Whether you like this show or not, you must admit that it has one of the most memorable intros ever. A rap intro was perhaps more revolutionary in the 90s but it's still a work of genius: before every episode you get a story recap how Will ended up in Bel-Air in the first place.
I'm too young to understand many of the references and jokes. But sometimes it's like a fascinating time capsule bank to the 90s. I hate the fake laughter. The show is often a bit silly and shallow but now and then the show delves into more serious issues like parenting, race, puberty, coming of age, social injustice, capitalism and so forth. I don't even like Will best. I like Hillary, Phil and Carlton better to be honest. But all characters are likeable and it's a true feel good sitcom.
But that's perhaps not what the show was really known for. I guess it made a major impact during 90s TV. It's one of the first sitcoms and perhaps one of the first primetime shows with mostly black characters. And - as a surprise to many - they showed a regular all-American and financially privileged family.
Towards the end the show starts to limp and Will's one man show becomes increasingly annoying. I remember that I liked him a lot back in the 90s. My younger self was convinced he was the coolest guy ever. I think totally different know. He almost ruins the show.
Would I ever re-re-watch this show? Probably not...
PS: sadly this show was recorded on tape it seems, thus can't be remastered easily and looks horrible by today's standards
[Edit] THIS MOVIE IS 3 HOURS LONG???? THREE HOURS???? Dear god one hour felt like an ETERNITY in the theater.
Unfortunately walked out because I got overstimulated cause it was a lot louder than expected, and also really fucking boring.
Visually stunning movie. Absolutely gorgeous. The effects done in camera, the cinematography, the acting, everything is just so much fun to look at. Christopher Nolan knows how to make a damn good looking movie. Hats off to the team that made this thing.
But writing wise... damn, it underperformed.
Other commenters mentioned that this feels like a Wikipedia entry or a montage of 60 second clips, and damn they are right. The writing just did. not. hit. It was hard to follow any of Oppenheimer's personal life and to actually feel anything for him or any of the people in his life. I don't expect a movie to hold my hand. But I do expect pace to be managed well and to have a bit of breathing room to be able to process stuff. This did not give you the time to do it lmao.
Also the characters just... didn't interact in an engaging way. Less than 20 minutes into the movie I was already checking my watch to see how much more of this I had to sit through! I didn't know half of the characters' names, or half of their relationships to each other, or why they were even relevant. Like the best example of this is Oppy and Einstein's interactions. They have beef, but it's hard to understand why? There's like... two interactions before the one hour mark that total less than a minute of on-screen time together. Einstein gets a few words in there and it's just very very unclear why they hate each other, or how they met, or what any of their background is. It's confusing!
Also let's talk about Oppenheimer's motivations. As a literal communist, I should empathize with Oppy and understand where he's coming from. But I don't! Because he's a fucking idiot! When he's talking with other leftists, he mentions "Isn't ownership theft?" and the person in the communist party is like "It's property, actually" and he's like "Well sorry I read all three volumes of Capital in original German" and he's like... just a dick??? But also no fucking leftist who is going around having read all three volumes of Capital talks about that shit! That's just dumb! And the entirety of his leftist politics are portrayed in a way that make him look like an egotistical maniac with dumb politics! One minute he's starting a union and pro-labor, another minute he's dropping all of that in order to be a dog of the US government! There's obviously an enormous jump happening there. Like something very, very clearly and very, very majorly changed for Oppenheimer there, and the film spends a grand total of 30 seconds in a single scene having him transition from brilliant labor activist to US government dog.
Also there are time jumps! Lots of them! The choice to jump back and forth between the McCarthyist interrogations of Oppenheimer and the past do. not. make. sense. They are hard to follow, extraordinarily boring, and absolutely ruin any sort of pacing the movie might have! There are several points in this movie where Oppenheimer starts to be fleshed out a bit more as a character or starts to be given more space for us to see what he's really like. And then it's randomly cut off and flashed forward to these utterly irrelevant black-and-white interviews. Oppenheimer has a leftist past! Of course he does! The movie literally shows us that! And instead of just telling things in a regular narrative way, the movie splits things up confusingly for absolutely no good fucking reason, and ends up showing us and telling us the same information twice! That is shit writing! If you cut all of these scenes you would be missing nothing from the movie, and you'd have more time to actually tell us about the characters, instead of them feeling like one-dimensional caricatures.
I don't know any of Oppenheimer's history, and I left this not understanding any more of it! I left after an hour because it felt like two and a half because it was just this firehose of information. And Nolan didn't present it in a way that actually made a story! He just shat this all out on the screen (and it's a beautiful shit, don't get me wrong!!), and expected the audience to love it! His characters are one-dimensional, they aren't given the space, the motivations, or the background really for us to understand where they're coming from or why they do what they do. And that ends up with this being a visually stunning but really fucking boring movie that I just walked out of because I couldn't take it anymore lol.
I cannot stand seeing visually gorgeous movies produced by people who clearly have god-level talent that seem to have a complete and utter inability to get the basics of movie-making, story, correct! I have ADHD. For a lot of people, sitting through a boring movie is just boring. For me, it is exhausting. It is excruciating. I can't fidget in a movie theater, I can't move, I can't pause the movie and come back later when I'm feeling more focused. And so if a movie is boring, I just leave! And it is so fucking annoying to miss out on a chance to see a movie that is, outside of its story, fucking beautiful because its director and writer couldn't do the extremely basic job of making a movie that holds people's interest and communicates things in even a slightly clear way. God what a waste.
Barbenheimer: Part 1 of 2
This is the kind of film I really don’t want to criticize, because we don’t get nearly enough other stuff like it. However, mr. Nolan has been in need of an intervention for a while now, and unfortunately all of the issues that have been plaguing his films since The Dark Knight Rises show up to some degree here. Visually it might just be his best film, and there’s some tremendous acting in here, particularly by Murphy and RDJ. However, it makes the common biopic mistake of treating its subject matter like a Wikipedia entry, thereby not focussing enough on character and perspective. As a whole, the film feels more like a long extended montage, I don’t think there are many scenes that go on for longer than 60 seconds. There’s a strong ‘and then this happened, and then this happened’ feel to it, which definitely keeps up the pace, but it refuses to stop and let an emotion or idea simmer for a while. There are moments where you get a look into Oppenheimer’s mind, but because the film wants to cover too much ground, it’s (like everything else) reduced to quick snippets. It’s the kind of approach that’d work for a 6 hour long miniseries where you can spend more time with the characters, not for a 3 hour film. I can already tell that I won’t retain much from this, in fact a lot of it is starting to blur together in my mind. There are also issues with some of the dialogue and exposition, such as moments where characters who are experts in their field talk in a way that feels dumbed down for the audience, or just straight up inauthentic. Einstein is given a couple of cheesy lines, college professors and students interact in a way that would never happen, Oppenheimer gives a lecture in what’s (according to the movie) supposed to be Dutch when it’s really German; you have to be way more careful with that when you’re making a serious drama. Finally, there are once again major issues with the sound mixing. I actually really loved the score, but occasionally it’s blaring at such a volume where it drowns out important dialogue in the mix. I’m lucky enough to have subtitles, but Nolan desperately needs to get his ears checked, or maybe he should’ve asked some advice from Benny Safdie since he’s pretty great with experimental sound mixing. My overall feelings are almost identical to the ones I had regarding Tenet; Nolan needs to rethink his approach to writing, editing and mixing. This film as a whole doesn’t work, but there are still more than a few admirable qualities to it.
Edit: I rewatched this at home to see whether my feeling would change. I still stand by what I wrote in July, though the sound mix seems to have been improved for the home media release. It sounds more balanced and I didn’t miss one line of dialogue this time around. I’m slightly raising my score because of that, but besides that I still think it’s unfocused, overedited, awkwardly staged and scripted etc.
5.5/10
When I started this show, the night of the multiple Emmy wins, I was confused. It seemed like an Arrested Development rip-off with a load of more conventional sitcom tropes thrown in, but without the laughter track.
