from Den of Geek: https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/black-sails-season-3-finale-review/

By TS Rhodes

March 27, 2016

Black Sails S3 Ep 10

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

The Black Sails Season 3 finale begins in Shakespearean darkness… Two men speak, Flint and Silver imagine the battle before them, speak of strategy, examine their souls. Like Prince Hal before the Battle of Agincourt, they lead us from place to place, revealing the outcome of battle, of life and death.

John Silver, once the feckless rogue, as eager to betray as to rob, is revealed as the soul of the new army. Yes, to both feared and loved sets a man apart, makes more possible. Perhaps even the unimagined could come to be.

Described by John’s silver tongue, Flint’s tragic life reveals its form. As Flint loves, so Flint destroys, Thomas, Gates, Miranda. His passions, always his master, seem to become the forces that wreck their will on others, either by storm or doldrums.

Of course, as Silver reminds us, the mind that conceived this magical congruence had been without food or water for several days.

On screen, the battle on the beach is well-conceived and presented. I wondered only why the warships did not simply pound everything on the beach to rubble. And why did they need mortars, which are traditionally used to reach foes a mile away. The answer being that this is fiction, not reality, and a ship’s battery pounding sand is no fun at all to watch.

For once, and probably under Silver’s guidance, the pirate’s forces are used as they should be. Pirates break the rules, that’s what they do. Sixty years before the American Revolution, the British Army gets introduced to guerilla warfare the hard way. The Maroons are doing what they do best, using their terrain, using terror and knives to defeat an army with superior weaponry. Terror is the best weapon of all.

In between battles, Silver and Eme consult about the Maroon’s future leadership. Just as Silver has learned to be the true leader of the pirates, so Eme is facing the fact that, as times change, her mother’s rule must necessarily come to an end. These are two who understand each other. The irony of Silver being the only trustworthy one is not lost, even on the participants in his story.

Darkness, rum, strategy.

In the light of day, Rackham learns of Charles Vane’s death from Blackbeard himself. Vane was the one who saw something in Rackham. Now he must prove himself, and so he does. Jack is still good for comic relief, too. But who wouldn‘t stutter with the eye of Blackbeard himself glaring down.

Jack is the brains. He may flinch when the firing begins, but he still stands his ground, and he’s stalwart enough to stick to the plan, even when the plan seems to doom him. When hope arises in the form of Chalres Vane’s foster-father, he recognizes the situation for what it is. “Charles was his foster-son, and in our way Charles and I were brothers. I do not know what that makes us to him, but we are something.”

Anne Bonny may use some wits to ponder such considerations, but her job is as muscle. She leads the assault on the British flagship, and has the presence of mind to immediately set the stern-chasers to firing on the rest of the British fleet.

The Navy turns to run, but I wouldn’t like to get away, with a shore on one side and Blackbeard on the other. Still someone must carry world of the rout back to Nassau. As Flint calls after the last, retreating redcoat, “Tell the Governor we’re coming.”

And, at last, in Nassau, Rogers and Eleanor pledge their love, over the rotting corpse of Charles Vane. A body hung for three days in the tropical sun would be enough to clear a couple of streets. Here, it is enough to feed the fires of Billy Bones’ imagination.

First the Black Spot. Is it a myth? However the tale started, the man the Spot was served to in dead enough now. Once again, Pirates don’t play fair. Throckmorton’s dangling body, placed so similarly to that of Vane, sends the clearest message possible. Death walks the streets of Nassau, and it is not under the reign of the Governor.

I struggle with the image of Max readings ultimatums to men. Thank God, in the 21st century we can’t imagine the lowly position of women in the 18th. But her placement in the story leaves Max where she has suddenly realized she needs to be – unallied, which is suddenly much more secure than being allied with the wrong side.

I fear for what will happen to Eleanor. The pirates are not gentle with their female captives, and Eleanor has caused them immeasurable embarrassment, trouble, and grief. Even Jack, normally a man who abhors violence, might do anything.

At the last, we are left with the beginnings of the Brethren Courty, pirates around the table. Before them is war. And the Legend of Long John Silver.

