Best lines
I’m waiting for an old friend - Bran
You left me for dead - Hound
I also robbed you - Arya
I’ve always had blue eyes! - Tormund
Whatever they want - Dany
but
It had its moments - Sansa
They need wheelchair ramps in Winterfell. They left Bran in the courtyard overnight!
Parallelism between Season 1 Episode 1 and Season 8 Episode 1
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ S08E01 Jon: "Where's Arya?" Sansa: "Lurking somewhere."Foreshadowing (from different Seasons/Episodes.)
01. S03E05“ “Let’s not go back. Let’s stay here a while longer,” Ygritte tells Jon. “I don’t ever want to leave this cave, Jon Snow.” S08E01 “We could stay a thousand years. No one would find us,” Daenerys says to Jon.02. Sam is suggesting rebelling against the Targaryen because they burned his father and brother alive. Similar to when Robert's Rebellion, began when Rhaegar Targaryen, allegedly abducted Robert's betrothed, Lyanna Stark.
Welp, like Tryion said, We're fucked. Living vs. The Dead. Season 8 A fight that only comes once.
The dragon pit scene was awesome. Getting so many characters all in one place at the same time was great to see. So many quick “oh, hey you’re still alive” moments. One of the best was Brienne and the Hound. Speaking of the Hound, we did not get the Cleganebowl we have been wanting for so long but at least he was able to tell his brother off. Maybe next season…
Cersei, as the hound would say, is a real cunt. She truly is the biggest villain this show has seen. She is lying to everyone about sending her armies north and bringing in more mercenaries to help fight while Dany is a little occupied. She not only threatened to kill not one of her brothers but both of them is the same episode. Jamie is finally getting smart and getting away from her, even if he is leaving to go fight an army of undead. I honestly think she might stick around to the end and keep the iron throne. She has no problem doing whatever it takes. She has a kid on the way and that is all she is worried about now (I still don’t think she will have the child because of the prophecy said she would only have three). Oh and the shot of snow falling on King's Landing was a beautiful reminder that winter is here.
The winterfell storyline finally did something amazing. Sansa’s “trial” of Littlefinger was a long time coming and with Bran there was no denying. I’m so glad Arya got to kill him with his own dagger. The sisters finally started acting like family.
Nice to see Theon having another chance at redemption. He had a nice moment with Jon about their dad, well technically Ned was neither of their father. I hope he gets to save Yara next season. I wonder where she is if Euron is going to Essos or could she already be dead?
The show finally says what all the fans have know for years, Jon is a true Targaryen and the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. And they say it just as the two have sex for the first time, nothing new for this show. I’m sure this won’t be a problem. Dany will be cool with it, right? I mean the old Targaryens were into incest too. Maybe not we'll just have to wait and find out.
That last scene really was a little frightening, to see something that has been keeping the white walkers out for 8000 years to just go down like that. Now that the Night King has a dragon they are really going to cause some havoc. RIP Tormund and Beric? I don't think there were able to get off the wall in time but were they on the part still standing?
Great season, moved a little too fast and missed some of the slower character moments from old season. They definitely had some of the largest battle scenes TV has ever seen and I’m sure we are not done yet. Let the wait for season 8 begin…
"Call her Nichole."
And just like that, my pathetic bitch ass is back on the June/Serena train. No regrets.
I could write a 1,000-word review of this episode and I still don't think I would cover everything. So, I'll try to list some of the things that absolutely blew my mind:
Aunt Lydia getting wrecked by Emily. Of course it's what she deserved, but it was brutal as fuck. Alexis Bledel's acting was everything. That initial rush of adrenaline followed by absolute terror and panic. So good.
How many more times is Serena going to allow Gilead to crush her before she finally rebels? I think she's near her breaking point. Give me the June/Serena team-up I deserve in season 3, you cowards. The way she gave up the child she'd wanted for so long so Nichole could have a better life was beautiful. Yvonne Strahovski, man.
Emily's getting out! Lawrence, you are officially my favorite man on the show (not that there's a lot of options there). I want to see her find her wife and son. I'm going to cry so much when that happens, I already know it.
So Marthas seem to have some kind of a secret operation going on, huh? That's gonna be interesting to explore.