After the first two seasons, I found myself asking people who'd watched it all about when it gets good. And now, having watched every episode, I find myself asking the same question. There were some great scenes and some good episodes, but never a consistent run of great episodes. At no point was it funny enough to justify the tedious and saccharine sentimentality (if I'd wanted to watch The Waltons, I would've done), nor emotionally striking enough to justify the comedy deficit. The only 'emotional' moment really that worked was the final scene with Alexis and Ted.
In its favour, it had great leads performing the thin material very well, and it was an easy, unchallenging watch. One of the key features of a good comedy is whether I'd want to watch it again, and in this case it is very unlikely.
So I'm still left wondering what merited all those Emmys, not least because every main character (other than maybe Alexis) had become a broad caricature of themselves by the weak final season. That said, the Emmy's picked a serviceable but unremarkable Rick & Morty episode over one of the greatest TV episodes ever (the penultimate episode of Bojack), so what the hell do they know?
[7.1/10] What a weird finale. I guess the show wanted to save most of its pure sentiment for the prior episode, and let this one be mostly a wackier showcase with a few grace notes. I can respect the approach, but the execution was...strange.
Let’s start with the obvious. A happy ending? On the day of the wedding? And we’re treating it like some typical wacky sitcom occurrence? As David himself might say -- what the fuck? This is such a weird storyline, and maybe I’m just a prude, but I feel like someone having sexual contact with a stranger on the day of their wedding, whatever the implausible mix-up over it may be, should be a big serious deal and not some zany T.V. misunderstanding that gets cutely mentioned in one’s vows. I assumed the whole thing was a prank at first, because it’s a ludicrous and downright odd plot point to throw in at the eleventh hour.
On a lesser note, in what world would Alexis wear white to her brother’s wedding when she’s giving him away? Even assuming she would be oblivious or malevolent to want to draw focus, you’re telling me that David wouldn’t have vetted her dress seventy-eight times before the big day? Again, it’s wacky and just plain weird.
This is also a fairly formless episode. Nominally, everything is building to the nuptials, but there’s little structure or progression to it, more of just a hodgepodge of different scenes that have little to do with one another up to that point. Theoretically, you have the conflict of the outdoor wedding being rained out, but that becomes a pretty mild hurdle pretty quickly.
Despite that, there’s a lot of nice individual moments here. I like Alexis having the epiphany that the Roses losing their money was, ultimately, a good thing that nudged them to grow and made them better people. Her embrace of her mom and drinking in that this will be the last time they’ll all be together like this is really sweet. While my wife would probably have killed me if I tried to sing 90s pop during my vows, I like Patrick singing a snippet of Mariah Carey for David, not to mention the Jazzagals’ vocal rendition of “Simply the Best.” I like Johnny walking Stevie down the aisle and kissing her on the forehead, a nice bit of symbolism for the paternal relationship they’ve developed over the course of the show. I like David telling Alexis how consistently impressed by her he is. These moments have little to do with one another, but they’re all very nice.
Most of all I like Moira’s material here. Granted, her pope getup is a little too out there for my tastes, but your mileage may vary. But she’s more or less the only character in this episode with an arc. More than any member of the family, she’s been the most anxious and unwavering about wanting to leave Schitt’s Creek. Throughout the victory lap that is this day, she’s resisted being sentimental about the wedding or about leaving. But when she’s up in front of everyone, she melts more than a little, affirming that the fickle winds of life can lead you to unexpected places, but that she is, against her own judgment, grateful and touched that they brought the Rose family here in the company of so many wonderful people. It’s as fine a final statement and summation the show could possibly make, with the added power of it coming from arguably the show’s least sentimental main character.
So there’s hugs and final goodbyes and drives off into the sunset. It ends on a goofy note, with the Roses having been added to the town sign, in a bit that may cheekily be the culmination of people saying that it looks like David and Alexis are a married couple given her dress. Shrug.
In the end, Schitt’s Creek died as it lived: a show with unexpected heart and character growth that buoyed it even in lean times, but whose comedy was hit or miss, ranging from the undeniably hilarious to broad sitcom wackiness. It’s one of those series that I’m glad to have watched, but which I don’t think is going to stick with me the way some of my favorites have.
That’s because it felt like it could never seem to get all of its pieces working at the same time. When David was having real growth and development, Alexis was mired in romcom drama. When Alexis was changing as a person, David had more or less hit his limit and was playing out the string in his character arc. Johnny could be wrapped up with Stevie in ambitious projects and a warm quasi-parental relationship, or swallowed up by the usual dose of Roland’s crap. And Moira always had the strength of Catherine O’Hara’s performance, but the show didn’t always know what to do with her on a long term basis.
Season 3 is the closest Schitt’s Creek came to really firing on all cylinders, and seasons 2 and 5 hit some real high points as well. But you could also feel the show running out of gas or not being sure where to go with various characters during its run.
Still, I will also remember the show’s best moments, particularly its slow transformation of the Roses from high society snobs who disdained this place to better people who were grateful for what it gave to them and spurred within them. I’ll remember the particularly great comedy when that emerged when you could get all four Roses in the same room (and if Stevie’s there too, all the better). And I’ll remember its overall gentleness, the way it was easy to watch in bunches given its lightness and warmth. As both something of a throwback and a very modern sitcom, Schitt’s Creek was a bit of an odd duck, but also one worth stopping by the water to see.
[7.7/10] Liked this one quite a bit. Two strong storylines that had great beats for a variety of characters.
I honestly don’t know which one I liked better. The one where Johnny struggles over whether he can pay for both the new second motel and his son’s wedding catering seemed like it was about to crater. The whole “business vs. family money trouble” bit is a cliché, and it started to lean into some more unpleasant bridezilla tropes for David. Plus the humor of Johnny trying to not-so-subtly find ways to go less expensive at the caterer’s was pretty tepid.
But from there things took a really nice turn. For one thing, David coming and telling his dad that the extra plates aren’t his dad’s financial responsibility and that if Johnny can’t afford the catering at all, David would totally understand helps mitigate his wedding-related nutso-ness. Likewise, Johnny’s predicament takes on a more emotional tone when he recalls that he and Moira had set aside their own nest egg for David’s wedding, involving flying people to Bali and other extravagance, and now he’s struggling to just pay for beef tenderloin. It’s not just about the financial situation it’s about being able to provide for your kid on a major day in their lives and the sense of not measuring up to your own expectations that reminds Johnny how far he’s fallen. Eugene Levy does some of his best work in the series in that moment.
The solution, though, is even better. Stevie using Johnny’s own techniques from his book to come up with a strategy to franchise the Rosebud and solve their financial woes is a nice beat for her. I’ll admit, it seems like a stretch, but it works within the willing suspension of disbelief of the show, rouses Johnny, and proves Stevie’s business mettle.
I also greatly enjoyed the Moira/Alexis story. For one thing, the soap opera humor is worth plenty of chunkles, and it’s a venerable strain of comedy. More than that though, I like the trajectory of Moira being ready to sign on for a reboot, being steered toward the truth by her daughter, and then getting a measure of revenge and perspective. Alexis having the shrewdness to research what happened and understand who has leverage continues her development, and Moira slapping the co-star who squeezed her out and “going after what she’s worth” at her daughter’s encouragement is a great corresponding note for her to play.
Overall, this one is a breath of fresh air in what’s otherwise been a weaker season, with quality things for almost all the major characters to do.
[7.5/10] It speaks to the quality of the Alexis/Ted storyline here that I would rate this episode as pretty darn good overall, despite the fact that the other two storylines in this installment are crap. Once again, we’re in the bizarro world equivalent of the show’s early seasons, where Alexis’s arc is the backbone of the series rather than the albatross around its neck.
I have to admit, when Ted showed up on Alexis’s doorstep and seemed pensive, I worried he had just flown across the country to break up with her. Instead, it’s just a job offer to stay in the Galapagos for three more years and an admission that he’s not sure what to do.
Alexis isn’t either. As I’ve said before, some of my favorite stories in the series are the ones where Alexis shows genuine growth and maturity and this may very well be the peak of that. Her deciding that she couldn't bear to have the man she loves give up his dream job for her, nor could she live in the Galapagos, and so they both have to move on, amicably as friends, is one of the hardest but strongest decisions we’ve ever seen her make.
