[8.0/10] I admire finales that are as much about the aftermath as they are the climax. Gi-hun wins the competition. He battles Sang-woo in the titular Squid Game. He holds onto his soul, or some of it, anyway. He wins the money and walks out the last man standing.
All of this is sufficiently operatic. On a pure visual level, the scrapping, gutting, muddy battle between Gi-hun and Sang-woo is the right mix of gorgeous and ugly. It reminds me of a particular fight from Deadwood, with the way it doesn’t gussy up real life combat. These are not graceful warriors trading blows in noble sport. These are desperate men run roughshod through the wringer, filled with hate and a need to survive, unleashing their basest instincts in gruesome exchange after gruesome exchange.
The rain falls. The ground shudders. The slow motion balletics and close ups on hands, feet, and faces add artistry to this horrible culmination of all they’ve been through. At its core, though, this is a bout of brutal violence enacted by one man against another. Squid Game depicts it with the same gripping visual acumen that’s defined the series from the first game, but it doesn’t pretend this is anything other than what it is: a grim, awful brawl between two sad individuals driven to this state.
In keeping with the operatic tone, there are grand choices made. Gi-hun resorts to dirty play, bitten ankles, and pierced flesh as a last line of defense. Sang-woo finds creative means to gain the upper hand and monologues about what was required and who’s sick in all this. Despite the temptation to turn to the darkside and become the monster this game demand, Gi-hun relents, tries to give up, tries to choose their ability to walk away over all that money. And Sang-woo gets a measure of redemption, killing himself so that this is all for not, with the hope that Gi-hun may look after his mother now that this is over.
The ending to the game is satisfying, poetic, and climactic, with enough twists and character moments to make it more than the telegraphed ending of a victory for the show’s main character. And yet, this final episode commendably spends more time on the aftermath, on what winning this game did to Gi-hun, as it does on the outsized morality play of his victory.
The answer is that Gi-hun is a broken man. In victory, he still demands to know who these people are, why they did this to 456 men and women, how they can live with themselves after so much pain and suffering enacted in their name. Gi-hun has been devastated, leaving him too riddled with survivor’s guilt to touch the fortune he amassed in such harsh circumstances. And his poor mother died in his absence, adding a particularly bitter irony to the proceedings, that the woman he wanted to help, whose desperate needs sent him back to the game in the first place, perished anyway.
Squid Game rubs the audience’s noses in that. As much as it wants to critique the masked VIPs who look upon these mortal sports with glee, it doesn’t let the audience get away with just appreciating the thrills the games provide. The finale forces us to reckon as Gi-hun does, with less of the pulpy excitement and more of the mournful meditations on what was lost in this harsh endeavor. Giving Lee Jung-jae the space to emote, the quiet tone and leisurely pacing that allows Gi-hun’s deep regrets and shattered psyche to blossom before our eyes, comes as the earned, meaningful receipt for so many harrowing events for their and our amusement.
“One Lucky Day” also has the conviction to ask why. Why would someone do this? How could they live with themselves? How could someone who survived it live with themselves? The answer offered is that for the very rich, life loses its luster. As none other than Lisa Simpson (via John Swartzwelder) once opined, getting what you want all the time ultimately leaves you unfulfilled and joyless. The game is a craven opportunity to regain some excitement for the wealthy, to watch the peons dance and die for their entertainment, to regain some shred of feeling from the wealth that so anesthetized themselves to the world, and to the humanity of their fellow men and women.
That is especially true for Il-nam, Number 1, the Willy Wonka behind so much mayhem. He ran the game, but also participated in it, because he too lamented how his wealthy isolated him from his fellow man, robbed him of the camaraderie that he used to experience in his humble origins, left him yearning for the joys of his youth. Therein lies the irony of the game, as an elaborate mock-up of childhood, once which pulls from the poverty Il-nam once knew, with the prize of the untold wealth that is itself the source of the pathology the game’s creator is trying to cure himself of, if only for a spell.
But though it’s never signposted as heavily as Il-nam’s dying monologue, it’s also a referendum on humanity. Yes, the asshole VIPs are simply betting on humans like they’d bet on horses, seemingly deriving little pleasure from the climax. Still, Il-nam seems to have a point in mind, that too often people go unhelped, that they turn on one another, that they ignore the problems of others in pursuit of their own selfishness. His final wager with Gi-hun serves to highlight the point, with the implication that he’s not forcing such cruelty on people, just revealing what was already there in a heightened setting.
