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

From Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/article/fargo-season-4-episode-2-recap-the-land-of-talking-and-killing.html

Fargo S4 Ep 2:
The Land of Talking and Killing

Fargo Recap: Slaughterhouse Mine
By Keith Phipps


Photo: Copyright 2020, FX Networks. All Rights Reserved.

“Welcome to the Alternate Economy,” the fourth season premiere of Fargo, stacked one unanswered question atop another, including this one: Who’s this season’s hero? Ethelrida quickly emerged as the season’s most thoughtful and honorable character, but she’s just a kid, right? Surely there had to be some kind of unlikely but stalwart police officer waiting in the wings, per Fargo tradition. They might be eccentric, sure, but they’d get the job done. Enter Odis Weff (Jack Huston), a Kansas City cop who doesn’t let his obsessive-compulsive disorder get in his way. Though some might be put off by his restlessness, facial tics, and need to knock on a door the correct number of times before exiting a room, Odis ignores them. He’s smart and thorough, never letting a detail go unnoticed. Clearly, this is our guy.

One problem: He’s on the take. After investigating the Faddas’ failed attempt on Dr. Harvard’s life — their anger at being turned away from his hospital has only intensified after Donatella’s death — Odis seems like he’s on the trail of the mystery, but it’s all an illusion. At Donatella’s wake he talks to Josto about his investigation and the need to find a patsy to “frame up” to throw off the top brass who are, in Odis’ words, “measuring up my asshole like they’re fixing to move in” (which sounds extremely painful). Whatever else Odis might be, this season’s hero he is not.

At TCA press tour, creator Noah Hawley described this as a conscious choice, saying, “In the movie and in the first three seasons, the all-good, moral character was always a cop. […] But the reality is there are a lot of Americans, that is not their experience of cops. So my hope was to create a story this year in which that burden was lifted off the cop and allow Odis to land in a different place on the moral spectrum.” Look elsewhere for a hero, in other words. That lends extra meaning to having Ethelrida, a Black kid in a racist town filled with corrupt cops, serve as the season’s moral center — if, of course, she can survive all the perils and shady characters Kansas City keeps throwing her way.

Sometimes they arrive on her doorstep. “The Land of Taking and Killing” opens with an image familiar to Fargo: snow falling on a field as the wind howls. It then pans down to an image inspired by Raising Arizona: a pair of prison inmates escaping and celebrating their freedom, loudly. Enter Zelmare Roulette (Karen Aldridge) and Swanee Capps (Kelsey Asbille). After procuring fresh duds from a pair of suckers at a nearby honky-tonk, they head directly to the Smutny home at the King of Tears mortuary where Zelmare reunites with her sister, Dibrell.

For Dibrell, it’s an occasion for mixed emotions. She’s thrilled to see Zelmare but justifiably suspicious of the circumstances of her arrival (particularly given that she shows up wearing a fur coat accompanied by Swanee, who wears cowboy outfit taken from the self-described “big buck” who offered her a trip “round the world”). Already thinking of robbing a bank, they don’t even really pretend to have been reformed, though Zelmare corrects Swanee’s grammar, the result of an insufficient reservation education where the teachers were, by her account, “mostly concerned with rapin’ the Native out of me.” But it’s not just criminal prospects that have brought Zelmare and Swanee to Dibrell and Thurman’s home. Zelmare’s gotten wind that her sister and brother-in-law are in deep with “leg-breakers” charging them exorbitant interest on a loan. Maybe she can help.

In the meantime, King of Tears’ business keeps rolling along, requiring Ethelrida to travel across town to pick up some formaldehyde from a different funeral home. She arrives just in time for a big funeral filled with Italians and sure to contain, she’s told, “yelling and rending of clothes.” Warned off checking it out for herself, Ethelrida naturally ignores the advice, peering in to watch the Faddas mourn their patriarch. That includes a big, intimidating man whose identity we’ll soon learn: Gaetano Fadda (Salvatore Esposito), the brother whose return from Italy so upset Josto when his father told him of it shortly before his death.

