Alex Garland, the man behind Ex Machina and Annihilation has done it again. Floored by the first two episodes. The man creates art.
Honest do not know what has happened to this show! First and Second season were decent .. but the third was dire, the new fourth season seems to be following in the same footsteps! Utter twaddle and a robot dog .. I mean .. I think i'm out.
Better than expected. Nevertheless the best thing to say about discovery is that it brought SNW.
I went into Baby Reindeer not knowing anything except it was about a guy who has a stalker. It was an emotionally challenging watch. I feel like the audience was supposed to sympathize with Martha but I couldn't. She was just too unhinged.
For people who don't like the show, I would give it to episode 4, when the reason Donny is making poor decisions becomes clear by this episode.
I wish they'd stop advertising shows like this as 'dark comedies' because I bet a lot of people aren't prepared for how dark it will actually be. Also, Baby Reindeer is not a documentary! This is a work of fiction based on real events! To what degree? We don't know. We don't actually know what really happened, that's between the author and Martha.
[9.5/10] They got me. They really did. I believed that Saul would do it, that he would find a way to lie, cheat, and steal out of suffering any real consequences for all the pain and losses he is responsible for. I believed that he would trade in Kim's freedom and chance to make a clean break after baring her soul in exchange for a damn pint of ice cream. I have long clocked Better Call Saul as a tragedy, about a man who could have been good, and yet, through both circumstance and choice, lists inexorably toward becoming a terrible, arguably evil person. I thought this would be the final thud of his descent, selling out the one person on this Earth who loved him to feather his own nest.
Maybe Walt was right when he said that Jimmy was "always like this." Maybe Chuck was right that there something inherently corrupt and untrustworthy in the heart of his little brother. This post-Breaking Bad epilogue has been an object lesson in the depths to which Gene Takovic will stoop in order to feed his addiction and get what he wants. There would be no greater affirmation of the completeness of his craven selfishness and cruelty than throwing Kim under the bus to save himself.
Only, in the end, that's the feint, that's the trick, that's the con, on the feds and the audience. When Saul hears that Kim took his words to heart and turned herself in, facing the punishments that come with it, he can't sit idly by and profit from his own lies and bullshit. He doesn't want to sell her out; he wants to fall on the sword in front of her, make sure she knows that he knows what he did wrong.Despite his earlier protestations that his only regret was not making more money or avoiding knee damage, he wants to confess in a court of law that he regrets the choices that led him here and the pain he caused, and most of all he regrets that they led to losing her.
In that final act of showmanship and grace, he lives up to the advice Chuck gives him in the flashback scene here, that if he doesn't like the road that his bad choices have led him, there's no shame in taking a different path. Much as Walt did, at the end of the line, Saul admits his genuine motives, he accepts responsibility for his choices after years of blame and evasion. Most of all, he takes his name back, a conscious return to being the person that Kim once knew, in form and substance. It is late, very late, when it happens, but after so much, Jimmy uses his incredible skills to accept his consequences, rather than sidestep them, and he finds the better path that Kim always believed he could walk, one that she motivates him to tread.
It is a wonderful finale to this all-time great show. I had long believed that this series was a tragedy. It had to be, given where Jimmy started and where the audience knew Saul ended. But as it was always so good at doing, Better Call Saul surprised me, with a measured bit of earned redemption for its protagonist, and moving suggestion that with someone we care for and who cares of us, even the worst of us can become someone and something better. In its final episode, the series offered one more transformation -- from a tale of tragedy, to a story of hope.
(On a personal note, I just want to say thank you to everyone who read and commented on my reviews here over the years. There is truly no show that's been as rewarding for me to write about than Better Call Saul, and so much of that owes to the community of people who offered me the time and consideration to share my thoughts, offered their kind words, and helped me look at the series in new ways with their thoughtful comments. I don't know what the future holds, but I am so grateful to have been so fortunate as to share this time and these words with you.)
EDIT: One last time, here is my usual, extended review of the finale in case anyone's interested -- https://thespool.net/reviews/better-call-saul-series-finale-recap-saul-gone/
Uneven, but gripping nonetheless.