Evil S2 Ep 6: C is for Cop

from Den of Geek: https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/evil-season-2-episode-6-review-c-is-for-cop/

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

By Tony Sokol

July 25, 2021|

Hands in the air. Dueling procedurals get arrested for resisting the officers on Evil season 2, episode 6, “C Is for Cop. This is one of the most harrowing episodes of the series on many fronts. The monster of the week is not a demon or a creature or one of the deadly sins. As Kristen (Katja Herbers) told her daughter Lila (Skylar Gray) last week: sometimes a monster is a person who forgets who they are. This week’s evil represents a constant reminder.

The team is called in to assess a very different kind of evil than they’re usually assigned. A white cop shot an African American woman at a traffic stop because he thought she was pulling out a gun. It turned out to be a cell phone, but he swears he saw a gun. He believes he saw the weapon because, well, the devil made him do it. The police brass says they’re loath to call in the clerics, but the young cop, who knows Kristen and can place her children as the “funny kids” in the school carpool, believes he was temporarily possessed at the time. More than that, he will swear to it on a stack of Bibles.

The team immediately pegs the cop as a racist trying to mount what Kristen calls a “Twinkie defense” in front of a grand jury. David Acosta (Mike Colter) walks out of the initial meeting, but he has been preparing for just this sort of scenario from the beginning of the season. Leland Townshend (Michael Emerson) has been race-baiting the soon-to-be-priest in the most passively aggressive ways. David’s superiors at the church have tried to curtail his homilies, they’ve turned a blind eye to his complaints about his special case exorcism. Now he is being asked to grant absolution to a big part of the problem.

The police sigil is an interesting invention. The producer Mick Carr (Fredric Lehne) says it is a TV good luck charm which goes all the way back to Dragnet, and can be seen on C.H.I.P.S and Starsky and Hutch, but it could be that Evil’s creative team just want to subvert an algorithm with a glut of Google searches. This episode is extremely subversive, not only in how it twists expectations, but in the way images interact with each other. During one scene, Carr takes Kristen aside during a walk-and-talk with the entire team. Ben and David are shot in very deliberately separate angles. It’s almost like they are not occupying the same space. When Orson’s ghost comes calling, it subconsciously mirrors encroaching reality.

The LeRoux murder investigation gets so deep, it actually appears Homicide Detective Mira Byrd (Kristen Connolly) will close it. But, just like every foreboding entranceway any character encounters, it is bashed open, and cold as hell. “C Is for Cop” is a transitional episode into a larger conspiracy. The 4chan postings of the “Protectors,” and the subtle harassment beginning as a masquerade of solidarity are new dangers to the team. Who do you call when you need to call the cops on a cop? This episode shows you can’t even call a priest or the CIA.

Ben’s (Aasif Mandvi) night terrors are amazing during this episode. They are highlights with hidden epiphanies, and painful to watch and digest. No one wants to see Ben in pain. We certainly don’t want to see his demoness turn him into a pin cushion, but the kicker is even worse. She implies that he deserves it, and Ben makes an admission to David which says she is on to something.

I don’t know if the lie detector sequence is the most extreme gore the series has presented so far, or if it feels that way because Ben is a main character, but it was brutal. And he’s barely over his trip in the elevator. If he and David are being squeezed by whatever force is behind the police force while Kristen gets a get-out-jail-free card, something big is coming. They are being subtly separated by so many personal attacks, and the balance shifted during the episode. Ben and David bonded in ways “the magnificent” one had reserved for Kristen.

When Leland tried to reconcile with Sheryl Luria (Christine Lahti) after their implosive engagement, Kristen’s mother warned him he wasn’t the first demon she’s dated. Well, “Eddie, my Eddie” seems to be proof she was not bluffing. When Emily starts burning dollar bills in the name of unspoken truths, it sends Kristen’s daughter, Lexus, running out of the room. But that must have been the intent. The spell was on the girl, who rats her mother out the first chance she gets. Now even Kristen’s daughter knows she’s a killer.

