalls the Wachowskis’ great Bound, in which Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly find love while ripping off some gangsters. The ringing telephone that keeps ringing even after the image shifts elsewhere gives a little nod to Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America. The oranges in the truck and later on Loy’s table echo the use of oranges as a symbol of death in each of the Godfather movies. Clearly Hawley and the rest of the Fargo crew spent some time watching classic gangster movies to prepare for this season.

• A lingering question: What did Oraetta want to accomplish with the ipecac-laced pie? Presumably sickening the whole Munson family to a much lesser degree than poor Swanee is experiencing. She couldn’t have thought one of the Munsons would have gobbled up the whole pie. Also, why she sent the pie in the first place remains a mystery, unless it was simply out of spite at Ethelrida’s understandably less-than-respectful attitude.

• Oh yeah, there’s apparently now a ghost in the mix. Ehelrida sees it in the King of Tears. Zelmare sees it — assuming it’s the same one — in the hotel room. Her line about people, not places, being haunted seems even more significant now.

• That sex scene should probably have come with a “Don’t try this at home” warning.

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

From Showtime: https://www.sho.com/black-monday/season/3/episode/10/one

Black Monday S3 Ep 10: ONE!

New Year’s Eve 1989. It’s Mo’s “wedding day,” but priority number one is to make sure he and his crew live to see another decade. He and Dawn, Blair, Keith and Yassir work together to do whatever it takes to make sure that happens. Season finale.

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

From Syfy.com: https://www.syfy.com/the-expanse/episodes/season/3/episode/1/fight-or-flight

The Expanse S3 Ep 1: Fight or Flight

As news of the protomolecule snakes its way around Earth, Mars, and the Belt, everybody is preparing for war. On Earth, the UN meets to figure out their next step. Errinwright — who's lying about Avasarala's whereabouts — pushes for a first-strike on Mars before Mars uses the protomolecule to gain military dominance. Secretary-General Gillis is reluctant but is ultimately convinced; he calls for a full Security Council vote to authorize war.

Up in space, the seriously demoralized crew of the Rocinante scan the hull of the ship for signs of the protomolecule. It's clean. But Prax can't stop thinking about the hybrid creature they killed and whether or not it was his daughter, Mei.

Elsewhere, Amos and Alex are tense with each other, and they talk about what to do next now that Naomi's deception has been revealed. Alex says they need to keep their "family" together, but Amos says they're no such thing and is planning to cut loose to Ceres. Alex presses Amos to say what he felt when he heard what Naomi did. Amos: "She's not the person I thought she

was."

On Jules-Pierre Mao's ship, Avasarala fights to keep Cotyar alive. Bobbie Draper, still in her armored suit, says there are more hostiles onboard and needs to leave for a few moments. Avasarala is NOT very happy about that. Draper goes and digs out Theo, that panicked tech who helped her out earlier, from his hiding spot. She needs his help and isn't interested in taking no for an answer. "Today," she says, "you get to be a hero."

Prax is pretty much the only one on the Roci still talking to Naomi, so they bond a bit over what they should name the transponder. Prax suggests "Contorta," since it's a pine that can only survive by dying with fire. Naomi seems to take some small comfort in that.

On Tycho, Fred Johnson sends a video message to Anderson Dawes on Ceres, saying he has the protomolecule, and they need to work together to help the Belt against Earth and Mars. On Mao's ship, Cotyar is (slowly) recovering, and he warns Avasarala that Errinwright surely knows they've survived. They'll need a plan of action. When Draper opens the pod door, a nervous Avasarala opens fire before she sees who it is. The bullets bounce off of Draper's mecha-suit, and Draper congratulates Avasarala on a job well done.

At the UN, Errinwright fabricates a half-true story to Gillis in an attempt to throw the blame for Eros at Avasarala's feet. He says she's been running a shadow government (true) and helping Fred Johnson (true) and running the weapons tests on Eros (false). Gillis ends up buying it and gives the order to have her apprehended "at all costs."

Elsewhere, Drummer is working out HARD and really punishing her body that's still healing from the attempted coup on Tycho. She's interrupted by Fred, who tells her about the protomolecule and his plans to share it with Dawes. Drummer, who has her own dark past with Dawes, flips out at this.

On the Roci, Naomi tries to convince Amos and Alex that they should go to Tycho. They're being sought by both Martian and Earther patrols and won't last long on their own. Tycho and Fred Johnson are their only allies. Amos and Alex are too furious with her to properly consider it. Amos and Alex finish up their repair work, but out of their sight below deck, some remnant protomolecule goo remains undetected.