I knew June would stay in Gilead. She needs to get Hannah out too, she can't just leave her behind. The last 10 minutes of the episode made me very emotional. Some good writing and even better acting in there.
What an excellent season finale. I have to say, I was afraid there would be a decline in quality in season 2 seeing as they were going beyond the events of the book, but that was certainly not the case. I liked this season more than the first one. Now, please give Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski and Alexis Bledel (The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit of acting on this show) Emmys and I'll be happy. I absolutely cannot wait for season 3.
Possibly a contrarian opinion, but I'm starting to get a little worn down by a show that so heavily panders to the super fans in hopes their gushing will trickle down to the masses. You're supposed to be telling me the story, not showing glimpses of things and then hoping I'll read wiki pages and fandom entries just to know what the hell is going on.
Case in point, we've seen Monica as an operative for SWORD, but she walks through the Hex and now has glowing eyes and can stand toe to toe with Wanda. So now you expect me to read wiki entries on whoever the fuck "Spectrum" is just to understand what the hell just happened? Or are we all supposed to have a resident Marvel super fan who can just rattle off who these people are you're introducing at the speed of light?
Agatha is also another prime example. After this weeks episode, it feels like the intended reaction from the audience is "OMG THEY ARE DOING AGATHA HARKNESS?! OMG OMG OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY'RE DOING AGATHA!!". I simply do not know who Agatha is or what her connection is, but all the comments online would have you believe this is the second coming of Christ.
A fly on the wall in one scene is apparantly a confirmation of either Mephisto or Nightmare. Who? What? Oh right, more wikis and fandom pages.
A backup, a hug, a fight and a kiss
El is the cutest BADASS character ever
This episode was amazing and beautiful, if there's more than 10 stars I would give it more
First let's talk about Steve, he's amazing, he's brave and kind.. Did you see how he was genuinely care about these kids and puts himself in danger just to protect them.. I gotta say he became one of my favorite characters in the show
Also lets talk about the kid who plays Will, gosh!! That kid is sooo talented, I was genuinely feeling his pain, he's so amazing and I'm sure he has a bright future ahead of him
The 3 ways attack bit was also amazing, seeing all the characters attack at the same time from different places was gold writing from the show runners.. I liked how the kids took Steve with them while he was unconscious LMAO, and he was like f*** it lets go burn that sh*t.. I still thing that Nancy doesn't deserve Steve, he's too good for her
Anyway, I didn't like that bit with Dustin and his pet, it felt stupid, I mean they're monsters after all so I don't see how that monster can form such feelings for human, anyway he died at the end we saw him next to the chocolate bar
About El, her scene closing that gate was simply EPIC, I loved how she towards the end used both her hands to push the monster back, and by doing that she actually became more powerful, so now we know El with 2 raised hands are unstoppable
Last thing is the Snow Ball party, it was sad and hilarious seeing Dustin get rejected one by one LMAO, but then Nancy saved his a**, then we saw Mike sitting alone and I had a feeling that El gonna show up, and she did!! She was beautiful and cute.. I'm glad that she's finally with Mike and she feels happy
It was a great season but now we have to wait a long time from season 3 :(((
You know how I said the season 5 finale was kind of lame? This was better, but far from totally satisfying. I know a few decades is nothing when you have an eternity to look forward to, but it still sucks that Chloe had to be a single mother. It's not fair to her. I cried so much when Deckerstar were saying goodbye (a really messy, snotty cry). All the little callbacks like Chloe playing that simple melody on the piano were so sweet and Lauren and Tom really did a breathtaking job. But still, it didn't have to be this way. I think it would've been much better if Lucifer had chosen to commute to Hell and still be in Rory's life, and that moment had created an alternate timeline - so that Rory from the original timeline still arrived to fullfil her purpose, but everything from that point on was different. IMO that would've been much better than the time loop idea. When it comes to time travel, you can pretty much get away with any bullshit explanation anyway. Everyone else ended up in a really good place, so at least that was nice. Maze and Eve kicking ass and taking names together, Charlie sprouting wings... I liked all of that. Also they really got Tricia Helfer to come back without giving her any dialogue lmao.