Kristen is just asking to get caught in the final sequences. Why does she haul out her lucky axe? She’s got a couple dozen knives Detective Byrd already catalogued as having no serrated edges, but Kristen’s got to grab the one solid piece of evidence to hang her moments after she calls in her personal cop. The outcome of this raises more than the usual questions. Mira lets some killers go because some people deserve to die, she is part of that TV cop show syndicate which believes in injudicious justice.

Damnation comes in unexpected ways, and Evil is offering some signposts in Kristen’s slow corruption. The producer of the world’s biggest cop show tells her, outright, “we gotta stick together.” When Kristen gets her final reprieve, David and Ben are both sidelined by visible police harassment. She calls a cop friend, the same friend who offered the most rational reason for horrifically wrong fatal decisions. And the same one who tells Kristen to shut up and say she saw a Black man in the backyard. Mira and Kristen are conspirators.

The devil comes in many forms. Evil is having a blast expanding on them. The season is at its midway point, taking a short break before the next installment, and we still have no idea what sentence will be spelled out in the opening popup book. If ever we needed Sister Andrea’s (Andrea Martin) translational skills it is now. “C is for Cop” may be the end of a chapter, or the beginning of a new interpretation.

from TVLine: https://tvline.com/2022/02/27/euphoria-finale-recap-season-2-episode-8-ash-dies/

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

Euphoria S2 Ep 8:
All my Life, My Heart Has Yearned for A Thing I Cannot Name

By Kimberly Roots / February 27 2022, 7:07 PM PST

The bedlam that breaks out during the second half of Lexi Howard’s Our Life during Euphoria‘s Season 2 finale is the most beautiful trainwreck of a theatrical experience I’ve ever witnessed, and I saw Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.

But Lexi’s onstage fantasia and the Big Feelings it engenders in her sister are nowhere near the most dramatic turns that the HBO drama’s season-ender takes. Nate turns Cal in to the police! The cops raid Fez’s place, with a fatal outcome! Read on for the highlights of “All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned for a Thing I Cannot Name.”

Fez is about to leave for Lexi’s play when he picks up on the looks Custer and Fay are shooting each other. Custer soon admits what he’s known for a while: The cops found Mouse’s body. There’s some back and forth with Fay about how he told her Laurie killed Mouse, but then Ash puts a knife into Custer’s neck before Fez can stop him, and that’s that. Realizing that someone may be listening in via Custer’s phone, Fez puts his hand over the dying man’s mouth while he bleeds out, then makes sure Ash and Fay stay quiet as he drops Custer’s phone into a half-drunk Big Gulp in the kitchen.

We immediately flashback to phone calls between Lexi and Fez where they talk about Little House on the Prairie, social media and how they have dissimilar lives but share similar character traits. “That’s the important s–t,” he tells her, and it’s so sweet and pure… then we go right back to Fez, who is near-hyperventilating in the kitchen after everything that’s gone down.

We rejoin Lexi’s play at the point where Cassie is dragon-breathing on the door at the back of the auditorium. She marches in, and the look on her face causes her mom to whisper, “Oh God.” Various audience members take notice as Cassie sashays down the center aisle toward the stage and gets right up on stage. God bless the guy running the follow spot, because he lights Cassie from the very first moment she crashes the action. Cassie mocks her sister’s play, then pulls the playwright out on stage, with Lexi quietly begging her to stop the whole time. Mama Suze also gets up there to try to help, but it just pushes Cassie farther into her tirade. “You’re just a f–king bystander,” Cassie screams at her sister, which earns her boos from the crowd.

At one point, Cassie and Maddy are going back and forth in front of everyone about who’s the bigger see-you-next-Tuesday. And then, when Cassie attacks the girl who’s playing her in the play — during the carousel scene based on Cassie’s Season 1 carnival O — Maddy decides it’s time to get in on the action. Eventually, she chases Cassie off stage and starts beating on her in the school hallway.