On Mao's ship, Avasarala and her allies come upon the flight crew, who feign innocence until Draper and her mecha-suit step on some kind of electrical barrier. In the ensuing shootout, Cotyar's sharpshooting skills take the whole crew out.

Amos updates Holden on their efforts to go unnoticed as they travel. Then he says they should go to Tycho like Naomi suggested. Even if they're all mad at her, she's right. Later, Naomi checks in on Holden, and he still doesn't seem to want to talk much. After she leaves, though, he takes out his anger on an unsuspecting coffee machine.

Aboard Mao's ship, they learn that Errinwright is sending missiles from a nearby ship to destroy them. Cotyar remembers someone mentioning that Mao keeps a racing ship for his son aboard. They need to get to it. But Avasarala sends Theo to retrieve the ship's communication logs so she can nail Errinwright upon their return.

Holden and Prax have a nice conversation about learning to let go of the past. Holden sees that Prax is still tormented, and he tries to assure him that the hybrid they killed wasn't Mei. Prax says they'll never know for sure, and he'll have to live with it.

Theo retrieves the comm logs, and Cotyar hustles the group to find this racing ship. They find it, but the bad news is it's a two-seater. And they can't even get to it with the doors locked, which they will remain as long as the ship is at full burn. Draper heads off to handle it.

Alex records a message to his family, apologizing for not being there for them. Meanwhile, Draper has cut a hole in Mao's ship and is walking the exterior hull in her mecha-suit in order to manually open the hangar doors.

Holden surprises his crew with a new plan: he says they never looked hard enough for Prax's daughter, and now he's got a lead on one of Mao's stations on Io. Naomi objects and says Tycho is the only place they're safe. Holden assures her he's put the protomolecule betrayal behind him, and that going to Io is what's right. Amos and Alex concur, and a course is set.

On Tycho, Drummer is still pissed at Fred for trading away the dream of a new way forward for the Belt, just to get in cahoots with Dawes and the protomolecule. Fred, meanwhile, needs Drummer to lead a mission to salvage the Nauvoo, last seen pushing Eros across the system. With the hangar door open, Draper and Avasarala are free to launch (Cotyar and Theo are taking the drop ship). Avasarala and Cotyar share an emotional goodbye, and then Avasarala and Draper bicker all the way into their ship. Draper speeds their ship away just as the missiles destroy Mao's ship.

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

From Vulture.com: https://www.vulture.com/article/billions-recap-season-5-episode-9-implosion.html

Billions S5 Ep 9: Implosion

Billions Recap: Who’s Your Son Now?
By Sarene Leeds


Photo: SHOWTIME

When the single mention of your name sums up the extent of your destructive power, you know you’ve reached a new apex of evil.

Bobby Axelrod’s one-word moniker suffices as the explanation for no less than four plot points in this episode: (1) Mike Prince’s permanently tattered reputation. (2) Wendy and Tanner’s acrimonious split. (3) Taylor Mason Carbon’s decimation. (4) Senior’s kidney transplant.

(Even more impressive is the fact that Axe managed to wreak this much havoc primarily via Zoom and FaceTime calls. Owing to the fact Damian Lewis was likely in the U.K. at the time of filming, several of his “Implosion” scenes resemble those of Hitchcock’s in the new season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.)

Yes, Axe is on a hot streak. But, by allowing his emotion to guide his decisions, he’s also opening himself up to a lot of vulnerability. At least that’s what Prince and his new allies Chuck and Taylor (comment below if reading that just made your head go here) are hoping will happen. Never one to rest on his laurels, Axe is still so determined to keep beating his now-vanquished enemy that even loyalists like Wags and Wendy are suggesting he ease up. Also, by the end of “Implosion,” Axe has free rein over his new bank, brilliantly disposing of an impenetrable trustee like Senior at the last minute. Chuck, Prince, and Taylor have no choice but to use this limitless authority to their advantage, going on the belief that when you have that much autonomy, you’re bound to make a grave error eventually.

The fun for us is in speculating if Axe’s latest outrageous venture will finally be the one that breaks him — in addition to everyone else in his orbit.

