What a horrific episode. I swear there's a missing episode. I want to rewatch to see what kind of locations were in this episode just to see if it makes sense that they had to reedit for covid reasons. Because the episodes starts off clearly 3 steps ahead of the last one which makes no sense. How did Nathan and Nora end up at the whitenoise waterfall? They were very clearly not there before. Aleesha was just a manager but now she's celebrating being a VP. She's coming off a tug of war about will she or won't she accept the company leash. Something that was just starting to be hinted at last episode. It couldn't be more clear that a full episode is missing. Even Ingrid's storyline has jumped from her starting the baby process in secret to now this episode she's already told Nathan and scheduled a final appointment to seal the deal something he clearly knows about and is fighting. I kind of feel like Luke downgrade to G-Rated dreams feels like maybe it's the end joke to her setting him to PG-13 and then PG and then G but to be fair even without that technically his storyline fits. But everything else just feels like it advanced somehow when I wasn't watching. I actually paused about 3minutes in to triple check that I wasn't missing some episode because I'm not in the US or something.
As an episode it was merely okay which is kinda raw considering the big things that happened. The big one being the Download that was teased. A risky procedure that has risky complications some of which we may or may not see. It involves Nathan making some big choices in orders that aren't necessarily obvious. It's all ends not in a cliffhanger or a big moment but a small one. The kind of thing you barely expect to end an episode much less a season. There's a lot of behind the scenes talk about the season length. Supposedly they "let the story determine the season length" which just reads like justification after the fact. I don't actually have any issue with the season length in general. 3 episodes, 10 episodes, 7 episodes I genuinely don't care. The problem isn't the number of episodes it's that they complete their story. Wheel of Time had this issue too. It's got a MASSIVE story to tell and squeezing it into 8 episodes just wasn't enough for the scale they were going for. EVERY episode felt rushed. What I'm seeing here with Upload Season 2 was perfectly paced and well done until this episode where suddenly the only conclusion we can make is they didn't have enough budget or health and safety for the penultimate episode. So rather than delay the show and try to complete it they just decided to skip it and go right to the finale.
As a season I enjoyed this only slightly less than the first. I really like the complexity to their characters. It's not the deepest show ever but Ingrid is a sympathetic villain. Luke was enjoyably consistent. Aleesha shows depth.
Giving Beck a voice was great. It removed the creepy idolization stain on her from seeing her only from Joe's perspective. It gives her agency that is starting to be needed to take this show to a new level.
While severance has been a slick show from the beginning. Well shot. Well paced. Well acted. It's been kind of a slow drag to nowhere. Even the revelation of Petey while interesting didn't really take us anywhere. But episodes 8 and 9 really do successfully deliver on the tension that's been building all season finally unite the inside story and the outside story.
This episode was so tonally out of step with everything that came before it, that the message is kinda weakened. I understand wanting to make an episode with a contemporary relevant message, which is fine, but you have to include the other writers who were making an actual story because QL2022 has been a lot of things but it hasn't been nearly as cringe at this. For an episode that scolds the parents for "keeping their daughter locked up" who "just want to be a normal girl playing with her friends" this episode really focuses on making every aspect of her exceptional. I mean I get it. It's a rough time right now, so maybe they felt it was necessary.
Every 10 minutes it felt like the screenplay had the words "And then everyone clapped". The overly inspirational uninspired music choices, the focused closeups on "lesson moments". It reads like after school special rather than a story about inclusion. This may not be my genre of choice but if they do another episode on this issue I hope they can focus on integrating it into a more cohesive narrative where people aren't talking in memes (ain't nobody got time for that) and metaphors are more metaphorical than literal. They already have a trans character I think and they are fine. That character is one of my favorites in the show. They did an episode about drag queens and that was fine even if I thought it was a little silly it worked within the world that was built.
