The lack of shame from Marvel is amazing: they said Echo was gonna be completely autonomous and what they meant is the first episode is a long summary of two other TV shows. Meh. Ironically, the new stuff in that first episode (the action sequence and Kingpin doing what any parent wants to do at least once a week by kicking that guy’s ass) is probably the best part of the whole show. Meh. The rest is the usual Marvel fare: a good cast, some interesting themes and ideas, at least one more fun action sequence, but the constant feeling that (1) a couple of hours would have been enough and (2) it’s more interested in making you want to watch other stuff than in not making you regret watching this stuff.
A beautiful season and also a fascinating left turn in which they basically say “Look, we can explore slightly different genres and it doesn’t feel forced at all, because we have great characters, great actors and a versatile show.” And it’s very well made. I love it.
They put this up one episode a day and I loved that. Every day there was a new episode, they were short, I enjoyed watching them because I like the visual style and I liked how they homaged movie classics. But no, really: one at a day, short, 30 minutes, that’s cool, do that, don’t do weekly hours, do daily 30 minutes, of everything, seriously. Worst part was that they had to make some interconnected narrative with the final two episodes and I couldn’t care less.
I avoided it for months because I kinda always assume that any Netflix show is uselessy overlong and boring, but then I decided to trust other people and watch it. And it’s amazing! The road rage premise taken to extremes is quite fun until the end but under that there’s an amazingly intense tale about (1) how fucked up we are, (2) life as (children of) immigrants and (3) how much it sucks to live in the USA. Great actors, amazing writing, a crazy but heartfelt ending… I hope they don’t make more seasons. Side note: Lee Sung Jin and Jake Schreier created, wrote and directed (with other people, of course) this show and are now working on Thunderbolts. And I realize that ten years ago I would have thought “Great, they seem perfect!”, five years ago I would have thought “I’d prefer they do their stuff but I’m happy to see good creators work on those movies”, now I think “No, please, someone must save them!” Sigh.
My thoughts while watching episode 1:
- this is visually charming;
- how much did they spend for the cast?;
- mh, actually, visually, I like it less than I thought;
- oh, so it's a super super loyal adaptation of the comicbook? No, wait, someone told me there's a twist;
- jeez, keeping the dialogues exactly as they were in the comicbook is not a great idea. They are meant to be read, they feel really stiff in a visual medium;
- this is incredibly boring;
- oh, so that's the twist. I kike it. OK, you have my curiosity.
My thoughts while watching episode 2:
- this is incredibly boring;
- what? We are still at minute 15? Fuck it, I'm giving up, there's no point, I'm literally falling asleep.
Now, this clearly is a superficial judgment and I'm sure that if I insisted and watched the rest of it I wouldn't hate it but I'm at a point in my life where if I'm watching a TV show, I'm incredibly bored and I think the best case scenario is "I didn't hate it", well, I can invest my time in something else.
Lots of cliches, almost everything goes as you would expect but still this works very well, because it does everything very well. The acting cast is almost perfect, great acting and more than believable singing/playing (which is of course quite important). The four main actresses ooze charisma, are really, really good and they also are stunningly beautiful. The songs are maybe not masterpieces but they work, they feel like what the story is telling you they are (which is big: most movies and TV shows about invented art have the problem that when they show you the art it sucks). Writing and directing are also quite goood (James Ponsoldt I love you): there’s passion, honest emotions even when it’s predictable, great attention to details in human relationships and when it actually surprises you it hits so hard. A masterpiece it is not, but it’s a great show.
I watched it without knowing it was gonna be the final season and what a trip it was to realize it during the finale. I kinda have the feeling they crammed too much in here because they had more stories to tell, but who knows. And anyway, the flipside is that it will not become a repetitive mess in seasons 4 and 5, I guess. Anyway, I think it manages to close all the relevant arcs in a nice way, while also serving us a healthy dose of an against the type Zooey Deschanel and with a beautyful bottle episode right before the end, that boasts a tragically sweet and sour summation of the Rubin family ensemble.