And yet, Gi-hun is a walking bulwark against that idea. He won’t touch the money because he cannot stand the bloodstains it bears. He makes good on the requests of his fellow finalists, uniting Sang-woo’s mother and Sae-byoek’s brother with enough of a fortune to keep both of them comfortable. He strives to stop some other poor sap from befalling the same fate he did, from being sucked into this torture in desperation like he was, because he knows that whatever the prize, the cost isn’t worth it. And he even seems to put off his trip to visit his daughter in order to help bring the game down, a resolution to help people even when you have every reason to leave well enough alone.
There is power in that choice, and in Gi-hun’s rejection of the dog-eat-dog principles that his “gganbu” seemed to espouse. There is power in his efforts to help his friends and allies even when death was on the line, and to spare the supposed friend who’d betrayed him. There is power in devoting most of your nearly hour-long runtime to reflecting on what this all meant, how it impacted those who went through this unimaginable wringer, and what this larger-than-life metaphor really means, rather than simply providing more fireworks.
In that, Squid Game has my admiration, as a show that devolves into pulpy thrills and thrilling set pieces at times, but never stops using them as a means to gaze into the soul of man and weigh whether he is good or evil or something in between. It’s a series unafraid to ask what money makes us do, from those desperate enough to risk everything to spare themselves and their loved ones from their debts, to those insulated enough that they can no longer feel and no longer empathize with their fellow man. As inhumane as the games were, as brutal as the deaths we witnessed on an episode-to-episode basis were, this is a humane, humanistic story, about who we become when forced into brutal circumstance, and who we remain when we remember what’s worth holding onto despite everything.
[7.7/10] I appreciate it when things come full circle with a twist. There’s poetry to AFC Richmond’s last game of the season. In contrast to the first episode of season 2, they’re happy to have a tie, because it means promotion back to the Premier League. Jamie lines up to take the penalty kick, only now he’s a different man. He shows the humility and trust in his teammate to give the show to Dani Rojas, who makes up for the pup-pulverizing kick we started this year with. It’s an easy thing to bookend a season like that, but damn if it isn’t effective.
And despite everything, I like Nate’s heel turn. He’s wrong in his actions, and wrong in his assessment, but not so far off either. He’s not wrong to feel a little sidelined or overlooked once Roy came back into the fold. He’s not wrong to have a complex as the towel boy turned manager who worries no one here will take him seriously since they know where he comes from. He’s not wrong that Ted has to rely on other people’s knowledge of the beautiful game to have any success.
Where he is wrong is thinking that if he came to Ted with his concerns, that Ted wouldn’t listen. He’s wrong to use his disgruntlement as an excuse to try to undermine Ted in public. He’s wrong to call Ted a joke given how he recognized and fostered the talent in Nate himself, and everyone else on the team. No, he’s not a brilliant tactician, but he’s a good manager and motivator. And while it’s too much and too far to imagine that succeeding in the real world, within the more graceful confines of fiction, he’s more than proven his value.
Nate isn’t fully wrong, but he’s bitter and envious, and that leads you to see the world in a certain way. He is the negative image of Ted’s motivation, the chance to feel like the “most important person in the world” for a moment when you’re in focus of Ted or Keeley or Rebecca, but with an aching hole when you start to feel underappreciated or infantilized. A good redemption arc is incredible, but an earned, misguided, but comprehensible heel turn is its own thing of beauty. The arc of Nate from overlooked cinnabon to self-made triumph to vengeful foe (he torn down the friggin’ “Believe” sign!) is superb.
And hey, I also like how the show handles the public reveal of Ted’s panic attack. Ted handles it like the mature adult that he is, using it as an opportunity to show humility by apologizing to his team and speaking frankly with the media about how we treat mental health in athletics. Particularly in the shadow of the recent Simone Biles story, it’s wholesome to see the ideas tackled in such a sensitive matter.
But then there’s the romantic stuff. I’ll say this much. I appreciate that at the end of the day, Sam chooses to stay in Richmond, but not because of Rebecca. He wants to stay and continue inspiring kids here, not just where he’s from, and bring more of his culture to this place. It’s a nice zig where I expected things to zag, even as someone who was rooting for Rebecca and Sam. Making it about his journey and not just about their relationship is a canny call. (Plus hey, Okufu promising to buy Sam’s childhood home and “poop in every room” is strangely hilarious.)
I also just don’t care about the Roy/Keeley stuff. Roy’s supportive. Cool! But I don’t know what they’re doing with the couple, or why they’re hinting at potential break-ups or trying to reassure the audience about that or something amorphous going on there. I guess Roy’s insecure about Keeley being independent, and that's something. But they don’t really pay it off, unless they’re saving something for next season.
