Like a conservative senator with his wife, this movie says being a mother is the hardest job in the world but only so he can continue making her life a living hell.
There's a lot to love about this movie... Just kidding, there's only one thing and that's the incredible tsunami of talent that is Laure Calamy.
In À plein temps / Full Time, she plays of the single mother of two and the director really hates her because he basically throws shit at her for 90 minutes until she drowns in it.
The frantic pace of the film lends an easy comparison to Uncut Gems (Unka Jams!) but that turns out to be erroneous because the Safdie brothers genuinely like Howard Ratner. They let him catch some breaks, allow him some optimistic moments, and sincerely want good things to happen to him. It's not the Safdies fault that things turn out for Howard the way they do.
On the other hand, in Full Time, the constant onslaught of suffering Julie has to confront and the total absence of hope mean the film resembles less Uncut Gems than it does A Serbian Film. In fact, I 100% bet the director wanted to call this movie A Serbian Femme but no one would let him.
Watch this movie so you can appreciate Laure Calamy's stunning performance, but don't be afraid to call out the faux feminist message. This is not a tribute, it's a eulogy.
[7.4/10] I appreciate the meta-gag of Dee admitting she doesn’t really know what a satire is, because it works on multiple levels. It works to highlight how folks with backwards material hide behind the fig leaf that something is a “satire”. It pokes fun at the squishiness of the term. And it’s especially amusing since “Risk E. Rat’s Pizza and Amusement Center” is itself a satire of out of touch people pining for “the good old days” without acknowledging that a lot of the changes they lament happened for good reason.
I’ll admit that the episode is more of a “smile at the cleverness” outing for The Gang than one full of laugh out loud gags, but I still appreciate it. Mac whinging about the lack of dangerous weapons and faux-drugs available to kids at the ticket counter is gentle but still pointed. While a little blunt, I also like his time out psychology session as a satire on guilt and shame based discipline, which comes with extra potency since Mac was a self-hating gay man for a long time.
Dee and Frank’s search for the clues that get you a meeting with Risk E. Rat himself was a nice opportunity to spoof the dated humor of Franks time and Dee’s childhood. I especially like the Dee material, because she's the only member of the group who’s kind of in the middle. She criticizes the domestic abuse humor Frank enjoyed as horrible, but still tries to defend the ethnic stereotype humor of her childhood as somehow alright. It’s a well-observed bit on how it’s easy to look back with derision on the blindspots of old while we try to excuse our own. And the most I laughed at was at their misunderstanding and attempts to dirty up the “jalapeno business” joke.
Dennis and Charlie’s story leans into a lot of the same material, but it’s good. Their steady realization that pretty much every member of the Fun Time Pizza Band knockoff was some kind of unfortunate stereotype or trope, while trying to justify their appreciation for it, is a solid bit. And across all the stories, their disregard for safety is a laugh.
My favorite part is the great jumpcut from The Gang’s quest to return things to how they were before to an utter shitshow of pain and misery. Frankly, I worry this episode will be a little too subtle for some, with folks taking Mac's speech in particular as a valid criticism rather than a sign of his own messed up upbringing. But the fact that their plan ends in total disaster is about as strong a rebuke as the writers can offer to their viewpoint without having some character be a mouthpiece, so I’m good with it.
Overall, the theme of misguided good-ol’-days-ery through the conceit of a Chuck E. Cheese equivalent is a good foundation for the episode,and a collection of good observations and strong capper makes this one a winner.
Some payoff, lots of well-shot edge-of-your-seat action and we finally have our first monster kill!
An entire episode of stress, scares and more mysteries.
Give me the next episode already!
This was a struggle. You want to give it points for quasi-creativity (is it though?), but how you manage to take such a talented cast and put nothing in their mouths to work with is beyond me. There's just nothing else to say about it. People gotta work I guess.
It just sunk in why this is so bad! You know the phrase, "Good artists copy. Great artist steal."? You feel like the people who created this had that in the back of their head with no greater vision or capacity to make it into something better, individual, or worthwhile. They just steal, maybe thinking their idea is great, but end up not even good because it's just a laziest copy you've seen in some time.
On top of that, why hire a bunch of comedians to play in an uninspired drama? It's insult to injury. You spend so much time waiting for the joke or thinking about the funny thing you've seen someone in that you're stuck in a constant reminder that they went out of their way to pack it full of funny people to half-ass do drama? The more I think about this series the more it upsets me.
Elizabeth Perkins playing it straight during her feature is the only time I felt a genuine laugh, so, go her.
Rian Johnson is starting to turn into the white Jordan Peele. He's another one of those filmmakers that loves to work in this niche of subversive genre films that include a heavy dose of social commentary, and I'm all here for it. Specifically, with this franchise we’ve gone from satirizing old money with Knives Out to satirizing new money with this new film (chances are Knives Out 3 will center around a group of homeless suspects). Now, a lot of films in that same vein have been released recently (Triangle of Sadness, The Menu), but I think none of them do the satire as well as this film. To me it’s too easy at this point to simply aim your commentary at these people by making a statement about how stupid and incompetent they are. It seems like low hanging fruit to me, because everyone with a brain knows that these types are vapid and contribute nothing to society. Luckily, Rian Johnson understands this too and goes one step beyond that, filtering all of his commentary through this idea of the glass onion. These people aren’t just stupid and incompetent, but they’re using a veil of eccentricity and ‘complexity’ to hide that. This is a brilliant deconstruction that rings very true for today’s society, and of course you can’t quite escape the obvious parallel with Twitter’s manchild CEO firing himself this week. This subtext is woven into a lot of elements of the film (character, location, plot, even some props), which means that some things are a lot dumber and simpler than they appear to be. I think that will annoy some people, but I think it's quite clever. Like the first film, you get a great cast of colourful characters. Some of them are given depth, some of them are just playing funny caricatures. Daniel Craig owns the whole movie again, but Janelle Monáe comes pretty close to outperforming him. Even people like Dave Bautista do a great job, and it’s because Rian Johnson knows how to use these actors despite their limited range. There are plenty of twists you won’t see coming and the filmmaking is again terrific. It looks very cinematic with the blocking, lighting and compositions, and the score feels very 60s (lots of strings, some minor baroque orchestration), which reminded me of The White Lotus and a certain Beatles song. In the end, what puts it over the first film for me is the fact that the tone feels more consistent here. The more tense and dramatic moments of Knives Out didn’t really hit home for me when you have Daniel Craig doing a really campy accent, and this one just fully embraces that it’s a silly comedy. And it’s a great one at that, nearly all the jokes landed for me. Maybe could’ve done with a little less shouting from Kate Hudson, but ok, it makes sense for the character. Probably the most fun movie of the year next to Top Gun: Maverick, and definitely one of the most well constructed.
8/10
[9.8/10] What an episode! It's hard to imagine an hour of television that could draw out the differences between Jimmy and Kim better than this one.
In the wake of Howard's death and all the sins she committed and enabled, Kim numbs herself in a colorless world of banal conversations and empty experiences. Everything about her day-to-date life is colorless and dull, resigning herself to a sort of limbo as both penance and protection from inflicting anymore wrongs on the world. And even there, she won't make any decisions, offer any opinions, as though she's afraid that making any choice will lead her down another bad road.
Until Gene intervenes, balks at her command to turn himself in, and tells her to do that if she's so affronted by what they did. And holy hell, she does! If there was ever an indicator of moral fortitude in the Gilliverse, it's that. The courage of your convictions it takes to have gotten away with it, lived years away from the worst things you've ever done, and still choose to return to the place where it happened and accept your punishment, legal, moral, or otherwise, is absolutely incredible. Rhea Seehorn kills it, especially as Kim comes crumbling apart on an airport shuttle, amid all the hard truths she set aside for so long coming back in one painful rush. It's a tribute to Seehorn, and to Kim, how pained and righteous Kim seems in willfully choosing to confess and suffer whatever fate comes down, unlike anyone else in Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad.
It makes her the polar opposite of Gene, who finds new depths of terribleness as the noose tightens around him. As he continues the robbery of the cancer-stricken man whose house he broke into in the last episode, he finds new lows. Even when this risky excess has worked out for him, he pushes things even further by stealing more luxury goods as time runs out. He nearly smashes in the guy's skull with an urn for his own dead pet. He bails on Jeff. And when Marion finds him out, he advances on her with such a physical threat, a dark echo of the kindness to senior citizens that once defined his legal career.
The contrast is clear. Kim will turn herself in even when she doesn't have to and has excuses and justifications she could offer. Gene resorts to ever more cruelty, fraud, and craven self-interest to save himself from facing any of the consequences he so richly deserves. Kim is right to tell Jesse Pinkman that Saul used to be good, when she knew him. The two of them will understand better than anyone else in this universe what it's like to attach yourself to someone who sheds everything that made them a decent human being. Jimmy lost the part of himself that was good, or kind, or noble, even amid his cons. But Kim held onto her moral convictions, and it's what makes her not just Jimmy's foil, but the honorable counterpoint to the awful person he became.
EDIT: Here's a link to my usual more in-depth review of the episode if anyone's interested -- https://thespool.net/reviews/better-call-saul-season-6-episode-12-recap/
Without lots of action, without much of the popular Star Wars lore like the Force, Jedi, Lightsabers, this show delivers with every new episode.
It was very interesting to see that Mon Mothma was reluctant to delve fully into engaging the Empire in open Rebellion. We've never seen that side. I also like that they adressed that people are and will be dying like Luthen told her. It's not much of romantisizing. It's war. And the Empire responds the only way it knows how. By asserting even more power. By being predictable, thus playing into the Rebels hands.
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Which at least some inside the Empire seem to understand while others still think of their position.
We also see the glimmer of hope from the people that things are about to change for the better when they hear off the attack on Aldhani. And althought Star Wars is not known for portraying contemporary problems within the story telling, I wonder if the similarities are just random.
I really interested how characters like Syril and Dedra will develop moving forward. Could they actually (well maybe one of them) end up with the Rebels ?
Oh, and the world building in this show is also great: Bureau of Standards. It's the Empire put in a single building and again something that reminds me of our present.
And that's it! One of most intelligent, well written and delightfully acted series of the last few years has met its (probable) demise. For me, this was a fitting end that did not leave any stone left unturned, an end that brought peace to some characters and left a bitter taste in the mouth of others.
Oh man, how I've missed having both Howards in the same scene, bickering at one another... That's always been one of the most fun moments of the show!
That dialogue between Emily and Ethel was crushing me, not only because of the delicate and time sensitive issue that was at stake at the time, but also because I knew something bad was about to happen, I just did not know when. And then the first big loss of the show hit us... Poor Howard.
Howard Prime going all Hitman (so, doing what he does best) on those guys from the other side carrying the virus at the train station, surgically killing one by one and letting no single one of them escape was a very, very satisfying scene.
The ending for Quayle and Clare had a certain relief to it, their last scene was very sweet and I hope they'll manage to deal with their issues and raise Sara(h) as a genuinely happy and loving family.
In the end, Karma bit Mira in the ass, and that was also a very satisfying scene, watching Emily Prime savouring her final moment of victory in the guise of revenge (or is it the other way around?).
Fuck you, Starz, for pulling the plug on the most precious thing you had in your catalogue! Fingers crossed for another network to pick this one up, since the show's producers are currently shopping Counterpart around. There has got to be a network with good taste, out there!
Let's reopen the Crossing one more time, see you all in season 3 (make it happen, damn it!)!
The setting is contemporary, judging by the automobiles, but the ambience is decidedly 1950's era spy film noir. As for genre, I'm forced to call Counterpart science fiction, in that it involves parallel universes, but it's really like nothing else within that genre.
The general scenario is this: 30 years ago, for reasons unknown, reality split into two bifurcating, independent time lines. Until that point, all was unified, meaning that every character alive at that point shared identical histories. Now, things have begun to diverge. But there is a doorway between the universes in a building in Berlin.
Again, for reasons unknown, the two sides have been both communicating with, and spying on, one another through this doorway, and this is where our protagonist Howard Silk (J.K. Simmons) comes in. "Our" Howard is a low level functionary in this spy agency who hasn't a clue as to what is really going on until, one day, his counterpart arrives with news that a woman from "their" side has been sent over to assassinate people on "our" side, including Howard's comatose wife. No one knows why, which is the prevailing state of awareness in this decidedly curious story. "Other" Howard decides that "our" Howard is critical to his investigation and, thus, the strange alliance begins.
J.K. Simmons is a phenomenal actor, despite often being cast in secondary roles, and Counterpart is truly his opportunity to shine. He plays a single character, but one with two separate backgrounds despite shared childhoods, a role requiring some subtlety and nuance. He plays both characters to perfection as the similarities and differences between the two create something of a broader character that calls into question our notions of identity.
In a way, Counterpart is an examination of the concept of self, or soul, but it is also an engaging mystery/thriller. Like its main character, the sum is both greater than, and equal to, its parts.
[8.3/10] Zombie movies have a long history of social commentary and symbolism. Auteurs like George Romero have used the undead to represent prejudice, consumerism, blind loyalty, and scads of other social ills made manifest in horrific terms. That’s one of the features of this particular subgenre -- the concept of brainless, shambling former humans is malleable enough to fit around any number of concepts and themes.