Ted, of course, affirms it, knowing that he wouldn’t want her to give the career she’s built anymore than she’d want him to give up his. So what follows is sad but sweet. Alexis expresses that they built each other up to this point, giving one another the support and comfort to realize their dreams. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t hoping for some “Five Years Later” tag in the finale where they reunite down the line. But in some ways it’s better if they don’t, because this moment, of toasting what you have when the mature thing to do is let go of it for now, may be the most grown-up, empathetic, and human Alexis has ever seemed. It’s been a hell of a journey for her, and this may be the high point of it.
That’s a good thing too, since the other two storylines bring almost nothing to the table. I called Patrick coming back from the spa with an orange glow tan from minute one. David as a bridezilla is getting really tiresome, and the gags here are predictable and weak. There’s something mildly cute about the two taking candids on Stevie’s cellphone afterward, but I really hope we’re building to something with David’s behavior with this stuff, otherwise it’s just unfunny shtick.
Likewise, Johnny waving off Roland, Jocelyn, and his wife from the “Presidential Suite” at the new motel is totally reasonable. Moira making a big production over how they should move there is more unpleasant behavior from her, and the Schitts sneaking into the suite after the Roses have already decided to break Johnny’s rule and stay there was, again, predictable. This whole portion of the show has been a graveyard of laughs in recent episodes, and that continues here.
Overall, the Alexis storyline works like gangbusters and is one of the character’s crowning moments. The other two stories are, at best, the fertilizer her narrative grows out of.
[7.9/10] I like that the finale is mostly a Stevie episode. She’s my favorite character on the show, so it’s nice to see her get that sort of focus. I’ll admit, I totally bought that she was still nursing some hurt feelings over David getting married. It’s not a well the show has gone to a lot in recent seasons, but if ever there was an occasion to bring up some season 1 romantic drama between them, this was it.
Instead, they swerve things to a lovely place. Her getting monogrammed towels for David is such a sweet gesture, one that ties into how their friendship started in a very cute way.
And yet, she is still struggling with the news, albeit not out of jealousy or regret. She’s just seeing people move on and grow in their lives while she fears staying stagnant “behind the front desk.” Once again, though, Moira has some wonderful reassuring words for her, affirming Stevie’s coolness, the way she knows who she is and stands her ground, and how that will serve her well whether she sets sail or stays put. It’s an emotional scene, and like most Moira/Stevie scenes a great one.
Even better is how it gets used in the show. Moira doesn’t just reassure Stevie, she tells her to use that feeling in the show. There’s a perfect dovetail between Stevie’s worries and those of Sally Bowles, and “Maybe This Time” makes for a great emotional climax for the character this season. It feels like a real community production, but also suffused with the truth that comes from the character’s journey.
On the comic side, there’s a lot of laughs to be had from everyone hearing David’s news before he has the chance to make an announcement. There’s also some nice spiraling out of control here and there, and Johnny feeling leery about his daughter leaving, which pays dividends both for the comedy quotient and the adorable dad quotient.
Of course the big cliffhanger is that Moira’s big movie is getting shelved, which devastates her, since she potentially viewed it as the start to her comeback and maybe even her ticket out. I’m curious to see where they go with it!
Overall, a lot of nice stuff here, particularly for Stevie, which is a good thing in my book.
[8.2/10] This one went in a few directions that I wasn’t expecting, and I liked all of them heartily, so it gets a “great” from me!
The storyline I was least into was Alexis fretting over a tarot card reading from Twyla that predicts bad things happening on their Galapagos trip. Maybe it’s just that I’m not a superstitious person, but it seems like a silly source of conflict. That said, it’s totally legitimate if it’s just reinforcing Alexis’s preexisting concerns, and I like the notion that she’s grappling with the prospect of missing her family for the first time. It’s more emotional growth for her, to the point that even experiencing that sort of longing is a foreign feeling to her. Ted reassuring her that if it feels wrong, they can go back home is a nice tonic to it, as is Twyla reassuring her that she sees a “golden ring” around the Rose family.
That certainly bears out for Johnny. What everyone worries is a heart attack turns out to just be a bit of severe heartburn. There’s not a lot of actual jeopardy, since it seems unlikely that the show would kill off Johnny at this point. Still, what’s heartening is seeing the reaction from the rest of the cast.
Let’s get this out of the way. Roland continues to be terrible and why they haven’t written him off the show by this point is beyond me. That said, I love Moira’s reaction to the prospect of Johnny being in mortal peril. Her freaking out at the hotel, telling Johnny that he’s the most important thing in the world to her, and all-around caring about her husband’s well-being is a really nice note to play from a character who can often be pretty self-centered. Even when the show was shaggier than it is now, the caring relationship between Johnny and Moira was always a highlight.
Likewise, I really like how clearly affected the less-than-emotive Stevie is over the prospect of Johnny being in trouble. Her sense of panic and relief that this surrogate father figure is okay has an understated but very potent sweetness to it that I really liked.
Speaking of sweetness, I was absolutely not expecting Patrick’s proposal. He and David bickering over the prospect of a hike felt like one of the standard, broad sitcom-esque setups that the show does now and then. Instead, it’s a great tribute to the way that Patrick and David can be on different pages but look out for one another when it really matters. David is obviously not the hiking type, but when Patrick is in trouble, he pushes out of his comfort zone and takes care of the man he loves.
The actual proposal is exceedingly sweet, full of another heartfelt performance from Noah Reid, and a great emotional reaction from Daniel Levy. There’s enough humor throughout all the serious stuff here to keep it funny and light, but the emotions feel honest, which makes the whole thing work.
Overall, this one went to some more significant places than I was expecting, but in a good way!
[6.5/10] Every story in this one was some mix of good and bad, or in one case, outright bad.
Let’s start with that one. Alexis is the worst here. So not only does she lie to Ted about keeping things from their former relationship, but then she plays a convoluted game of take-backsies with Twyla over a locket that Ted had given her, after insulting her appearance, no less. Sure, I guess Ted calls her on the lie eventually and Twyla ends up with a bunch of expensive jewelry because of it, but it’s a bad case of Alexis being shitty and there’s hardly a laugh to be had in it.
The biggest mixed bag is Moira’s story. Her going crazy after taking a host of Bosnian pep pills is the sort of broadest of broad humor that makes me roll my eyes. That said, Catherine O’Hara is a champ and manages to sell at least some of it. But the whole “Johnny’s secret love letters” bit hitting the gossip train is just a dumb storyline. That said, I like where they end up with it, with Johnny explaining that Moira wrote them herself while injured and on painkillers, and Johnny had taken them out because he missed her while she was filming in Bosnia. It’s still a dumb subplot, but it at least ends in a sweet place.
The really weird storyline is the one where David and Stevie get robbed. For what it’s worth, I thought the scene where the actually get robbed is hilarious. The two of them being caught like deer in the headlights and not knowing what to do, scrambling around to try to placate their would-be attacker, is a nice bit of comedy, especially with the performers’ reaction to the whole thing.
What’s strange, though, is how “Love Letters” follows that up. Apparently they “did it wrong” somehow? Apparently attempting to mollify a potential robber with luxury goods when you don’t have cash to hand over is bad for some reason? And they should have challenged him on not having a weapon despite the fact that they had no idea what was or wasn’t under his jacket? When someone in a mask threatens you and tells you they’re robbing you, you don’t have to risk bodily harm, especially if you’re someone like David who, let’s face it, probably isn’t much good in a fight. It’s really bizarre to me how both Patrick and the cop give him and Stevie shit over it. The two are very funny in their scenes, so I’m inclined to give it a pass on laughs alone, but it’s a really weird setup.
Overall, this one has a few funny and/or nice moments but a lot of problems on top of them.
Not exactly a satisfying ending but I guess better than "it was successful, everyone got rich, the world changed for the better, the end." Pretty creative, albeit this and the previous episode started taking this AI concept a bit too far considering the state of that technology. The simple premise of using some fancy new compression technology that leads to all these interesting ideas is quite convincing and not so far from reality that it stays clear of being straight up science fiction. But this grounded approach is thrown out the window with this AI deux ex machina stuff. Maybe they should have thrown in some quantum computing while they were at it. It's a bit simplistic that Dinesh could just plug in a USB drive to upload the code. The rats were a clever touch though. The 10+ years later trope is always a bit of a cop out, and is even cliché at this point (cf Parks and Recreation, Veep …).