We’ll soon see why, but not before Ethelrida has another awkward conversation with Oraetta, who’s arrived to pay her respects for some reason. Oraetta’s surprised when Ethelrida replies to a French phrase in French, and corrects her in the process, in a later conversation clarifying that she didn’t think they taught French at the “colored school.” Ethelrida explains that they don’t, that she’s self-taught, further piquing Oraetta’s interest. Before saying she wants to take Ethelrida on as one of her “special projects,” she extends an offer to pay her in exchange for some light cleaning. The nature of the work and Oraetta’s condescending attitude makes Ethelrida bristle, even after Oraetta attempts to sweeten the deal with promises of long-playing records with French songs and stories. So is this why Oraetta gifts the Smutnys with an apple pie laced with digestion-disrupting ipecac (and a little blood) as the episode draws to a close? Does some other motive drive her? Either way, she fits Zelmare’s four-word assessment. She’s “one weird white lady.”

Of course, Zelmare doesn’t yet know how weird. Two details put to rest a lingering question from the previous episode, the question of whether Josto might have wanted Oraetta to kill Donatello. First, Josto clearly doesn’t remember Oraetta when he sees her again at the funeral. Second, we learn that she’s in the habit of killing patients out of a perverse sense of mercy. So does her employer, when she’s caught in the act of attempting to send a heart patient on his way by injecting poison into his IV drip. But instead of getting fired or jailed, Oraetta negotiates her way to a decent severance package by suggesting it’s the only way for the hospital to avoid disgrace, given that she might have been confused by the doctors’ awful handwriting. It’s almost as if she’s done this sort of thing before. Hmmm….

Back to Gaetano: He and Josto have, to put it mildly, different management styles. Gaetano’s a hardline pragmatist who leads with his fists and believes in “Business. Family. Country.” In that order. To explain his point of view — while staring down the much smaller Josto on the street — he recounts his wartime experiences first working for, then against Mussolini, not because of any kind of moral awakening but because of business interests. As a reminder of his loyalties, he carries some still-bloody teeth in his pocket in a little metal case. Josto has issues with Loy Cannon, for sure, but he’s got trouble in his own house as well.

Speaking of Loy, he comes to the Fadda house for a visit to check on his son Satchel and allow Fadda to do the same with Zero. It’s, by the terms of their arrangement, only a short stay. Loy learns that Satchel’s healthy enough but not particularly happy. Rather than being integrated into the house, he lives upstairs with Rabbi Milligan, whose years-ago betrayal of his own family has earned him a place in the Fadda house but not a seat at the table, figuratively or literally, as the parallel Thanksgiving dinner scenes near the end of the episode reveal. (By contrast, Zero Fadda is a full participant at the Cannons’ celebration.)

Loy’s certainly interested in horning in on the Faddas’ territory, as a later development confirms, but he also wants to ingratiate himself to some members of the family. He speaks to Zero with respect and asks him if to consider whether his blood relations do the same. He also — after a tense exchange with Gaetano that almost comes to blows — talks frankly to Rabbi. Asked if he’s seeing to Satchel’s education, Rabbi replies, “I’m teaching him how the world works. It’s dog eat dog.” “That’s how dogs work,” Loy replies. “Men are more complicated.” Asked if he’s happy living in his “master’s house,” Rabbi says, “We live with the choices we make.” But, in spite of his terseness, he regards Loy as someone he can talk to. He shares information about Gaetano with him and offers his best reassurances that Satchel will be safe and sound. They share a level of respect. Whether or not that will develop into an alliance remains to be seen, but it wouldn’t be the first time Rabbi weighed his options and switched sides.

It seems like Loy will need some help in the days that follow. Josto doesn’t want to work out a new arrangement, leaving Loy to take matters into his own hands. Encouraged by Doctor Senator, Loy agrees to take over one of the Faddas’ slaughterhouses under the pretense that he and Donatello made an arrangement before his death. It’s an attempt to, per Doctor, “test their flank.” They’re successful, but taking the slaughterhouse and holding it prove to be two different things. After Gaetano shows up they back away, for now. But before he cedes the territory we get to see a bit of Doctor and Gaetano in action. They share a love for intimidation and meaningful eye contact. In another situation, they might have exchanged tricks of the trade, but not this one. Keeping up the unspoken racism of his encounter with Loy, Gaetano refuses to shake Doctor’s hand. “You have to give respect to get respect,” Doctor says. They agree to disagree. This clearly isn’t over.