I will miss this show. Even though I feel like it had run its course and there weren't any stories left to tell, I'm still a little sad to see it go. It wasn't a perfect show, but it had some great moments, especially when it rose above the case of the week stuff and focused more on the celestial side of things and the relationships between the characters. It had such an interesting, diverse and lovable bunch of characters who all changed and grew in organic ways. The humor was always top notch, but the show also had some genuine emotion and a lot of heart. All in all, I will remember Lucifer fondly.
EDIT: After giving myself some time to fully digest this season and this final episode, I realized that there is something deeply messed up about a show that has always been about free will - Lucifer choosing to stay on Earth, Amenadiel choosing humanity, Chloe choosing to love Lucifer (remember how big of a deal the "does she only have feelings for me because she's a gift from God?" debacle was?), Maze choosing to develop human emotions and form connections with people, Eve choosing her own path after literally being made for someone else - not giving its leads any choice in the end and forcing them to follow a predetermined path. Again, the alternate timeline idea was right there and it would've reaffirmed the show's message that you make your own fate.
[7.8/10] “Previously On” is the sort of episode that answers the questions fans have been asking from the beginning. Who caused the hex? (Wanda) What made her do it? (Cumulative trauma) Who’s controlling it? (Sort of Wanda, sort of not.) What’s the deal with Pietro? (Total fake). What about Vision? (Wanda recreated him.) What’s Agnes’s angle here? (A witch trying to attain more power a probably drain Wanda the same way she drained the rest of her coven.)
For a lesser show, these could be mechanical answers to mechanical questions. Instead, this episode answers those technical points while also getting at the why of all this. It confirms, once and for all, that WandaVision is a story about the slow accumulation of trauma, and the ways the shiny sitcom worlds on the television screens are an escape from it.
Agnes (or Agatha, depending on your preference), plays Ghost of Xmas Past with Wanda, forcing Wanda to guide her through major events of her history in an effort to uncover how she became this powerful. Rather than centering on incantations or magical artifacts (give or take an Infinity Stone), it hinges on the moments of both comfort and loss in Wanda’s life.
It’s a strong conceit, giving Elizabeth Olsen plenty of notes to play across the years and showing how Wanda has lost so much of the year. We start with a scene of serene domestic bliss, or what passes for it in a war-torn Eastern Bloc country, with Wanda and Pietro as children with their parents. Suddenly a bomb disrupts the peace of “TV night”, destroying the young kids’ lives amid a moment of happiness and depicting events described in Age of Ultron. \
That sets a pattern for these things, where each moment involves how Wanda copes with such losses. We see her becoming a freedom fighter (or terrorist, depending on your vantage point), out of an attempt to avenge her parents in a way. It leads her to connect with the mind stone (something that, alongside a shadowy figure, will no doubt be explored in more depth later). The experience heightened her powers, but was also a source of further trauma, of being experimented on and treated as disposable.
(Just my crazy theory: [spoiler]I predict that the shadowy figure Wanda saw in the Mind Stone will be Wanda herself, from the future, creating a stable time loop and deciding to set these events into motion, even knowing the hardships of where they lead, because it’s a way to let love persevere.[/spoilers].)
But then we get the best scene in the whole episode, where we jump to Wanda still grieving her brother’s loss, another unfathomable trauma, only to get some unexpected comfort from Vision. The writing and acting here is magnificent. The imagery of Wanda talking about grief as a series of waves, continually hitting her every time she tries to stand, is haunting and effective. But Vision’s retort, of not knowing what loss is given his origins, but appreciating the notion that it is love persevering, is just as beautiful a counterpoint. You can see the way the two of them are connected not just through the mind stone, but through their unique experiences of grappling with the human condition from opposite sides, of learning how to move forward together. The chemistry, easy rapport, and connection between them in those moments is off the charts.
It’s a minor miracle. Having lost everyone close to her, Wanda forges a connection with someone else, someone who helps fill that space. Only then, he’s taken from her too. The final flashback we see is Wanda barging into Sword and seeing Vision being torn apart. We see the man she expected to be waiting for her when she was un-blipped lying in pieces before her. She reaches down and can no longer feel her, the last thread of that connection severed.