Wasn't expecting the season to end after only 7 episodes. Altogether a great series, unfortunate that the production hit some rough patches near the end and presumably cut some corners in order to end up where it needed to.
This is the best episode of Silicon Valley in a few seasons. Richard's arc in this series frequently lacks context and judgment. I don't necessarily need to see him punished or learning from his actions, but I do wish that it was handled with more grace. His path towards megalomania is so steeped in a lack of self-awareness and arrogance that it seems to genuinely make me wonder how a guy like that wouldn't understand that he is no better than Belson. A few times Jared stepped in to attempt to center him, but it never works.
I don't think there's anything wrong with this execution so much as I don't feel like it resonates with me because I haven't really found a character to center myself around. In the sixth season, everyone feels to be their most caricaturized version of themselves. That's a frequent problem in comedy television, I know, but it's made worse by the fact that the first few seasons of this series did a really solid job at keeping the zany-ness of these characters limited to very specific moments, perhaps best characterized by Gilfoyle. In the early seasons, he was still the anarchy and code-loving satanist, but that humor became so good because it was rooted and really seemed to be the only guy really centering Richard. Now, that's all he is. He's not centered in anything other than messing with Dinesh.
This episode feels like it finally has the right balance between comedy and plot that the first couple seasons nailed so well. There's a drive to everything that we see that feels like it has a better understanding of doing bad things for relative good.
Though stylish like all the previous entries, this one simply felt like it had been directed by someone who had played a bit too many sessions of online shooters or really enjoyed the 'new mission / new setting' feel of the Hitman series. The fact that Keanu's word count in this movie is probably lower than 200 further cements this feeling.
There is almost no content of worth. The movie achieves something previously unimaginable by this series by making the fights feel like repetitive cookie cutter clutter and thus extremely boring to sit through. We get it, John is a superhuman assassin who's GunFoo is better than most. We do not need the same fights 7-8 times to hammer that home. With the body count growing to match that of a warzone, and not a single scratch on John, where are the stakes? Why should the audience care?
Then there are the spectators.
During some of these fights there are masses of spectators, just normal folks either dancing at a club or driving around Arc de Triomphe, that do not even blink as John is peppered with machine gun fire and men with axes come after him. As the bodies pile on, these spectators just continue their NPC activities like they are in a badly coded 90's video game.
It should be obvious to anyone that the series is running out of ideas when it needed to up the ante so much with the firefights that John's most used item is not the guns he wields, but the bullet proof suite he wears.
For most of the fights we see him cover his head with his jacket as he returns fire in generic setting after generic setting.
At the entirely too manieth such fight, roughly 2 hours into this 3 hour bore fest, I walked out.
[8.8/10] There’s a funny thing about these updated, transmogrified Shakespeare adaptations like 10 Things I Hate About You. If you didn’t know better, you could call the plots convoluted. There is a complicated web of relationships and deceptions, to the point that you practically need a diagram to explain it properly.
In short, Michael helps his friend Cameron woo Bianca by convincing Joey to pay Patrick to date Kat, because Bianca, per her father Mr. Stratford, cannot date until Kat does. With me? Well then, it turns out that Kat dated Joey, and after Bianca picks Cameron over Joey, Joey picks Bianca’s friend Chastity, while Michael pursues Kat’s friend Mandella, as Kat and Patrick’s tempestuous relationship takes root.
It’s a little dizzying, and yet the complex string of friends and enemies and relationships that tow the line between put-ons and genuine affection track nigh-perfectly into the high school setting. Despite the dense qualities of that big ball of string’s worth of plot threads, the complicated social structures and intersecting circles of high school make for the perfect way to realizes The Bard’s comedies in the modern day.
But 10 things is more than just a transmogrified version of The Taming of the Shrew. It also a charming tale that captures the heart and hazards of adolescence at the same time it exaggerates them for comic effect. What’s most impressive about the film is how it has its cake and eats it too on that front. There are goofy beats and subplots that only happen in teen movies, like unexpected party scenes and famous bands showing up to play contemporary (hopefully) chart-topping hits for the soundtrack.
But amid that broader material, there is a real examination of what it is to play up or down to expectation, a theme present in the work that inspired 10 Things, but which is given new life in the guise of the teenagers who are at that point in the fraught process of growing up where they’re deciding who and what they want to be, in love and in life. The gross wager that turns into real love is a hoary trope (see also: fellow 1990s borrower She’s All That) but by rooting the romance at the core of the film in two people who embrace a thorny image and find the hidden depths behind the prickers in one another, the film does justice to its source material and resonates with a target audience trying to figure out which parts of who they are malleable, which parts are non-negotiable, and which parts are fit to be broadcast to the rest of the world (or at least, the relevant social circles)>
It is also just damn charming. The film is full of quotable lines and crackerjack exchanges between characters. The cutting aside is wielded well and often, and side characters like teachers (including the great Allison Janney) and parents (Larry Miller, who nails both comedy and emotion as Mr. Stratford) provide a backdrop of colorful characters for the main story to flourish in. The writing stands out in 10 Things not just for the amusing lines which liven some otherwise familiar teen material, but for the way it allows the film to, in true Shakespeare form, shift tones into more serious material when it needs to.
The same goes for the characters. Kat shoots off the best zingers in the movie, and with her rebellious attitude and literary bent, it would be easy to turn her into a one-dimensional avatar rather than a character. Instead, the film roots her perspective and demeanor in an experience with Joey that gives form to her concerns of Bianca following in her footsteps, and gives just enough context to her mom leaving to make the crisis of conscience and turning point understandable.
By the same token, Bianca could easily be a generic popular girl, and in fairness, at certain points of the film, she is. But she too has a simple but meaningful arc of playing to expectations only to realize that she doesn’t necessarily like what that gets her, and it allows the two sisters to grow in their understanding of one another in strong scenes that deepen their relationship.
The objects of their affection receive a bit of shading as well. The reveal that Patrick, who puts on a gruff exterior and bears the reputation derived from many humorous urban legends about him, is not as wild as he seems is, perhaps, a predictable one. But he gains strength from the way that he and Kat see bits of themselves in one another, Cameron is a bit flatter, learning a trite if endearingly-put lesson about not accepting the notion that he doesn’t deserve what he wants, but there’s enough there to give ballast to the enjoyable-if-disposable teen romp elements.
Even Mr. Stratford, who is arguably the most outsized major character in the film, gets a bit of shading. While he spits out awkward-sounding nineties slang and is comically overprotective and paranoid of his daughters getting pregnant, the film balances that with a subtext to his insecurities about Kat leaving for Sarah Lawrence. There is a Daria-like quality to the film’s ability to poke fun at the parent-child relationship, but also find the sweetness and sincerity in it.
That’s what makes 10 Things more than the sum of its byzantine bets and love triangles. Some twists are convenient, some gestures a little too big to work anywhere but on the silver screen, and some bits of forgiveness come a little too easy. Still, the film keeps its plot, humor, and drama working in sync, where one scene can make you chuckle, the next will let you get to know a character a little better, and the one after will tug at your heartstrings, just a little bit.
The oh-so-nineties soundtrack immediately places in the film at a specific moment in time, but it speaks to the relatable qualities of that quest to figure out both who you are, and who’ll accept you for who you are, that feel like life and death for all seventeen-year-olds. 10 Things is a touchstone for those who grew up with it, both for the quips and clever asides that let the film crackle, and for the notion of young men and women, cutting through pretension and presentation, and finding something true beneath it, in themselves and in the people they love.
Brace yourselves, dear viewers, for this episode will undoubtedly spark heated debates among fans. Some will love it, while others will loathe it—much like the game itself.
The Last of Us ends with a masterful coup de grâce, cementing this adaptation's place in the pantheon of prestige television.
It is sombre and dark yet replete with emotions that run deep. Joel, at long last, becomes a man of action. Whether his actions are morally defensible, however, is a subject of endless debate.