I think the episode would have been better if it had focused on a singular aspect of the issue and then IMPLIED the rest. For instance if the episode has been about getting her on the team and playable and then implied stuff like being allowed in the locker room, it wouldn't have felt like it was trying to do every story at once. Personally I think the concept of misgendering a body is so complicated (because gender is a social construction but a dead body does have a sex which is a biological presentation and that suggests there's a whole realm of realistic possibility for that happened beyond that obvious "They hate her because she's not like other girls" narrative the episode was going for) that it might have been more effective to just trim that bit and the whole mystery about what happened when she ran away. It didn't feel like it added anything other than just hiding things from the audience for another gut punch reveal that wasn't that gut punchy. It's like an episode about a black women who has to overcome people assuming she's poor and shrill and being sexually available just because she dated a white guy all at once. And then the one black guy called her a hoe to show off to his white friends and the her uncle abused her. It's not completely untrue to reality. There are women who deal with all that but the narrative can't support that many threads. Not even when you delay the overarching narrative to focus on this episode. Something's gotta give and in this case it was the verisimilitude.
Whatever. It's fine. it's one dip in episode quality and it's not a big deal. Next time they'll be better probably. It reminds me of the BLM episode of The Rookie where they had the IA chief literally slam his fist at how frustrated he was at the idea of even the appearance of corruption. A moment so laughable I still chuckle because in real life IA aren't cop hunters. They're cop shields. When the police "investigate themselves and find nothing" that's IA at work. But it values the police if IA is always seen as antagonistic to regular police because then people IRL are more trusting of IA.
No rating. My rating would be on the lower end but not for the reasons most of the lower ends are gonna be using.
Edit: Rather soon after this episode aired (relatively) there's been a case where a trans person died and apparently law enforcement are using the legal name to identify them rather than the name they choose. I haven't looked into it but it appears to be an issue with limitations within how the law allowed names to be changed. I only mention it because while it seems tangentially related to a minor point I was making. There's a strong distinction that in this episode the police found a body and couldn't identify it and labeled it according to the sex they could identify where as in this specific IRL story a body was found and identified and they choose to identify it based on what their papers said rather than how the individual identified according to information they should have had available. Hopefully the nuance of those two concepts conveys why I stand by my assessment that the episode would have been better without that storybeat as implemented in the final episode.
Well that was a fun season finale. D'Arcy has the most standout moment in my opinion. When she finds out Harry is an Alien and this is the big lie that Asta has been keeping from her. She actually acknowledges that this is a big lie and it's very realistic for Asta to lie to her about it. It was extremely satisfying to see this for once even if her completely ignoring the "dinosaur", to assure her friend she gets it is hilariously unrealistic and I mean hilariously as a matter of literal not scale. It got a solid chuckle from me out loud.
There was a lot of revelations for this season finale. Which started from a pretty noteworthy premise of The Greys giving Harry a way off planet leading to Harry needing to decide what to do. The episode is arc'd perfectly ending in a lot of things that we've been hinting at coming to a head and a few things we weren't thinking about to surprise you. The only part of the episode I didn't like was the "Documentary" within the show. A bunch of people talking about being taken or seeing Aliens that connected by to Patience in the end but as a whole I don't think was worth the time.
Can't wait till next season.
Okay, well that was confusing. The most notable storyline in this episode is the one involving the maths tutor, well specifically the maths tutor and the vicar.
Good lord woman why are you so.... and I struggle to find another word for this but stupid. Just one stupid moment flipped the entire path of the story for a character who honestly was amazing before then.
When you know someone so well why would make the presumptions she makes. Being shocked at CP I get. That's awful stuff I can't imagine. But assuming that Ben your math student is gleefully and casually taking ownership of it is ridiculous. The worst part is that in spite of the fact that his father is a vicar she can't imagine any other outcome than it's Ben's "He told me from his own mouth". Now Harry is also a moron for being unable to explain a simple concept like "it belongs to a parish member" without going through three fumbles. Just explain. How this ended up with her bleeding in your basement is beyond belief.
talia was being sexually harassed by a guest star. For some reason the show did not take her completely seriously there's no reason for them not to have done that because she is a main character and the perpetrator was merely a guest star who had no important role in the show. However she decided to stick to her guns and leave the show . this is very unfortunate because I really did enjoy her character. I've been wondering how they were going to deal with her character not being on the show anymore turns out they just use the laziest solution they have. It does the job but there's a very noticeable hole in the balance on the show.