It’s enough to send anyone sprialing. We witness the mechanics of what happens next -- a grief-stricken Wanda coming to Westview, uncovering what was meant to be the place where the rest of their lives together began, the ghost of a new chapter of domestic bliss that she was once again robbed of by chaotic forces.
So she snaps. She explodes in her grief, for her parents, for her brother, and for her love, each ripped away from her in the times she most needed comfort, most thought she could be safe and happy like those people on the television screens.
That’s the most piercing thread of “Previously On.” At each stage, Wanda watches these sitcoms as a form of relief, of escape, to have a glimpse of the life denied her by circumstance and tragedy. She’s watching The Dick Van Dyke Show and seeing a happy couple when her parents are killed. She’s watching The Brady Bunch and a couple of friendly but needling siblings when she and her brother are treated like lab rats. She sees the comical violence of Malcolm in the Middle where the father figure can endure large scale mishaps but come out unscathed because “it’s not that kind of show.”
The import is clear. The allure of these stories, this pristine or even hardscrabble sitcom worlds, is that even when the edges are rougher, tragedies rarely happen. Happy families get to persist, to flourish. They get to happen at all. It’s a world where the worst losses of the world are kept outside of the frame, made digestible and easily resolved, one half hour at a time. It is, a world where she can have the life that she dreamed of as a little girl, the life she and Vision imagined for themselves, back.
Who wouldn’t want to bury themselves in that world at a time when the universe has taken pound of flesh after pound of flesh from your body? Look, we’re talking about a famed Scarlet Witch using her “chaos magic” to rewrite reality for a small town in New Jersey. None of this is down-to-earth exactly. And yet there’s something that feels so relatable, even natural, to Wanda choosing (or instinctively reacting) to conjure the sort of place that’s bereft of the traumas she’s suffered again and again and again.
We know the ruddy details now: that Agnes wants power, that Hayward wants a Vision of his own, that Wanda is firmly the source of the Hex. But more importantly, we understand why it came to this. “Previously On” gives us all those stark moments of love and joy and happiness that Wanda was robbed of, and the comforting glow of a place where no such heart-wrenching thefts can occur. Whatever season-ending fireworks happen next week, no one can blame poor Wanda for retreating into her static-filled dream world, when so much of her life has been this crystal clear nightmare.
Set aside the last few minutes of the finale for a moment. That last little reveal changes the shape of the episode, and the series, in significant and meaningful ways that make it easy to let it overshadow the rest of the episode. But stop and think about everything that happens here before the scene where he finally meets The Mother.
Because it is, at best, a mixed bag, long before we see the blue french horn again.
I understand the urge to give the audience some idea of what happens to the gang between 2014 and 2030. The problem is that covering a decade and a half in one big episode makes every story feel rushed and underdeveloped. One of the great things about HIMYM is how it used the past and the future to inform the present. Jumping back and forth between a prior conversation and a current one could be the crux of a joke, as could Future Ted's knowing commentary on some boneheaded mistake or unexpected development that was coming down the pipe. But those time jumps weren't just fodder for comedy, as the show did a great job of creating dramatic irony and emotional stakes by showing what lie ahead or the path that led us here. But by compressing fifteen years worth of life developments into an hour, nothing has time to really breathe or feel like it has the temporal scope the show is shooting for.
After all, there's a great story to be told about the gang drifting apart over the years. Another one of the series's best features is the way it combines the exaggerated goofiness of its comedic sensibilities with real, relatable aspects of being in your twenties and thirties. Well, one of the things that hits you once you start to move past that stage of your life is the way that friends, even good friends, can slowly drift apart, not through neglect or anger or hurt feelings, but just because you're suddenly at different places in your life. That's an idea worth exploring.
The problem is that the rush of years in "Last Forever" makes this process feel like something sudden instead of gradual. Sure, we see the chyron at the bottom of the screen showing that we've jumped ahead a year or two, and there's a boatload of semi-clunky expositional dialogue in the episode to let the viewer know where everyone is in their lives and what they're up to, but when all those developments take place over the course of just a few minutes and just a few scenes, it can't help but seem very fast.