Gaetano, Zelmare, and Swanee are just part of a veritable parade of new characters. At Donatello’s funeral we also meet Josto’s fiancée Dessie Gillis (Katie Kershaw) and her father Milvin, an alderman with political aspirations. In fact, Josto and Dessie’s impending wedding is designed to serve both men’s political ambitions, an arrangement that seems obvious to everyone but Dessie. Never mind the chaste kisses, reserved body language, and fact that Josto has seemingly barely seen her in weeks — she’s in love. By contrast, Josto and Milvin despise each other but love what they can (potentially) do for one another’s situation. Milvin wants to be mayor. Josto wants to father presidents and announces plans to “slow pump some babies” into his daughter “one at a time, and twice on Sundays.”

Like the fourth-season debut, this second episode has to expend a lot of energy putting pieces into place, which it does fairly gracefully in ways that suggest some minor characters will have more to do later on. (No doubt we’ll be seeing more of Leon, a.k.a. Happy’s Cousin, down the line.) But it also pushes the story forward more than might be expected. We’ve now gotten the first small volley in what’s shaping up to be a full-on war between the Faddas and the Cannons. And, freed of her job, Oraetta can now devote all her energy to being an agent of chaos. Then, just when it seems like it’s clear where the show goes next, Timothy Olyphant shows up as some kind of officer of the law and kicks down the door of the King of Tears, for reasons we don’t yet know. As ever, it’s not the sort of show that rewards assumptions.
Okay Then!

• Hawley directs this episode and can’t resist framing Josto like Vito Corleone (and later Michael Corleone) in The Godfather. It’s a nod to a classic film, of course, but also to Schwartzman being Francis Ford Coppola’s nephew. (He’s the son of Talia Shire, Coppola’s sister.) The parallels don’t stop there: We get a first glimpse of Josto’s sister, who resembles Connie Corleone (played by Shire in the films). In Gaetano, Josto has a hothead brother not unlike Sonny and in Rabbi an Irish “brother,” reminiscent of Tom Hagen. But while Josto bears little resemblance to the cool, paternal Vito, it’s not yet clear if he’s a Fredo or a Michael. (Maybe he’s a Fredo who mistakenly believes himself to be a Michael.)

• A neat touch: revealing Odis’ true loyalties by having him call Josto “boss” then get stuck on repeating the word.

• It’s not surprising that Oraetta would be super into astrology. It’s also not that surprising that Ethelrida would have no idea what she’s talking about. Astrology has been around for thousands of years and resurged in popularity in the West with the rise of spiritualism in the 19th century. But it didn’t become a fixture of newspapers and magazines until British astrologer R.H. Naylor created a star chart for the newborn Princess Margaret for the Sunday Express in 1930. Naylor’s later columns helped popularize star signs by presenting a daily forecast for all 12 signs of the zodiac but this was all still fairly new to the average American citizen in 1950, and astrology wouldn’t come fully into vogue in the States until the 1960s.

• Welcome to the show Salvatore Esposito, an actor best known for appearing on the Italian TV series Gomorrah (like Fargo, an adaptation of a movie). He’s got incredible presence, and if his match-up with Glynn Turman’s calm but insistent Doctor Senator anticipates future confrontations between these two magnetic actors, all the better.

• No Country for Old Men gets a little nod this episode via the cattle guns.

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

From Showtime: https://www.sho.com/black-monday/season/3/episode/8/three

Black Monday S3 Ep 8: THREE!

Original Air Date: Jul 18, 2021

Dawn readies for her upcoming move to the West Coast, only to find that Mo’s attempt to help her has, yet again, backfired. Blair realizes that the killer is inside the house. Keith needs a job real, real bad. The episode ends with Tiffany getting shot at a drag show in her honor.. What happens next? Guess we'll have to find out.

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

 

from Syfy: https://www.syfy.com/the-expanse/episodes/season/2/episode/12/the-monster-and-the-rocket

The Expanse S2 Ep 12:
The Monster and the Rocket

On Earth, Undersecretary Errinwright spends time with his young son. He's clearly haunted by the testimony he's going to have to give to the panel on Eros. As he tries to impart lessons about growing up like "listen to your heart," you get the feeling he's not planning on being around for much longer. Still, he tells his son that everything is going to be okay.