This episode feels like they set it up to be interesting but ended up reductive. But that's just storytelling. I'm not a fan of this particular story. Previously we were told that just because something looks like a monsters doesn't mean it is. It kinda felt specifically like a hint that Medusa was a victim (and she is) in need of sympathy for what happened to her and not revulsion for how she looks. And yet we have Medusa who saves the children and ends up with her head cut off. Almost like we could have just judged her by her monstrous appearance in the first place.
I must be half way through part one by now and I think I'm realizing my issue with this season so far. First of all it's a mess. That's obvious. This isn't the focused character study we've been used to. This is literally a murder mystery. This is the Fast 5 genre turn for You.
But the problem isn't that it's different. It's that it's lost it's raison d'etre. I root for a lot of anti heroes here in "peak TV". I rooted for Dexter easily. I rooted for Walter White in slightly nuanced ways that I think a lot of Breaking Bad fans just didn't get. Yes he's the bad guys but I understand why he's doing it. It's why I was confused when I found out everyone hated Skylar. She's my second favorite character. Without rehashing that debate to myself again. Joe was different. I rooted for Joe like I do almost every main character but I felt slimy doing it. In a way I've never felt before. I wanted Joe to win. I wanted Joe to live. I wanted Joe to escape but there was nothing I could point to and say "here's why he deserves it not just because he's the lead character in a show about himself but he did this at least". That's why the children in season 1 and season 2 were a drag on Joe. The children were slightly redemptive. But Joe isn't a redemptive character. He's so well acted, well written that you don't need to redeem him. I put this on Penn because he does what the character does. He charms you. In anyone else or with worse direction you'd have to keep emphasizing how charming he supposed to be but with You, he just is. Joe is really goodlooking. Joe is erudite. Joe is everything I imagine a women wants to just take home and do filthy things to. And then you hear what's going on in his head. The "he loves kids" part ruins that. Just let Joe be Joe. He can just be the bad guy that you, as a man, understand just a little too well. The funhouse mirror to how you think when you meet a pretty girl or just any girl that says "Hi" to you while making eye contact. Nothing will make you fall in love faster than a girl who makes sustained eye contact.
Joe was perfectly crafted to be just so distasteful in exactly the right way. From a character perspective he thinks the same way Dexter and Walter do. He's justified in his actions because of his motivations and the information he has. But You did something great. It broke the internal narrative. And it did it by giving Joe an internal monologue.
It's not just hearing his voice but everything in the show that really showed Joe to be from the get go not what he thinks he is. Joe is horrible but he thinks he's noble. Joe thinks he's in love but he doesn't respect autonomy. Every dark thought I've had as a man, Joe breathes into existence and shows it's true face. He acts on thoughts we all learn to suppress like adenaline junkies learn to not jump off the cliff just because it's there. It was all so well balanced and focused on revealing Joe for who he is to the audience if no one else.
Joe in Season 4 isn't that guy. Joe's always fought with controlling himself and here suddenly he's a bastion of control. Suddenly here he's reading women for the signals they're actually giving him as opposed to the signals he wants them to give him. Here Joe is who is thinks he is. There's no heel turn. Not for us, not for Joe, not even in retrospect (at least not yet). And rooting for Joe now feels broken because he's still Joe but now I feel like the show is rooting for him too. You trust the show to keep you honest. To remind you that Joe isn't going to be the good guy this time around. The murder mystery (in every context of that term) is distracting from who Joe is. It's allowing him to shine as the hero he always thought he was. But that's not You. You is about a man who thinks he's the hero every woman wants but she's not even in danger much less in need of rescuing. Penn is still great. He's fantastic and I've seen Charlotte in so many programs and she's doing a rather solid job here. Will I tune in? Yes. But it's not You anymore. It's Me and a Joe focused on himself might make for a better man but it doesn't make for a better character.
oh dang Rachel those are TEENAGE GIRLS. Don't talk to them. Just don't make eye contact and hope they don't speak to you.