In Shaun of the Dead Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg use it for something much more mundane -- the layabout manchild who’s failed to launch. For once the hordes of reanimated corpses are less about some wide-ranging societal malady, and more about one dude who needs the zombie apocalypse to prompt him to “sort his life out.” It’s subtle, but the movie kicks off with the idea that Shaun is no better than the living dead he’ll eventually do battle with, having failed to advance his life, work, or motivation to where he’s stuck in the same rut at 29 that he was at 12.
That conceit is part of the brilliance of Shaun of the Dead, which comes from the way it so perfectly walks the line between loving homage to the zombie films of old, ridiculous comedy amid a ridiculous setup, and surprisingly potent character drama about one man coming of age late in the day but just in time. It juggles these competing demands nigh-perfectly, with Wright and Pegg putting together an astonishingly well-tuned film that manages thrills, laughs, poignance, and most of all tone along a viscera-draped tightrope.
It works on all counts. Fans of the classic undead flicks will chuckle and cheer with recognition when one of the characters declares “We’re coming to get you, Barbara” or when a pest of a survivor is pulled out of a window a la Day of the Dead. The approach here presages Community’s stellar genre parodies, where there is so much loving attention to detail that it bolsters both the times when the film wants to play the familiar story beats safe and when it wants to poke fun at them.
That knowing approach to the “zomcom” works like gangbusters. Shaun and Ed’s reluctance to use “the z-word” is a fun meta-gag about how rarely the famed designation is actually spoken aloud in zombie movies. The invocation of common tropes like the survivor who tries to hide that they’ve been bit, the group having to pretend they’re zombies to avoid detection, or a character having to face down an undead version of a loved one is played for both laughs and pathos. This is clearly a movie whose creatives are deeply familiar with the genre they’re spoofing, paying tribute to, and using for compelling character beats, which is what allows them to mix and match those moods so deftly.
At the same time, Pegg and Wright are not afraid to get downright goofy with the proceedings. Watching Shaun and Ed ineffectively toss household detritus at a pair of walkers while arguing over which records to use as ammo is a big laugh. Their crew whacking at an advancing attacker to the beat of a Queen song is delightfully silly. And the life and death stakes of the scenario don’t stop the main character or his pals from dropping wry bits of gallows humor or loopy routines in between encounters with the flesh-eating monsters.
Of course, this is an Edgar Wright movie, so the script plays out like clockwork. Brief mentions of Di as a “failed actress” come back into play when she has to coach up the survivors to act like zombies. A hinted at but unseen skirmish in the second act comes back in a big way in the third act. Video game terminology turns into vital (and amusing) real world strategy. Off-hand quips pre-outbreak become meaningful portents once the undead invasion is in full swing. Wright is the king of setup and payoff, so there’s hardly a stray comment or visual framing that doesn't come back with a twist or an echo or an extra laugh down the line.
Wright’s also a superb sculptor of sequences and images. Some of them are flashy, like a neat shot of our heroes through the hollowed-out hole in a zombie torso, but some are more subtle, like a tableau of the survivors in the Winchester that positions everyone neatly in the frame. He and his team do well to establish long, well-blocked shots of Shaun going about his daily life, only to mirror and recontextualize those scenes once the extras of his routine have turned into zombies. And as with everything in this film, Wright and company are able to walk the line between humor and excitement with the action scenes, evoking some genuine terror when the biters advance on the survivors and our heroes fight back, but also leaning into the lunacy of a random London schlub wacking at corpses with a cricket bat.
But so much of that excellent attention to detail comes back around when Shaun of the Dead wants to play things seriously and isn’t just having a laugh. Barbara’s mantra that she “doesn't want to make a fuss” becomes much more meaningful after she’s hiding a zombie bite and Shaun has to contend with the reality that his mom’s going to die. A running gag where Shaun replies to any invocation of his stepfather, Philip, with a retort of “he’s not my dad,” takes on new, poignant meaning after Philip’s dying declaration of love before succumbing to the zombie virus. Pegg and Wright use their call and response, and their tightly-honed scene construction, to pay homage to George Romero’s filmography and to craft their own silly sequences, but they also use it for genuine pathos, for affecting drama, and most importantly, for character growth.
That puts Shaun of the Dead in line with so many of its undead flick forebears that the movie pokes fun at and pays tribute to. These movies lured audiences in with the prospect of monster mash horror, but lingered in people’s memories because of vivid characters and because of a social subtext reflected in all those shuffling corpses. This movie will absolutely work for anyone just wanting a good time involving ample chuckles and some zombified comic adventures.
But it also uses the oncoming zombie apocalypse as a metaphor for Shaun waking up and growing up. The key scene of the film comes when Philip tells Shaun that he always thought Shaun had it in him to do great things; he just needed the right motivation. There’s comic irony to the fact that this motivating turning point happens to be the reanimation of corpses from the grave, but Wright and Pegg don’t skimp on using that fact to tickle the audience’s funny bone at the same time they cannily show a slacker manchild growing up in real time beneath a blood-spattered cricket bat.
In an ideal world, none of us would need a zombie uprising to take the initiative and turn around our lives. But Shaun of the Dead has its title character accept adulthood in all that mandibular mania -- reckoning with his best friend, having to say goodbye to his parents, and becoming a true and reliable partner to the woman he loves. Few coming of age stories, if any others at all, pay such brilliant homage to classic horror films, elicit such genuine laughs from blood-spattered slapstick, or make the human drama so real and even moving. And yet for this shuffling subgenre, the approach and success are remarkably true-to-form.
The ending was later game of thrones stupid.
Daemon running out there like an idiot, and the dozens of archers firing at him miss, again, again, and again, and again, and again, and then oh now finally they hit.
All the while he's fighting against opponent, after opponent, after opponent, against multiple opponents, as the crab feeder sends out dozens of his men.
It's just stupid. And his dragon stayed back because? No reason. Could have been attacking the archers.
And it turns out Daemon didn't do this solely to try and kill the crab feeder, but to try and bait him out so he/his allies can kill him and his army?
But wait. Allies said they had around 700 men. They're in a war. So crab feeder must have hundreds or around that number. Crab feeder wouldn't be stupid enough to send out a big force just for daemon, especially because he was wounded by arrows and on the ground, and still being attacked by them. Plus, we saw him send out what two dozen of his warriors? Against Daemon. For some reason.
Then when allies show and dragon attack, Crab Feeder and his allies don't go back in the caves? Which was their usual tactic each time for literally years during the war.
Even though they're in a losing war, Daemon and his allies win at the end.
None of this makes sense.
Writing quality across the whole episode is lower than the previous two, and we have now reached later game of thrones level of stupidity.
Would Daemon have really done that stupid run? Oh and we also see more of his dishonorable nature by nearly beating a messenger to death, and then betraying the white flag of truth. Even though he at least seemed to have some honorable aspects to him in previous episodes, even though he was brutal. Was this all in the book? The stupid suicide run, the dishonorable actions. And was it in the book when Daemon charged right in the middle of battle on his dragon and got pounded by arrows and almost died? He got lucky because one went into his shoulder. This is stupid. Even on the run he could have been killed by the first volley of arrows. I'd be very surprised if any of this was in the book.
Edit: And we don't get enough info about things regarding the status of armies, and the numbers we do get don't make sense. So Valeryon's forces have 700 men left? Eh? That low? And you're waging a war? Been in a war for years? How many forces does Daemon have? Does he have any left? He had goldcloaks right? For some reason. I guess he had so much of their loyalty is what it said in previous episodes. Yeah i guess they just followed him to Dragonstone and then into war. Where are they? Are they still a part of his army? If not, then it's just him? Why did the Valeryon guy say Daemon is helping them lose the war, he has a dragon. He's consistently helping, especially so if he's contributing his goldcloak forces, and i assume that's all Daemon would have, since we don't know if he's the lord of anywhere and able to conscript people.
So many questions like that. All through the episode about things. When an episode is a mixed bag like this, you start to see and question many other things. I still enjoyed the episode overall though.
Edit 2: Since a lot of people seem to agree with me, i thought i'd go into more detail. The show hasn't completely broken down yet like later Game of Thrones, nor has the logic been twisted too much like middle Game of Thrones. The previous 2 episodes i thought were really good, but this episode you could tell had a different writer, and that's not good, because it makes you less immersed, like sometimes you feel these characters shouldn't be saying what they're saying. Contrast that to Game of Thrones season 1, and i couldn't tell who was writing what episode, as it was good across the board. So early into this season and i'm seeing a mismatch in writing is not a good sign.
I think we have a lot of interesting characters in this show and i'm looking forward to continuing. I'd rate this episode a 6.5/10, but 6 or 7 is valid to me. Most of this episode i thought was pretty good, but there were too many things for me to choose 6. The mismatch in writing, the timeskip, the brattiness of Rhaenyra, the white deer heavy handed symbolism, the end of the episode and the anticlimactic nature of the crabfeeder. The king feeling a bit too lost in his soul, when he's supposed to be king and has been king for a long time, and has a queen and children. I understand the reasoning, i just don't buy it much. But i still like the many conversations, politics and intrigue in the show, and the characters and story.
Honestly, I'm very mixed. The explosion was the biggest turnoff and to be honest, the Steven brothers have the worst storylines. Everyone staying behind so Kelly can have her baby is beautiful, and even when Ed flies the ship to have her leap off even though he might not land. THIS IS FOR ALL MANKIND! This works! The Steven brothers seeing that it's too late to condone their sins... that can go. I was really sad to see Karen leave (honestly her being head of Helios would've been interesting) but I guess this means more Dev. Molly was technically written off the show, so it was nice to give her one last hurrah since she was a lead in the first two seasons. Then there's Margo... honestly, the explosion seemed the best fit for ending her arc since you know, she'd go to jail. Seeing her in Russia shows that she'll now make the SU a big player in space exploration in the 2000's (and she'll be Aleida's arch nemesis) but honestly, I was hoping we'd get a tease for where the story would go space-wise (like the rocket with the nukes in S1 and the first feet on Mars in S2). I'm mixed, it'll be interesting to see where this show goes next, I really hope the writers read the reviews!
[7.5/10] Actions have consequences. That may be the abiding theme that stretches across Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad. You make one small decision, and it pushes you in a certain direction. Then you make another and are pushed a little further. Then another, and another, and another. And before you know it, you’re a long way from where you started, finding yourself looking over your shoulder, worried about what’s lurking in your wake.
Gus decided to take out his business rival. Now he’s wearing bulletproof vests and ankle holsters in his own home and constantly monitoring his neighborhood for fear that vengeance will come. Saul decided to become a “friend of the cartel.” Now he’s got every scruffy-looking hump in New Mexico seeking to retain the legal services of “Salamanca’s guy.” And Kim decided to stay with Jimmy, to tolerate and even enable his coloring outside the lines. Now she’s living in fear of one drug lord while the goons of another are following her.
It’s one of the things I love most about Better Call Saul. (Not people being watched and pursued by drug-runners.) The mark of good storytelling is people making choices that stem from who and what they are, and then navigating the ripples and reactions of those choices. Everything has a cost. Everything has trade-offs. Every decision made means opening some doors and closing other. There may be no show on television more acutely aware of that fact than this one.
That gives “Hit and Run”, a calmer and more sedate episode after the grand events of last week, a bit of thematic oomph even when the show’s at slack tide. There’s comparatively few dramatic events in this installment. Nobody dies. Nobody has a white-knuckle confrontation. Nobody faces down mortal threats or serious peril. Everyone just stews in the messes they’ve made, or are still making, over the last handful of episodes.
Gus is properly paranoid. He divined from Hector’s reaction that Lalo lives. So despite seeming to have settled the most immediate threat with Nacho’s demise, he’s constantly worried that his rival will return with lethal impulses. He has Mike stretching his team thin, working guys for eighteen hour days, setting up an elaborate neighborhood farce to provide cover for his surveillance operation, and fretting over a car that follows his for a mere three blocks.
It took some finagling, but Fring seemed to pull off his big scheme. He arranged for the death of the only young man who would spill his scheme, and his enemy is presumed dead. But he can’t rest easy. The audience knows his fears are justified. But to his crew, it feels like chasing ghosts. Even the meticulous Gus isn’t able to buy himself any peace, with an equally cunning, if less subtle foe still potentially on the board.
Jimmy’s consequences aren’t quite so dire (at least not that he realizes). His interactions with Lalo result in a far more mundane consequence -- nobody at the courthouse wants anything to do with him. The security guard makes him run his belt and shoes through the scanner. His once-friendly clerk gives him the cold shoulder. The prosecutor he traded horses and snacks with thinks he’s gone too far. Whatever temporary advantages dealing with Lalo provided, they’ve left him ostracized by an ecosystem that he used to flit through with a hummingbird’s effortless grace.
Frankly, it’s a touch unbelievable. Maybe everyone in that courthouse draws a line between representing the occasional lowlife and pushing the limits to do so versus advocating for a killer and drug lord, but it’s awfully quick and seemingly coordinated. And yet, I don’t mind the convenience because it succinctly conveys the bridges Saul burns as he sidles up to the cartel.
He’s building new ones though. Doing business with Lalo didn’t just net him a duffle bag full of cash to fund his and Kim’s escapades. It gave him a reputation with, shall we say, a certain type of person who both admires Lalo Salamanca and might have the type of legal troubles that require a man of the...caliber to help a drug lord skip out on a murder rap.