The Rocinante — with Holden, Alex, and Prax aboard — takes off from Ganymede and begins scanning for the Protomolecule hybrid creature that escaped. They find it in the AG dome, and while Holden wants to eliminate it, Prax thinks it could be — or once could have been — his daughter. The two men argue, but Holden doesn't want to hear dissent. Alex is forced to take evasive maneuvers to avoid MCRN detection, though, and they lose the signal on the hybrid.

Avasarala tries to assure Errinwright that the hearing will be okay. She also tells him about her upcoming meeting with Jules-Pierre Mao. Errinwright tells her to make him a peace offer, as it may be their only chance to "stay in the game." He truly believes Mars will use the Protomolecule to destroy Earth, and he tells Avasarala to convince Mao of the same.

On Ganymede, Melissa, the captain of the Weeping Somnambulist, is trying to herd refugees into ships when Naomi approaches with an offer to fix the Somnambulist. "You people are shit magnets," Melissa scoffs, but Naomi correctly points out that Melissa needs her. Time is short for Ganymede.

Avasarala — along with a bickering Bobbie and Cotyar — prepares to leave for her meeting with Mao. She's nervous about traveling off planet, and Cotyar teases her. Bobbie is pissy about being there in the first place. Avasarala: "Any sh*t that goes down, I expect you [two] to get me out of it." Cotyar distracts her with his misgivings about this meeting with Mao.

Meanwhile, Errinwright is in his office and signs what appears to be a suicide note and then lingers over a vial of what appears to be poison.

Having evaded detection, the Roci approaches the AG Dome. Alex tries to maneuver the ship inside the crumbling structure, and Holden tells him to keep pushing. They see the hybrid and fire upon it. They miss, but Prax goes nuts. He and Holden have another argument, and we see that Holden is crazed about eliminating this hybrid before it can do any more damage.

On Ganymede, Melissa is having trouble controlling the crowd of refugees, who try to overrun her. Amos tries to help with crowd control, but they ultimately have to shut the doors. The pressure is on for Naomi to fix the ship soon. Amos, who is still bleeding, needs a shot of painkiller. Melissa informs Naomi that the ship can hold 300, but they only have air enough for 52 people. There are over 100 refugees, and they're all going to rush onto the ship once those doors open. Naomi says they can take off with 100 and then send the overflow to the Roci when they rendezvous, but Melissa isn't banking her oxygen on the Roci being there. Melissa doesn't think they can open those doors at all, but Naomi is adamant. "We're not f**king leaving those people here."

Martian defense minister Korshunov meets with Errinwright in his office, where they attempt to negotiate over what to do about Bobbie Draper and her defector status. Errinwright stresses, "Let's not let the next war become our last war." Korshunov makes the case for new technology as a game changer. It could shave a century off of their terraforming efforts, if nothing else." But while the meeting has appeared to be civil, suddenly Korshunov drops to his knees, clearly having been poisoned by Errinwright, who monologues about a poison they discovered that only affects Martians. "You were right," he says. "One of us has to lose."

The unrest on Ganymede continues. The big muscle guy whom Melissa hired for crowd control is turning on her, and the hordes might bust down the door. On the ship, Amos tells Naomi that Melissa is right: they can't open that door. They'd doom themselves if they did.

While Bobbie and Cotyar continue to bicker, she catches on to the fact that he served in the military, so that's something they can bond over. They talk about his secret ops service, and he says he got Avasarala's son killed.

Meanwhile, Captain Malick greets Avasarala and welcomes her to Mao's ship. It's very ornate, and Avasarala makes sure to mention it. Jules-Pierre Mao soon joins them, and while he starts with small talk, Chrisjen interrupts: "Just get to the f**king point."

The Roci continues to search the AG dome for the hybrid. They're also tracking the MCRN ship Karakum when it suddenly disappears from radar. Alex thinks someone blew it up.

On Ganymede, there are explosions outside, as something big has fallen out of orbit. The Karakum? Crisis and panic sets in, and Melissa tells Naomi to prepare to shove off.

Mao demands Avasarala stop persecuting his family and un-freeze its assets. He wants to keep Earth and Mars in balance re: access to the Protomolecule, to which Avasarala notes that what Mao really wants is to keep himself wealthy in the middle of Earth and Mars. Suddenly, there's a video message from Errinwright, who announced both Minister Korsunov's death and the destruction of the Karakum over Ganymede. Errinwright threatens to destroy Mao where he sits, but he also turns to Avasarala: "Chrisjen, you taught me that Earth comes first." He tells her she betrayed her. He orders Mao to kill Avasarala and return to Earth alone, so they can resume their partnership. Mao's people draw their guns on Avasarala, Cotyar, and Bobbie, as Mao exits.