The whole thing leaves Lexi in a puddle of tears backstage, but her stage manager helps her get her mojo back. Soon, the audience is chanting Lexi’s name. So she comes out on stage, thanks everyone and says they’ll be back in a few minutes. Then she dedicates the show to Fez (though she doesn’t mention him by name).

Speaking of Fez: He’s going to take the blame for killing Custer and he’s going to do it soon, because the police are about to bust down the door. He tells Ash to leave, but the boy won’t listen; instead, he piles all of their weapons in the bathroom and prepares to make his last stand. When there’s a noise at the front door, Fez drops his guard for a moment, which gives Ash just enough time to hit his brother in the head and then lock himself in the bathroom.

The police bust in and train their sights on Fez, who begs them not to shoot. “There’s a kid in there!” he yells, begging Ash to come out. But when Ash hears a flash bang grenade go off, he’s so keyed up that he starts shooting through the door — and hits Fez in the side. The cops return fire, and it gets very ugly. Fez ie bleeding heavily on the floor, still shouting for his brother to stop shooting, when the kid goes for broke. There are SO MANY BULLETS, and poor Fez is lying there on the dirty carpet shouting for Ash to answer him.

Things get quiet, so an officer opens the bathroom door and shouts that Ash is down. But he was faking! He sits up and takes down the cop right in front of him, then watches as another officer’s laser sight climbs up his face to his forehead. A bereft Fez hears the final shot and knows what’s happened.

How’s Rue doing? She tells us that a few days earlier, she went to see Elliot. “I think you might’ve accidentally saved my life,” she says; when he asks, she says she’s not currently doing any drugs. She hasn’t talked to Jules yet (“I think that one’s going to take me a little longer,” she says with sadness), then he sings her a song, accompanying himself on the guitar. The tune, which has a refrain of “I hope it was worth it in the end,” brings tears to Rue’s eyes. At the end, she tells him she likes it. He wonders if they can still be friends, and when she points out that he was the one who said they’re not good for each other, he says he still thinks that.

Later, we see her call Lexi and tell her that her play — which included a scene based on Rue’s eulogy for her father — was good. Rue winds up coming over and tells her friend, “I’ve been through a lot, and I don’t know what to do with it. You’ve been through a lot, and you do know what to do with it.” Seeing the play “meant the world to me,” Rue adds. They share how much they miss their fathers, and all of the other complicated emotions that go along with it. Rue guesses that Lexi’s dad, who’s an addict, “loves you a lot more than he loves himself,” but then admits that’s probably not much comfort. They both cry, and then Rue scoots over next to Lexi and hugs her close. That scene is also the final one of Our Life — don’t think about the sequence of events too hard, because this show sure didn’t — and the curtain comes down as the audience gives Lexi and her cast a standing ovation.

In the ladies’ room, a beat-up Cassie tells Maddy that she and Nate have broken up. “Don’t worry,” Maddy says (by way of comfort? warning?), “This is just the beginning.” And as everyone clears out of the auditorium, Jules sits down next to Rue and tells her that she loves and misses her. Rue kisses her on the head, then leaves. Jules cries.

In a voiceover, Rue tells us she stayed clean for the rest of the school year. “I don’t know if this feeling will last forever,” she says, “but I’m trying.”

Elsewhere, Nate loads his gun, drinks some beers and drives to the construction site for one of his dad’s homes, where Cal is having a little get-together with some half-dressed friends. “You know what we have in common?” Nate tells his dad. “We both get off on hurting other people.” He asks if Cal is happy. “I’m figuring it out,” the older man responds. Nate is angry that Cal blew things up and then left; he says he found Cal’s sex videos at 11 years old, then started having nightmares that his father “was f–king me like he was f–king them.” Right around then, everyone whose last name isn’t Jacobs hustles it right on outta there.