It’s amusing to see Jimmy once again managing clients over the protests of his nail salon-owning landlord. Watching Bob Odenkirk ply his comedy chops once more, shuffling potential clients with his glad-handing, slick ways is a hoot as always. But at the same time, we can see the life of Saul Goodman starting to take shape, and the life of Jimmy McGill steadily slipping away.
It’s a life that includes running scams in his spare time. The most high-octane part of the episode comes as soon as the intro wraps up, as Kim and Jimmy complete the next step of their scheme to convince Clifford Main that Howard Hamlin is unreliable.
The ploy to steal Howard’s car and make it seem like he’s erratic and consorting with sex workers, conveniently within the eyeline of Clifford, is a thrill. The sheer absurdity of seeing Jimmy in his Howard-esque getup for the first time since the first season delights. The way Kim’s lunch with Clifford and Jimmy’s grand theft auto slows coalesce until the point of their seemingly disparate actions emerges is expertly crafted. And the mere involvement of Wendy, a familiar face from Breaking Bad, as their accomplice, makes the bit that much more of a sop to the fans.
The peak, though, comes when it always does -- when things start to go awry. Jimmy’s effort to return Howard’s car runs into a snag. Some inconsiderate jerk removed the traffic cone Jimmy left to save the spot and parked there. Watching Saul improvise -- heaving a parking sign out of the ground and moving it to make his questionable alternate car placement plausible -- adds joy and extra competence to the clockwork scheme. And the comic timing of the sign falling down mere seconds after Howard pulls out is perfect and uproarious.
But there’s a moment of pause there too. Each of the plays we’ve seen so far have skirted on the edge of discovery and disaster. Jimmy had to strip to his skivvies to avoid detection in the premiere. Huell had to rush the locksmith before a devoted valet went back for the keys. Saul had to scramble like mad to pull the car “borrowing” off without detection here.
Our protagonist and his allies are getting lucky. More to the point, they’re pushing their luck, with riskier and riskier plays that come closer and closer to blowing up in their faces. Better Call Saul likes to zig when we expect it to zag, but more in more, it seems like they’re skirting catastrophe, moments if not seconds away from everything blowing up in their faces.
Maybe that's why Kim feels uneasy about all this. She’s thinks she’s doing the right thing, as the diversionary lunch with Clifford turns into a genuine funding possibility for her pro bono efforts. But as Jimmy suggests, there’s a disbelief that, as Jesse Pinkman might put, they keep getting away with it. When you’re on a run of good luck, the sense that it could run out, that there’s some karmic comeuppance or at least reversion to the mean awaiting, puts a psychic weight on you.
That weight helps prompt Kim to spy the men following her (with an assist from Wendy, naturally). It gives her the gumption to walk up to them and call them on it. And it gives her the sterner stuff to earn a visit from none other than Mike Ehrmantraut for catching on.
Let’s be real, after five seasons, it’s a thrill to see two of the show’s major characters sharing a scene for the first time. The two could just talk about the weather, and it would still have the electricity Kim and Mike sitting across from one another after orbiting each other for so long. It doesn’t hurt that Kim’s sharp enough to deduce that Mike was the man with Saul in the desert, or that Mike intuits the steel behind Kim’s eyes that makes her steady and strong enough to deal with his frankness about why she’s being followed. That scene too is a bit of a sop to the fans, but a welcome one.
And it serves a purpose. Mike effectively tells Kim that they are not out of the woods, that Lalo Salamanca might still be on the loose, that he might be coming to them for answers, and that if he does, it might put them on the radar of a rival drug lord. Whether it’s Mike’s men or Lalo’s pursuit or the authorities, she’s now caught in the web of greater, potentially deadly forces.
It shakes her, as it would anyone. She can handle it, even if it leaves her uneasy about what might be around the next corner. But she doesn’t think Jimmy can. Especially when he’s reveling in what the association with Lalo netted him, she can’t burst his bubble, frighten him with the possibility of a side effect from a past decision coming back in a bad way.
He will though. Lalo is the Sword of Damocles hanging over this season. Gus isn’t wrong to be paranoid. Kim isn’t wrong to be frightened. Jimmy might be vulnerable in his blissful ignorance. Sometime, someplace, Lalo will emerge from his desert hideaways and strike, even if his path and target remain obscured.
But the choices these people made led them here. They may not have intended this outcome, but no one is here by accident. The choice to orchestrate a hit on your counterpart, the choice to stop representing run-of-the-mill defendants and help out a true bad guy, the choice not to tell your spouse about the danger that might be coming for them, have all had consequences. And while this moment is calm, the rules of Better Call Saul dictate that, sooner or later, the chickens will come home to roost.
[7.4/10] Gosh that was long. I don’t think that any episode of television, even an epic season finale for one of television’s marquee shows, needs to be two and a half hours long. Sure, many movies are that long. But movies have the structure and pacing for it, with rising and falling action, act structures, and other foundational elements that make 150 minutes not feel that long. “The Piggyback is basically” fifteen minutes of prelude, followed by two hours of a third act climax, followed by fifteen minutes of an epilogue. It’s just too much.
But there’s good moments here! Eddie’s death is meaningful. Him playing Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” to lure the bats with Dustin is cheesy as hell, but just as awesome. His choice to stand and face the horror rather than run away from it as he did with Chrissy is inspiring and earnest. And there is irony and tragedy in his demise. He was the town pariah and scapegoat, but secretly one of its biggest heroes. The world will never know how he gave his life to save a town that hated him, but Dustin knows, and his uncle knows too. It’s sad, but comes with a certain poignancy.
The same goes for Max’s heartfelt admission that she spent so much time feeling guilt over Billy’s death that she wished something would happen to her, something that would make her disappear. It’s one of the most honest renditions of survivor’s guilt I’ve seen on television, and Sadie Sink owns the scene. The loss of someone who hurt you, but who was also hurt, is a complicated thing, and for all season 4’s missteps and questionable story choices, it gets Max’s vulnerability and strength in the shadow of unspeakable thoughts just right.
As tired as I am of “power of love” stories, I did like that it’s Mike finally saying the L-word that gives Eleven the strength to do her thing. It completes Mike’s arc, with him worrying that he’s not good enough to be with a superhero and that admitting his feelings would make it hurt more. But him deciding that’s baloney and affirming his love for Eleven in every form makes for a beautiful little monologue. The finale lays things on a little thick with visions of everyone’s plans failing and good folks suffering, but the idea that love spurs us to “fight” is a simple but effective tonic to that idea.
There’s a number of lesser but still good moments in the lead-up to this. Argyle finding a kindred spirit in a Nevada pizza shop is a fun win for him. Jonathan validating his brother and wanting to support him no matter whom he loves is a wholesome moment. The Russian prison guard convincing Yuri to once again be a “great man” and help save the motherland by saving “the Americans” is the best thing to come out of that storyline.
But again, there’s just too much going on, and a lot of it seems superfluous. It’s admirable that the Duffer Brothers want to give everyone in the cast something to do. But most everything outside of the Eleven/Max/Vecna confrontation seems like perfunctory piece-moving rather than a vital part of the action.
Lucas closes off the jock jerk/satanic panic storyline, but randomly finds the strength of will to avoid being strangled out of nowhere. Erica likewise beats up a bully twice her size almost at random. Steve, Robyn, and Nancy burn up Vecna in the Upside Down, but it doesn’t even kill him, so it feels like they just mildly inconvenience him. Eddie and Dustin fighting bats includes some cool sequences, and keeps Vecna’s minions from attacking the others, but is a sidestory at best. And once again, Hopper, Joyce, and Murray fighting the demogorgons and demodogs in Russia is the most tangential, tenuously-connected part of this whole season.
Jumping around to all of these storylines is just plain exhausting. While I wouldn’t call any of it filler (okay, maybe the business at the Russian prison), a lot of it feels much less urgent and essential than what’s going on in the main event.
The main event is good though. Max retreating to her happy place, and it being the finale of season 2, is a nice surprise. Eleven finding out how to “piggyback” and fight Vecna via Max’s mind is a cool trick and thrilling moment. And Eleven turning the tide and defeating One, however temporarily, is rousing.
But things quickly devolve into tired exposition and monologuing, where Henry explains how he’s going to shatter the borders between his world and ours, and how it was Eleven, not Dr. Brenner who made him. We already got a giant infodump at the end of episode 7, which was already kind of a stretch. This one is probably necessary, but listening to One simply announce his backstory with some of the usual visuals doesn’t add much intrigue or excitement to the proceedings.
Plus, the episode makes a big deal about how our heroes lose for the first time, but...it seems like they shouldn’t have? Sure, Henry succeeds, and there’s a giant Upside Down-fueled “earthquake” that devastates Hawkins. That’s unfortunate, and I’m glad there’s some kind of cost to all this interdimensional adventuring.
But Eleven found her inner strength and obliterated the guy in the mind realm! Robyn, Steve, and Nancy burned the hell out of him in the Upside Down and blasted him with a shotgun out the window! I’m not saying plausibility is the key in a show where the supernatural is the rule of the day. Yet, nothing in this feels like a loss. It feels like, by all rights, they should have been able to finish the job here and now with Vecna, and the only reason they didn’t is because there’s another season of Stranger Things that needs a villain, and the Duffer Brothers don’t want to have to come up with another one. It would have been better if Vecna had enjoyed more of an outright win than something that seems like a complete loss that turns out to be mere table-setting for season 5.
That said, we do get some great work with Max. It is harrowing watching the life leave her body as she cries out about how scared she is in all of this. It’s a nice contrast to where she’s reminded of what she has to live for with her friends and doesn’t want to disappear. Caleb McLaughlin does an extraordinary job as Lucas reacting to Max’s apparent death with his own cries of pain. And we’ve added to Eleven’s messianic nature by having her effectively revive Max, creating the second of two “miracles” in the episode, even if poor Max remains in a coma.
The epilogue is nice enough. There’s the bevy of tearful reunions you’d expect, with Eleven and Hopper being the best of them, naturally. I’m glad that the show didn’t just jump from climax to cliffhanger. It’s nice that we get some of the denouement and emotional aftermath of all these grand events. But considering how many concurrent storylines and characters they’ve been juggling to this point, even that soon feels overextended.
Regardless, Robyn forming a friendship that has the potential to lead to more with her crush is a really nice scene, and it’s good to see her get the win. Nancy and Jonathan’s deal continues to be confusing and pointless. Lucas reading a Stephen King book to a comatose Max is a creditable homage to one of the show’s clear inspirations. And seeing the town of Hawkins wonder why they’re cursed and forced to suffer like this, with the aftermath of Vecna’s handiwork coming to the fore, helps add a sense of place and scope to the scheme this season.
Overall though, this season finale bites of way more than it could chew. Why this couldn’t have been broken up into three episodes, or even just been built into a better act structure, is beyond me. There’s a lot of good material here. Some of it’s even great. But it’s presented in a way that makes it really hard to get your hands around.
Still, I like some of the big swings the show’s taken in season 4. Vecna introduces a retroactive backstory and mastermind for all that’s happened which is kind of hard to swallow. But having a villain with a face and a personality and a motive escalates this struggle into something broader and more meaningful as a reflection of Eleven’s own struggles. The show’s done good work with a number of the key relationships in the series, and introduced some solid new characters while reintroducing old ones. (I’m glad we got more Owens this year.)
But at the end of the day, this also feels like half a story, despite the ridiculously bloated runtimes for every episode. This is as much a prelude to season 4 as it is its own distinctive thing. Maybe that’s to be expected in the streaming era, but while there’s high points and quality elements at play, the season’s never more than the sum of its part.
Still, a friend described Stranger Things as a show that’s still exciting and worthy of investing in even when it’s missing half of its shots, and I think this finale is a good representation of that idea. Not everything works, and the time required prompts a certain exhaustion factor. But this feels epic and grand and satisfying enough as a temporary resolution to the season’s events. There’s a lot more ground to cover, but also enough to tug the heartstrings and make you cheer, which is still worth appreciating.
[7.9/10] I don’t know how Stranger Things wants me to feel about Papa. From my vantage point, he is, as Eleven calls him, a monster. In both flashbacks and present day scenes, we’ve seen him abuse the children in his care. So much of the first two seasons in particular was centered on Eleven moving past that. She embraces this new, wholesome, loving family, and discards her old, pernicious one. She finds a real dad, one who loves her and cares for her, rather than to have to swallow the harm presented as love she’d endured for so much of her life.
But then this season presented him as a force for good, at least to a degree. He helps Eleven regain her powers, as the ability to lift the giant metal drum indicates. He thinks she’s the only thing that can stop Henry/One/Vecna. He’s trying to make her better, make her well.
At the same time, though, Papa doesn’t care about what Eleven wants. He doesn’t care about her psychological well-being. Owens calls him out for it. He reminds Brenner that this bunker was never meant to be a prison and upbraids him for freaking out Eleven with the threat of Henry breaking the boundary between worlds, rather than easing her into it. Papa thinks he knows what’s best for his “daughter”. He holds her against her will, declaring that it’s for her own good, trapping her in the same shock collars he once held all of his other “children” in.
I was, frankly, glad to see that. It played like a reminder that Brenner is not a good man. After a season in which the show seemed to be trying to rehabilitate him, it finally had his worse, controlling, abusive nature rear its ugly head. Confining Eleven, ignoring her wishes, drugging her and putting her under your control, is legitimately monstrous.