On the Somnambulist, Naomi wants to try talking to the refugees. Amos tries to stop her, so she shoots him up with a double dose of painkillers. Naomi strides out to the doors and opens them; the hordes stream in. The muscle Melissa tried to hire tries to choke her out, but she tells him they need to get only 52 on the ship or they'll all die. She says she didn't do enough before she left Eros, and this is her chance to atone. He agrees to help, and they manage to get the Belters to put their women and children onto the ship first, followed by an orderly procession thereafter. The cutoff point is hard for everyone to take, but the Belters are strong. Naomi offers the crowd-control guy her place on the ship, but he pushes her onboard: "You're not finished yet."

The Roci continues to maneuver inside AG Dome when the hybrid appears. Prax wants to go make contact, but Holden says no. Alex says they need to rendezvous with the Somnambulist and defend it: "Our family needs our help right now."

The Somnambulist gets a final no-fly warning from the MCRN, and then the Martians fire a torpedo at the ship. It's about to destroy them when the Roci intercepts. Alex got it! More targets are now locked on the Roci, but Holden gets on an open channel and says any ship that opens fire on them, they'll all die together. "Stay clear." The Martians remove target locks.

Melissa tells Naomi they did well as the Somnambulist and the Rocinante fly off together. But we see the Roci has some company: the hybrid got onboard before it left Ganymede.

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

From TechRadar: https://www.techradar.com/news/star-trek-picard-episode-10-recap-review

Star Trek Picard S1 Ep 10:
Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2

Star Trek: Picard episode 10 recap: An incredible season finale

By Andy Kelly March 26, 2020


(
Image credit: CBS)


ABOUT THIS EPISODE


- Episode 10 (of 10), 'Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 '
- Written by Michael Chabon & Akiva Goldsman
- Directed by Akiva Goldsman
★★★★★

Spoilers follow.

Narek flees from his synth captors and meets with Rizzo, who has been hiding out in the ruins of the Artifact. Narek loads up on explosives and heads out, followed closely by Elnor. Meanwhile, Picard is still imprisoned in Coppelius Station, and tries to convince Soji to stop the beacon, which she's currently helping to build. In Soong's lab, we're reminded of his plan to download a human consciousness into a synthetic body. And on the grounded La Sirena, Rios repairs the ship's engines by simply imagining them being fixed, using a device given to him by Saga, the synth Sutra and Narek murdered. There's a lot going on in this episode.

Narek turns up at the La Sirena and tells Rios, Elnor, and Raffi about the synths and their beacon, and how allowing it to be completed will result in all organic life in the galaxy being eliminated. They reluctantly agree to help him. Elsewhere, Soong watches a recording of Saga's last moments, realising Sutra was involved in her murder. He confronts her, angered by her actions, then knocks her unconscious. Pretending Narek is their prisoner, Rios and the others gain access to Coppelius Station. Soong spots them, but after being stung by Sutra's betrayal, he's now on their side.

Rios tosses a bomb hidden in a soccer ball at the beacon, but Soji catches it and throws it to safety before it has a chance to destroy it. In orbit, the Romulan fleet finally arrives, led by Commodore Oh. She orders the fleet to sterilize the planet as Picard – who escaped captivity with a little help from Jurati – pilots the La Sirena. Just as the Romulans are about to scorch the planet, Jurati has a brainwave. She uses Saga's repair tool to create thousands of clones of the La Sirena. Oh orders the fleet to attack them instead, buying enough time for Starfleet to arrive with a fleet of its own.

On the crashed Artifact, Seven of Nine kills Rizzo before she has a chance to engage its weapons and help the Romulan fleet. Above, Will Riker, who has returned to Starfleet as an Acting Captain, orders the Romulans to stand down. On the planet below, Soji completes the beacon and giant centipede-like machines (presumably sent by the 'higher beings' who created the Admonition) begin to spill through a portal. But Picard manages to convince Soji to stop it, saying if she does she'll become the 'destroyer' the Romulans said she would be. The portal snaps shut as the beacon is shut down, taking the machines with it. The Romulans stand down and warp away. Picard thanks Riker for always having his back.