Jake Gyllenhaal was fine. Dar Salim was amazing.
(In case it's driving you crazy too: Parker is Homelander. I had to look it up :joy:)
Hey Zach, not every action scene needs slow motion. For fucks sake
Imagine the suspense you could've felt if you didn't already know Negan was going to live.
props to my boy Dylan G for holding that position for what seemed like an eternity!
WTF??
Are they bringing the season 1 characters just to kill them off?
(except for Ben's mom, YET)
A film that just misses greatness can be more disappointing than a film that doesn't come close. Dream Scenario is outstanding until the last 20 minutes. It feels as though Kristoffer Borgli just couldn't figure out how to end it and ran out of time. Too bad. #BestNicolasCagePerformanceEver
Aunt Lydia while raising the girls to be raped regularly: "GOD'S WISHES GIRLS LET'S BEHAVE OUR BEST"
Aunt Lydia when Esther says she was raped: "NO :O THAT'S TERRIBLE :O"
Also, the horror that grows slowly inside Serena is top notch. I'm enjoying the storyline of Serena and Aunt Lydia much more this season. I guess June was more horrified to get in the car with Serena than to get shot lol. SERENAWHATTHEFUCKAREYOUDOING?
Honestly, who even cares about this "What if?" scenario? Three-quarters of the characters, I barely even remembered them, and as a season opener, it was hella boring...
What's with this director and his love for slow motion in every action scene?
Is it just me or is there some circlejerk going on at Disney where they keep using the same group of actors over and over again for their different brands? Just stop using Taika Waititi already.
The movie itself is pretty whatever.
It reminded me a lot of Onward; you could do a lot worse, but it probably won’t be remembered within the broader Pixar catalogue.
Not a lot of depth or subtext with this one, it’s a pretty straight forward adventure (which is also fine of course).
Some good animation (lots of visual ideas are being pulled from Star Wars), decent voice acting, fine characters, story’s alright.
It’s kinda inoffensive and doesn’t really warrant some of the extreme reactions it’s gotten.
The whole ‘woke’ label is baffling to me, it just seems like a smokescreen certain people use to cover up for their own homophobia, which only emphasizes how the word ‘woke’ carries little to no meaning nowadays.
Any regular person will be fine watching this, regardless of their political leaning.
Ffs, it’s mass entertainment after all.
5/10
Did anyone else find this episode a let down compared to the previous. Hmmmm It kinda felt dull. hmmm
Beautifully shot but writers have butchered the characters, really disappointed.
i just know the "i got one" will be ted telling rebecca he's leaving and im not ready :sob:
I can't believe I spent a whole day watching 8 episodes of this junk.
So disappointing.
20m episodes... Why?
Anyway it's a good start, but will be painful to wait a week for a 20m episode...
It was just okay. I will say this. I’m starting to see this in a lot of action movies…there is such a thing as too much choreography in a fight scene, and this movie had a lot of it
I had a very low expectation because it's Chaves, but it turned out to be the BEST out of three Conjuring films! What makes this film really fresh is that it took a different approach than the first two. It's toned down, there's not many batshit crazy scenes like levitating, flying objects, or constant jumpscares, but it works as an intriguing experience of investigation about a demonic possession that was responsible for multiple murders and this case stakes are much higher that it could potentially put the Warrens at risk. It's very unsettling, the scares are nicely done, the sound is effective. The couple chemistry is far better in this and their romantic moments are less cheesy. Overall it offers a nice change to the franchise without sacrificing the quality of the first two.
The lawyer nicknamed Money and her client were killed for the information they knew, and more importantly, for the deposition on the thumb drives they each had.
Yet no one has asked Maddie where the original from the camcorder is. This would be a reason to hunt her down and get the tape from her, then kill her. Yet no one has asked her about the tape.
And there’s a little problem with that original tape because she didn’t shut it off at the very end of the deposition. She walked around in front of the camera to the table, then returned to shut the camera off. She is on the video. And that video is in the hands of the murderers.
It was pretty good up until that last scene with Ben waking up again... it didn't make any sense and ruined everything.
The daughter is annoying!! I don't feel this session yet, not the same as the original show.