And yet, when the military baddies show up, he tries to save her. More to the point, he wants her to believe that he always meant well, that he wanted what was best for her. God help me, maybe he did, at least in his own mind. I want to give Stranger Things credit. I want to believe it understands the nuance of abuse, where abusers do not necessarily see themselves as monsters, but think they’re doing the right thing for their victims. I want to buy that it sees the shades of gray in Brenner, someone who does unspeakable, repugnant things to innocent kids, but in his own twisted way, thinks he’s helping them. There is truth in that, and a complicated villain is a better villain.
The fact that Eleven grants him no absolution, but simply bids “Papa” goodbye, suggests the series understands. The feelings of the abused toward their parents is complicated. Love, attachment, care remains, even if it becomes hard to reconcile with the horrors inflicted. In a show that’s not afraid to spell things out, it leaves all this to subtext, a bold, subtle move that leads to humble, foolhardy viewers potentially overreading the situation.
Speaking of subtext, I don’t know if we’re going to get a scene with Will and Mike more emotionally explicit than the one we got here. The Pizza Van crew finally matters to the story, showing up to rescue Eleven from the Bunker and take her where she needs to go. But the most important thing they do isn’t plot-relevant.
It comes when Will reassures a worried Mike. Mike fears that Eleven doesn’t need him anymore, that he was a dumb schmuck who happened to find her, but that it’s not fated they be together. Will offers an emotional reassurance, about -- how it’s Mike’s heart that holds him together, how much he still means to her, how much he’ll always mean to her -- when it’s clear (to the audience at least) that he’s really talking about himself rather than Eleven.
It’s a great performance from Noah Schnapp, who absolutely kills it with the projected emotions he feels when speaking about someone else’s relationship. The reveal with his vaunted painting works and weaves together the complicated feelings of all three members of this unorthodox love triangle. The catch is, I don’t know if I want the show to go further than this. Will professing his true feelings in plain terms seems like a bill that’s due for the show at this point. And yet, there’s something poignant about Will having these feelings but, due to societal prejudices and recognizing where his friend’s heart lies, not being able to express them. There’s something true to life, even artful about that, and I wonder where Stranger Things will leave it.
I wonder far less what’s going to happen with Joyce, Hopper, Murray, and their pair of reluctant Russian allies. The most important thing in that corner of the show right now is the reveal that the Soviets are experimenting on creatures from the Upside Down. The scientists at this facility are vivisecting demogorgons, seemingly cloning or growing their own army of this sort of fauna, and even appear to have a mind flayer contained within their walls. Who knows what it means exactly, beyond the obvious -- the Ruskies are prepping for a war with extraordinary, albeit uncontrollable, weapons at their disposal -- but it’s an intriguing reveal.
What’s less intriguing is the Joyce/Hopper crew trying to find their way back to the United States. Escaping from the Russian prison is surprisingly easy. (Apparently Yuri’s van is bulletproof, which, fair I guess?) Their mission to use some combo of Yuri’s helicopter and a coded message to allies in the USA to get back is fine. But even this penultimate episode can’t escape the sense that this is a sideshow to keep the adults away from the major events happening in Hawkins and the the desert, rather than a meaningful part of the story in and of itself. Even Hopper and Joyce’s mutual “I thought you were dead” conversation doesn’t have much juice to it.
We get more character moments among the now united Hawkins faithful though. There’s still some excitement here. Nancy witnesses the horrors Henry experienced and then, in a big surprise, he lets her go as a messenger for Eleven. The crew steals a winnebago and collects weapons to fight Vecna’s demons. And they sit in fear with the knowledge that he means to use “four gates” to shatter the bounds between his world and ours, putting everyone our heroes know and love at risk in the process.
Still, this is mostly a “calm before the storm” part of the story for the Hawkins kids, which tend to be some of my favorite parts of genre movies and shows. It’s a chance to have those important character moments before the last act fireworks take the stage. We get to see the players bouncing off one another, expressing what they mean to each other, rather than just hacking and slashing at the dramatic CGI beastie du jour.
Some of these moments are small. Erica telling Lucas that even if they bicker, he’s still her brother, is quite sweet. Eddie roughhousing with Dustin over his puns and telling him to never change is weirdly flirtatious, but also very rousing in how he sees the kid’s greatness. And as much as I’m down on all the teases of Steve and Nancy getting back together, Steve waxing rhapsodic about his dream to have a whole “brood of Harringtons” roaming the countryside in a car like this, while Nancy looks on admiringly, is a really warm moment.
But there’s bigger moments too. Robyn seeing her crush with a boy and it hitting her like lightning is sad and sympathetic. But the same goes for her and Steve aiming to reassure her about it, while she insists there’s bigger fish to fry right now, but he still shows care for his best friend. Likewise, Max and Lucas’ heart-to-heart -- about Max’s willingness to be the bait for Vecna because she doesn’t want to be in harm’s way, about her confidence that she can best him by finding her happiest moment that just so happens to involve Lucas, and Lucas’ insistence that if things go wrong he’s going to deploy Kate Bush in a heartbeat -- affirms one of the sweetest and most earnest little romances on the show before the going gets tough.
Let’s be real, it’s stupid as hell for the kids to strap up and head into the breach to fight a psychic, telekinetic demon dude. Sure, there’s the patina of plausibility to the plan, with the notion that they can get him in his trance while he’s going after Max, something he needs in order to reach this world. But Eleven’s right to fear for them after she uses her mental wandering powers to learn what they’re up to. The blaring sounds of a Journey ballad undercuts the gravity of the situation (and weakens the vibe) more than a little as the episode comes to a close, but it’s a still an ominous thing our heroes are walking into.
There’s grace notes for other villains here. The jerk jock whose name I’ve forgotten in the month or so between episodes menaces Nancy at the gun shop, but never feels like more than a tertiary villain from another show. The big bad military dude shows he’s truly evil (if the torture didn’t do it) when Ownes gives him a safe way to test his theory that Eleven’s behind all the killings, and the guy decides to just kill her anyway. And Henry gets a few more chances to show his victims what waits in store for them if they continue down this path.
The heart of this one, though, comes with Eleven’s confrontation of her would-be father. She takes out those military goons with comparative ease, under the circumstances. SOme of the show’s best imagery comes with her and her pals amid the desert blaze. Eleven even enacts violence against Papa when he threatens to cage her again, force his will upon her “for her own good.”
In the end, though, forces beyond his control prevent him from enacting his plan. To his dying breath, he wants his “daughter” to believe that he meant well. Eleven won’t grant him the forgiveness and understanding he seeks, because whatever lingering attachment she has to the man who raised her, he doesn’t deserve it. But now, whatever his wishes, she is untethered, recharged, and ready to save the people who do deserve her care, and her love.
[8.5/10] Well hell, they got me good on the twists here. I suspected that the ostensibly helpful orderly had his own agenda, and that when he talked about Number One he might have been talking about himself. But there’s a whole mess of things that I did not guess, including:
That's a lot! It’s effectively making One the show’s Big Bad, give or take Brenner himself. And I gotta say, kudos to the casting directors and Jamie Campbell Bower. He leans into the utter creepiness of One a la Cillian Murphy or Daniel DeHaan. You by him as a sympathetic and troubled yet evil and menacing figure, which is a hard line to walk, and it sells some of the mishmash of cliches that the character represents and succeeds despite.
To the point, One is an odd mix of Agent Smith from The Matrix (“Humanity is a strange kind of pest”), Magneto from X-Men (“We’re superior to them”), Darth Vader from The Empire Strikes Back (“Join me and think of what we could accomplish”), and even Emperor Palpatine from Revenge of the Sith (“Oh no, right after my villainous invitation to powerful young soul, lightning turned me into a scarred ghoulish figure!”). HIs monologue is a touch hammy, and feels pulled from a mix of these other sources, but the superb performance and intensity of the scenes makes it work.
Say what you will about Stranger Things as it reaches its mid-season break, but they can still put together a damn good set piece when they want to. The stand-off between Eleven and One is terrifying. The raw intensity of the two having a force battle a la the one she had with one of her telekinetic bullies in the prior episode, the sheer horror of the way One drags her around as she claws at the floor and hangs in the air, and the rousing but still unnerving way she turns the power back on him and disintegrates him into another dimension is jaw-dropping and riveting.
At a thematic level, I like One as the antithesis of Eleven, her dark reflection and ultimate nemesis. The show implies that he’s been repeatedly abused by his parents, which lends to his dim view of humanity and the way he powers his abilities with sadness and anger. He was not born a monster, but made that way, and it tainted his perspective and his approach to generating his unique talents.
Eleven is the opposite. Time and again, we’ve seen her power through difficult situations not by resorting to pain, but instead, like Max, by reflecting on the people she loves and who care deeply for her as well. It’s telling that when Eleven tries to summon strength from recalling her mother being ripped away from her, or the death and destruction she witnesses as a consequence of her removing One’s inhibitor, it’s not enough to defeat him. But when she recalls her mother’s love, the act of creation and instant bond and affection, it summons a power that One has no ability to withstand.
For all this season has been teasing that Eleven needs to return to negative emotions to regain her powers, I love the subversion that, at the end of the day, it’s the remembrance of that love which not only spurred her to victory on that fateful day many years earlier, but which restores her power now. I still find Brenner to be a morally questionable figure. The show’s treatment of him still makes me a little queasy. And I still feel uncomfortable about Owens’ willingness to throw in with him, even if he thinks it’s necessary to save the world. But all of this ethically dubious “training” lands in a strong place thematically, vindicating Eleven’s bonds with the people who love her as the source of her power, and pointing to the lack of such care and affection as the thing that unfortunately doomed poor Henry Creel.
I don’t know that every part of it adds up logistically. It feels like it conflicts with some other things we knew about the Upside Down, and the attempt to bring together the cosmology of the Demogorgon, the Mindflayer, and Vecna into one consistent effort plays more than a little clunky. But ultimately, it works at an intuitive level, which is good enough for me.
Plus hey, there’s a lot of Star Wars and Harry Potter here, which isn’t terribly surprising given some of the references in the show to this point. (The former, not the latter, obviously.) One is basically tempting Eleven to turn to the darkside, to use negative emotions to spur her use of The Force. The offer to join together is very Vader and Luke, or even Kylo Ren and Rey. And the contrast between a child born of love and one born without it is very Harry and Voldemort. On balance, it makes me think that Eleven will ultimately try to save One in some way, to redeem him, but I suppose we’ll have to wait and see in July when the last two episodes of the season come out.
All-in-all, I haven’t loved the Eleven storyline thus far, but this takes into a pretty shocking yet compelling place, about where her flashback adventures fit into the larger story of Stranger Things, and about how who she is informs what she can do in a way her foe absolutely cannot despite all his own malevolence and power.
Oh yeah, and other stuff happens in the episode too! Who knew?
I still don’t like the Russian rescue business, but at least they went somewhere with it. It remains insane that they were able to bluff their way into a secret Russian prison, bring a weapon inside without getting frisked or bothered over it, and hold a warden hostage to get most, if not all, of what they want. This plan makes no sense, but hey, Murray’s Yuri impression is gold, so it’s got that going for it.
And yet, Hopper and the crooked guard’s fight with the demogorgon is reasonably cool. The CGI for the demogorgon was off here, as it didn’t move or react properly. The design remains terrifying though, which does a lot of the work. Plus the Duffer Bros. and the fight choreographers do a good job of adding tension to the scene by having Hopper struggle to light his spear torch at first, and then force them to improvise when getting behind the super-thick doors before the flame runs out. It’s a well-constructed set piece, even if I’m pretty much done with this storyline.
To the point, Hopper and Joyce embracing after so long apart and so much each has been through in the interim should be a moving moment. I felt nothing. I can’t say that Stranger Things didn’t earn the moment. It showed each character going through a hell of a lot to reach it and reflecting on what each means to the other. But the whole thing has been so wildly implausible and tonally different from the rest of the show, coupled with a bit of character assassination last season, that it ultimately holds no emotional weight for me. At least we’re hopefully done with it for a while, though they still have to figure out how to get back to America, which is another layer of implausibility to overcome.
The two teams of junior detectives working back in Hawkins/the Upside Down is a treat as well. There’s parts that I still don’t like. I continue to not understand why they’re leaning so hard back into Steve/Nancy as a couple, but I’ve said my piece on that. The Upside Down looks pretty bad here much of the time, with the actors conspicuously pasted onto green screen backgrounds that breaks immersion. Dustin turns into an exposition machine at one point, which serves to set up the Vecna reveal more than anything happening in his corner of the story. And as clever as some of the solutions are, there’s occasionally some shortcuts taken to avoid the inevitable trial and error of communicating across dimensions that feel convenient, albeit within the realm of acceptable willing suspension of disbelief.
But there’s a lot I really like here. The dynamic of both quartets works really clicks. As lukewarm as I am on Nancy and Steve as a couple, Eddie having a heart-to-heart with Steve about how he’s an unexpectedly decent guy and that Nancy would clearly go to hell for him is the best sales pitch for it so far. Robin’s hyperfixation on the risk of rabies after Steve’s bite is also an on-point bit of fun characterization. On the other side, I’m glad they added Erica back into the mix as the younger kids try to bridge the gap between worlds and keep their stories straight.