I’m also not especially invested in Keeley getting her own PR firm. She’s such a cartoon character most of the time, and the show is so chock full of wish fulfillment, and you just know she’s going to stay in AFC RIchmond orbit in season 3 anyway that it’s hard for it to feel like too big of a deal.
The only thing I like about it is that it draws a contrast with her and Rebecca on the one hand and Ted and Nate as the other vis-a-vis mentors. Higgins’ line about good mentors wanting you to move on and great ones knowing you will is well-founded. There’s a difference in the “break-ups” between Rebecca/Keeley and Ted/Nate, and maybe it speaks to the kind of relationships both had, with more Ted could have done even if Nate interprets a lot of things in bad faith.
Otherwise, the other developments are all fine. Rupert buying a rival Premier League club and poaching Nate adds to his cartoonish villainy. Trent Crimm leaving The Independent because he wants something deeper is a little too tidy, but it’s heart is in the right place. And Roy accepting Jamie’s apology about what happened with Keeley, and later headbutting him so they can hug and celebrate together is a great coda for their repaired relationship.
Overall, season 2 is a lot shaggier than season 1. You can feel Ted Lasso having eclipsed its original premise and struggling to figure out how these characters make sense afterward. Not every storyline works. A lot of the material with Roy, Keeley, and Jamie feels particularly aimless, and even though there’s some great Rebecca stuff here, the show doesn’t always know what to do with her. Still, the season takes some big swings, from Ted’s slow acceptance of therapy, to Nate’s steady turn to the dark side, to the outstanding standalone Coach Beard episode. There’s still a lot to harmonize and for Ted Lasso to “figure out how to be a show” in the wake of so many major developments, but also some big creative efforts that are worth applauding and hanging onto.
[9.5/10] Holy hell! I didn’t know that Ted Lasso had an episode like this in it. I loved this: the magical realism, the more freewheeling and cinematic direction, the sense that this episode could work as a standalone short story if it needed to, the chance to delve into a secondary character and find hidden depths and layers we’d never been privy to until now. I am, traditionally, a sucker for a good format bender, and this pushed all my buttons.
I spent much of this episode wondering if this was all really happening. I think that's intentional. The events of Chrs Beard walking it off after the brutal loss to Man City are larger than life. You could buy his story of sleeping too late and hitting his head rolling out of bed...until the flashy pants show up in the coach’s office. But it feels like a dream, from the recurring symbolism of the moon (connected to Ted’s “once in a blue moon” comment?), the club within a church, the heightened dialogue between Coach Beard and the ingenue he runs into at the club. The whole thing stretches the bounds of the show’s reality in a very creative way.
But it's also a mood piece. The episode captures the more liminal experience of a night out where you’re processing your feelings in real time, with the world bending a nd s stretching to reflect Beard’s hopes and anxieties. The way the announcers dig at him specifically on T.V. screens and “real life”, commenting on everything from his football strategy to his self-loathing, puts the man’s heart on display in a way we don’t always see.
Likewise, the self-hatred he cops to is balanced out by the fact that, for all their apparent tempestuousness, he loves Jane and wants her to live him back. His simple prayer, that he knows she won’t cure what ails him, but she makes life more interesting, is one of the sweetest and most sincere descriptions of attachment to someone I’ve heard on television in some time. There is great catharsis when he finally makes it to that mysterious club after no end of trials and travails and finds her waiting for him, having returned his affections, and joining him in unrestrained expressions of joy and self-expressions.
Plus, as much as this is a “day in the limelight” episode a la “Lower Decks” from The Next Generation or “The Zeppo” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it doesn't just focus on Coach Beard. The three mugs from Mae’s pub get their chance to step into the spotlight too. Watching them sneak into an exclusive club, hustle some Oxford boys out of their billiards money, roll around in a limo with their winnings and, with Beard’s help, get to exult on the AFC Richmond pitch in jubilant style gives them some shading and charm we don’t always get for the show’s three-man Greek chorus.
At the end of the day, though, this is Coach Beard’s story, and Brendan Hunt more than lvies up to the extra challenge of having the whole episode focus on him. He nails the comedy of dealing with peculiarly suspicious hotel clerk, the pain and resignation of someone who feels as though he is unworthy and not good enough in his job or in life, and the pure unfettered bliss when he finally let’s go and is able to enjoy himself with the woman he loves. It’s a tour de force performance, and only faces competition from Jason Sudekis for the best outing for an actor in the show.