Staying true to the game, this episode does not falter in its execution, boasting a master-stroke opening that sets the stage for a gripping narrative to unfold. The strategic use of a flashback adds layers of complexity to already richly-wrought characters, serving as a catalyst for some of the most poignant dialogue between Joel and Ellie to date—dialogue sure to leave the audience teary-eyed.
The action is far from glorified, leaving viewers in a state of visceral shock and awe. The last couple of episodes have served to do some fantastic work for Joel, and this episode is the proverbial cherry on top, truly a beautiful and profound culmination of his character arc. Indeed, the show is a thing of beauty, but beauty that is shrouded in darkness.
Were a flaw to be ascribed, it would be that of brevity. At a mere 40 minutes, the finale feels curtailed. The absence of the Cordyceps is understandable, given the laser-focused narrative, though it marks a deviation from the source material.
By turns harrowing and humane, towering and intimate, this finale buries its hooks deeply in the viewer, capping off a brilliant maiden season. Love it or loathe it, impassioned discourse will assuredly abound in the wake of this uncompromising conclusion to the first chapter of The Last of Us.
01x09 - Look for the Light: 8.5/10 (Great)
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement is a 2004 American family comedy film starring Julie Andrews and Anne Hathaway. This film is also the sequel to 2001’s The Princess Diaries. In this film, Queen Clarisse (Andrews) is abdicating the throne, and Mia Thermopolis (Hathaway) learns that she needs to marry within a month in order to be Queen of Genovia. At Mia’s 21st birthday party, she meets the dashing Lord Nicholas Devereaux (played by Chris Pine in his film debut).
I’ve actually never watched the first film, but pop culture has filled me on the context of the characters, setting, etc. That being said, I was interested in watching this Disney classic, regardless of the order!
I thought that the acting, especially by Hathaway and Pine, were well done. Hathaway still portrays Mia as the down-to-earth, rambunctious girl I’ve come to perceive her as, and Pine is a charming and bantering young lord who often bickers with Mia throughout the film. And of course, Julie Andrews is superb as Queen Clarisse, as she is the definition of grace, class, and beauty.
The plot was honestly predictable, but c’mon... it’s a Disney film. It was still enjoyable to watch! And the music gave it a nostalgic touch (at least for me, watching it in 2021), making it a great feel-good movie.
With the plot being predictable, I wouldn’t rewatch the film.
Just as slow as the original, but I'd argue it's a better film overall.
There isn't much between the two films, I admit. However, I found 'The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement' more enjoyable than 'The Princess Diaries'. The plot is probably just as interesting, but there's less cringe in this one and the villains are a big improvement.
Anne Hathaway (Mia) is very good once more, while Julie Andrews (Clarisse) does solid things again. John Rhys-Davies (Mabrey) and Chris Pine (Nicholas) are top additions, great casting on the latter by the way given it's Pine's feature film debut.
I also said in my review of the 2001 film that I don't like fictional places in live-action, non-fantasy productions. That's still the case here, but I didn't actually mind it all that much to be honest. "Genovia" is way more believable here, thanks to us actually getting to see it for real - as opposed to it just being referenced.
As noted, there are still a few cringey moments and it does run too long. There are some sweets parts, though. It's also kinda weird that, technically, Mia and Nicholas are related; a number of generations back sure, but still...
A sequel that (minorly) improves on its predecessor, that's always a positive in my book.
Based on a novel of the same name, the premise of The Princess Diaries is certainly intriguing enough. A coming-of-age Cinderella story with a twist -- Cinderella is not the damsel in distress. She's comfortable in her own awkward shy teenager shell.
The film has all the ingredients of a successful film. And the film was wildly successful. It has a dream team of cast where everyone is as perfectly cast as they can be, starting with Julie Andrews as the queen and Anne Hathaway in her breakthrough debut as Mia. Directed by the veteran of Cinderella films Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman), the film was a low risk bet for Walt Disney.
For the intended audience (young and preteen girls), the film hits all the right notes. Mia's transformation scene is easily the highlight of the film, and it is very effective and well shot.
Yet, the film just didn't work for me. The movie is just all too familiar and predictable. The scene where Mia discovers her heritage carries surprisingly very little revelation and reactions. And the climax just didn't arouse warm reaction it intended to generate. Worse of all, there are just too many cliched and cringe inducing scenes.
All in all, the film is worth casual family viewing. But for me, the strong cast and competent direction couldn't overcome weak screenplay.
[6.6/10] Eh, I didn’t love this one. The best of the three stories is the one about Johnny not being good at gifts and Stevie’s reaction to it, and even that was pretty mild. Stevie putting on all the makeup and deadpanning her way through an “appreciation” of Johnny’s gift was a laugh, but otherwise there wasn’t much to this one.
I didn’t really care for either of the other two storylines. Moira initially sidestepping Alexis’s “singles night” idea, then inadvertently stealing it, then taking credit so that she can lead the project did nothing for me. That sort of self-rationalizing self-centeredness is not out of character for Moira, and Alexis being thrust into a much bigger project than she expected is a good story engine, but there’s nothing really funny or endearing about the situation here.
(As an aside, how did Alexis get any kind of degree from Elmdale college in four months. Wouldn’t even an associate’s degree take longer than that?)
I didn’t much care for David’s storyline either. Again, it’s not out of character for David to prolong his break-up with Patrick because he likes being pampered with gifts, but at the same time, it’s not exactly the most likable behavior. Plus, there’s something that feels so broad and sitcom-y about David coming to make up only for Patrick to say he hears David’s silence loud and clear and won’t push him. The fact that David lip syncs to “Simply the Best” feels like a pretty meager apology, and the “I’m not used to this situation” excuse is mildly sympathetic, but requires a little more remunerative action than fake singing along to Patrick’s preferred eighties power ballad.
Overall, this one was mostly fine, but still one of the weaker episodes of the season.
[7.1/10] I don’t really know how I feel about this episode. It has two stories that I am, at best, pretty meh on, and one that I like but have issues with.
Once again, the easiest storyline to be meh on is the Roland one. It’s really more of a running gag than a storyline, but the prospect of Johnny being overwhelmed by a charcoal grill, of all things, got no chuckles out of me (beyond, I suppose, Roland’s grill apron puns). It get that it’s a comic relief story, but it has to get some actual laughs for that to work.
The other one I’m meh on, for different reasons, is the Alexis text message story. I actually like her making friends with Rachel who, as far as she knows, is just a random guest at the motel, who helps her diagnose what is clearly an accidental text from Ted. There’s a quick friendship there that’s endearing.
And yet, it’s in service of an increasingly unpleasant instance of Alexis flirting and otherwise being low-key inappropriate with Ted when she knows he has a girlfriend. Again, I don’t need this show to focus on Alexis’s romantic trials and travails, and however much good work the show did last season in actually making me root for Ted and Alexis is undone by her acting this way, and the show reveling in the cringeyness of it.
I’m also of two minds about the David/Patrick story and reveal here. I like the bones of it. There’s something relatable about David having had bad luck in relationships, thinking he’s damaged goods, and it being hard for him to trust even in what’s plainly a good thing because of that bad history. There’s some cute David/Patrick moments and some sweet David/Moira moments in the different pairings recognizing this and encouraging David to push past it. It’s a very human side of David to show, and I like it.
I’m less enamored by the low-grade Jane Eyre-style reveal that Patrick was previously engaged to a woman who’s been contacting him. I said before that Patrick felt too good to be true, so I like the show trying to add some issues that give him more dimension than just perfect boyfriend. But this feels like a weird wedge to put between him and David. I get that it could be a lot of David to take in, but this changes nothing about their relationship, and he knew that this was Patrick’s first step out of the closet. It seems like making a mountain out of a molehill, or at least a moderately sized hill, rather than something important or revealing enough to give them real issues. Maybe the kick is that David has trust issues to begin with, as the episode tells us, so even a medium-sized bump in the road feels like armageddon, but I hope the show doesn’t linger on this as a distance between them and that they both react to it like adults.
Overall, this is a strange, mixed bag of an episode, but with enough good stuff to put it into positive territory.