I’ve spent a lot of time in these recaps analyzing whether or not the Billions characters have a shred of humanity inside them. Yes, Chuck is fighting his inner demons and maybe trying to prove to himself that he’s still on the right side of the law, but if you believe that, then I have a bridge near Chuck’s neck of the woods that I’d like to sell you. Mike Prince is a similar kind of beast, so his alliance with Chuck makes sense: He’s outwardly repenting for his sins when he really just wants people to stop hating him.

No amount of damage control can save Prince after last week’s career-sinking newsmagazine exposé. Investors are pulling out, charities refuse to touch him, and his eponymous financial conference, the Mike, is dunzo. But this brutal downfall has been a trip to Tivoli Gardens compared to the steely dressing-down Prince receives from Brenda Fells while visiting her modest Indiana home. On his proverbial knees, Prince offers her anything she wants in exchange for her forgiveness, but Brenda isn’t interested in a dirty blank check. She kicks him out of her house with a solid piece of advice: Fix yourself by not paying others to do the work for you.

This sets off the chain reaction that ends with the Taylor-Prince-Chuck alliance.

Against Scooter’s counsel, Prince insists on selling off the companies hurting by the association to his name. As soon as Taylor gets wind of the fire sale, they ask Axe permission to go on a buying spree. Not only does Axe bar Taylor from making said purchases, but he also orders them to dump all of Mase Carb’s holdings connected to Prince. The trouble is, forcing Mase Carb to release their Prince-related positions wouldn’t only hurt Prince, but Mase Carb as well.

Although Wendy persuades Axe to drop this terrible idea in front of Taylor, a surreptitious FaceTime to Mafee confirms that no one can stop this grudge-holding billionaire from twisting the knife. A livid, rain-soaked Prince delivers the news later that evening to Taylor that Mase Carb has suddenly dropped all of its Prince holdings. (Axe, guilting the shit out of Mafee, forced the trades, thus putting decent companies out of business and ruining Mase Carb’s reputation as an impact fund.)

After initially returning to the Axe Cap fold to watch Chuck and Axe fight themselves into oblivion, Taylor realizes they have to take a side (again). This was predicted earlier in the season, with Chuck offering himself to Taylor as a potential ally, knowing they would need his help on the day Axe inevitably turned on them.

As for Wendy and Tanner, I’m relieved Axe quashed their relationship because the two of them were infuriating. Multimillionaire Wendy was a hypocrite for rebuking Tanner over his enjoyment of wealth, claiming he was so much happier when he was a starving artist. And don’t get me started on Tanner’s aggro-brooding over not having a passive “girl” in his bed — or how he threw an adult-sized tantrum by taking a razor to his work.

Yet, Axe won out in the end. He is now in possession of the sleeping-Wendy charcoal drawing that set off his stalker-y vibes in the first place. (She might as well have FedEx-ed that thing to him the way she oh so poetically crumpled it up and threw it on the studio floor.)

But none of these victories are as deliciously malevolent as the episode’s 11th-hour twist.

A mouthwatering new assignment as an oversight trustee (job description: “Torture Axe’s every decision”) to Axe’s bank is the only thing that makes a sickly Senior pull off his comfy pink blanket and stand up with pride. That is until Axe decides he can’t have Chuck’s dad hall-monitoring his new scheme.

Chuck then recounts the sorry scenario to Prince in his office, where, in flashback, the New York AG is summoned to the hospital by the joyous news that a kidney has been found. While Senior is being prepped for surgery, Dr. Swerdlow — whom you may remember as the creepy, unlicensed doctor who tried selling the Rhoades men a kidney from a Central American immigrant — briefs Chuck.

Strangely enough, Dr. Creepy Doctor isn’t responsible for Senior’s miracle kidney. Though he’s a wellspring of prescient medical information, commending Chuck for getting a donor so quickly — and giving the episode a February 2020 timestamp — before New York hospitals are “overrun with that damned Chinese bug” in a month.

So if it wasn’t Dr. Creepy Doctor, and it wasn’t Chuck, then the answer has to be, like everything else in this episode, Axe.

Rolling up behind Senior’s gurney is one Danny Margolis (Daniel Cosgrove), a.k.a. Axe’s “museum curator” and a longtime associate who is only too happy to provide a healthy organ to a dying man. With one simple medical procedure, Axe has ensured that Senior can no longer censure his new bank and that Chuck will be indebted to his mortal enemy for life. Axe has given Senior the one thing Chuck couldn’t, making him more of a son to Charles Rhoades Sr. than the man who has his own name.