Picard collapses. The brain condition his doctor warned him about has become critical, and he dies. Or does he? He wakes up in a strange house, with Data sitting across from him. They're inside a quantum simulation, Data says, and he has a favour: he wants Picard to shut his consciousness down, because dying gives life meaning. Picard wakes up, his mind transferred to a synthetic body designed to look and age exactly like his old one. He removes the device keeping Data's consciousness active, and we see a vision of him aging like a human, and dying peacefully with Picard by his side. The crew of the La Sirena gathers on the bridge and heads off into space, ready for more adventures in season two.

Verdict: There have been some dips in quality throughout Picard, but they really nailed the finale. This is as thrilling, emotional, and visually spectacular the series has been. The scenes between Picard and Data were beautifully written, and seeing Riker leading a Federation fleet was a stirring moment. Picard's mind being transplanted into a near-identical synthetic body was a bit of a shock, but it does mean he's fit and healthy for another season – and we'll definitely be watching it whenever it arrives.
Extra data

• We see a riff on the famous Picard Maneuver in this episode. This risky battle tactic saved Picard's old ship, the USS Stargazer, from a Ferengi attack: an event recalled in the TNG episode The Battle (S1E9).


• Data says he downloaded his memories to B4, a prototype Soong-type android that looked exactly like him, but had none of his personality or individualism. He appeared in the movie Star Trek: Nemesis.

Star Trek: Picard is available to watch on CBS All Access every Thursday in the US, and every Friday on Amazon Prime Video internationally.

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

From Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/2018/09/the-sinner-recap-season-2-episode-6-part-vi.html

The Sinner S2 Ep 6

The Sinner Recap: Foster Scare
By Kenny Herzog



Photo: USA Network/Peter Kramer/USA Network

The goal of so much deep therapeutic work is to offer some kind of solace to the younger you, the child who might have endured trauma or ongoing hardship without a sophisticated coping system in place. The idea that you can literally bridge that divide and physically connect with those scared, unresolved parts of you, offering the kind of reassuring touch or gentle words that might have been absent, is a fantasy. It’s not real. Harry should know that, but he can’t help extending a hand to Julian while dissuading him from the onus of guilt. The gesture had to have felt like he was absolving his own teenage self, the kid who lit his mother’s home ablaze to manifest his inner rage. But what Harry might have missed was that Julian’s nightmarish hooded menace was quite real, even if occasionally surfacing via his subconscious as a memory-cum-premonition..

Or not. It could well be Vera, breaking and entering into his foster home bedroom at 4:30 a.m., cloaked as the one figure she knows will paralyze Julian with fear long enough to bust him loose. Barring that, the presumed creeper is Lionel, acting a bit more cavalierly after his Niagara Falls rendezvous was thwarted. This, though, would presuppose that Vera didn’t poison the Beacon with jimsonweed tea circa 2005, and that — as she swears to Harry — Mosswood’s leader simply left town one fine day, as if going to purchase the proverbial pack of smokes, never to return (so much for telling him “everything”).


And none of this even grazes the goings-on surrounding an increasingly suspect Jack, sicko Glenn, or that damned older man with the white ponytail who showed up at Adam and Bess’s motel. In the interest of compartmentalizing, let’s take a closer look at the murders of Ms. McTeer and Mr. Lowry, the latter of whom we’ve learned precious little about. A serviceable theory would hypothesize that Adam and Bess — Mosswood originalists in their belief — were delivering Julian to Lionel for his long-awaited ritual sacrifice, but Vera made sure the commune car they borrowed would crap out. At that point, she dispatched Ponytail Man to intervene (possibly with an assist from the motel manager, who could certainly be an acolyte) and pass along instructions for Julian to 86 his chaperones. This scenario would make Julian a sitting duck for the cops, and is thus full of holes, so let’s call it a given that Motel Manager and Ponytail Man’s roles in all this are flexible, among other moving parts that led to an imperfect crime.