One of the best choices HIMYM's creators made in the final season was to parcel out little scenes of the gang's future throughout, giving us a glimpse of what the future held without trying to pack it all into one big episode like this. Sprinkling those flashforwards in did a nice job at making the group's future feel as well-populated as its present and its past. Obviously there were limitations on how much they could do this in prior episodes given the reveals in store for Barney and Robin and Ted, but the method the show chose to relay the gang's future almost inevitably leaves it feeling too quick, too underdeveloped, and too unsatisfying, even apart from the directions the individual stories go.
Those plot developments, however, are another albatross around the finale's neck. The first and most obvious problem comes from Barney and Robin's divorce. Again, there's a legitimate story to be told of two people who care deeply for one another, but don't work as a couple, but it's a difficult story to tell in five minutes, especially when you've spent huge chunks the past season and a half trying to convince the audience that they make sense together. As someone who's been a Barney and Robin skeptic from the beginning, it's entirely plausible to me that the two of them could mean well and have real feelings for one another, but still end up divorced due to some basic incompatibilities. But the reason for their split feels thin here.
There's nothing we know about Barney that suggests globetrotting would be something he's so against. And while there's hints of bigger issues between the two of them, like not getting to see one another or not being on the same page about their respective plans and projects, we never really get to see these problems develop. We're just told about them, and expected to accept that as enough to break them up one episode removed their wedding. Is that result plausible enough based on what we know about Barney and Robin? Sure, but it's just presented to us, rather than developed before our eyes, and since we don't see their path from pledging to spend the rest of their lives together to getting divorced, that end point feels like it happens by fiat rather than something the show earned.
Barney's reversion afterward is just as unsatisfying. Again, there's a believable story about Barney having worked so hard to become a better person, in part to woo Robin, and reverting to his old tricks as a retreat and defense mechanism when his marriage falls apart. But because of the rapidity with which the finale goes from Point A to Point B, it doesn't feel like the natural result of a difficult event; it feels like throwing nine years of character development down the drain in less than a minute. There's a disparity between how much time the show spent building Barney up as more than just an cartoonish hound dog and how much time it spends showing him reverting to his old persona. That cannot help but feel jarring.
What kills me is that I love where they take Barney in "Last Forever." There's something beautiful about the idea that what really changes him isn't some conquest or accomplishment or even a great romance; it's becoming a father. For Barney, "The One" isn't a woman he'll meet some day; it's his daughter, and Neil Patrick Harris delivers a tremendous performance in the scene where he repeats his Ted-like plea, this time to his baby girl. It's a wonderful scene, but the path the episode takes to get there still comes off as a shortcut that has to ignore seasons of character development in order to make it work.
The finale isn't all bad though. While the story of the gang drifting apart is too quick, the scene where they all reunite for Ted's wedding is legitimately touching and full of the good will and warm feelings that the show's been able to generate during its run. Ted and Tracy (I can use her name now!) continue to be adorable together, and the twist that romantic Ted made it five years and two kids into his relationship before he actually married The Mother is a small but effective way to show how much the substance of finding The One was more important to him than the formality of it (even if he was planning on a European castle). It's one of those lived-in details that speaks to his character.
Beyond that, the actual meeting of The Mother is very well done, and it really had to be. Sure, there's a few meetcute cliches involved, but the easy rapport between Ted and Tracy soars once again and nearly saves the entire finale. After all, this was the moment the "Last Forever" had to nail, and it did. Ted and Tracy's conversation weaves in enough of the yellow umbrella mythos for everything to click, and Joshua Radnor and Cristin Miloti both sell the subtle realization that this is something special. For an episode that had to make good on the promise of its title, that meeting went about as well as any fan of the show might have hoped for.
And if the series had ended there, everyone might have gone home happy. Sure, the other problems with the rushed and shortcut-filled finale might have rankled a bit (particularly the way it undoes the wedding we'd just witnessed), but making that moment feel as big and as meaningful as it needed to after all that build up is no small feat, and that alone would have bought Bays & Thomas a hell of a lot of slack.