I most appreciate the crew figuring out to go to Eddie’s trailer in order to rescue their friends. It pays off the crack in the ceiling the show’s been teasing for a while now, and there’s a crude logic to the sense that every kill from Vecna creates a breach between their worlds. The rope climbing escapade makes for a neat visual to boot.
God help me, I also enjoy the twist of Vecna going after Nancy given her guilt over what happened to Barb. We don’t really have much setup for it -- no headaches or other visions -- but maybe Vecna’s powers are stronger within the Upside Down. More than anything, I dig how it plays on the character’s history in a meaningful way. Much as Max felt guilt over what happened with Billy, Nancy feels the same about the best friend who died while she was too busy having fun to notice. Bringing the two together like that, in a way that plays on Vecna’s M.O. and a prior psychological hang-up for Nancy, is a surprise, but in a good way, finding points of harmony between past storylines and current ones in a way that works.
Overall, “volume 1” of Stranger Things’ fourth season has been a disappointment. So many of the plot threads this year have come off like wheel-spinning, table-setting, and throat-clearing. Some of the core strengths of the show remain, mostly in its characters, but you can feel the show’s creative team spinning out at times. And yet, the high points, when they pay all of that build off, are quite high. Between Max overcoming vecna at the midpoint, and the triumphs and revelations in this mid-season finale, the show can still soar when it brings everything to a climax and puts its cards on the table. I hope we see more of that in the last two episodes of the season.
[7.1/10] We’re in prime wheel-spinning mode here. Things are happening, but little of it really moves the ball.
I am so over the Russian business. Every part of it feels so inevitable. There’s some juice to Murray threatening Yuri into bringing them near the prison where Hopper’s being held. But it just seems so insane. There’s no real plan, no way to get anyone in or out, and they were all just in a plane crash. Again, this is a show where demons from another dimension threaten small towns, so I’m not exactly asking for realism. The problem is that these storylines feel like part of a different show, some weird grim spy routine that's divorced in tone and focus from everything else.
I guess they’re moving closer, finding the safehouse where Hopper holed up previously. I’m not really interested in the plan though, sine posing as Yuri and pretending ott turn over Joye and the real Yuri as prisoners comes off like an idiotic plan that shouldn’t work by any right.
I’ve also completely lost my care about Hopper in the prison. Again, this is a big Hopper speech episode, with him talking about how they’re lambs to the slaughter or the demogorgon at what turns out to be their last meal. At least he has a plan to scare it off with fire, which has some minor intrigue compared to Joyce and Murray’s scheme. But the whole thing’s a big waste.
I’m also not terribly compelled by Jason the basketball star whipping up the town into a satanic panic. I feel like we’re eventually going to get a flash forward and find out he became a politician or a televangelist or something. There’s merit to the idea of connecting these events to the real life satanic panics that hit the country around the same time and had folks casting aspersions on D&D clubs. But the whole thing is so cartoony. Granted, it was cartoony in real life too, but that just means it’s not particularly compelling in fiction when you have a bunch of strangers worried that some dumb nerds have satanic powers.
I’m also losing my patience with the rival government agent business. Seeing Lt. Sullivan torture one of Owens’ men for information makes him seem like a generic baddie. I imagine they’re setting up some grand confrontation in Ruth, Nevada where everything collides, but it’s more throat-clearing in an episode full of it.
I feel mostly the same way about the Hawkins crew finding the “snack-sized” gate to the Upside Down. So they go find it. So what? What are they supposed to do without Eleven. Nobody has any halfway decent plans, something they at least kind of acknowledge in their discussion of what to tell Eddie. Sure, they’re gathering clues, which is a good thing, but who are they going to tell? What are they going to do with this information. There’s nothing really driving them, no target to hit, so it comes off aimless.
Plus good lord, why are we throwing Nancy and Steve back together. I’ve said my piece, bu the show’s leaning hard into it at this point, and spare me. The Nancy, Jonathan, Steve love triangle was bad in season 1, and it’s bad now. I won’t deny that the dynamic of the rest of the group can be a lot of fun -- Dustin in particular steals the show every time -- but these generally smart kids seem to be acting like idiots, just poking around at various demonic things without any precautions or thought process. We’ll see if Steve’s “Why don’t I poke at that evil-looking red thing?” strategy results in anything other than him being choked to death by demon bats.
I’m somewhat compelled by the Eleven material still, but even there, my interest is waning. We get it. Eleven’s powers can be spurred by the opposite of her “happy thought”. Her anger comes out especially when being bullied because she was bullied in her abusive “gifted” program. There was an original patient, one the assistant orderly tells her about and then gets tased for sharing the info. The prelude to the terrible event we witnessed in the first episode is starting to drag out, and while some of the hints we get are intriguing, everyone involved in this both past and present seems terrible, and it’s time to pull the trigger on whatever the point is.
Overall, this is all still fairly watchable, but lacks the excitement or momentum of prior seasons of the show. Maybe it’s just the overstuffed runtimes, or the surfeit of storylines at play, but everything feels more scattered, uninvolving, or pointless.
EDIT: I forgot about Mike and company linking up with Susie, which shows you about how important it is. I like getting a chance to see a deeper glimpse of Susie’s home life, and there’s something about Argyle and Eden’s instant obsession with one another that's oddly endearing. But overall, this is another piece-moving interlude in the story that functionally adds one more link in the chain for Mike’s crew helping Eleven, but doesn’t do much beyond that.
[6.9/10] Pretty weak stuff. Most of the storylines here were fine-ish, but none of them were out-and-out good.
I don’t know where they’re going with Eleven. I am real reticent about them bringing back “Papa”. I know we never saw a body, which means nothing’s for sure in genre stories, but it still feels like a cheat for him to be back. More than that, they presented him as an abusive parent, and yet are hinting that he at least sort of has Eleven’s interests at heart? It makes me uncomfortable. I’m not averse to moral ambiguity in characters or stories, but I’m leery about where they’re going with this.
To the point, I like the idea that Owens isn’t necessarily the pure-hearted guy we thought. The notion that he seems amiable and avuncular, but is actually turning Eleven over to the same group of people who hurt her originally is an interesting one. But I’m not sure they’re going that way, and he’s still worried about her health and safety during the new “training” so who knows.
All of that said, I’m intrigued by what they’re actually doing with Eleven. We’ve seen her power come from a sense of protection, love, and even anger before. But this suggests it can come from a downright murderous rage. We saw hints of this sort of thing, a connection to her powers, with her escapades with her “lost sister”. But there’s emotional depths to plumb if this is what makes her a “superhero” again.
But everything else is pretty weak. The junior detectives in Hawkins figure out that Vecna is skulking around the Creels’ old house, which...duh? It seemed pretty obvious, the point that I assumed the house had been torn down and replaced with the trailer park. There’s not much to glean from the gang doing a haunted house experience.
They continue to gesture toward putting Steve and Nancy back together, which bleh. They also gesture to putting Max and Lucas back together, which I’m on board with. And the meta-ish back and forth between Steve and Dustin continues to be gold. But otherwise, it’s a bunch of cheap, standard scares, and some more arachnid imagery that suggests Vecna is luring victims into his web and feeding on them like a spider does to a fly. It’s all fine, but nothing special.
There’s nothing special about Jason and the basketball jerks pursuing Eddie either. We get another kill, but beyond that, this whole subplot is treading water, literally in Jason’s case. They know that Lucas is a traitor, and they’ve scared Eddie out of his hiding place, but for the most part this is all table-setting.
The California contingent isn’t much better off. Again, they’re mostly in an interstitial phase, burying the agent who helped them and finding a pretty basic clue. They lay it on pretty thick with Will’s comments to Mike about it being hard to tell someone how you feel for fear they won’t understand. The double meaning, of Mike being hesitant to say “I love you”, and Will being hesitant to express his feelings for Mike, is good storytelling though. And I’m interested to see them deciding to link up with Dustin’s girlfriend Susie to take advantage of her hacking skills, which at least adds a new element to the mix.
But the worst material in this one is the Russia/Alaska business. I figure this is supposed to be Hopper’s big episode, where he gives the grand dramatic dialogue delivering heretofore unknown backstory and grim introspection. Unfortunately, his “I am the curse” speech comes off flat and unmoving, despite using the power of montage and other TV tricks to try to make us feel something. Hopper and David Harbour were some of my favorite parts of the show in its early seasons, and I don’t know how this season has managed to drain the life out of both.
Somehow, though, it’s better than Joyce and Murray somehow managing to subdue Yuri the smuggler and successfully crash land a prop plane using only peanut butter jars and karate. Don’t get me wrong, it’s amusing to see Murray deploy his teenager taekwondo on his Russian kidnapper. But even for a show that’s always had a supernatural bent, this feels cartoony and implausible, like a cheap action movie, rather than the relatively down-to-earth take on creatures from another dimension invading a small town that Stranger Things started as. Now we’re getting into hand-to-hand combat with foreign smugglers in rocking prop planes and successfully landing them in the middle of the forest. It’s just too much.
Overall, this follows up the best episode of the season with the weakest, which is still perfectly watchable, but makes a lot of head scratch-worthy choices.
[8.3/10] Easily the best episode of the season. Holy hell Sadie Sink. “Dear Billy” puts a lot on her shoulders. She has to convey the quiet resignation of believing in your own death and writing letters to loved ones. She has to communicate the harrowing emotion of spilling out her feelings to her dead stepbrother and the guilt and trauma she's experienced from his death. She has to sell the abject terror whe stuck in the Upside Dwon and caught up in Vecna’s trap. And most of alal, she has to give off the air of determination and buoying affirmation that comes from the friends who care about her. It is an extraordinary performance, and Sink is up to the considerable challenge.
This is also a great outing for the editors and director Shawn Levy. There’s two outstanding set pieces in this one. The first is, of course, Max’s. The creative staging of Max’s experiences while under Vecna’s spell brings home the emotional hardship and desperation of what she’s going through. The CGI work remains a little unconvincing, but having Sink’s performance helps. The imagery itself is skin-crawling. And splicing together scenes where Vecna tries to convince her that there's no hope, while she is brought back from the brink by her good memories with her friends, is powerful and even moving.
The episode creates real tension in the ticking clock that is Max’s seemingly impending doom. Rule of three -- so we’ve already seen Chrissy and Fred bite it. That let’s the audience know what’s in store, while also making it extra meaningful when Max goes right up tot he edge of succumbing like they did, only to be brought back from the edge by the love of her friends. I’ not as enthralled at the musical choice as others have been (sorry, not an 1980s music fan), but the imagery of her breaking free, running toward that glimpse of light, and then being embraced by her friends when they beat this thing is one of the most earned moments in the show.
They partly earn it because the solution doesn't come by fiat. As tired as I am of Nancy, the show makes hay out of her and Robin’s trip to the insane asylum to talk to Victor Creel (Robert Englund himself!). Robin gets a win as it’s her improvisation that convinces the warden and gets them an audience with Creel. But Creel himself steals the scene, with a flashback to the original haunting in the 1950s. It has a House on Haunted Hill vibe of an idyllic family torn apart by a supernatural evil. And again, the director and editors hit some familiar tropes but deliver them in style, to where you feel for Creel and recoil at the abject horrors he and his wife and children experienced through all of this.
The girls’ interaction with him isn’t just to deliver the episode’s scares. They get a crucial bit of information when he talks about the song on the radio and hums a tune of an “angel.” They put two and two together when the warden talks about music reaching them, and it’s that hint that helps Dustin and company play Max’ sfavorite song and give her a lifeline out of Vecna’s curse.
Not to get highfalutin, but it works at both a textual and thematic level. I appreciate that the show earns the solution to the problem du jour. It takes real investigation and guile from Nancy and Robin, and it takes them sharing the info with the rest of the junior detective squad and connecting it with knowledge about Max personally to make all this work. It also takes an emotional breakthrough. Music helps connect with us on an emotional level. It’s simplified, as this kind of pop genre show often is. But we see how, in a pit of trauma and guilt, what helps Max come up for air is knowing and remembering the people who care about ehr, the good times they had and can have again. It’s uplifting and cathartic, and something that builds on what the show’s built to this point.
I’ll also say this for the episode. It has focus in a way few other episodes this season have. There are four storylines, two of which feed into one another fairly directly, and it makes the story of the episode fele less scattered.
It also gives us the other big set piece and impressive sequence of this installment. Watching Mike, Will, and Jonathan escape from the Byers house while military commandos bear down on them was almost as terrifying as Max’s nightmare. Levy and company smartly do sot of it long takes which helps maintain the sense of panic and terror as bad dudes with big guns attack them at every turn. There’s even a hitn of comedy as we cut between that terror-inducing assault on a suburban home and Argyle jamming away to “Pass the Dutchie”. This part of a crew is mainly in a holding pattern at the moment, but they’re thrust into some of the best action f o the season so far.
I do appreciate the quiet moment between Mike and Will. It still seems like things are headed for disaster there, with Will likely acting on his crush and being rebuffed. But I do appreciate Mike acknowledging that it’s been a weird year and he’s neglected his friend. Will’s touched by that, even inspired by it, and grabs the painting he made for his onetime best bud. Seeing them reconcile, and hearing Mike admit what went wrong and resolve to work together, is really heartening.