Bobby Axelrod does wield Goliath-size supremacy, but he’s also about to go up against three tremendously pissed-off victims. If I were him, I wouldn’t dismiss the idea of strength in numbers.
Loose Change

• These last few episodes must’ve been a dream job for Jeffrey DeMunn, spending his days working in pajamas and rocking Bernie Sanders hair.

• Excellent line delivery by Paul Giamatti of “[Axe] became the son I couldn’t be” in the final scene. The voice crack on the word “couldn’t” adds just the right amount of pathos.

• If Asia Kate Dillon entered all of their scenes to that blistering Eddie Van Halen riff going forward, I doubt I would ever get bored with it.

The Morning Show S1 Ep 1: In The Dark of the Soul It's Always 3:30 in the Morning

from Vulture.com: https://www.vulture.com/2019/11/the-morning-show-series-premiere-recap-episode-1-season-1.html

The Morning Show Series-Premiere Recap: And We’re Live
By Maggie Fremont


Photo: Apple

As a society, I think we can all agree that no good news is ever delivered by way of a phone call at 3 a.m. Like, ever. Okay, maybe if your friend lives in a different time zone and calls to wish you a happy birthday or something, but if that happens, your friend legitimately sucks. In the opening moments of Apple TV+’s new drama, The Morning Show, it is not a dumb friend calling various members of The Morning Show (the morning news show within the show, you get it) team to celebrate life, but rather pass along some pretty dreadful news: Co-anchor Mitch Kessler (Steve Carrell) has just been fired by the network over allegations of sexual misconduct — an investigation into those allegations was leaked to the New York Times and Mitch is out. Chaos, yelling speeches in people’s faces, and a star-studded TV series ensues.

Let’s not pretend that you’re only now just hearing about The Morning Show. Apple has been hyping up the reunion of Rachel and Jill Green for what seems like actual years of my life. Why wouldn’t they? The glossy show boasts Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Reese Witherspoon’s brown wig, and Steve Carrell as its leads. Dear lord, hype that up! Let’s also not pretend that we all don’t know this is very much based on what went down with Matt Lauer on The Today Show. It is so thinly veiled, there’s almost no veil to be found.

There is one other thing about which we should stop pretending. I feel like everyone was expecting this to be the next big prestige drama (not unwarranted, the show certainly thinks it is Very Important), but let’s call it what it is, at least in this episode: a well-produced, well-acted primetime soap. Or, like, whatever-time soap — streaming, amirite? And I say that not as a dig, but as someone who lives for soapy dramas.

You know when I figured that out? Right around the time Reese Witherspoon’s character, Bradley Jackson, a reporter at a local conservative news station in Virginia, who’s not like other reporters, she’s tough — she curses a lot and wears leather jackets and has feelings, okay?! — gets in trouble with her boss after a video of her screaming at a protester about how exhausted she is with the state of the world goes viral. Her response to her boss who is asking her to check her temper? “I was talking to him about the truth. Remember the truth? Journalism? We’re newspeople!” Oh reader, I laughed so hard. That’s some top-notch cheese right there, not an Important Dramatic Monologue. I think we’ll all be happier when we (and that “we” includes the actual show) embrace the soap!

After the news about Mitch breaks, things proceed much as you would expect. Mitch, who is an — there is no better word for it — asshole, spends the next three days holed up in his mansion yelling about how he didn’t do anything wrong, his affairs with multiple PAs and assistants were all consensual, and he’s simply collateral damage in Harvey Weinstein’s mess. So yeah, just like, a real charmer.

Meanwhile, the heads of the network — including Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup), the new director of the news division and possibly a psychopath — are scrambling to figure out how best to not just retain all of their advertisers but also how The Morning Show, which has been dipping in the ratings, could capitalize on the moment. It’s very gross!

But this show — at least, this episode — is not about those dinks. It’s about Alex Levy (Aniston), Mitch’s co-anchor of 15 years. They are the mom and dad of morning TV. She calls him her “TV husband.” Alex is blindsided by the news. You guys, Jennifer Aniston is insanely good on this show. She so perfectly balances Alex’s hurt, anger, grief, and yes, even the thought that this could be a huge moment for her career. Alex goes on the air alone when The Morning Show begins just hours after the Mitch news breaks. She gives her little speech about how shocked she is, how betrayed everyone feels, while also noting that her sympathy is with the victims and she’s glad she lives in a world where actions have consequences. She even tears up! If that was her moment, it was a pretty good one.