This is an episode that cements something that's been bothering me this entire time. I'm not a fan of all the changes they've made to the relationship dynamics but these things are inevitable. But the thing that really bothered me is that Wednesday comes to this school and three nearly identical dudes are super into her, which in itself is fine. The problem is that contrary to what Xavier says here Wednesday gives absolutely zero indication that she's into any of them. So when the boys get upset that she isn't returning their affection I'm confused like why? She has given you nothing. The real problem is the framing of the show suggests they are right and Wednesday should be recognizing what she's doing to these poor guys. While I never saw Wednesday as an emotionally stunted child like they're clearly making here, Ortega has done a brilliant job of making Wednesday show absolutely zero affection for anyone or anything except the oppressed. She protects her brother. She protects her friends. She protects anyone who needs protection. But she couldn't care less about your romance neither rejecting nor accepting just completely apathetic.
For a show that keeps name checking patriarchy it's kinda weird that the show also wants to basically shame Wednesday for doing absolutely nothing in the deluded fantasies of white dudes that insist she's giving them signals.
A fantastic premise for this show. An abbey of silence where they have to assess a miracle without saying a word. There's an air of the disturbing throughout the whole episode in spite of some of the most genuine moments of amusement in the series today. Some clever and unexpected visual design on the internal monologues really help keep the engagement up without disturbing the air of silence.
An utterly delightful episode that plays with the line between reality and fiction that is practically the trademark of this show.
A middling pilot, but there's certainly a lot of room to grow
A great season opener reminding you of everything you like about this show. The amount of memes you could make from Kristen's face alone
just a quick shoutout to the faux Greta Thurnberg. I'm sure Greta as barely a teenage has well intentioned but incompletely formed thoughts on the environment that are probably still worth listening to but this caricature of her is ridiculous.
"She's amazing. Sixteen and speaking truth to power like that?"
The girl said it was literal WASTE for everyone to have a microphone. hahah. She tried to shame everyone for the waste of energy it takes to make ice cubes. Someone introduce faux Greta to the ADA because there's a lot of wasteful things in there that don't NEED to be done but get done because they serve a purpose of making life dignified for people with disabilities. Like maybe people with poor hearing get to hear clearly because microphones exist. I'm only 3 minutes in but I feel like this character is a huge swing and a miss. Even if you don't like Greta this is really unfair.
We can't end every episode with a character reveal. All the people who hated WandaVision for "being so slow". Well this is the show for you because it's basically a marvel movie without any of the recap. If you don't know who everyone is before you started episode one this series is just a mess. SO many people wanted to know if they could watch WandaVision without seeing Marvel movies first and it's so doable with so little information. "She's a witch, he's an android" that's it. TFatWS is so far the opposite. I've seen every MCU property and I'm still barely keeping it straight. I'm sure this will be the most fun for the people who do the entire MCU marathon and having just watched 15 movies going right into this it will feel great but watching it live is still not that good. It's just so hard to care about anything or anyone in this series.
As this episode opens I begin to see how this concept can work as a television series. The first episode was good but this is the episode that seals me in. Now I'm ready to see where this leads.
A solid episode. Great drama. Great policework. Stakes to care about in the major and minor plotlines. This episode did everything that MacGyver (3x11) did wrong this week. The series wide technical issues are still there. The body cameras that the cops are never without and are clearly not the footage we see based on the angles the footage shows. Here's a minor hint: If the character is peaking around the corner, then they will only expose their head. Therefore, the body cam footage shouldn't show the peaking around the corner.