[7.4/10] Ugh, I want to give this episode a higher score. I really do. But the Roland story is so bad. He’s never been my favorite character, but when the show relegates him to the background, he’s not so bad. But now I fear that putting him as a regular presence at the hotel is going to mean more and more of his unfunny shtick.
Case-in-point, Roland once again acts like no human being would. Bringing a mini-fridge to work, watching Erin Brockovich in the middle of the workday, and playing video games on the T.V. you were told to leave at home is just over-the-top, cartoony behavior that has zero basis in reality and, worse yet, isn’t remotely funny. There’s a decent kicker with Jocelyn explaining that she needs him out of the house and Johnny relenting, but it’s pretty meager all things considered and drags the whole episode down.
The David/Stevie/Patrick story about David being unwilling to compromise is much better on a scene-for-scene basis. It’s hard to put my finger on why, but I get such a kick out of Stevie and Patrick scheming to bust David’s eminently bust-worthy chops. In this case, tweaking his inability to compromise with the prospect of plungers and other toilet accoutrement at the front of the store. David’s facial reactions and body language when trying not to betray his utter disgust and disdain are fantastic. The fact that his ensuing rant leads to the first time he refers to Patrick as his boyfriend is a cute button to put on the whole thing, and Stevie’s in rare form.
But the most interesting story in the episode is the one with Moira, Alexis, and Twyla. Moira’s realization that she hasn’t been involved in her own daughter’s life and her fumbling attempts to rectify that nicely walk the line between endearing and comedic. The cold open, with Moira obliviously talking about Ted’s “striking” new girlfriend, is a laugh riot, and Moira’s awkward efforts to learn about her daughter and give her advice for picking up a man, are all quite funny.
They’re also very touching. For one thing, Moira’s earlier clumsy attempts to help her daughter give way to a really sweet statement that Alexis is in her prime and deserves every happiness. It speaks to how mother and daughter are on the same page with how Alexis is once again using Twyla to channel feelings she can’t express herself, and Moira uses Twyla to communicate her feelings back. I’d feel bad for poor Twyla, but she’s touched by Moira’s vicarious compliment and goes home with someone who shares her second favorite color, so surely she’s on a winning streak here anyway.
Still, the best moment is the closing one, where Moira reassures her daughter, not in so many words, that even if you have to wait a year for the right person, when you know there’s something there, it’ll still work out, because it worked out with her and Johnny, so it can work out with her and Ted. It’s the exact reassurance Alexis needs to hear right then, and it’s the perfect counterpoint to her cluelessness in the episode’s cold open.
That story does so well in the end, and the shenanigans involving the Rose Apothecary crew are amusing, but the Roland storyline is so bad that it brings the whole thing down.
Back to the Howards living each other's life in the other's side of things. Finally we got each Howard confronting the other, one on one, about the faults from each other in each other's lives! That's something I've eagerly been waiting for and that dialogue did not disappoint, it was some of the best stuff Counterpart has given us, so far. Though he was right in some points, Howard Prime kept his same aggressive, self-righteous, douchebag attitude, while Howard Alpha finally showed some balls and set Howard Prime straight! Our Howard has been growing since he's crossed to the other side, and I love that.
Now that they've uncovered the school for the sleeping agents on the other side, I feel that they've forced the hand of the "resistance" (or whatever we're supposed to call them) and we should be expecting a strong backlash from them in our side, so maybe they'll be preparing a violent strike, soon...
But I really wasn't expecting Quayle to frame Howard (Alpha?) for being the mole... I sympathised with Quayle in the last episode, after him finding out he'd been played for years by his own wife, but his cowardness now was just low.
Things won't be looking good for either Howard, from now on... Which means they'll be looking great for us, the viewers!
This one provided some decent backstory for AltClare and even generated a fair amount of sympathy for her from me...until she showed me that the same events that generated my sympathy had turned her into someone who could kill an innocent bystander with no apparent issues of conscience. I also found it interesting that, prior to her insertion on "our" side of things, she showed intermittent signs of warmth mixed in with the general coldness. Other than that, there were a few things that bothered me with this one. (1) There were ways that AltClare could have mirrored Clare's lost virginity that would not have involved potential exposure to STDs or pregnancy, either of which would have not only presented the usual problems but would have killed the mission. And there's the fact that someone who knew "her" could have seen enough of what was going on to report it back to Peter. I assume that the writers intended this to serve as more evidence of her automaton personality at that point, but I couldn't ignore the lack of common sense. (2) The lack of a team in place to assist her and the resulting "You're on your own" sort of mentality were more than a little hard to accept, especially given the importance of her particular mission. (3) Would it have killed Peter to stash those cigars somewhere else? Someplace far, far way? Or at least in a locked drawer? Or at least in a drawer that he freaking shuts all the way? Oh, well. At this point, now that Peter has made it clear that he knows what's going on with her, I'm all the more curious about how things will move forward with our not-so-happy couple...
This feels much more like mid season episode. That's not saying it was a bad one. Quite the opposite. I had a lot of good laughs and a lot of smiles.
One small point of critique: the whole Lysella story was too predictable. I love the dialogue between her and Kelly. It's obvious where that's aimed at. But why not show her the simulation earlier ? Could've made her understand and accept without all the back and forth.
As for the Clair/Issac relationship - who would've thought it would end in marriage when that started way back. But it works, it makes sense and it doesn't feel forced.
Final thoughts on the season:
"Future Unknown" refers as much to the episode as to the show itself. There still is no news about a renewal. It would be a loss to not have another season. I'm sure they could come up with interesting stories. Ed's daughter, his relationship to Kelly, how Claire and Isaac work out, Lysella - there is tons of potential. But they also made sure we get closure if it ends here. I would miss the characters as they have grown on me. I want to see them again and learn more about them. Experience some more adventures with them. That's a feeling no show has given me for quite some time.
Please come back.
Another amazingly well done episode. The pacing was perfect. Slow parts, fast parts, drama, action. Everything was well balanced.
And Klyden returns! He is such a great character. So easy to hate, but so much more complicated. There were glimpses in previous episodes of his internal struggle. We finally get to see the walls broken down. Hopefully, we get to see more of Klyden now that he has realized the error of his beliefs and has opened up to Grayson. It really was a touching moment at the end.
And Dolly! I never would have pegged her for a cameo on the Orville, but she is wonderful as always. I loved reading about how they filmed the scene twice. Once on set and once in Dolly's sound stage so they could get around potential COVID exposures. Amazing!
I do have to wonder, though. They appear to have left the Moclan collaborator high and dry. If Topa really did give the name of the collaborator, nothing appears to have been done to help him. If she didn't actually give the name and lied to the Moclans, then they left the the audience without resolution. A very big complaint considering the rest of the episode was finely crafted. This is a major screwup to not spend 30 seconds to resolve this in this episode.
"To the Undiscovered Country - The future."
I lost track of how much talent is in this episode. I kept getting distracted by Bruce Boxleitner reprising his role as the President of Earth. What a lore-rich and beautiful episode this is. I think there is something for everybody. From the classic humor in the simulator, to getting deeper into Krill lore, to seeing multiple space battles.
To the above quote, this is The Orville's version of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Right down to the Abrahamic leader figure. And this time the subversion is that peace goes to shit and all anyone can do is simply prevent going to open war on multiple fronts. The wildcard, that I'm mad I didn't see coming, is that Ed got Teleya pregnant and she now has a Krill-Human daughter that could upset galactic politics and cause an uprising on Krill. Ed is now sitting on an H-bomb, and he might have to press the trigger.
Overall this episode has such a warmth to it, even on Planet Ibiza. All the vistas we get to see, all the held shots and silent moments. Seth said that every episode would feel like a movie, and so far that holds true. This is best one so far, and also one of the best of the entire series.
I cannot stress how meaningful it is to me that the camera is allowed to be in a fixed position for several seconds at a time! After finishing Obi-wan, I am so tired of free-roaming cameras and additional shaking being purposefully added in post when the scene is just someone talking.