I love Raylan Givens so here I immediately felt at home, even though it took a couple of episodes to really get going. It’s not the best Justified season out there by a long shot, but it’s better than season one and five, thanks to good writing, humour, tension, dialogues and actors. Also, Boyd Holbrook is a great villain, with a very Justifiedy sendoff. Sure, he’s no Boyd, Limehouse or Mags and Dickie Bennett, but who is?
This is basically five episodes of people running aroung looking for MacGuffins and ignoring everything that made season one great (the characters) because they have to explain the mechanics of the multiverse (which I don’t give a fuck about - the mechanics, the multiverse is fine, I guess). Sophia Di Martino barely registers her presence; Owen Wilson has got the best emotional moment of the season in the finale but basically nothing else to do; Jonathan Majors is funny, the scene in which he opens the big door for the first time is really funny and Timely kinda has a decent arc but now he’s gone; Tom Hiddleston does his best. There’s some nice moments, Benson and Moorehead inject some visual creativity that was the biggest thing lacking from season 1, the final episode is really good, the ending works but… I don’t know…
Gen V avoids the risk of being a lacklustre spin-off by changing the point of view: here we have some still (relatively) naive and (relatively) innocent youngsters who happen to live in the shitty and bloody world of The Boys. And what we get is a show that feels temathically in sync with its mother series but finds its own identity, generating some emotional punch and even being quite smart in how it connects to the other show. I’m not sure I loved the season finale, more or less in the same way I’m not sure I love the season finales of The Boys.
Idris Elba on a hijacked plane? I’m in! Also, the plot twist: he is not a superhero, not a secret agent, not a soldier, not a cop, not even a boxer, a martial arts expert, someone who learned how to fight at the school of hard knocks. But he does have a superpower: the art of negotiation. And he will use it to defeat (?) the terrorists. Hijack doesn’t have high TV drama ambitions and it’s not a masterpiece, but it’s got tempo, thrills, fun, all the stuff you want from something like this. It kinda reminded me of 24, not in terms of structure, clearly not because of the main character, but in its general vibe.
This season feels a bit samey but it’s fine, not all comedies can be constantly forward moving and shapeshifting like The Good Place did. Plus, I just want to spend more time with those characters and I got that. Also, there’s Meryl Streep: she’s like a goddes amongst mortals, so much greater than any other actor in the show but also never stealing the scene, always making everyone else better. What a beast.
Ahsoka reminded me that I can still fave fun with classic Star Wars and I can still enjoy a full (mini)series that wants to do that. Considering I’ve been watching recent “classic Star Wars” shows only because I felt I had to do it and I watched them while hanging clothes as a survival technique, I’d say it’s an upgrade. Apparently, I don’t need every Star Wars show to be written by Tony Gilroy. To be fair, I think I prefer Andor, but it’s good to know I still like big space adventures, crazy costumes, Jedis acting cool, well choreographed fights, good actors that manage to not be ridiculous while saying ridiculous stuff, epic and touching scenes scored with those three or four themes that I’ve been loving since I was a kid. Also, I admire how they unabashedly decided to create a direct sequel to something that a huge chunk of their current audience probably never watched, but also the smart way in which it’s full of small details that make sense and tell you an interesting, different story depending on if you watched the animated shows, the movies, The Mandalorian, this or that. It’s not perfect, it could easily have been a shorter and leaner thing, maybe even a two hour movie, but when it works it’s quite good and there’s a couple of fights that really made me excited in a way that hasn’t happened since that thing with the red dudes in The Last Jedi. So, I liked it.
A couple of weeks ago I was scrolling on Netflix, Rick and Morty suddenly appeared, I remembered that season 4 left me a bit unimpressed but kinda won me beck with last few episodes, I saw that season 6 was already there, I started watching season 5, I thought it started a bit weak but it grew quite rapidly and in the end I had fun, with some laughs here and there. I guess one day I will watch season 6. Should I? Can you feel the meh in what I just wrote? Maybe I’m tired of it? Who knows?
Like season 1 but spicier. Badum-tsch.