That just leaves the Jyoce/Murray/Hopper stuff. It’s still not great, but it’s the best it’s been this season. The machinations of them getting to Alaska and Hopper reaching them isn’t particularly interesting. Plus Yuri is very annoying even if he’s supposed to be. But there’s a couple of things that put this one over the top.
First, I love the scene where Hopper makes it to the church. It’s a hope spot, and after all he's suffered, including an improbable fight where he takes down two guards despite malnutrition and injury, it’s also cathartic to see him get his win. Eating real peanut butter, wrapping up in real blankets, if only for a moment comes with a sense of relief after all the totrute we’ve witnessed.
Ironically though, I also appreciate that this all goes terribly wrong. It seemed like so much of this storyline was inevitable. Despite the ridiculous odds, everyone succeeds because they’re main characters. Instead, throwing us the curve ball that Yuri sells everyone out,, Joyce and murray get drugged so they can be turned over to the KGB, and Hopper gets recaught b y his captors after coming so close, shows some chutzpah and a willingness to challenge the good guys in a meaningful way that we haven’t seen from this corner of the season s o far.
Overall, this is far and away the best outing of season 4, and Sadie Sink leads the way with a very impressive eperformance that, frankly, had to be impressive to soar this high given how much the script places on her.
[7.5/10] Poor Eleven. She’s easily the strongest character this season, and the one most worth investing in, and season 4 puts her through a parade of horribles. I’m not complaining exactly. Seeing characters suffer makes their ultimate triumphs more meaningful, but it’s hard to watch at places.
Mike is...not as his best here. I want to be sympathetic to the kid. What he experienced with Eleven would be upsetting, especially if you’ve been away from someone for a while. But we, the audience, see what she’s been going through, so it’s hard to see her receive something less than total support than one of the people she cares most about.
At the same time though, the “You won’t say you love me!” bit between the two of them is a little much. I get that they need some place to go with this relationship, but it’s not crazy for fifteen-year-olds not to say the L-word. That said, it’s also totally normal for fifteen-year-olds to flip out about who is or isn’t saying the L-word, so it’s a fair storyline. More than anything, it’s another sign that Eleven is at her lowest point, feeling like the world, including her boyfriend, sees her as a monster.
Mike starts to redeem himself a little, reassuring Eleven, promising her he’ll make things right when she gets arrested, and chasing after her when she gets hauled away to juvie. But he also contributes to her complex. When she feels like a monster, he declares her a superhero. She responds “not anymore”. She feels less-than having lost her powers, and it makes her more likely to go through whatever procedures Sam Owens has come up with to restore them, since she’s under the misimpression that it’s where her value comes from.
It’s sad to see a good kid in a tough situation treated harshly and eventually railroaded by the police. Again, the audience knows what Eleven’s been through, which makes it extra difficult to watch them arrest a fifteen-year-old and treat her like a wanton criminal. There’s some not so subtle subtext to the treatment she receives, and it makes you feel extra.
At the same time, there’s great relief when Sam Owens shows up to de facto rescue her from the ordeal. Paul Reiser is so good here. He strikes the tone of convivial warmth, with a side dish of potentially shady government guy. He has instant credibility as an ally, and he’s the right mouthpiece to puff up the threat of Vecna and the importance to getting Eleven back to full strength to be able to fight it and help save the world again. It’s a little too convenient that he has a method to bring her powers back, but you’re glad he finds Eleven if the end, even if it means she has to leave her friends behind for now, and risk leaving them behind forever.
Nothing else in the episode is quite to that level, but there’s more subplots worth a damn here than in the last episode. Jason the basketball star is still a walking cartoon character, but I like Lucas’ dilemma. He wants to be part of the cool kids, and do what it takes to fit in, but also to protect his friends. That means walking an awkward line, trying to warn his friends in advance, and play both sides when he’s not entirely sure where his loyalties lie. The shtick with Jason and company roughing people up is meh, but Lucas’ discomfort with his new running buddies, mixed with the urgency of what’s going on, is a good note for him.
I’m less up on the junior detective routine this week. There’s definitely a raising of the stakes with the signs that Vecna is after Max, with the same clock imagery. And I appreciate that we get some more details or at least hints about what’s going on. Victor Kreel isn’t the killer himself, but rather one of its victims. Vecna is apparently feeding on people who’ve experienced some kind of guilt or trauma. And there’s a particular resonance to Kreel’s house, which he thought was haunted, and has some kind of duplicate in the Upside Down. I’m better the house was knocked down and the trailer park built in its place.
But the ways we get these details is less than inspired. Max plying her school counselor for information is fine, but not particularly exciting. Robin continues to be a fun character, talking about her lack of filter and having the smarts to check the Weekly World News equivalent for historical info about Kreel. But she gets saddled with Nancy who’s continued her transformation into a dull, proto-Rory Gilmore type.
Plus, god help me, I really hope that all of this Nancy/Jonathan drama, followed by Steve still hunting fruitlessly for The One, does not turn into a Steve/Nancy reunion. Their shtick was some of the worst parts of the first season, and Steve is much better playing off the other characters than off Nancy. To the point, his and Dustin’s conversation about this whole entanglement is fantastic, is better than any further love triangle B.S.
Speaking of B.S., the Hopper, Joyce, and Murray portion of the show continues to feel like we’re marching in place. I’ll give their subplot this much -- the scene where Hopper pulls his shackles off his broken foot is legitimately wince inducing, and shows what Hop is suffering to make this work. We also learn the Russian guard’s motivation for colluding with him -- he just wants the cash. It’s not very exciting or interesting, but it is at least plausible.
All we get from Joyce and Murray is some tepid airplane humor. Though Murray’s lame excuses for why he happens to be in California and making risotto for the Byers family are a solid laugh. And his reactions to the back-and-forth at the dinner table are a highlight.
Otherwise, I’m still a little underwhelmed by Vecna, if only because the CGI and design work on him comes off a bit less-than-convincing. And the opposing military guy who’s convinced that Eleven is causing the deaths in Hawkins rather than their best chance to stop them comes off as fairly generic in the scenes where he’s hassling Dr. Owens.
Overall, the Eleven material continues to carry the season, and is good enough to boost this episode, but the other material doesn’t rise much above “pretty good” territory.
[7.3/10] Let’s start with the stuff I care about. It’s nice to see Mike and Eleven reunited. The sweetness of their reunion, and Eleven wanting to impress Mike, and the general tenor of the two characters who’ve been separated for months getting to be together again is heartwarming and infectious.
But I also appreciate where it goes wrong. One avenue of problems is Will, who feels like a third wheel, is miffed at how Mike doesn’t seem particularly invested or excited to see him, and is bothered by how Eleven’s lying to Mike. The subtext is that Will has an out-and-out crush on Mike. (The “What about us?” scene wasn’t particularly subtle.) And that's an interesting angle on the teenage love triangle you don’t see very often. Will working out his feelings in real time, in an era when there would be very little acceptance for that sort of thing, has lots of potential. (See also: Robin’s storyline.)
The other avenue is, of course, Angela. I’m not a fan of Angela, and I don’t just mean because she’s utterly horrible to poor Eleven. It’s because she’s cartoonish levels of mean, and the rest of her friends and every kid seems to be in on it. On’ get me wrong, kids can be awful to one another, but this seems too carticatured and absurd in its terribleness, to the point that it feels cheap and manipulative.
And yet, Millie Bobby Brown is a good enough young actress to make it work. You cannot help but feel for her, in the distance between the perfect day she’d planned with Mike, to the horrible humiliation that Angela and her goons inflict on her. It’s easy to pity and sympathize with her, and even to feel righteous anger on her behalf.
That's the cinch for when she socks Angela with a roller skate. On the one hand, it’s cathartic, given how craven Angela acted, going so far as to make fun of the fact that Eleven’s father is dead. On the other, it’s horrifying to see an act of physical violence that results in blood pouring down a young woman’s face, replete with flashbacks to Eleven’s murderous rampage from when she was a young child. It feels like we’re building to something in all of this -- Eleven having legitimate grievances but going too far -- and I’m curious to see where it all goes.
Likewise, I’m on board with the Family Video detective crew. Steve and Robin are already a great duo, and their conversation about wishing they could merge -- to form someone who knows what they want and has the gumption to go after it -- is endearing. Dustin and Max make a good duo as well, as surivvors of previous Upisde Down nonsense who, given Max’s proximity to the murder, know that something supernatural is up. And Dustin and Steve are already a great comic team, with a dynamic as funny and solid a give and take as any in the show. So the quartet using their quips and smarts and video rental histories to track down Eddie (via one “Reefer Rick”) makes for a good crew to follow.
The scene where they find Eddie is solid as well. The detective work checks out, and Eddie being understandably freaked by what he saw and unable to explain it in a way where any rational person would believe him is a good lead-in to the future supernatural chicanery to come.
That said, I’m not super into Vecna, or the explanation for him. I know we’ve been doing “real life monsters as D&D characters” for a long time now in Stranger Things, but how they’re able to piece together that the guy who killed Chrissy is an undead “dark wizard” laying curses on people seems too big of a leap.
Speaking of which, I don’t care about Nancy and her junior journalist/detective routine. She’s just not an interesting character, and her implausibly poking around the murder scene and talking to witnesses and bystanders feels like it’s only able to happen because the plot needs it too. We find out from Eddie’s uncle that Vecna is, potentially, some incarnation of a guy who killed his family years and years ago, adding to the Freddy Krueger vibes of the piece.
His latest kill is Nancy’s nerdy managing editor, Fred. And the scares that lead up to it are fine. The idea of a kid who was in a car accident and ran and becomes consumed by guilt is alright. But after Chrissy, the novelty has already worn off a bit, and we barely know Fred, so it’s tough to be too shattered by it. The actual death remains unnerving, with cracked bones, sunken eyes, and a body collapsing in a heap. But ghouls yelling “murderer!” and corpses in graves is pretty standard stuff.
I also don’t give a damn about Jonathan fretting over his relationship with Nancy. Sure, there’s something to the idea that he doesn’t want to repeat the cycle of his parents, and also doesn’t want to leave his mom and brother behind after all they’ve been through. But it’s flat teenage drama with nothing particularly novel or interesting about it. The only decent part is Argyle calling him out for lying and doing the “slow motion” break-up routine. A big meh.
I’m also come-see come-saw about the Satanic panic/D&D thing with the basketball star kid. It’s good for Stranger Things to play on real life hysterias, particularly when it overlaps with actual dark supernatural things occurring. But as with Eleven and Angela, the execution is too cartoony to really make an impact. I do appreciate that Jason seems genuinely broken up by his girlfriend’s death, but it’s still a pretty cheesy subplot so far.
Last but not least, I’m not nearly as invested in the Joyce/Murray/Hopper business as I could be. We’re moving slow and steady on Joyce and Murray following the trail to Hop. Their actual interactions are amusing enough, but we’re two episodes in, and their misadventures are already dragging, which isn’t a good sign.
As for Hopper, it’s all teases at the moment. It’s pretty cheap that they faked out his death, even if they already hinted at it at the end of last season. The torture scenes aren’t pleasant, but like a fair amount else in this episode, also don’t feel real enough to move you. The production design, costumers, and make-up team do a stellar job, and David Harbour continues to perform well. We just don’t really know what anybody wants from Hopper or what the point of this is, so it comes off like wheel-spinning before an inevitable reunion. It’s good that they want to try to earn what is effectively bringing back someone from the dead, showing how much crap they have to go through before it happens, but the crap isn’t particularly interesting so far.
That's where I am with “Vecna’s Curse.” Some material here is worth holding onto. But a lot of it, however well intentioned, isn’t real or interesting enough to care about.
The Orville is finally established enough to start referencing lore created by previous episodes. This episode is an unexpected followup to another very good story from the first season. And in typical Orville fashion, it takes a very old and weathered collection of story tropes and gives them a fresh spin with a unique resolution. A reveal that threw me completely off the scent right up until they out and said what was actually happening and why. I got conned just as hard as everyone else, and it was very satisfying. I'm very interested to see the impact the Valdonis have on the Orville Universe. They seem like a much less antagonistic Q-like race that still might cause trouble with their indifference to less-evolved species.
Bortus' blank stare at the kid talking about TikTok and Instagram was the funniest part of this episode. Kelly clocking a flight attendant being a close second.
I loved the irony of Ed being told he was being deceived... by a fake version of Issac as part of an even larger deception.
The shot of the Kaylon drone staring into the bridge was amazing. I briefly thought it was intentional, very Cylon-like behavior.
The only thing I didn't like about this episode is that it didn't push the overarching story forward, even Shadow Realms involved the growing alliance with the Krill. There are only 10 precious episodes in this season. I'm perfectly fine with episodic content as long as the world of The Orville grows as much as possible... just in case.
Another dense episode. This episode is divided into 4 storylines. The primary tracks Margo and her unrequited love with Russian counterpart Sergei. Their chemistry has always fascinated me. Two loners who share the same dreams, but separated by geopolitical conflicts. Her story here reminded me of Sofia Coppola's seminal Lost in Translation, driven by wordless expressions. Their mild encounters gradually amp up the stake with each time jump until everything is revealed and there's no turning back but to go "all in."
The second storyline is Aleida, who is groomed to be Margo's replacement. Unlike Margo, she has a husband and kid, and her dad. But her life is at NASA, where she spends 18 hours, completely oblivious to problems at home. Margo is her paternal role model figure with whom she feels more intensely connected than anyone, just as Margo was once deeply connected to Wernher Von Braun. In the later 2 year time jump, we see that she has risen to Margo's former role. But her personal cost is not yet revealed. She has undoubtably gone "all in" on NASA.