I'm just going to keep saying it until it stops being true. Right now, there are exactly two scifi shows airing that are telling stories of this caliber. Neither of them are called Star Trek, but both of them are being worked on by Star Trek alumni. I'm at least grateful that science fiction that prioritizes smart storytelling is still an option. Gene would be proud of both of them. And I'd like to think he prefers this one. :)
[6.9/10] The punchline here is good. I like the idea of an advanced, immortal species, using our heroes as a means to experience what a taste of mortality would be like. The notion that without time as currency, existence becomes idle play, and the idea of death becomes exotic rather than chilling, is an interesting answer to the “Why?” of this episode.
At the same time, I appreciate the continuity nod of the godlike being responsible for the chicanery being from the species who advanced hundreds of years every week or so in a season 1 episode. It’s the kind of thing I thought the show would gesture toward but then totally forget. So their being the culprit makes for not only a good explanation for the “How?” of this episode, but gives us an organic follow-up to a prior story, which is a big plus.
There’s just one big problem -- a solid 80% of the episode until that point simply isn’t that interesting. The scenarios the godlike beings throw Mercer, Grayson, Malloy, Bortus, and (ostensibly) Keyali into are pretty dull, generic affairs. The gang being trapped in a high school isn’t especially weird or scary, and an attack from a giant troll is more odd than frightening. A plane with no pilot is a stock scenario. The Moclan death chamber looks more goofy than unnerving, and the corpse coming back to life is a standard horror trope. And a raft being attacked by a large sea creature isn’t much to write home about either.
The show wants to go for something of a Twilight Zone vibe with these sequences, where some of the sheer eeriness is supposed to carry the day, but it just doesn't . The direction isn’t interesting enough, and the scenarios aren’t exotic enough to really up the tension or deliver the ominous atmosphere the show’s aiming for. Maybe I’ve just watched too many of these episodes of Star Trek to be impressed by this sort of thing anymore, but I kept waiting for some escalation, some wrinkle, that would make these challenges more exciting or disturbing than the fairly generic spooks we got.
What’s more, the broad outlines of the reveal here were fairly obvious, even if the specifics weren’t. By the time we had both Gordon and Mercer experiencing the weird eye-flash thing at the moment of near-death, it seemed obvious that some alien race was trying to comprehend what that experience was like, something gestured to by the title of the episode.
I will say, I appreciated the fake out that our heroes had seemingly made it off the planet shortly before being attacked by the Kaylon. It’s a neat, plausible explanation for why this was happening -- the robotic Kaylon trying to figure out how to commit psychological warfare against their adversaries. You would totally buy it as an answer for the mystery of who was doing this and why, and setting up with Kiyali’s comments about detecting Kaylon radiation earlier is some clever story construction.
The only problem is that I was able to sniff out that the whole thing was a feint, both because it’d be in keeping with past Trek and Trek-adjacent twists-within-twists (thing TNG’s “Future Imperfect”), and because there seemed to be too much time left in the episode for that to be the real answer. But those aren’t the writers’ fault, so I’m loath to slate them for it.
Plus hey, they did surprise me with the reveal that Kiyali was a plant the whole time! It’s setup nicely with the fake Kiyali returning from vacation early, and the fact that she declares she had the same out of body experience the others did, but unlike the others, we never actually see it in her eyes. It adds up in hindsight, and I appreciate when shows like this play fair with a twist like this one.
That’s the thing. On paper this story works. There’s action, adventure, mystery, an earned twist, and a thought-provoking resolution that connects naturally to past escapades. The big problem is that for most of the episode, the whole action/adventure/mystery part just isn’t very good. The show continues to look kind of cheap in its production design and effects, which breaks immersion and dampens the ability of the episode to chill the spine. And the scenarios the demigods (read: writers) cook up to test the good guys just aren’t that interesting. The big picture ideas behind this one is cool, and the structure is sound, but on a scene-to-scene basis, there’s just not enough there to make it worth your while until the end.
You know what REALLY makes this ending just so so so so so fucked up? The fact that Tracy was literally treated as just an incubator for Ted. She literally had no other purpose than to make some children for Ted, and once she was done with that she was killed off so that Ted and Robin could be together like the writers always wanted to.
What was even the point of going through all THAT when it was just going to be Ted and Robin? Why get us invested into this character who is presented as so nice and sweet and the PERFECT girl for Ted, only to then write her off in a half assed 2 minute flashback? And not to mention how BAD it is that they knew since the BEGINNING that it was going to end like this, so everything about Robin not wanting kids and not being able to have them is the absolute worst cherry on top of an already disappointing finale.
Again, Tracy is treated like she's just some girl that can make children for Ted, and Robin is actually his "the one" since the beginning, but wait she can't have children so let's just use this random girl as his incubator.
There's so many fucked up things about how the show ended and the last two episodes, but this. THIS really takes the cake. I would give this -50 out of 10 if i could.
Set aside the last few minutes of the finale for a moment. That last little reveal changes the shape of the episode, and the series, in significant and meaningful ways that make it easy to let it overshadow the rest of the episode. But stop and think about everything that happens here before the scene where he finally meets The Mother.
Because it is, at best, a mixed bag, long before we see the blue french horn again.
I understand the urge to give the audience some idea of what happens to the gang between 2014 and 2030. The problem is that covering a decade and a half in one big episode makes every story feel rushed and underdeveloped. One of the great things about HIMYM is how it used the past and the future to inform the present. Jumping back and forth between a prior conversation and a current one could be the crux of a joke, as could Future Ted's knowing commentary on some boneheaded mistake or unexpected development that was coming down the pipe. But those time jumps weren't just fodder for comedy, as the show did a great job of creating dramatic irony and emotional stakes by showing what lie ahead or the path that led us here. But by compressing fifteen years worth of life developments into an hour, nothing has time to really breathe or feel like it has the temporal scope the show is shooting for.
After all, there's a great story to be told about the gang drifting apart over the years. Another one of the series's best features is the way it combines the exaggerated goofiness of its comedic sensibilities with real, relatable aspects of being in your twenties and thirties. Well, one of the things that hits you once you start to move past that stage of your life is the way that friends, even good friends, can slowly drift apart, not through neglect or anger or hurt feelings, but just because you're suddenly at different places in your life. That's an idea worth exploring.
The problem is that the rush of years in "Last Forever" makes this process feel like something sudden instead of gradual. Sure, we see the chyron at the bottom of the screen showing that we've jumped ahead a year or two, and there's a boatload of semi-clunky expositional dialogue in the episode to let the viewer know where everyone is in their lives and what they're up to, but when all those developments take place over the course of just a few minutes and just a few scenes, it can't help but seem very fast.
One of the best choices HIMYM's creators made in the final season was to parcel out little scenes of the gang's future throughout, giving us a glimpse of what the future held without trying to pack it all into one big episode like this. Sprinkling those flashforwards in did a nice job at making the group's future feel as well-populated as its present and its past. Obviously there were limitations on how much they could do this in prior episodes given the reveals in store for Barney and Robin and Ted, but the method the show chose to relay the gang's future almost inevitably leaves it feeling too quick, too underdeveloped, and too unsatisfying, even apart from the directions the individual stories go.
Those plot developments, however, are another albatross around the finale's neck. The first and most obvious problem comes from Barney and Robin's divorce. Again, there's a legitimate story to be told of two people who care deeply for one another, but don't work as a couple, but it's a difficult story to tell in five minutes, especially when you've spent huge chunks the past season and a half trying to convince the audience that they make sense together. As someone who's been a Barney and Robin skeptic from the beginning, it's entirely plausible to me that the two of them could mean well and have real feelings for one another, but still end up divorced due to some basic incompatibilities. But the reason for their split feels thin here.
There's nothing we know about Barney that suggests globetrotting would be something he's so against. And while there's hints of bigger issues between the two of them, like not getting to see one another or not being on the same page about their respective plans and projects, we never really get to see these problems develop. We're just told about them, and expected to accept that as enough to break them up one episode removed their wedding. Is that result plausible enough based on what we know about Barney and Robin? Sure, but it's just presented to us, rather than developed before our eyes, and since we don't see their path from pledging to spend the rest of their lives together to getting divorced, that end point feels like it happens by fiat rather than something the show earned.