Frankly, the series could have still gotten away with Tracy dying shortly thereafter, another controversial choice in the finale. There's something tragic but beautiful about the audience watching Ted seek out the woman of his dreams for nine years and then realizing that he only gets to be with her for the same amount of time, while still cherishing and being thankful for the time the two of them had, for that connection and love that was wonderful and worth it no matter how all too brief it may have been. There's a touching theme about the fragility of things in that story, but also about the joy that comes from finding the person you love, that stays with you even after they're gone. It's sad, but it's sweet, in the best HIMYM way.
And then there's Robin.
The decision to pair up Ted and Robin in the last moments of the finale is as tone-deaf and tin-eared an ending as you're likely to find in a major television program, and the reasons abound. The most obvious is that the show devoted so much time to the idea of Ted getting over Robin, and had any number of episodes (the most recent being the execrable "Sunrise") where Ted seemed to have achieved that, to have moved on in his life. Folks like me may try to handwave it, and the show can call back to the premiere of Season 7 where Ted and Robin can declare that all you need for love is chemistry and timing, but at base, Ted and Robin getting together feels like it contradicts so much about the two characters' relationship with one another over the years. So much of the final third of the show involved going over the same beats between Ted and Robin over and over again, of having each move past the other, and coming back to them in the final, despite how iconic that blue french horn has become for the show, just feels like another poorly-established cheat or retcon that isn't in sync with where the show went since that finale was crafted in Season 2.
What's worse is that that ending transforms the story Ted's been telling from a heartwarming if irreverent yarn about the path that led to him meeting the love of his life, to a smokescreen to gain his kids' approval for dating an old flame after their mother's death. Look, to some degree you have to accept the conceit of the show for what it is and not take it too seriously. In real life, no two kids would sit through such a long story, and no father should tell his children about all the women he slept with before he met their mom. But taken in broad strokes, How I Met Your Mother is a story about how all the events in Ted's life, big and small, good and bad, planned or unexpected, went into making him the person who was ready to find Tracy and capable of being with her.
Future Ted himself put it best in "Right Place, Right Time." He tells his kids "There's a lot of little reasons why the big things in our lives happen." He explains that what seemed like chaos was bringing him inexorably toward the best person and the best thing to ever happen to him, that there were "all these little parts of the machine constantly working, making sure that you end up exactly where you're supposed to be, exactly when you're supposed to be there." And he tells them at the time, he didn't know "where all those little things were leading [him] and how grateful [he]'d be to get there."
That, to my mind, is the theme to take from this great, if tainted show. Sure, it's unrealistic that anyone would go on that many tangents in telling the story of their great romance, but the point is that each of these moments, each of these people, were crucial in who he was and who he became when he met Tracy, and that they were as important as that fateful meeting was. Yes, it's a long story, and it has many many detours, but it's the story of all the twists and turns and bumps in the road that brought Ted into the arms of his soulmate, and that smooths over the rougher edges of the show's premise.
Instead, the twist that it's all supposed to be about Ted having the hots for Robin turns that lovely story into a long-winded attempts by a middle-aged man to convince his kids that he should date their aunt That seems much more crass. There's still meaning to be wrung from it, meaning that finds parallels with Tracy and her dead boyfriend Max and the idea that you can have more than one meaningful relationship in your life. But it doesn't add up with what the show had really done to that point. The past nine seasons were no more about Robin than they were about Barney or Marshall or Lily. They no more feel like a way to suggest that Aunt Robin's good dating material than they do that Ted should spend more time with Uncle Barney. As great as that blue french horn was the first time, it had meaning because it represented something we knew was going to end, but which still had beauty and value despite that. This last time we see it, it's represents the opposite, that something beautiful has ended, and the value it had is cast aside in favor of a relationship the series spent years disclaiming. That is deeply, deeply unsatisfying.
Take away those final few scenes, concocted in a different era of the series, and you have a flawed but still potent finale, that delivers on the show's biggest promise and gives the gang one last "big moment" together. But add them back in, and you have an ending to the series that not only runs counter to so much of what the show developed over the course of its run, its final season in particular, but which, moreover, cheapens the story the audience had been invested in for the past nine years. It's almost impressive how a couple of truly terrible moments can do such retroactive damage to such a longrunning show , but here we are, with a sour taste in our mouth from such an ill-conceived finish.