Then there’s the matter of Marin, whose body was found inside a car at the bottom of Purple Lake, aka Stillwater Reservoir, decomposed down to all but hair and bone. Marin was in a bad way after a difficult birth to Julian and some significant postpartum issues, compounded by Vera’s attachment to the baby and Lionel’s insistence on isolating Julian from them both so that he’s ripe for slaughter. “Part VI” spends more time illustrating what happened to Marin than how it all made her feel, so her motives and machinations are still elusive, and that Sinner mystery continues to puzzle. So, sure, she could have driven herself to a watery grave or steered erratically to her death while panicking to escape Mosswood. She also might have been run off the road by Glenn and his posse, or finally gotten that friendly ride home from Jack, only to come across a side of him far more sinister.

Could Jack be the Satan that Carmen Bell’s been hearing from on the phone? Has he been the one instructing Glenn to scar Mosswood women with cigarette burns, branding them as part of horrific sexual assaults sanctified as groundbreaking session work? He’s been dutifully distracting Heather from pursuing this case in earnest, a fact she’s now alert to, no different than Vera snapping back to self-possession after holding Julian to her skin. For Heather, laying eyes on Marin’s corpse was what woke her up, causing her to wonder more urgently what’s gone on all these years while she’s been asleep. (Also, about time she: (a) took away his ranch dressing and (b) refused to eat one of his damn sandwiches.)

Whether a guy like Glenn was recruited/lured to Mosswood by the promise of a place where he could let his freak flag fly, or a few introductory sessions with Lionel in exchange for his family’s land uncorked something deep within him, he’s clearly taken those nasty habits outside the commune walls. And however Glenn and others became ostracized from their sadistic paradise (the answer would appear to be Vera), odds are Lionel’s (or whomever was at the helm’s) plan didn’t stop at evolving a new kind of inhumanity inside Mosswood’s grounds. He wanted it to spread, and he — or whoever is carrying on his work — remains convinced that Julian is key to society’s “new man” coming out of hiding and worshipping and sacrificing with religious freedom. (The sidebar of D.A. Hutchinson as a stand-in for the self-interested bureaucrat who, in his passivity, becomes complicit in clearing a path for dangerous ideologues is noted if clichéd.)

It’s now been 43 years in Sinner time since Harry lost his mother (and, per that newspaper clipping, half a century or so since the house fire), who withered away in an institution like Carmen Bell is bound to do. It’s been 15 years since Heather’s mom was buried, 13 since Julian was born, 16 since Dr. Poole and others compelled D.A. Hutchinson to squash Carmen’s case, and roughly 85 years since the Fisher family bought that land with that big rock and the Cobble Stone opened its doors. That’s a long time for closure, but as Lionel would say in his own decidedly not-comforting way, “It won’t be much longer now.”

Apart From All That

• Okay, Lionel, we get it: You’re a baby whisperer and an Old Testament freak.

• Don’t forget about guilty-seeming Chief Lidell.

• Vic better not be Ponytail Man.

• Did Julian’s drawings resemble the cigarette-burn patterns?

• Oh, hey there Cora!

• Re: hooded figure, oftentimes the most obvious answer is it. But it’s still fun to think it’s Vera. Or Jack. Or Ponytail Man.

• Season two: heading toward its finish more or less confoundingly than season one?

from TV Line: https://tvline.com/2021/08/25/clickbait-netflix-review-episode-1-recap-adrian-grenier/

Clickbait S1 Ep 1: The Sister

Netflix's Clickbait: Adrian Grenier Takes a Dark Turn in Viral Thriller — Grade It!

By Andy Swift / August 25 2021, 4:00 PM PDT

The internet may have decided that Adrian Grenier was the real villain in The Devil Wears Prada, but in the actor’s new Netflix limited series, his character’s innocence remains up for debate.

Simply put, Clickbait stars Grenier as Nick Brewer, a seemingly average — but still frustratingly handsome — physical therapist who finds himself at the center of a potentially fatal cyber crime. A viral video features a bloody Nick holding up several signs, ranging from “I killed a woman” to “At 5 million views, I die.” It’s a regular “Charlie Bit Me.”

But the simplicity ends there, as the show begins to unravel Nick’s life and paint a slightly more complicated portrait than the one his friends and family would like to believe. Each of the eight episodes focuses on a different member of Nick’s inner circle, from his sister Pia (Zoe Kazan) to his wife Sophie (Betty Gabriel), the former of which is the subject of Episode 1.