But to be honest the fact that I'm literally complaining about the body cam footage parts shows how great this episode was. It might be my top 5 of the season. I even cared about the episodic characters. I care about the pregnant woman trapped in a relationship with.... I dunno a drug kingpin or a gangster or a gun runner whatever he classifies as. I cared about the black man who didn't want to take no muss from the cop but still let them survive in his apartment. I was invested in the two (IA?) guys who showed up late to the party [spoilers] and as much as I didn't like them. I felt reasonably sad when one died saving his partner[/spoilers]. Even the B-Plot about the break-in and the new investigation about it and whether or not it would be revealed that Lucy and John were having sex that night was interesting. One of my bigger complaints in the show is how idealized the police are where one lie can get you kicked off the force but IRL you can shoot a 7yo in the head and not get kicked off SWAT. But even that was toned down this episode. There's a minor theme about the truth setting you free but the only one who buys into that nonsense is John Nolan because that's the sort of thing a white guy might think but Lucy knows better. Even Commander West knows this and is clearly only using this to trick John Nolan into giving himself up. It's the sort of theme that would be super annoying if a full episode was dedicated to it but in this episode it was used exactly as much as it needed to be.
This show need to stop trying so hard. I don't know how it gets so many things wrong so often. This kid talking about his podcast like it matters is just off.
Finally having a group meeting is one of the smartest things they've done. I really don't think they needed a traitor element in the first place but we'll see.
Also in pro news the kids are apparently transferring houses. Between mom and dad. Which does respect his fatherhood status even if it might mean complications for the kids.
Honestly this episode is much smarter than the last episode. Even with the cheesy podcast stuff.
Like this "Holy Grail" thing where everyone is like "yeaaahhh right". As if no one has ever used the "holy grail" to mean something important before.
and then just like that an episode that started off rocky, was going smoothly then nosedives ruining a 6/10 episode to 3-4/10 territory. Lady Cop blames an amnesiac for beating his wife when the guy can't even remember his name. As if that makes any sense. At the family house young Olive invites her new-Daddy home to eat dinner to cheer up her mom because children understand complex adult dynamics either 100% or 0% depending on the episode and when real daddy summoned by his son via text shows up real-Daddy and new-Daddy get into a fight over the dumbest thing ever. You're ADULTS. act like it. Even if you wanted to yell who gets into a fist fight? No wonder Jordan Peterson thinks he's a genius he's learning everything about manhood not from historical cultural myth but television. But just everything about that scene is stupid.
"It doesn't look like a happy reunion" - what? You literally just walked into the house mr "Who is this man and why is he in my house that I'm exiled from"
"You are the whole reason this family is messed up" - WHAT??!? The dude disappeared in an airplane. He didn't mess up his family. Someone else messed up his family. He's literally innocent in all of this.
Olive sucks. Olive sucks worst than her mother and her mother SUUUUUCKS. Everyone on this show sucks to a little degree. But good grief.
And we have the second episode with a couple cheating to get back together (You 1x07-08)
This episode like so many of this series had the potential to be solid. Ending it by having white guy do the podcast is silly. Except plot twist.. good plot twist it's an insurance policy something the podcast host is too dumb to understand. Then finally having other people's callings show up is brilliant. Everything about this ending is compelling enough to make me want to see what happens next. If only the middle didn't just suck donkey balls so frequently.
First of all Everythingship is an adorable couple thing. I think it's interesting. But let's talk about that opening. The one that contextualizes the ever present narrative voice of Joe. I nearly peed my pants when you realized Joe was talking to someone. Bunch of scenarios popped up in my mind of who he could be talking to but I was surprised when the listener was revealed.
The show takes the very lovely tension it's built up and it keeps it taunt by adjusting the pacing in this episode things happen over month. We see the fall of Becks/Joe and after the fictional world shattering events of the last episode watching this happen was a surprise you don't expect things to change the lives of the characters twice.