Barney's reversion afterward is just as unsatisfying. Again, there's a believable story about Barney having worked so hard to become a better person, in part to woo Robin, and reverting to his old tricks as a retreat and defense mechanism when his marriage falls apart. But because of the rapidity with which the finale goes from Point A to Point B, it doesn't feel like the natural result of a difficult event; it feels like throwing nine years of character development down the drain in less than a minute. There's a disparity between how much time the show spent building Barney up as more than just an cartoonish hound dog and how much time it spends showing him reverting to his old persona. That cannot help but feel jarring.
What kills me is that I love where they take Barney in "Last Forever." There's something beautiful about the idea that what really changes him isn't some conquest or accomplishment or even a great romance; it's becoming a father. For Barney, "The One" isn't a woman he'll meet some day; it's his daughter, and Neil Patrick Harris delivers a tremendous performance in the scene where he repeats his Ted-like plea, this time to his baby girl. It's a wonderful scene, but the path the episode takes to get there still comes off as a shortcut that has to ignore seasons of character development in order to make it work.
The finale isn't all bad though. While the story of the gang drifting apart is too quick, the scene where they all reunite for Ted's wedding is legitimately touching and full of the good will and warm feelings that the show's been able to generate during its run. Ted and Tracy (I can use her name now!) continue to be adorable together, and the twist that romantic Ted made it five years and two kids into his relationship before he actually married The Mother is a small but effective way to show how much the substance of finding The One was more important to him than the formality of it (even if he was planning on a European castle). It's one of those lived-in details that speaks to his character.
Beyond that, the actual meeting of The Mother is very well done, and it really had to be. Sure, there's a few meetcute cliches involved, but the easy rapport between Ted and Tracy soars once again and nearly saves the entire finale. After all, this was the moment the "Last Forever" had to nail, and it did. Ted and Tracy's conversation weaves in enough of the yellow umbrella mythos for everything to click, and Joshua Radnor and Cristin Miloti both sell the subtle realization that this is something special. For an episode that had to make good on the promise of its title, that meeting went about as well as any fan of the show might have hoped for.
And if the series had ended there, everyone might have gone home happy. Sure, the other problems with the rushed and shortcut-filled finale might have rankled a bit (particularly the way it undoes the wedding we'd just witnessed), but making that moment feel as big and as meaningful as it needed to after all that build up is no small feat, and that alone would have bought Bays & Thomas a hell of a lot of slack.
Frankly, the series could have still gotten away with Tracy dying shortly thereafter, another controversial choice in the finale. There's something tragic but beautiful about the audience watching Ted seek out the woman of his dreams for nine years and then realizing that he only gets to be with her for the same amount of time, while still cherishing and being thankful for the time the two of them had, for that connection and love that was wonderful and worth it no matter how all too brief it may have been. There's a touching theme about the fragility of things in that story, but also about the joy that comes from finding the person you love, that stays with you even after they're gone. It's sad, but it's sweet, in the best HIMYM way.
And then there's Robin.
The decision to pair up Ted and Robin in the last moments of the finale is as tone-deaf and tin-eared an ending as you're likely to find in a major television program, and the reasons abound. The most obvious is that the show devoted so much time to the idea of Ted getting over Robin, and had any number of episodes (the most recent being the execrable "Sunrise") where Ted seemed to have achieved that, to have moved on in his life. Folks like me may try to handwave it, and the show can call back to the premiere of Season 7 where Ted and Robin can declare that all you need for love is chemistry and timing, but at base, Ted and Robin getting together feels like it contradicts so much about the two characters' relationship with one another over the years. So much of the final third of the show involved going over the same beats between Ted and Robin over and over again, of having each move past the other, and coming back to them in the final, despite how iconic that blue french horn has become for the show, just feels like another poorly-established cheat or retcon that isn't in sync with where the show went since that finale was crafted in Season 2.
What's worse is that that ending transforms the story Ted's been telling from a heartwarming if irreverent yarn about the path that led to him meeting the love of his life, to a smokescreen to gain his kids' approval for dating an old flame after their mother's death. Look, to some degree you have to accept the conceit of the show for what it is and not take it too seriously. In real life, no two kids would sit through such a long story, and no father should tell his children about all the women he slept with before he met their mom. But taken in broad strokes, How I Met Your Mother is a story about how all the events in Ted's life, big and small, good and bad, planned or unexpected, went into making him the person who was ready to find Tracy and capable of being with her.
Future Ted himself put it best in "Right Place, Right Time." He tells his kids "There's a lot of little reasons why the big things in our lives happen." He explains that what seemed like chaos was bringing him inexorably toward the best person and the best thing to ever happen to him, that there were "all these little parts of the machine constantly working, making sure that you end up exactly where you're supposed to be, exactly when you're supposed to be there." And he tells them at the time, he didn't know "where all those little things were leading [him] and how grateful [he]'d be to get there."
That, to my mind, is the theme to take from this great, if tainted show. Sure, it's unrealistic that anyone would go on that many tangents in telling the story of their great romance, but the point is that each of these moments, each of these people, were crucial in who he was and who he became when he met Tracy, and that they were as important as that fateful meeting was. Yes, it's a long story, and it has many many detours, but it's the story of all the twists and turns and bumps in the road that brought Ted into the arms of his soulmate, and that smooths over the rougher edges of the show's premise.
Instead, the twist that it's all supposed to be about Ted having the hots for Robin turns that lovely story into a long-winded attempts by a middle-aged man to convince his kids that he should date their aunt That seems much more crass. There's still meaning to be wrung from it, meaning that finds parallels with Tracy and her dead boyfriend Max and the idea that you can have more than one meaningful relationship in your life. But it doesn't add up with what the show had really done to that point. The past nine seasons were no more about Robin than they were about Barney or Marshall or Lily. They no more feel like a way to suggest that Aunt Robin's good dating material than they do that Ted should spend more time with Uncle Barney. As great as that blue french horn was the first time, it had meaning because it represented something we knew was going to end, but which still had beauty and value despite that. This last time we see it, it's represents the opposite, that something beautiful has ended, and the value it had is cast aside in favor of a relationship the series spent years disclaiming. That is deeply, deeply unsatisfying.
Take away those final few scenes, concocted in a different era of the series, and you have a flawed but still potent finale, that delivers on the show's biggest promise and gives the gang one last "big moment" together. But add them back in, and you have an ending to the series that not only runs counter to so much of what the show developed over the course of its run, its final season in particular, but which, moreover, cheapens the story the audience had been invested in for the past nine years. It's almost impressive how a couple of truly terrible moments can do such retroactive damage to such a longrunning show , but here we are, with a sour taste in our mouth from such an ill-conceived finish.
Future Ted was right, a little moment can have a big impacts, and the one at the end of the series is a doozy in that regard. But maybe, just maybe, when we tell our own stories about How I Met Your Mother, we can do what Ted should have done many times -- just leave that part out. There's something wonderful to be gleaned from the ending to this fun, optimistic, heartfelt, and occasionally very rocky series, but it requires us to do what we always do when looking back on things: focus on the good stuff, make our peace with the bad stuff, and remember it at its best.
7.2/10. A perfectly fun Kill Bill homage (which is itself a pastiche -- we're through the looking glass here people). I remember some controversy about the gang dressing up in Asian garb for the "training" scenes, but I think it's in the spirit of kung fu movies the show is imitating here. Like I said the last time we did one of these, I'm pretty tired of the slap bet business, and frankly I think it should have been a one hit wonder, or at least something brought out to punctuate an episode like it was with Barney's one-man show than building entire episode around it.
Still, it was a fun entree into seeing Marshall go all Enter the Dragon. There was a lot of physical humor here, between the rapid-fire slaps and the slapping tree and the slow motion (poorly green screened) slaps. There was also a lot of the usual slap-related word play. It was fairly enjoyable, even if it's more of the broad humor and empty calories the show seems to have given into at this point. It was nice to have the angle that Barney had become inoculated against the fear of the slap, and then the kung fu story restored his anxiety, only for them to treat it very matter of factly afterward.
The Boys II Men appearance was pretty superfluous, but there's a bit of a pointless guest star-palooza going on this season anyway. This all makes me sound pretty down on an episode that I mostly enjoyed. It was basically cotton candy -- perfectly nice but pretty empty after the fact.