In brief, I didn’t know Ted Lasso had ambition for this type of thing, let alone the ability to pull it off. This feels more like something BoJack Horseman would try, and I say that lovingly. This is a comfort show, one that has its depth, but tends to go to pretty accessible, life-affirming places. “Beard After Hours” is dark and outre and downright weird in a way that general audiences don’t always jive with. God bless it though -- this may be the boldest and most creative thing the show’s ever presented, and I am all over it.
Violence, family violence, violence enacted against children by their parents especially, is the spectre lurking behind the events of "Soprano Home Movies". Tony and Bobby, and in a different way, Carmela and Janice, are in a violent business. Tony and Janice's parents were in that same violent business. Though the episode never comes right out and says it, it's not a far leap to imagine that some of that filtered down to hitting their kids.
Tony says as much in therapy in prior episodes. He's told Melfi multiple times that his father would have whupped him for things Tony's children do, and that not doing the same to his offspring was Carmela's idea, not his. It's the style of parenting he grew up with; it's what he knows and as we've seen with everyone from Gloria to Ralphie, it's what he defaults to when he's truly upset about something. It's the language he knows to communicate emotion.
Receiving it, let alone being on the losing side of it, makes him feel small and weak. Tony, even at his blubbery zenith in the sixth season, is a large, imposing man. It's no coincidence that he reasserted himself by taking on his burly driver at the beginning of the season. His physical strength is part of what gives him his swagger, his confidence that he's not the small kid who was kicked around by his father. Tony can't accept that his father was anything but a saint who was dragged down by his admittedly monster of a mother, and yet, as Melfi points out, he marries and support a woman who did what his mother never would -- protect her children from their father.
And so while it's easy to take Tony's rationalizing away his losing the fight with Bobby as his feeling older, feeling like things are coming to an end (and admittedly, that's part of it, his conversation with Bobby on the boat certainly shows a Tony more contemplative of where things might finish), it's as much in service of justifying to himself that he is still the physically capable man who wouldn't have to suffer that kind of abuse from another man again.
It's clearly impacted Janice as well. She's appropriately Livia-like in her conversation with Carmela, where she not so subtly suggests that Tony may have been physical with his family as well. Carmela denies it (though there have been moments with AJ she didn't know about aside from the one she mentions), and while Janice is, as always, trying to stir up trouble, she's clearly not off-base in wondering if the same cloud of violence that hung over her childhood hangs over Tony's home as well. Bobby objects to Janice bribing Nica to get her to go to bed, but there's a sense that as much as she can be the evil stepmom to Bobby's kids, she's overcorrecting for her own daughter.
That's what makes the story about Johnny Boy shooting through Livia's hair so unpleasant for Tony, even if he doesn't quite realize it. There's irony in his complaint that it makes them look like a dysfunctional family shortly before a monopoly game ends in fisticuffs. But it's also a sign of his father's temper -- that what seems humorous in the rear view mirror decades later is, to someone who experienced it at the time, a sign of a dad who expressed his anger with tools of violence and a home of discord. As Bobby notes, The Sopranos go too far, they take one step over the line, and when they do, it's evident how much Tony and Janice were damaged by what when on in their home.
And then there's Bobby himself, one of the gentlest, most kind-hearted mobsters the show ever depicts. And it's clear that Tony both looks down upon and yet also envies Bobby, not simply for his youth but for the way that Bobby had a dad who loved him ("he never wanted this for me"), for his sense of honor (leveling the playing field against the deer) and who has a quiet strength and steadiness that Tony lacks. Like with Janice after her anger management classes, Tony has to break anything that someone has that he doesn't. So he hits Bobby where it hurts -- he takes the last of Bobby's innocence my making him kill a man, and not just a man, a father. The Sopranos is a show where people don't necessarily understand the real motivations for their actions, and it's hard to know how much Tony sees the symmetry in that given what's lurking behind the walls in this episode, but it's palpable.
And then there's that 10,000 yard stare, the way Tony sits in that chair after all the terrible excitement and gazes on the water, lost in thought. There's a sense that he's being soothed, as he was at his Uncle's farm, of having to escape the thoughts and scars of the life he's lived and the pain he's suffered. And at the end of the episode, Bobby, holding his daughter, shares that same gaze. The ducks Tony hears Nica signing about remain a potent symbol on this show -- of family, of the good life, so hard to hold onto and so easily lost. Bobby may have gotten the better of the fight, but Tony left him with a new scar that now needs to heal, and we cannot help but wonder how this beautiful innocent child might be tainted by this life that has left its mark in different ways on so many people. It might not be in the same terms, but the cycle of violence goes on.