On the creepy Joe front there's not a lot to talk about with regards to what he is doing. Which I think is important. The show is showing you that creepy guys aren't creepy 100% of the time. Sometimes it's a few red flags for a couple of weeks and then for a few months they seem normal or ideal even but in this story we see the constantly running stream of consciousness of Joe and we know that even though his actions seem fine his mental state is troubling. It's something the show never wants you to forget. Everything Joe does it intentional even when it doesn't seem to be. But there are SOME things to talk about like pee jar makes it's return as we see a character from last episode show up again here in a manner that feels like breadcrumbs that will eventually lead to him. We see Joe push a boundary that leads to an ultimatium with Becks and then we have yet another jump scare again with Joe as the target which is an interesting turn of events. In this case as with last case the person who caught Joe has the upper hand.
At the end of the episode we have another hint to the personhood and fate of Candace someone who is becoming more and more important to the narrative. There's a mystery to unlock there and that mystery might give even more context to Joe's nature.
what i really hate in this show is the constant pattern of disrespect that leads to an irrationally overdone moment and no one addresses the pattern of disrespect. its maddening.
Okay so let's talk about episodes 5 and 6.
Ron Pearlmen was an utter delight. I can't not say that. He always is. Just is. Even here in this lackluster role. That said the second half of the season is a noticeable upswing. I really like even this episode and what it's doing character-wise. Plot-wise it was nonsense but it's not like it's going anywhere anyway at least now I'm starting to enjoy the ride. The interplay between our leads is interesting even if the again the fact that they are spies is not. What I find fascinating is that there's more narrative flow and consistency in the titles and descriptions than there is in the show. It's like they prepared the show with the titles and synopsis long before they started filming. Because this
Couples Therapy (Naked & Afraid) - Oh, John. Oh, Jane. Our pair have been oh so bad at sharing and caring. Time to call in help -- John and Jane, get ready for: COUPLES THERAPY, what a gas!
Is an entire different level than what even this episode is. This is fun and goofy and comical in a way that not even at it's best the show is. Maybe on a scene by scene basis you might find something worthy of the type of gassing in the title/synopsis but most of it is very different. It's lazier, more laid back, less invested. Which to say yet again I don't put on Maya and Donald. They're solid but the writing and directing just don't care. It's weird to look at this show and say "Well at least True Lies the TV Show tried." I mean the True Lies show bombed like 70-80% of it's run time but at least they were going for something. The jokes were sometimes dumb but they came (a little too) consistently.
As for episode 6? Well honestly it's my favorite episode so far. It's fun in a way that few episodes have been until now. Holy snap it just occurred to me. Part of it is the missing intrigue. As I've said before this is a show with zero guile. I mean they're spies but spies in this world is a gig job. Anyone signs up anyone gets in and the AI runs you like an uber app. It's dumb and boring and uninteresting. But here... here they have to lie. They have to explain translate and keep things up in front of a therapist who, imo, Sarah Paulson made utterly adorable "Yeah! Whatever DID happen to Mya?" I died. She was hilarious. It's amazing how just getting the formula right finally lets everything shine. The spycraft is minimized but it doesn't matter because I'm having a ball watching Maya and Donald rehash their relationship. A relationship I actually care about this episode. "The therapist episode" shows the potential of this series.
No seat belt, no helmet and I've never heard anyone pronounce Vi that way. What about Vim?
A few other things than this show is have done the same sort of weird tech. I think we're in this weird age where tech issues are represented more accurately, but tech is still represented Awfully. I remember earlier one of the big kings of tech still picks his password to be a date that personally significant to him. No one does that.. especially not the tech elite. I mean men that especially not people who are actually technically literate. The tech elite are a bunch of morons who just have money but anyone who knows any technology know if you don't put your birthday as a password
The pilot was good.. not great but good. This was better. This was good enough to sell me on the entire season. I'm starting to think I do see though to the plot I just don't connect the dots. I noticed "the character" in Glass Onion and I kept seeing these bits of stupidity I just didn't think anything of it. In the pilot I noticed the cow looked odd but I didn't think anything of it. And here I saw bad logic and just didn't think anything of it. I think a lot of people are quick to call out plot points long before the story has even really decided on them but maybe there's a degree of merit to the proceedings.