Once again, waiting to have all the episodes was the good choice, not only because I prefer to watch stuff at my own rhythm, not only because if there’s a bad episode I didn’t wait a week for it and I don’t have to wait a week for the next one, but also because, after reading people’s hate on it for a month and a half, the expectations are so low that I end up having fun. Also, in this specific case, there’s the fact that in the meantime I watched Barbie, so every time I saw the bad guy (who, to be fair, gives a decent performance) I thought of the dumb Ken from the movie. Anyway, Secret Invasion is another case of wasted potential: there’s a great bunch of actors, the premise was solid and it could have been Marvel’s Andor. But if you wanna make Andor, you need to write and direct the shit out of it and here those duties were clearly given to a bunch of Ikea cupboards. That being said, I kind of enjoyed it, because actors manage to squeeze some fun from it (Olivia Colman is the queen of the world, Ben Mendelsohn is her vice), because seeing the Super Skrull was entertaining, because - as is par for the course with Marvel - there’s a couple of very good scenes you can hang on to tell yourself you didn’t waste five hours of your life. Which in this case are the conversation between Jackson and Mendelsohn on the train, all of Colman’s scenes and the whole conjugal Fury stuff (the best episode is centered on that).
The first episode left me quite cold, no laughs and some cringy moralistic bits. I even thought I was maybe tired of Zerocalcare. But then I had so much fun with the rest of the show and I though it was very well structured in terms of ambiguity, morality, difficult choices and stuff. So, it’s good. Also, is it just me or did they have a sensibly bigger budget? I don’t remember hearing this many needle drops in the other show.
Season 4 is a perfect ending for one of the most crazy, funny, emotional, surprising TV shows of late: this season is unpredictable and surprising until the end and it’s so much fun. It’s rare that I can watch something without having any clue of what’s going to happen but here it happened a lot and I never had the feeling it was forced in any way. On the contrary: at the end, you have the feeling everything was patiently built from day one. Also: the actors are all amazing and Bill Hader, who not only plays the title character but also directed every single episode of the final season while showing some real bravura, is a huge talent.
I watched The Strain more or less while it was being released and I had a lot of fun with it, but for some reason I never watched the final season. A few weeks ago, for some reason, I watched it. And I had a lot of fun with it. It’s got a nice B movie vibe, it’s competently made, there’s always a lot of momentum in the narration, there’s at least a couple of great episodes in every season, I liked the characters (Vasiliy Fet is amazing and I don’t understand how Kevin Durand doesn’t have a better career as the “co-starring” charismatic guy), the apocalyptic melodrama vibe is entertaining. The finale works and does what it has to do. Also, in season 4, that kind of second tier Paul Bettany, Quinlan, has got a line that’s very on the nose, like the whole show, but for some reason stayed with me: “Whipping yourself won’t make you stronger, it will only distract you”. So I had fun and I also found some meaning in it: what more should I ask for?
Poker Face is Natasha Lyonne doing her version of Columbo, with the mannerisms, the “wait, one more thing”, the chilled attitude and the fact that we know the culprit before she/he does. Plus, there’s the usual Lyonne vibe, a pseudo-superpower that makes things more bizarre, and an A-Team-like setup in which se has been framed and she roams around the USA helping people. Also, she kinda is like the comicbook Mickey Mouse, solving crimes while not being a cop. All of this is in a show that starts relatively “tame” but slowly becomes visually and structurally more and more ambitious, with some many homages to different kinds of detective stories and meta elements. It was created by Rian Johnson and it’s lovely.
What a wonderful season. Episode three is out of this world but the whole season is incredible, every character has got a moment of glory, there’ amazing people coming from the bench (look at James Cromwell scoring 20 and dishing 13 assists in the funeral episode), it’s got a perfect, inevitable, smart, on point ending. This is one of the best shows of the last few years and one of the best shows ever.