Off the air, she fumes about not being told about the investigation and wanting control over who will replace Mitch, she grows increasingly annoyed with people giving her condolences, she sucks down a lot of vodka. It’s not until she is told to give a nice fluffy interview with Bradley Jackson that Alex reaches a breaking point.

You see, Alex doesn’t buy that a reporter in the year of our Lord 2019 would not assume people are filming her and thinks the entire incident must have been set up for publicity. On air, Alex slowly winds up to calling Bradley out for breaking the number one rule of reporting: You don’t make the story about you, and she clearly did. Alex continues with the digs, clearly hoping to ruffle Bradley, but the woman remains unruffled. She even dishes some of the passive-aggressiveness back. Is Alex impressed or pissed that she didn’t break her? Probably both. You guys, if all Aniston-Witherspoon scenes are going to be like that, we can have 1,000 people remind us that “we’re newspeople!” and I won’t even care. Just kidding, let’s cap that at like, two at most.

Of course, there is another showdown we’ve been waiting to see this entire episode, and it finally arrives in the final few minutes: Alex goes to confront Mitch face-to-face. She comes to his home in the dead of night, having to sneak through the backwoods so as to not alert the press hovering out front. She arrives soaking wet from the rain and she is so, so angry. Guys, if Aniston doesn’t win awards for this scene alone there might be riots. Mitch continues to be a real prick, adhering to his belief that he’s the victim here. He even wonders aloud if Alex is just jealous of the other women since the two of them apparently slept together twice in the past. Why Alex doesn’t claw his face in that moment, one will never know.

In fact, it is only once Alex shows how completely devastated she is by this — that she gave up everything in her life for this job and now, because he’s an asshole, she could lose it all, that she also lost the one person who truly understood her life, and the bond they had before is gone forever — that Mitch shows the slightest remorse for his actions.

Any start toward healing is completely obliterated when, after they embrace and she tries to leave, he runs after her — he does not want to be alone, you see! — and follows her outside to tell her that the network was planning on getting rid of her anyway. Alex thinks he’s just trying to hurt her, but honestly, after seeing Cory have a discussion with Executive Producer Chip (Mark Duplass) basically saying the same thing and then watching him call up Bradley post-interview to “discuss her future,” Mitch’s reveal tracks.

This Just In:

• Did we really need a glimpse into Bradley’s backstory in this episode? We meet her bipolar addict brother, Hal (Joe Tippett), and her mother (Brett Butler), who most definitely hates her daughter, before Bradley’s whisked off to NYC. Bradley’s apoplectic that her mother would take Hal out of the rehab Bradley put him in just two weeks ago. Her family sucks, basically. More on this later, surely.

• Oh, okay, Paige Kessler (Embeth Davidtz)! Mitch’s wife shows up only to tell him she’s taking the kids to the Hamptons and divorcing him. She didn’t really like him anymore, anyway.

• Bold of Apple to have a character in their marquee show give a speech about how broadcast news is dying and unless it reinvents itself it will be devoured by tech companies. Cool, cool, cool.

• What’s the deal with Chip and Alex? Are they simply just close after 15 years of working together? She seems to kind of hate him — she ignores his calls and generally scowls at him — but they have excellent chemistry. Also, Chip is always the first to defend Alex to the network and he definitely looks like he wants to punch Cory in the face when he suggests getting rid of her since she’s basically Mitch’s TV widow now and has lost any sexual appeal. Actually, I believe the quote is “Nobody wants to watch a widow get fucked,” which, hello, is truly something.

• Alex and her husband (Jack Davenport) seem to be in a weird place, huh? They’re clearly only still married for pretenses: Alex almost forgets to put her wedding ring on before she leaves for work from an apartment where she clearly lives alone. But when he and their college-aged daughter come to see her, he does seem genuinely concerned for how she’s doing.

• There’s a Big Event on Friday, guys!! No one mentions what it is but they talk about it several times! A big event at the worst time!! Get ready!

• Bradley Jackson? We’re really sticking with that?