Titled “The Sister,” Clickbait‘s premiere wastes no time depicting Pia as a loose cannon. She gets booted from her own mother’s birthday party for making a drunken scene, she eats all of her roommate’s yogurt, and she watches porn and cat videos at all hours with her laptop’s volume on full blast. Just an absolute monster person.

So it comes as a bit of a shock when Pia is revealed to be a nurse, one with a surprisingly warm bedside manner. This comes in handy when she asks Vincent, one of her teenage patients, to help her “hack into Google or something” to figure out who kidnapped Nick. Granted, Vincent is also helping Pia because he likes her — which leads to an incredibly awkward almost-kiss towards the end of the episode — but that’s neither here nor there.

As with so many TV mysteries, the police are unhelpful at best and dismissive at worst. When Pia insists that Nick’s video is a “death threat, not a confession,” one particularly smarmy officer replies, “It could be both.” And that’s the conclusion they reach without even hearing the suspicious late-night voicemail Nick left for Sophie shortly before his disappearance: “There’s some stuff going on, something we should talk about.”

Thanks to Vincent crowdsourcing the investigation online, the feds actually manage to track down the vehicle in which Nick’s video was filmed, albeit after it reaches 5 million views. Unfortunately, the episode cuts out before we get a peek inside. That’s right, folks, this show is going to make us wait for answers.

And answers we need! Like, what’s the “stuff” Nick wanted to tell Pia about? Who is the mysterious “AL_2005” with whom Nick’s son is sharing information? And does every man on this show want to have sex with Pia?

These questions and more will be answered as the season unfolds, but there’s one question that only you can answer: Will you keep watching to find out how it all ends? Weigh in via our polls below, then drop a comment with your review of Clickbait‘s opening hour.

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

From Showsnob: https://showsnob.com/2019/04/20/black-summer-season-1-episode-7-recap/

Black Summer S1 Ep 7: The Tunnel

by Bethany Lewis
2 years ago

Spears’ true identity is in danger of being revealed as a pair of corrupt soldiers lead the supergroup safely to the downtown area toward the stadium on Black Summer.

Soldiers: After the heist, Spears and Sun outrun the chaos and zombies to the safety of a nearby warehouse. They still have one bag of guns and open them to check them out. Whatever Sun’s history is, she obviously knows about guns as she professionally checks the barrel and sights on one of the weapons. Weakest link my ass. The rest of the Black Summer supergroup meets them there. Spears is amazed to see Lance while Sun is concerned about William, who has activated an old injury and comes limping in.

Carmen immediately notices that Manny is missing and no one knows what to say. Their silence says it all. The group takes cover as a few zombies come running past. After some gunfire, a voice calls out that the way is clear and that they can come out. Its the soldiers from the roof, who are also the soldiers who had captured Spears from the beginning. They recognize each other, of course, but keep those details to themselves. The soldiers offer to take the group through the warehouses toward downtown and the stadium. Rose thanks them and agrees for the group.

Sleep: They find a place to camp down for a few hours and get some rest while the bomber pilots do their work outside. It won’t be safe to go out until they finished. Spears and the soldiers interact tensely, accusing each other in coded passive aggressive comments. The soldiers give some background about the spread of the infection. Denver was the first to go black, followed by most other densely populated urban areas. The evacuation will take people to remote areas like Alaska or islands like Cuba. Sun has an emotional monologue that obviously no one can understand, but they all understand the feeling behind it. They all settle down for the night with the soldiers on watch.

Passage: Rose awakes sometime later and notices Spears and the soldiers are missing. She goes in search of them and finds Spears being led at gunpoint down a dark passage. The soldiers claim that Spears is a criminal and that they’re just carrying out justice. Spears tries to tell Rose that the soldiers are lying, that he’s not who they say he is and that they’re not who they say they are either. They just want loot. In the end, it doesn’t matter who he is or what he did in the past because he’s been there for Rose when it mattered. Rose shoots the soldiers in the head and rescues Spears.

Sunrise: Rose and Spears come back to the group and they all gear up to go outside. Once outside, mystery man whistles and a dog comes running. Its the same dog that shunned Lance. Mystery man leashes up his dog and takes his leave. He seems to have everything he needs. The group watches him go and then they set off toward the stadium.

What did you think of this Black Summer episode? Be sure to tell us in the comment section below!