The end of season 1 worried me, I feared they were gonna continue adding mysteries and questions without ever giving answers and ultimately end up boring me to hell. I was wrong. Season 2 keeps the tempo going, finds a strong direction for the story, continues playing smartly on the balance between mental health issues and actual fantastical elements (even though they clearly are pushing towards a more horrorish kind of storytelling) and it kinda finds a strong ending that ties everything up. There’s still a lot to tell, of course, but this could be a series finale. So I want to go on, because I have fun spending time with these crazy characters and those amazing actresses (and Elijah Wood!).
I know a few people didn’t like this season and I do understand its highs are not as high as those frome the previous two but I wonder if it’s also a matter of too much hype. Because I kinda got what I wanted from it: a few more hours with characters I love, one or two beautifule episodes (Amsterdam!), lots of laughs, some strong emotions and a lot of good work on ancillary characters (which is what matters: as Ted says, he wasn’t the point).
This is Going to Hurt is a Buffy spin-off centered on the life of an obstetrician who works in public health. I mean, it's not really a Buffy spin-off but it kinda is: everyboyd always has got a pointy answer to everything, all characters are in a constant battle for who's more sarcastic, the show tackles hard themes in an effortless way, there's a constant silly vibe that makes all the thematic heavyness quite tolerable, characters and actors are all irresistible, when it wants to punch you in the guts it's devastating and the main character's mother is a vampire.
Season 2 does almost everything season 1 did. It's violent, dark, filled with charismatic characters and faces (but not Joe Cole, Joe Cole is terrible), with so many plot twists and double/triple reversals that kinda get to a ridiculous point but keeps it fun until the end. The "almost" is because Gareth Evans didn't direct a single episode and because of that there isn't a single action scene on par with those two or three amazing action scenes we saw in season 1. Is the rest enough? I'm not sure.
Unpopular opinion: this is the best of the first three seasons. It finally knows what it is and what it wants to be. It's where the mix between having a storyline but also being the center of the Filoniverse works best. It's where Mando being someone who ends up as a witness to stuff much greater than him, where he contributes but he's not the main character, also works best. Also, the "greater" stuff is finally something relevant to him and not to the Skywalker family. Plus, for the first time, the more standalone episodes didn't bore me to hell. It's a simple, fun show, much better than the other two recent "classical Star Wars" shows.
Also: I kinda binged in a few days, which probably helped me with the slower parts and made me appreciate more the horizontal plot, which basically has got 5 minutes per episodes.
Also: if this season came out a year ago, the third episode would have been such a fascinating, ambitious, smart "bottle episode". But in 2023 it's the Wish version of Andor. Maybe it's better if Filoni and Favreau stick to blasters and sabers.
I’m in love with Hugo Blick since The Honourable Woman came out so of course I was super excited about him making a western centered on Emily Blunt. And what a beauty it is. A revisionist western that shoots in all directions, mixing melodrama, adventure, some very silly stuff, tragedy, humor, grandeur, while showing some amazing vistas, incredibles skies and a very strong cast of actors. Emily Blunt, Chaske Spencer e Rafe Spall are astonishing and everybody else is so good too.
I watched the first three episodes back then in 2021 and - maybe because I’m particularly attuned with Barry Jenkins' aesthetics - I immediately loved them but for some reason (maybe I didn’t want to watch something so depressing?) I left it at that. Recently I probably decided I wanted to watch something so depressing and I binged the rest of the series. And, well, wow. I can’t think of many other TV shows so well put together, with such a pure cinematic sense. Sure, there are some, but not many. Plus, the actors are all great, the bizarre narrative structure keeps it fresh until the end and sure, you have to like the frankly pompous narration style of Barry Jenkins but I like it, so…
A weak season, with the usual bunch of great ideas but also some others that don’t really work. The sum of all the parts is still watchable and entertaining but quite far from greatness.
Fleishman is in Trouble has got everything. The actors are great and perfectly cast, it’s visually ambitious and there’s such rich writing, that tackles midlife crisis, couples in troubles, abuses, nevrosis, bad healthcare, classwar, parenthood, small hypocrisies, trauma, being unable to communicate and everything else you could think of. It’s maybe a bit stretched here and there but when it works it’s amazing and that penultimate episode is out of this world.