Cal says he messed things up, but he loves his son and should’ve kept him safe. “I don’t want your apology,” Nate says, pointing the gun at his dad’s torso. “I just want revenge.” Then he pulls a thumb drive out of his pocket. Cal asks what’s on it. “Everything,” he says as police lights start to flicker outside. Cal begs his son not to do what he’s planning to do, but Nate tells him that he’s never going to change. Then the teen walks to the door, allows three cops to enter, and watches as they arrest Cal.

from Den of Geek: https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/star-trek-picard-season-2-episode-3-review-assimilation/

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

Star Trek Picard S2 Ep 3: Assimilation

By Lacy Baugher

March 17, 2022

With a little help from the Borg Queen, the Star Trek: Picard crew rockets back into the past for an hour of what is essentially table-setting for the rest of the season. But “Assimilation” is an enjoyable enough episode in its own right, dropping our faves in 2024 and allowing the show to comment a bit on the state of our world even as they work toward fixing the one they left behind.

It less outright fun than last week’s installment which forced our faves to pretend to be the absolute worst possible versions of themselves in order to survive, but its decision to divide the team into groups to tackle different problems—reviving the unconscious Borg Queen, finding the mysterious “Watcher” who is meant to help the crew fix the as-yet-unidentified thing Q changed that so drastically altered the timeline—is smart, giving everyone something to do in the sort of side quests that will all inevitably come back together down the road (most likely whenever we determine who or what the Watcher is, though I suspect if it’s not some version of Guinan we’ll all be very surprised).

My colleague Ryan Britt wrote after Season 1 that Picard is a series that works best as a binge, and this episode feels like nothing so much as an argument that he is probably correct. Picking up at the end of “Penance,” the hour rockets through to end on a different cliffhanger, in which Rios is arrested by the police in 2024 and seems set to cause the sort of devastating ripples in time that could well significantly alter the world they’ve all come back in time to fix. It’s all a propulsive enough plot, but it also sort of feels that the episode stops just as things are finally getting going.

On the plus side, after what was essentially two episodes of set-up, it looks like we’re finally ready to dive into the meat of this season, namely figuring out what the heck is going on and why Q wanted to send Picard and his crew back to the past in the first place. The brief reappearance of Q himself—-though I’m not 100% clear on whether that was the real deal or a Picard hallucination—hints that this all has something to do with our faves confronting their fears, but since this Earth is several hundred years before their own times, the solution is not an entirely literal one. Or at least, not in the way we were maybe assuming.

Given that the episode is titled “Assimilation,” one has to assume that the Borg Queen plays a significant role in events, and that’s certainly true. And despite the fact that the character ostensibly “helps” Picard and friends here, the series repeatedly reminds us that the Borg are, quite frankly, terrifying and probably (possibly?) not to be trusted. The brief sequence in which the Borg Queen frees herself and then winds her body into the guts of the La Sirena has the look and feel of a horror film, complete with a constantly escalating sense of tension, ominous music, and a look of pure terror on Dr. Jurati’s face. Annie Wersching remains fantastic as the Borg Queen, even though she’s playing little more than a disembodied head.

But in the end, “Assimilation” largely belongs to Allison Pill, who gets the hour’s most intriguing subplot as Agnes (mentally) goes toe to toe with the Borg Queen in an attempt to both revive her and acquire the location of the mysterious Watcher—information she’s trying her best to withhold. As Agnes voluntarily connects herself to the Borg Queen’s mind, Pill deftly shifts between multiple personas—including Agnes’s shifting emotional subconscious and a near-assimilated version of herself—as Jurati and the Borg Queen fight for control.

In a season that will apparently come to be defined by pairs, the idea of establishing a sort of binary connection between these two is a fascinating one. After all, it’s Agnes’ timeline that changed the least. Well, in the sense that at least she didn’t become an authoritarian dictator, just a slightly sadder version of herself. Does that mean she has more or less to lose from this kind of connection—or a stronger sense of who she is, for good or ill?

As for the rest of the team, Rios’ subplot sees him separated from the rest of the team and taken to an underground doctor’s office that helps treat illegal immigrants and those who don’t want to—or can’t—trust institutions with centralized health and identity records. His decision to try and help the nice lady doctor and her son is admirable but largely feels as though it’s happening on a different show than everything else (or at least apart from the fact that his decisions could and likely will change the timeline in unknowable and probably dangerous ways).