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

From Vulture.com: https://www.vulture.com/2018/09/the-sinner-recap-season-2-episode-8-

part-viii.html

The Sinner S2 Ep 8

The Sinner Recap: No More Flap, Jack
By Kenny Herzog


Photo: Peter Kramer/USA Network

Marin sure has Jack pegged. Tipsy and talking at the Novacks’ dining-room table, with Heather sleeping one off upstairs, she stares a hole through her best friend’s dad and declares, “You just make fucking pancakes and hope for the best.” Amen. Alas, there are no farm-fresh eggs or scrumptious scrambles in jail, for Jack or anyone else (maybe ranch dressing though). All he gets now is a plastic cup of tap water in the Keller PD interrogation room as Heather pleads for answers as to how or why he could rape her best friend, hide that the resulting child — Julian — was his, and then funnel money to Vera for years through a bogus shell company so she didn’t betray his secret.

But as Frankie’s parents found out in season one, people who you scar and leave to sort through their personal wreckage have a way of happening back into your life. Jack, grief-stricken over the loss of his wife (a circumstance that was rather conspicuous in its absence of mention), seized control by taking away someone else’s power. He’s no better than Lionel, really, and he’s certainly not superior to Vera, who confesses her own tyrannical tendencies to Harry but hasn’t assaulted anyone under her away or run from committing her most horrible acts.

She is on the move though, with Julian, dropping in on a feminist friend in Manhattan’s Chinatown while ducking the cops, intent on changing identities and starting over at some presumed new commune in Washington State. Then again, she did burn down Mosswood’s ritual barn, an act that could be considered a fresh start but also a disavowal of psycho-spiritual pursuits. That’s unlikely, and Julian knows it. So at Harry’s advice, he makes a choice, a choice all his own. It’s a wiser choice than those made by anyone else this season, a commentary on the supposed wisdom of grown-ups but also the delicacy of charting one’s own path at a formative age before they too bear the permanent marks of trauma and pain. Marin, Julian’s mom, was also his ultimate cautionary tale, more than Harry or Vera or his apparent half-sister Heather. Her tragic death, and the terrible history behind it, was as much a wake-up call to Julian as his very birth was to Vera back in 2005. (It’s also rather pointed that he’s released from New Horizons at the same age his mother was when her potential was cut short.)

What to make of Vera, anyhow? She’s no criminal, not by Harry and the court’s standards, nor is she accountable for the choices her and Lionel’s followers made in following her lead. (Lionel’s passing, all but certainly a result of jimson tea, was, à la Heather’s mom, not mentioned overtly, but the flashback shot of those deadly flowers all but confirmed the Beacon’s pushing up daisies.) She also brushed aside Marin’s death, made haste for some great unknown with Julian without consulting him and — as is finally revealed — engaged in some super-intense fireside therapy with Harry that nearly left him autoerotically asphyxiated.

She sure does have the detective pegged though, no less precisely than Marin zeroed in on Jack’s coping techniques for figuring out how to be a small-town widower with a gay daughter struggling to find love. Vera warned Harry that saving Julian wouldn’t be the same as pulling himself from the ashes of his smoldering childhood. And it wasn’t. All he could do at Niagara Falls was watch Julian from afar, waiting but never quite finding himself overcome with whatever peace feels like. Julian can see it on Harry’s face, too, but Harry’s made his choices. He just can’t quite live with them. Julian, somehow, can (even though he totally murdered a woman who loved him and a poor schmuck eager to help).

Season two of The Sinner was marred by one contrivance after the next, the cost of coming to a conclusion so twisty that, paradoxically, it felt like a pretty straight line. Still, there are dots left unconnected. Did everyone, even ponytail man, ditch Mosswood for good? Did Carmen Bell benefit from any kind of vindication? Does Glenn Fisher get any kind of comeuppance? Do any of the men in town who pledged allegiance to Lionel and slunk back into the fabric of their community as if it hadn’t been ripped apart? Is Harry going to ask Vera out on a date or simply pack up his belongings and emotional baggage and head back to Dorchester? (How could he, with so much left to personally and professionally explore in his hometown and at least one open bedroom at Jack and Heather’s house?) Does eminent domain over the giant obelisk rock go back to the Fishers now? And most importantly, does Brick finally get a promotion or what?

Apart From All That

• Poor Heather.

• Husband-and-wife duo Carrie Coon and Tracy Letts really dueling for most uncomfortably physical performance.

• Daedalus Shipping — not too subtle.

• P.S. to the above: Try Google, Brick.

• At least Chief Lidell wasn’t a total dick.

• Elisha Henig was terrific. The show did miss Jessica Biel, however.

• Motel key in the jeans? Something tells me Jack wanted to get caught.