But this episode was solid. We learned a bit. People acted a bit and the AI did it's thing a little bit.
I went in without a rewatch and it's.. ok in that respect. I don't feel like I forgot so much I'm confused and they do a good job setting the play ing field. Nadia is still a weird character to me. But at least she's not every other female character on TV so there's that. It's a good promising start.
Well that's a spooky start. Very chilling. high in tension with little relief. Little unclear on a few things but mostly things I expect to be cleared up.
Now this is a good episode but in the end the beep's purpose was to let everyone re-calibrate for the baby because that's +1 passenger but one of the central premises of the show is that they're actually down 4 passengers. Joe the engineer and three people who die during Yoga. They shouldn't be needing re-calibrate for the baby.
Um, what happened? Who wrote this episode because they deserve a raise and everyone else needs to be fired because this episode so far (50%) is EXCELLENT. And the couple that is literally the worst is having a legit fight. But let's back up.
This episode picks up on the event that happened last episode Cal is missing. So the entire family is kicking up a storm. Dad wants to spy hard, Michella kidnaps the spy passenger (I don't even know when she learned Autumn was a spy because I must have fallen asleep last episode, something that happens regularly but I try to rewatch later to see what I missed) to find out what she knows. Assuming the infomation matches this is a reasonable act. Mom calls the cops which is a reasonable action given that she doesn't know what's going on.. wait is that right? Because Dad and Mom fight about this. Did he not tell her about all the stuff going on? I swore he did and she scoffed him off. Either way we get the "Don't protect me" speech which I usually agree with, but again I don't think he was protecting her because I thought I remembered him telling. If I have that wrong I have to reassess everything to do with Mom and how wrongly she's been acting. Not this episode though.
Dad: This is the drawing that is the only clue to where our son might be
Mom: I know this place
Dad: Are you sure?
Mom: it's made out of crayon I don't know.
wow. a great response to a stupid question. You have no leads. What do you care if she's sure. Then they have a drive that's just as awkward as it needs to be (with bonus product placement). Before they scour the town and have a legit fight. I mean a real legit fight over real legit things. I was so shocked that I suddenly realized the entire episode has been good and I had to get my notepad++ open just to type this mid-episode. They have a fight about whose fault it is that Dad moved out.
Mom: If we lived together this wouldn't have happaned
Dad: Yeah, I agree but it's not your fault
Mom: Wait what?!?!
Holy balls. Where do you get the cajones to say something that stupid hombre? I mean do you not like your wife? I thought you wanted to have her sleeping next to you? Because that's exactly how you keep her sleeping next to your replacement. She is rightfully offended at his presumption that she blames herself. After all it was his decision to leave.
Uh oh. I just hit unpause and it got stupid.
Dad: You kicked me out
Mom: You didn't fight for "us" (Ed: Ugh really?)
Mom: You left because you know what you did. You didn't make Cal the number one in your life.
Chicken-head says what? (I'd like to apologize for the unnecessary sexism. it's not cool. I was just super frustrated with the dialog) Like dang Grace you've been blocking Ben from doing what he needs to do FOR the family.
Dad: Everything I've done has been to keep Cal safe.
Mom: But no one else is blowing up their families why can't you be normal like them?
Dad: I'm a main protagnist do you not get how this works yet?
Alright the episode has gotten cheesy and product placy but you know what it hasn't got? Bad.
Dad: Mom, see this car? (Ed: because it's so ridiculous everyone needs to see it - https://i.imgur.com/2wkwI4G.jpg)
Dad: I think someone is following us. There's a single car behind us on this two lane highway with infrequent exits. Why else would a car be behind us.