Elnor’s death is tragic of course but it isn’t quite as emotionally affecting as it probably ought to be and feels a bit like Picard is struggling to give the La Sirena crew some personal stake in this mission they’re on that outside of their connections to Picard. Though one would hope preventing a genocidal authoritarian nightmare future would be enough on its own! But we’ve spent so little time with Elnor this season— and it’s so obvious that once the gang sets the timeline to rights he’ll be magically resurrected—that there seems to be little reason to mourn him but so much. (And his absence in 2024 is kind of convenient from a plot perspective: It means that the gang doesn’t have to try and compensate for the fact that one of their team looks distinctly non-human.)

Plus, while Raffi’s grief has given Michelle Hurd the chance to release some righteous anger (why aren’t more people that get pulled into Picard and Q’s seemingly eternal feud more pissed off about it?), her incredibly close relationship with Elnor essentially formed offscreen. I mean, I’m theoretically glad that the two have apparently formed a new little family together because both deserve a fresh start, but we haven’t seen much of that for ourselves so it kind of feels a bit like the show is just repeatedly telling us how much they care for one another rather than letting us watch that bond develop for ourselves.

Conversely, Picard allows viewers to draw their own conclusions about the state of Raffi and Seven of Nine’s relationship (prickly but seemingly solid enough), using everything from the way they fight together to the ease with which they play off of one another to con a building guard. I’d love to see the two have a more in-depth conversation about heavier topics like Raffi’s grief or the fact that Seven is clearly feeling some kind of way about seeing a version of herself whose face doesn’t sport tell-tale Borg implants, but hopefully, those will come in future installments.

Jurassic World: Dominion

from the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/movies/jurassic-world-dominion-review.html

Jurassic World: Dominion 

By A.O. Scott
June 8, 2022

“Jurassic World Dominion” starts with a nod to “The Deadliest Catch”: A marine reptile snacks on king crabs in the Bering Sea before turning its jaws on a trawler and its crew. Yikes! Then a mock newscast swiftly brings us up-to-date on the global catastrophe that began to unfold almost 30 years ago in the first “Jurassic Park” movie. In case you need a refresher, how it started was with Richard Attenborough rhapsodizing about the wonders of life; how it’s going is that the big lizards are everywhere, generally bringing out the worst in people.

It would be nice if those reanimated monsters inspired better movies. The “Jurassic” brand, born in Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel, promises bone-rattling action and sublime reptilian special effects infused with pop pseudoscience and bioethical chin-scratching. The second trilogy, which started in 2015, hasn’t quite lived up to that promise. “Dominion,” directed by Colin Trevorrow, might be a little better than its two predecessors (“Jurassic World” and “Fallen Kingdom”), but in ways that underline the hectic incoherence of the whole enterprise.

However: Jeff Goldblum is back, as the “chaotician” Dr. Ian Malcolm, more seductively lizardy than the dinosaurs themselves. Ian is reunited with his “Jurassic Park” frenemies Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern). Ellie has been married and divorced and made a name for herself in the field of genetic something or other. Alan is still carrying a torch for her. Yes, he’s in love with her, but what I mean to say is that he literally carries a torch, to light their way through an old amber mine deep in the Dolomites.

That rocky bit of Italy is where the fiercest, biggest ancient predators now live, in a preserve built and supervised by Lewis Dodgson, an evil tech/pharma billionaire played by Campbell Scott. He seems nice enough at first — his company, Biosyn, claims to be protecting the dinosaurs out of the goodness of its corporate heart, and also curing disease, feeding the world and so on — but nobody except a naïve scientist is likely to be fooled. There are too many tells. Lewis’s silver hair is combed flat against his scalp, and he wears collarless shirts and soft jackets in rarefied neutral tones like ecru, pewter and mother-of-walrus. His very speech patterns suggest libertarianism run amok.

As it happens, Lewis has bioengineered a plague of giant locusts, with the help of Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong), another revenant from the earlier “Jurassic Park” movies. Biosyn has also kidnapped Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), the cloned avatar of a famous scientist.