The third storyline tracks Danny, who has lived under the shadows of his heroic astronaut parents, Gordo and Tracy. Largely neglected by his busy and distracted parents, he longed for their approvals, always closely following their footsteps. His paternal relationship and approval came from Karen, with whom he eventually develops Oedipus complex. Her eventual rejection causes him to turn to alcohol and womanizing, mirroring his dad's. By the end of this episode, he goes "all in."
The last storyline follows Ed. He is the true American hero archetype, with a string of one impressive achievement after another. But his extraordinary highs in space are always followed by the emptiness of his personal life on earth. On this episode, he is again driven by the ambition to be the first, as he believes the feat would solve all of his (and Danny's) problems. It would certainly distract his personal demons for the time being. So he also goes "all in" sitting on his Star Trek-like captain's chair as he smirks "here we go, kid" to his co-pilot Danny.
The mission to Mars is on and there's no turning back.
[8.1/10] What must it feel like, to fail so profoundly? When we meet Obi-Wan in A New Hope, he is wizened, wily, even a touch nostalgic, with a twinkle in his eye. George Lucas hadn't fully sketched out his backstory, so the man we encountered when Alec Guiness donned the robe and laser sword bore no mark from an order destroyed and a brother lost.
But Ewan McGregor’s version of Kenobi does. He is the afterimage of Revenge of the Sith, the man who believed in something, who took on a role of incredible importance, and watched it all crumble into dust and blood on his watch. The strongest choice in the first hour of the show that bears the old wizard’s name, is to make him a broken man.
The Inquisitors lay it out for us in the first scene. The Jedi hunt themselves because they cannot help but show compassion, and their altruism leaves a trail. It’s reasonable to ask how a Jedi as prominent as Obi-Wan (who only bothered to change his first name, mind you) stayed hidden for a decade. This series presents an answer -- because he gave up all the things that marked him as a Jedi. He gave up helping. He gave up caring.
A taskmaster hassles workers who complain about their unfair wages, and Obi-Wan starts as though to speak up for the man unjustly denied, but ultimately keeps his head down. A one-time padawan comes to him for help, and Obi-Wan tells him that is time to give up and move on, only to find him strung up in the streets as a warning. None other than the Organas reach out to him, asking him to find the kidnapped daughter of Kenobi’s former apprentice, and even then, he refuses to acquiesce, telling them, simply, that it’s been a long time, and he isn’t the man he used to be.
The sense is all of this is not of a man who won’t, but feels that he can’t. This version of Kenobi doesn’t strike you as someone who doesn’t care, or who wouldn’t help if he thought it might do any good. He cuts the image of someone who believes that he is a failure, that everything he tried to accomplish fell to ruin, that given how it all went to hell, no one should trust him, or want him to do anything on their behalf. He has his duty, and his meager existence, and it’s all he can stomach.
Thank god, then, for McGregor. He gave the best performance in the Prequels (with his only major competition being Ian McDiarmid’s Palpatine), and proves again why he was the right man for the job here. Obi-Wan has very few lines in this opening episode: a warm but terse thank you, a handful of denials, and amusing conversation with a Jawa that shows some of that old twinkle. But most of the hour is spent in the spaces of what “Old Ben” doesn’t say, the actions he doesn’t take, the emotions he’d dare not vocalize.
McGregor sells the absolute pain in every moment and act of Obi-Wan’s life. His look of regret, of resignation, of quiet self-loathing and unworthiness in each moment fills the screen. In poetic fashion, he matches the presence of Mark Hamill’s Luke in The Last Jedi, a fallen monk convinced of his order’s brokenness and obsolescence. The same sense of an open wound personified pervades McGregor’s return to the role for the first time in seventeen years.
But he’s not alone. The first part of the mini-series also introduces the Third Sister, a member of the Inquisitorius who’s almost single-minded in her pursuit of Kenobi. Her harsh methods of intimidating and insistence on chasing this ghost earn her the rebukes of the Fifth Brother and even the Grand Inquisitor himself. She is the dastard here, lopping off hands, threatening people’s families, and orchestrating a kidnapping of the child of Kenobi’s old ally. She’s the one who acts to smoke him out, letting the compassion provide the trail she needs.
And that part’s all fine. The story makes sense, both as a way for a committed antagonist to track down our hero and as something to spur the self-excommunicated Kenobi to return to action. But right now her part of the story feels more like plot mechanics than anything infused with character. All we get is a brief “To get what I’m owed” explanation for her motivation, and with this first outing, Moses Ingram is just okay in the role. In brief, this is a necessary but generic villain in the early going.
Thankfully, the Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries has a surprise in tow -- time spent with young Leia Organa. Vivien Lyra Blair is a revelation in the role, balancing out decades of unavailing child acting in Star Wars. Her confident, even confrontational bent calls to mind Lady Mormont of Game of Thrones. Without devolving into fanservice, the show conveys the sense in which her spunk, her defiance, her willingness to take chances that we saw in the Original Trilogy, has its roots in her childhood.
It also has its roots in her family. This is a part of the story we’ve never had much of a glimpse of before. Seeing Alderaan in all its glory is a treat, but more to the point, it’s nice to have a glimpse of the life that made Leia who she is, the people that she was fighting for. The proper, occasionally disapproving, but clearly loving mother is a bit of a cliche, but their dynamic pops on screen. Even better, the inimitable Jimmy Smits reprises the role of Bail Organa, and his encouraging, understanding, a bit mischievous himself connection to his daughter provides another pillar of who this little girl would one day become.
When she confesses her insecurity over a jerky cousin’s recrimination that she’s not a “real” Organa, and her father affirms her as an Organa in every way, it warms the heart and fills in the connection between parent and child that's only been faintly alluded to until now. Seeing it in action, understanding the recalcitrant young child with an itch for adventure, not only paves the way for Carrie Fisher’s grown-up version of the famed princess, but makes for an enjoyable and endearing character to follow in the here and now.
It’s a twist, because the few hints we’ve had, not just from trailers but from the franchise’s past, suggests Obi-Wan’s focus was on Luke. It’s a bold, admirable choice to turn away from the well-trodden territory of Luke’s upbringing, and connect Kenobi and Leia in a meaningful fashion, filling in more of the unknown in the process. Even in our stop on Tatooine, hearing Uncle Owen warning off Obi-Wan from Luke, given what happened to Anakin, deepens the character’s generic, “No, don’t answer the call to adventure” reaction in Episode IV, and serves as a reminder of the thing that haunts Kenobi the most.
Beyond the character dynamics and plotting, the craft here is outstanding. Despite employing familiar settings and environment, “Part I” expands the scope of Star Wars, not just in the motley collection of sand-swept men and beasts wandering the desert, but in the constraining opulence of the Alderaanian estates. New visions like an industrial effort to carve up a giant beast in the sand, or the believable movements of an alien camel bending down to let its rider alight bring this universe to life. Appropriately, director Deborah Chow channels the Alec Guinness-starring Lawrence of Arabia with wide shots of Obi-Wan traipsing through an empty, arid landscape, conveying his loneliness and isolation in his self-sworn seclusion.
The elements aren’t all perfect. True-to-form, “Part I” includes some Prequel-esque dialogue (“What happened to you?” “You don’t go far enough”) and imagery in the form of unreal-looking buildings on Alderaan. On the other hand, what McGregor cannot convey with his piercing performance alone, Natalie Holt’s score makes the difference in emotion. Her backing music captures both the heart-pumping panic in dramatic moments like a lookback at Order 66 or Leia’s escape attempt, but more importantly the languid, hollowing moments of Kenobi’s spiritual surrender, his renouncement of all that used to drive him and move him in a lifelong devotion.
The beauty of the first hour of Obi-Wan Kenobi is the way it draws the eponymous Jedi’s first steps back toward who he used to be, and who he will one day become. This is not a one-time hero who leaps at the chance to return to action and right what went wrong. It is someone haunted by his failures, who deems himself undeserving, incapable of stepping back into those shoes. This all-important opening act of Kenobi’s return does not skimp on what pains the man, the decade of regret that left him marinating in his own mistakes, his own defeats, his greatest failures until he was worn down to a nub of a person.
What spurs him back to life is not injustice or the pleas of a member of his order. It is a personal appeal from an old friend, that only he can save Bail’s daughter, the child of his former apprentice, and the girl who will one day help save the galaxy. Obi-Wan buried his sword and with it his old life. When a vestige of that old life returns, even he cannot deny the call for long. It is not the vows Kenobi once took or the duties he swore that rouse him from his hollowed-out stupor. It is, ironically, his attachments, his compassion, his need to help those who need it most that even ten years of stewing in failure cannot fully snuff out, These are the undeniable parts of Ob-Wan that are poised to revive him, heal him, and restore him back to the man he once was, and will be again.
A potentially great film being held hostage by its PG-13 rating and its messy, all over the places screenwriting.
By PG-13 I don't simply mean its visuals/goriness, but most importantly its dialogues, themes, and storytelling it tries to raise. Let me explain.
First, the dialogues.
The film opens with murder and Batman narrating the city's anxious mood. We get a glimpse of noir in this scene, but it soon falls flat due to a very uninteresting, plain, forgettable choice of words Batman used in his narration. Mind you, this is not a jab at Pattinson - Pattinson delivered it nicely. But there is no emotion in his line of words - there is no adjectives, there is no strong feelings about how he regards the city full of its criminals.
Here's a line from the opening scene. "Two years of night has turned me to a nocturnal animal. I must choose my targets carefully. It's a big city. I can't be everywhere. But they don't know where I am. When that light hits the sky, it's not just a call. It's a warning to them. Fear... is a tool. They think I am hiding in the shadows. Watching. Waiting to strike. I am the shadows." Okay? Cool. But sounds like something from a cartoon. What does that tell us about you, Batman?
Compare this to a similar scene uttered by Rorschach in Watchmen. "The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood. And when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. All those liberals and intellectuals, smooth talkers... Beneath me, this awful city, it screams like an abattoir full of retarded children, and the night reeks of fornication and bad consciences." You can say that Rorschach is extremely edgy (he is), but from that line alone we can tell his hatred towards the city, and even more so: his perspective, his philosophy that guides him to conduct his life and do what he does.
Rorschach's choice of words is sometimes verbose, but he is always expletive and at times graphic, making it clear to the audience what kind of person he is. Batman in this film does not. His words are always very safe, very carefully chosen, which strikes as an odd contrast to Pattinson's tortured portrayal of Batman as someone with a seemingly pent up anger. His choice of words is very PG-13 so that the kids can understand what Batman is trying to convey.
And this is not only in the opening scene. Throughout the film, the dialogues are written very plainly forgettable. It almost feels like the characters are having those conversations just to move the plot forward. Like that one encounter between Batman and Catwoman/Selina when she broke into the house to steal the passport or when Selina asked to finish off the "rat". They flow very oddly unnatural, as if those conversations are written to make them "trailer-able" (and the scenes indeed do appear on the trailer).
Almost in all crucial plot points the writers feel the need to have the characters to describe what has happened, or to explictly say what they are feeling - like almost every Gordon's scene in crime scene, or Selina's scene when she's speaking to Batman. It feels like the writers feel that the actors' expression just can't cut it and the audience has to be spoonfed with dialogues; almost like they're writing for kids.
Second, the storytelling.
Despite being a film about vengeance-fueled Batman (I actually like that cool "I'm vengeance" line) we don't get to see him actually being in full "vengeance" mode. Still in the opening we see Batman punching some thugs around. That looks a little bit painful but then the thugs seem to be fit enough to run away and Batman let them be. Then in the middle of the film we see Batman does something similar to mafias. Same, he just knocked them down but there's nothing really overboard with that. Then eventually in the car chase scene with the Penguin, Batman seem to be on "full rage mode", but over... what? He was just talking to Penguin a moment ago. The car chase scene itself is a bit pointless if not only to show off the Batmobile. And Batman did nothing to the Penguin after, just a normal questioning, not even harsher than Bale's Batman did to Heath's Joker in The Dark Knight - not in "'batshit insane' cop" mode as Penguin put it.
Batman's actions look very much apprehensive and controlled. Nothing too outrageous. Again, at odds with Pattinson's portrayal that seem to be full of anger; he's supposed to be really angry but somehow he still does not let his anger take the best of him. The only one time he went a bit overboard that shocked other characters is when he kept punching a villain near the end of the film. But even then it's not because his anger; it's because he injected some kind of drug (I guess some adrenaline shot). A very safe way to drop a parent-friendly message that "drug is bad, it can change you" in a PG-13 film.
And all that supposed anger... we don't get to see why he is angry and where his anger is directed at. Compare this to Arthur Fleck in Joker where it is clear as sky why Arthur would behave the way the does in the film. I mean we know his parents' death troubled him, but it's barely even discussed, not even in brief moments with Alfred (except in one that supposedly "shocking" moment). So... where's your vengeance, Mr. Vengeance? And what the hell are you vengeancing on?