Future Ted was right, a little moment can have a big impacts, and the one at the end of the series is a doozy in that regard. But maybe, just maybe, when we tell our own stories about How I Met Your Mother, we can do what Ted should have done many times -- just leave that part out. There's something wonderful to be gleaned from the ending to this fun, optimistic, heartfelt, and occasionally very rocky series, but it requires us to do what we always do when looking back on things: focus on the good stuff, make our peace with the bad stuff, and remember it at its best.
RIP Olenna Tyrell. The OG badass bitch, even when she is dying she still has to have the last laugh. She is right though, Cersei is a disease and she has infected Jamie. Cersei really is just the worst. What she is doing to Ellaria Sand is awful, fair but awful. Her alliance with Euron might really change the war or at least make it more even.
The battle for Casterly Rock was great, I loved Tyrion narrating how he expects it to go but it never goes as expected. This will end up being a huge misstep for Daenerys. Her army is spilt and they are now landlocked. At least she still has the dragons and the Dorthraki. Looks like Cersei has a couple of tricks up her sleeve.
It was nice to see another Stark reunion. Bran was a little creepy like, you looked so beautiful the night Ramsay raped you. Sansa seems like she is a natural born leader. I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up Warden of the North or maybe even on the Iron Throne at the end. After all she has been through it would be fitting. Hopefully we will get another Stark reunion next week with Arya.
And of course we only have the biggest meeting of characters so far on this show. Jon and Daenerys finally meeting and they introduced her with a thousand names and Davos was like "This is Jon Snow... He's King in the North." Jon seems a little petty not to just bend the knee. Its not like he wants the iron throne. The Starks were loyal to the Targaryens in the past. A little gesture could of gone a long way but at least they have some dragon glass. I think the only way he is going to convince her or anyone is to capture a white walker and bring it back.
Quick thoughts:
Theon is alive, maybe another chance for redemption?
How will the iron bank play into this war? If Cersei has money who is she going to get to fight for her?
Jorah is healthy, I hope he goes to dragonstone right away and she takes him back. I bet she was just thinking when she sent him to "find a cure" that he was going to die. She is in for a surprise.
Why does Melisandre, and Varys, need to die in Westeros?
Cersei gives zero fucks now, who cares that people she her in bed with Jamie. The Targaryens did it so why not the Lannisters.
I can't get enough of Euron and Jamie, I hope they more awkward scenes together.
I wonder if Daenerys is going to follow up on "taking a knife in the heart?"
[9.0/10] There’s so much to talk about in this one. X-Men’s Quicksilver as Avengers Quicksilver! Bulletproof hotpants! 1980s TV spoofs! Scarlet Witch’s stand-off with Sword!
But here’s the thing that stands out to me, the thing that grabbed me the most while watching this “Very Special Episode” -- Vision confronting the woman he loves over what’s happening. That moment has extra oomph because of the effects. There’s something eerie about the two of them arguing over the end credits until they stop. There’s something scary about the two of them rising into the air at the same time they raise their voices to one another.
What stands out about it, though, is the emotional rawness in the moment. Vision isn’t just upset; he’s worried that he can no longer trust his wife, that she’s done something terrible to him, to everyone, and doing everything in her power to keep it from him. Wanda is trying to hold it together, feeling just as vulnerable and admitting she’s not even sure how this started. They are both just so messed up by what’s happening, so riven by it, but in ways that drive them apart over whether to tear this all down or do everything they can to continue propping it up.
The tenor of the scene is familiar to anyone who’s spoken with a loved one who’s unwell, who is not themselves, whether through grief or mental illness or some other trauma that jeopardizes their ability to process the world as it is. There’s an honesty to that scene, one that is frankly startling, and it’s the kind of place I never really expected an MCU project to go. It’s draped in reality-distorting fiction and the trappings of family sitcoms, but somehow that just makes it all the more disturbing and poignant when the truth of those moments bursts through those bracing layers of abstraction.
That’s bolstered by the second most stunning revelation of “On a Very Special Episode” -- that Wanda stole Vision’s corpse from Sword. More to the point, that he left a living will and wished never to be revived, not wanting to be anyone’s weapon. It’s plain that Wanda, either by herself or with the help of someone else, revivified him, and that he’s starting to reckon with the margins of what happened to him, if not the full picture.