To make a very long story as short as I can: For the past few years, Maisie has been in the care of Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), who have been with the franchise since “Jurassic World” and who have less and less to do. Well, that’s not quite fair. It’s just that everybody else is more interesting, both the old-timers and the newcomers. Mamoudou Athie and DeWanda Wise are both better than they need to be in cookie-cutter parts. She’s Kayla Watts, a tough, cynical cargo pilot, and he’s Ramsay Cole, a smooth techie minion. They both end up pretty much where you expect they will. Kayla is someone you might hope to see in her own movie.

Pratt and Howard, bless them, are the designated action figures, who do a lot of the running and jumping and fast driving. There is a complicated chase through the narrow streets of a picturesque Mediterranean seaport, which is only tangentially related to dinosaurs but which might remind you, not unpleasantly, of a Jason Bourne movie. Other chases happen in mud, rain, snow and gloom of night, and also along the sleek, curving corridors of a high-tech research facility.

This is a very crowded movie — so many species of dinosaur, and I’m so bad at keeping track of them that my 8-year-old self is no longer speaking to me. They are variously menacing, ravenous, bizarre and kind of cute, but the frenzied live-action and digital special effects rarely produce moments of Spielbergian awe.

Within the world of “Dominion,” the dinosaurs are no big deal. The message seems to be that human beings need to learn to live with them, accepting the occasional pet-mauling or boat-devouring as the price of coexistence. Is this utopian or dystopian? A vision of ecological harmony or of genetically engineered apocalypse? A metaphor for Covid or just a sign of imaginative exhaustion?

 from wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dex,_Lies,_and_Videotape

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

Dexter S2 Ep 6: Dex, Lies, and Videotape

After learning that he was filmed while cleaning his boat at the marina, Dexter becomes desperate and tries to delete the videofile, which he eventually manages to do before computer upgrades enable its viewing by his colleagues. A mock killer mimics, and claims to be inspired by, the Bay Harbor Butcher, and unless the police find him, the FBI may take over the case completely. Dexter finds and kills him before this is possible. After learning about his mother's secret relationship with his foster father, Dexter questions Harry's motives about his own adoption. At Rita's mother suggestion, Dexter brings Lila to dinner, and when Rita finds out that Lila accompanied Dexter on his road trip, Rita breaks up with him. Dexter and Lila leave together and have sex later, which Dexter confesses to Rita later on. Rita wants Dexter to "leave", which he does, and goes back to Lila's place.

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

from Ready Steady Cut: https://readysteadycut.com/2022/04/28/the-offer-season-1-episode-3-recap-fade-in/

The Offer S1 Ep 3: Fade In

by Ricky Valero

We all know that the film ends up getting made, but The Offer shows us the battles everyone faced to get it onto the big screen. Robert is being pushed out at Paramount and receives a threat from the mafia. Albert is taken hostage by the mafia and shooting can’t happen in New York. Does Albert make an offer the mafia can’t refuse? What happens to Robert? Let’s dive in.

We pick up where the last episode left off with Albert riding in the car to meet with Joe. Joe lets him know that he needs to make a different movie. Albert asks Joe to hear him out about the film. He promises the movie will not be about the book and will be different from what they are expecting. Again, a strong, STRONG scene from Miles Teller shows his confidence in this role of Albert.

We see Francis and Mario go head to head over the script, but Francis is level-headed when it comes to Mario and breaks it down to him. Next, we see Robert leaving lunch and ready to make some moves to avoid losing his job at Paramount.

Don’t believe everything you read, I ain’t dead yet. – Robert

Albert comes back to the hotel room and LIES AGAIN to Francoise about where he was. She reminds him that she is there for him to help make this movie a thing. I am still not sure I like the dynamic here between them. Albert takes a moment to reflect on what went down between him and the mafia. You saw the confidence in that room, but the man was in fear of his life deep down.

Francoise heads to Albert’s office to grab the car. While she is there, she asks about Albert’s affairs, and Bettye lies again for Albert. She mentions some scripts on his desk and Francoise takes one of them with her. An interesting little moment leads to her meeting with someone saying that Albert is producing the film and wants a specific actress. Was she making deals behind his back? Not sure this will end well.