Speaking of "shocking" moment... this is about the supposed Wayne family's involvement in the city's criminal affairs that has been teased early in the film. Its revelation was very anticlimactic: the supposed motive and the way it ended up the way it is, all very childish. If the film wanted the Wayne to be a "bad person", there's a lot of bads that a billionaire can do: tax evasion, blood diamond, funding illegal arms trade, fending off unions, hell, they can even do it the way the Waynes in Joker did it: hints of sexual abuses. But no, it has to be some bloody murder again, and all for a very trivial reason of "publicity". As if the film has to make it clear to the kids: "hey this guy's bad because he killed someone!" Which COULD work if the film puts makes taking someone's life has a very serious consequence. But it just pales to the serial killing The Riddler has done.
Even more anticlimactic considering how Bruce Wayne attempted to find a resolve in this matter only takes less than a 5 minute scene! It all involves only a bit of dialogues which boils down to how Thomas Wayne has a good reason to do so. Bruce somehow is convinced with that and has a change of heart instantly, making him looks very gullible.
And of course the ending is very weak and disappointing. First, Riddler's final show directly contradicts his initial goal to expose and destroy the corrupt elites. What he did instead is making the lives of the poor more difficult, very oxymoron for someone supposed to be as smart as him.
Second, the way Batman just ended up being "vengeance brings nothing and I should save people more than hurting people" does not get enough development to have him to say that in the end. Again - where's your vengeance? And how did you come to such character development if nothing is being developed on? And let's not get to how it's a very safe take against crime and corruption that closely resembles Disney's moralistic pandering in Marvel Cinematic Universe film.
Last, the visuals.
I'm not strictly speaking about gore, though that also factors in the discussion. The film sets this up as a film about hunting down a serial killer. But the film barely shows how cruel The Riddler can be to his victims. Again, back to the opening scene: we get it, Riddler killed the guy, but it does not look painful at all as it looks Riddler just knocked him twice. The sound design is very lacking that it does not seem what The Riddler done was conducted very painfully. Riddler then threw away his murder weapon, but we barely see blood. Yet when Gordon arrived to the crime scene, he described the victim as being struck multiple times with blood all over. What?
Similarly, when Riddler forced another victim to wear a bomb in his neck. The situation got pretty tense, but when the bomb eventually blow off, we just got some very small explosion like a small barrel just exploded, not a human being! I mean I'm not saying we need a gory explosion with head chopped off like in The Boys, but it does not look like what would happen if someone's head got blown off. Similarly when another character got almost blown off by a bomb - there's no burnt scar at all.
Why the hell are they setting up those possibly gory deaths and scars if they're not going to show how severe and painful these are? At least not the result - we don't need to see blood splattered everywhere - just how painful the process is. Sound design and acting of the actors (incl. twitching, for example) would've helped a lot even we don't see the gore, like what James Franco did in The 127 Hours or Hugh Jackman in Logan. In this film there's almost no tense at all resulting from those.
I'm not saying this film is terrible.
The acting, given the limited script they had, is excellent. Pattinson did his best, so did Paul Dano (always likes him as a villain), Zoe Kravitz, and the rest. Cinematography is fantastic; the lighting, angle, everything here is very great that makes a couple of very good trailers - perhaps one could even say that the whole film trades off coherency for making the scenes "trailer-able". The music is iconic, although with an almost decent music directing. And I guess this detective Batman is a fresh breath of air.
But all that does not make the movie good as in the end it's still all over the places and very PG-13.
Especially not with the 3 hours runtime where many scenes feel like a The Walking Dead filler episode.
If you're expecting a Batman film with similar gritty, tone to The Dark Knight trilogy or Joker, this film is not for you. But if you only want a live-action cartoon like pre-Nolan Batmans or The Long Halloween detective-style film, well, I guess you can be satisfied with this one.
Well, obviously the parents have never had a talk with their kids about "stranger danger", but then, in the case of Ethan and Victor, creeps of a feather flock together, even if, in a way, they are both innocently creepy. Daddy Jim is obviously alarmed that Victor may be grooming his son for some bad touching, but, in reality, he is, (and apparently always has been) trying to figure out what the hell is going on, even if he can't articulate it to the normies. As the OG resident number one of the newly christened "Monsterville", just how long was his only companion the day-walker ghost boy, and his dog who, I have a feeling are key to solving the mystery. Even as a kid Victor was "different", which, in the end, may have been the reason he survived, along with hiding in the storm(?) cellar. (why didn't anyone else hide?)
Teen girls gonna teen, but, I have a feeling Sara really HAS made a mistake, especially if no one at the colony house respects boundaries. That tossed off "we share EVERYTHING here" remark came off to me as ominous, even more so with Fatima and Boyd's son so eager to share sleeping quarters. The people in there have separated into tribes, the Colony House folks seeming like those who just want to isolate in a herd for some imagined protection from the monsters. The town folks seem to be the ones pulling most of the weight with Boyd and Kenny trying to hold it all together, Father Khatri playing Pontius Pilot, while dispersing platitudes and holy water. Jade is the wild card who will either figure it out, of be the next one to get mercked.
Hmmm, teleporting trees, and, now it appears that everyone there was ALSO teleported from different parts of the country after they came upon a downed tree in the road...., gotta mean something. But, who does the choosing, and WHY? Also, the space, according to Victor, is tightening like the proverbial noose that had a baby with the frogs in a pot of water sitting on the stove.
Better to have several graves and not need them, than to need several graves and not have them hey Victor?
This movie is pretty bad. Not because of the concept or the leads or anything of the sort. Because of the script and directing.
I want to state that all the lead actresses here are fantastic and really held the film together. They really made me want more out of this despite it falling apart on the story side. I like their chemistry and the emotion they brought to the screen.
I did not however enjoy the predictable plot and stupid writing that they gave these characters. It hurts how much the script brought this movie down. They did not give valid reasons for certain things that I felt could have used more explanation, and instead wasted the exposition on needless things in the latter half of the film. They could have resolved this movie halfway but didn't because... I don't know, they didn't tell me why they couldn't. No explanations for the things that matter in the plot.
The shakey-cam too in the action scenes was terribly uncomfortable to watch. It gets some good wide shots of the action, but it cuts way too soon to take it in. There were some elements of the fights I liked but just not as many to make a good action/spy film. Not to mention the fact that the ending is so bad, not because it builds to another film. But because it leaves me questioning the motives of the characters.
Overall, this film is a mess from behind the camera, because I wanted more of this team. But I doubt we will get to see them again from this poor first attempt.
3/10
[8.3/10] We live in an age where anything you can imagine may be conjured up through the magic of CGI and green screen technology. There’s no place our heroes can’t visit, no foe they can’t fight, and no images that can’t be summoned in the process. By dint of spectacle alone, modern films should be able to awe, thrill, and grip us more than anything that predates such technological innovations.
And yet, the quiet miracle of Alfred Hitchcock’s filmography is that he can make the comparatively mundane feel like the most captivating, ominous, seat-gripping thing in the world. Strangers on a Train is not exactly a down-to-earth story. It involves a murder, and a mentally unbalanced homicidal stalker, and a minor celebrity caught in a web of bad luck and bad choices.
Despite that, though, it’s a lower tempo movie more often than not, more apt to string the audience along with the looming possibility of things going terribly wrong than pull the trigger on the fireworks. The movie lives in the tension of protagonist Guy Haines realizing a murder’s been committed in his name, fearing the consequences of who might get to him first: Bruno Antony or the law. The movie spends most of its runtime with the noose slowly tightening, more and more little things going wrong, until the release of all that stress in the film’s climax is as much a relief as it is cathartic.
What’s striking is how Hitchcock achieves that tension and transposes it onto so many seemingly prosaic activities. The juxtaposition of one man trying to finish a tennis match and another trying to fish a lighter out of a storm drain is the most suspenseful thing in the world when each is racing against time to pin a murder on the other. The mere presence of an unwanted visitor leering in the distance from the Jefferson Memorial chills the blood. And a runaway carousel ride at a local carnival has more cinematic electricity than all the CGI explosion-fests the world over.
It’s a cliché at this point to call Hitchcock the master of suspense. Still, the honorific is earned not just by the results on the screen, but by what common tools he uses to make them. The drama here is human, and the stakes are personal rather than earth-shaking, which allows the threats and possible calamities to be human-sized too. By keeping that focus on the small, the intrusions of the threatening and ominous feel that much larger, that much more likely to make you dig your fingers into the armrest, than stories and foes that are nominally bigger and scarier.
And there are few cinematic villains scarier than Bruno Antony. It’s a fantastic performance from Robert Walker who commands the screen every time he steps into the frame. What makes Bruno so terrifying is, again, the unremarkableness of him. Sure, he’s mentally unwell, having cooked up this famed “criss-cross” scheme and harboring no shortage of mommy and daddy issues. But he’s also someone who can pass, at least briefly, in polite company, whom you wouldn’t blink twice at if you walked by him on the street, who is a figure that would fade into the woodwork if you didn’t know what to look for.
Yet, he’s utterly terrifying. Hitchcock and director of photography Robert Burks see to that. Antony’s placid demeanor turns utterly menacing when he’s the only one staring amid a crowd of head-bobbers watching a tennis ball lobbed back and forth. He moves like a shark through a local carnival, pursuing Guy’s wife with an unnerving smile and steady gait. His run-of-the-mill small talk turns bizarre and disturbing if you let him get wound up long enough. A simple look from him sends Guy’s would-be sister-in-law into a panic. The superficially normal man spooks like a phantom when he’s framed in shadow or leans out of the darkness. The film’s grandest achievement may be turning a clever but simple man into an abjectly frightening cinematic creation.
That said, at the risk of being deemed one of Hitchcock’s hated “plausibles” -- people who question when a movie strays too far from reality -- there’s elements of Strangers on a Train that strain credulity.
The movie handwaves away the possibility that the two gentlemen who were with Guy’s wife at the carnival when she was killed would be treated as suspects. Guy’s girlfriend and her family advise him to act like everything’s normal despite the fact that the public would probably expect him to be at least a little emotional given the news of his wife’s demise, even if their relations were strained. And the police officer at the end seems pretty blasé about not searching Bruno for the engraved lighter that might at least partly exonerate Guy simply because Bruno claims he doesn’t have it.
Maybe there’s a cultural disconnect from American society now versus how these things might have been treated seventy years ago, but suffice it to say, they strike the modern viewer as profoundly odd reactions to what is admittedly a profoundly odd situation.
Regardless, that’s part of the unwitting charm of Strangers on a Train. For such a tightly-wound film, it has these funny little human moments that make it feel real. Amid Hitchcock’s trademark brilliant compositions and framings, built to let the images tell the story and build the tension, he injects these small interludes that serve no purpose but wonderful texture.
A hayseed bystander pesters Bruno and responds to a kiss off with, “So I’m not educated.” The police commandeer an old dowager’s car only to find she’s thrilled to be part of such drama. A small boy on the runaway carousel decides to interject himself into the struggle between Guy and Bruno like it’s a playground scuffle. Amid a high concept story, these little doses of well-observed reality and humor bring it home.
It’s in keeping with the way all this cinematic anxiety laid bare, all these tense moments stacked on top of one another, spin out from such humble beginnings. Bruno experiences a raft of good luck, running into a person famous enough that he can know the man’s troubles, with the time and resources to pursue his dreadful plan, and have enough things break in his favor, like the lack of a reliable alibi for his counterpart, to give him leverage.
And the reverse is true for Guy. From the simple act of running into one weirdo in a train car, his whole life is upended and nearly ruined. Words not meant seriously but spoken in anger tie him to the crime. A forgotten lighter gives his foil the chance to plant evidence. A fellow passenger’s intoxication deprives him of his alibi. So much goes wrong for Guy, that the viewer wonders what they would do in his situation, forced into a scenario where he’s innocent but cannot help but seem guilty to a neutral observer.
That central underlying tension -- between truth and falsity, between what really happened and what others would believe, between assauging and dangerous man and confronting him whatever the consequences -- fuels the film. Strangers on the Train is an unsettling take on the “For Want of a Nail” story, where one accidental shoe scuff leads to multiple deaths, veritable blackmail, and several more lives hanging in the balance.
Guy learns his lesson by the end of the movie, but it’s a lesson for filmmakers writ large at the same time. Sometimes the most terrifying, tense, and thrilling things emerge from the smallest sources. It’s a tribute to Hittcock’s virtuosity, and his team’s superlative efforts in an age before computer-generated sorcery, that they could make a chance meeting on the railway, and the sparks and consequences that unspooled from two distinctive but recognizable men, loom as large as anything their successors would awe audiences with half a century down the line.
After seeing several people on SM recommend that it be seen in Spanish if possible, I waited until I could find a theater nearby that was showing it. I am estatic that I saw it in Spanish. It was an amazing treat to see it in the language that the characters would have spoken. The spanish language voice actors are all Mexican, giving the film it's final seal of authenticity that the english language is missing (though this is not a negative critique of the english language cast, but rather an extra treat of the spanish language version).
The film is a heartfelt tribute to the tradition of The Day of the Dead, part of the cultural heritage of Mexico and it's indigenous roots. The film shows the time and care the producers, writers and director took in staying true to and understanding this celebration as observed in Mexico, from the offerings to the dead, the significance of the vibrant marigolds, and the love and gathering with our ancestors and family.
Yes, Coco follows the tradition of all Pixar movies, with a focus on love, family and friendship. The difference this time is that it places Mexico, its culture and its people, at the center of the story.