Mom: But.. how can they keep up with us and not get lost we've been driving straight down the highway
Dad: I don't know but we're not driving a normal direction we're going straight
Mom: Does this car have any off-road features or anti-lock brakes?
Dad: I'm glad you asked that because all the base models come with both of those and for an extra $1000 we'll throw in linen seats.
Michella and Jared show up to do information exchange with the spy passenger Autumn
Mich: Thanks for switching to our side
Autu: You're welcome.
Mich picks up the information she brought autumn from the table behind her rather than from a brief case or any sort of envelope she would have been carrying on her. thus indicating she came in. Put the envelope down and walked in to talk to Autumn rather than just holding on to it for whatever reason.
Do the show runners even car about prop logic?
Mich: Did you guys get the location I sent you?
Mom and Dad: Yes.
Mich: I know it took you guys hours to get where you are but I'm coming too.. wait hours for me to get there don't try anything stupid like going to find your lost and missing son in the middle of winter.
But these are all relatively minor complaints in this show. I mean after this episode i can see what they were trying to do with Grace's character act. it just made no sense until now. In retrospect those earlier episodes are even worse because it was intentional. they need a firm steady hand to keep the characters and their motivations consistent and reasonable with the long term serial nature of the show. This shouldn't be impossible. But even the mythos ending was great. The hiker from Michella's vision isn't Cal in the future as I thought it's another time skipper, this time a hiker who skipped two years . He's an interesting addition to the cast and we've barely met him. This has got to be one of THE BEST episodes of the season.
Ed: Some of the conversations have been paraphrased for laziness reasons. Some have a bit of creative license in them
So now that Becks and Joe are over (1x07) we maintain that high digetic pace as Becks and Joe enter new phases of their life. We have a new character introduced Karen Minty and honestly I like her. I think the actress is attractive and I think the character brings a different level of interest into this circle of romance/stalking. For a while things seem fine and on the surface nothing is wrong but they encounter each other and like two opposing magnetic poles they are drawn to each other in a manner most would consider unhealthy. Of course it's nice well not nice but interesting to see Becks taking an assertive position in their relationship. In a traditional romantic comedy or romantic show this would be the episode where you would root for the romance in spite of the insurmountable obstacles in front of them but this is You and you, the audience, know Joe inside and out. It makes you feel awkward to be put in the position of hoping they get back together even though you know this is a bad outcome. This is an outcome that you shouldn't want to happen. Interestingly enough when Joe breaks up with his new love interest and she doesn't get immaturly emotional he's confused because as I've said before Dexter is psychotically devoid of emotion. Joe is psychotically additicted to emotion.
As with the last episode Candace comes up only this time not around Joe and it raises flags and makes for some interesting tension that taints an otherwise "charming" moment in ways that should ripple out to have massive repurcussions when events inevitably come to a head.
The worst episode of the season. This episode manages to crush everything wrong about Punisher in one episode. Luckily the rest of the season is excellent. But this episode has so many problems such as the overly idealized "perfect wife" who isn't a real person (which continues). There's violence in this episode towards the end that is just brutal for the sake of being brutal. It's what a teenager thinks The Punisher is about.
The Punisher is a character who understands everything about what he does. He's violent yes but controlled violence that's purposeful. He kills but he kills because he's already done the mental math and concluded that it must be done. It's his superpower as it were. Moral superiority. He doesn't agonize about whether or not to kill his enemy. He kills and goes to sleep because he unlike many superheroes has already suffered extreme cruelty. But Castle's not cruel and the violence in this episode can't be considered anything other than cruel. He doesn't need to destroy these men to save the boy and yet he does. The framing of the episode so far does everything it can to humanize the victims of his attacks. Which isn't what you do when you want your hero to kill people. The framing of the fight scene at the end implies this is an awesome thing done by an awesome guy. It's not. It's just an ugly violent inhuman version of Frank Castle even by comic book standards. When what made him so good in Daredevil Season 2 was his humanity.