Albert sends Bettye to snag the script and bring it to him in New York. So, she heads over to Mario and Francis’s house, takes it, and runs for the door.

We see Robert continue to forge forward with pushing to keep things moving regardless of his potential exit from Paramount. Matthew Goode continues to be the star of this show with an incredible monologue about Robert’s love of movies and how he knew this was his calling. Anytime Goode is on the screen, you are engulfed with every word he says. Bettye delivers the script to Albert and she informs him the script has an incredible opening and ending but doesn’t have a second act. So he decides that he will write the second act and present it to Joe. Bettye doesn’t love the idea, but Albert knows this is his only shot.

Albert gives the script to Joe and I love this moment because he has to break down what specific things on the script mean to him. Finally, after Albert agrees to wipe the word ‘Mafia’ from the movie and Joe tells him he can make the movie, Bettye and Charlie meet for drinks to distract him from seeing Joe with Albert. Charlie asks her, “Tell me about The Godfather.” She breaks down how it is incredible and the script is excellent. He wants the script, but she refuses. Juno Temple is great as Bettye. The role has increased with every episode and she is making the most of it.

Francis arrives and is not happy about the script being stolen. However, Albert makes him understand that it had to be done and not worry about it. Albert takes Francis to scout out the location for the film while he is in town. Francis falls in love with the final place of the day. While having Francis in a good mood, Albert asks him how often the word ‘Mafia’ appears in the script. He says one, Albert says to wipe it and Francis agrees. Albert meets with Joe one last time before leaving for LA. Joe reminds him that he is one of them now. Whatever he needs, he will make sure he gets it.


F**k LA. – Joe

Robert finally talks to Charles on the phone. Charles assures him he isn’t firing him, but the board needs to see results and money ASAP. Next, Francis and Al Pacino go over some lines and put him on film to see what he has got. We see Francoise pitch the idea of her helping Albert produce some of the scripts that fall across his table that he has no time to look at. Albert agrees to what she wants to do and Francoise is excited.
The ending of “Fade In”


The following day, Albert and Francoise show up to work together, much to the dismay and confusion of Bettye. However, Bettye is the type that likes control and she sees that it might be slipping in front of her. Robert arrives to talk with Albert about where the script is and lets him know it’s almost done. Francoise steps in the scene and pitches, casting Sinatra as the Don, which Robert plays off as a joke.

Albert and Robert go for a walk and he reminds him that he needs the script before he can greenlight anything. A powerful scene where Robert asserts his power and lets him know if he ever allows his woman to pitch a terrible idea again, he will find a new producer. Francis delivers the script to Albert, which makes him happy. Bettye reminds Albert he has to go to casting where they will show Robert a tape of Pacino as Michael. Not thirty seconds into the clip, Robert goes off the deep end and says no way Pacino will play in the movie. Robert wants STARS and wants to know why Pacino has read any of the script, but he hasn’t. Damn, I love Matthew Goode in this show.

We see Albert reading The Godfather. Francoise asks him how it is and he says incredible. Francoise tells him next time, bring a copy. DAMN, she is trying too hard right now. We hear a car pulling up to the Albert residence, Robert arrives and freaks out because the script is 170 pages long. Albert, unsure of how he got a copy, asks him to read it and Robert says no.

As the show comes to a close, we are introduced to Joe Gallo, who just got out on parole. We find out Gallo is insane and that he is willing to go above and beyond to settle things. Joe Colombo lets everyone at the table know that he will handle Gallo and no one needs to worry about him. Moments later, we see Gallo sitting in the car with someone and the man asks what he is going to do about Colombo, and he says he will light his whole world on fire and burn everything he loved to the f*****g ground.

Francis and Albert are discussing the script and maybe a few cuts. Mario walks in the door, freaking out because Marlon Brando wrote him back and said he wants to play Don Corleone and everyone is delighted. Francoise walks in with someone and closes the door, Bettye says he needs to handle that and Albert says he doesn’t know how to.