He’s starting to see through the illusions and deceptions that Westview is made of. Again, the show does so well making the moments where it breaks the sitcom rhythms unnerving. Agnes’s “should I take it from the top” bit is eerie, and for once, Vision has a chance to realize it before Wanda resets things. Instead, she tries to play it off, tries to distract him with puppies and doorbells ringing and other head-fakes that Vision’s nevertheless noticing.
It comes through in the odd behavior of his coworkers, who respond to a Sword email by reading and laughing in unison. Vision briefly frees Norm, who is understandably frantic and undone and, most importantly, in pain over what’s being done to him. The secret truth of WandaVision is that it’s not a comedy show or sitcom homage or a superhero series. It’s a horror show, and Vision’s starting to realize that. He’s realizing that everything is wrong here, starting with him, what he can and can’t remember, and the mother of his children.
Meanwhile, there’s some more traditional but still cool developments on the outside. Monica Rambeau, Jimmy Woo, and Darcy Lewis are trying to save Wanda, trying to show her compassion despite what’s happening, while Sword Director Hayward thinks she’s just a terrorist who needs to be taken out. Meanwhile, our trio of familiar characters are finding solutions to the problem, realizing that 1980s tech can penetrate the Hex without being transformed by Scarlet Witch’s powers.
Of course, it doesn’t go unnoticed by Wanda, and she storms out of the Hex to threaten Heyward and everyone else when, unbeknownst to Monica, he tries to use their drone to eliminate her. It’s a scary moment, one only slightly cut by Elizabeth Olsen reverting to her dodgy Eastern European accent. We see definitively that Wanda has at least some control and awareness of her surroundings and what’s happening, enough to want to protect it from interlopers and those intruding on her surroundings.
It’s become increasingly clear why she’s so protective of her perfect bubble of happiness and what she is running from -- grief. The show channels that idea through 1980s sitcom pastiches in an amusing fashion, with Agnes as the friendly, albeit intrusive neighbor, kids growing up too fast, and dogs dying so that parents can give an important lesson about making peace with certain facts of life.
At the root of it, though, is a deep sense of loss and the artifacts of reckoning with death, something difficult whether you’re a child or an adult. Wanda says to her boys, and to herself, that she cannot reverse death, that they cannot turn away from it, because some things aren’t meant to be elided and some lines shouldn’t be crossed.
We confirm that she has brought the corpse of the man she loves back to life, presumably because she couldn’t deal with his absence and the tragedy of what happened to him. The commercial break this episode name-checks Lagos, the Nigerian city from Civil War where Scarlet Witch accidentally killed dozens of civilians when trying to redirect a blast, more mess than any paper towel could clean up. And she reflects, at her sons’ urging, on the loss of her own twin, Pietro, the only lifeline she had when she lost her parents at the same tender age Billy and Tommy are now.
So she does what she’s already done -- she brings him back, after a fashion. It’s an inspired bit of stunt-casting to bring in Evan Peters to quasi-reprise his role as Quicksilver. But beyond the jolt of the misdirect and reveal is a simple truth, that this whole thing is wrong. It is a coping mechanism, one meant to shield Wanda from yet another horrid demise marring her personal history.
So she, or some other force working with and through her, has constructed this place to evade that destabilizing realization. Vision is breaking out of it, shaking off the cobwebs of his violative rebirth and seeing through the comforting lies that Wanda is straining so hard to hold onto. It is difficult, hollowing, wounding to watch someone you care for undone by grief and trauma, dragging the world down with them. So much of what WandaVision does is clever or exciting or amusing. But what it does here is disquieting beyond words, and deeply, painfully true.
When I heard Doctor Who was doing an episode about Rosa Parks, my first reaction was 'huh?". One, because I didn't expect a British show to tackle such a crucial piece of the American history. And two, because I was afraid that they wouldn't do it justice. It's such a delicate subject matter and they really needed to find the perfect balance for it not to be a complete failure.
And find the perfect balance they did.
I mean, I'm a white girl living in Poland, so far be it from me to claim to be an expert when it comes to the Civil Rights Movement. I'm absolutely not. But I thought this episode was amazing. The actress who played Rosa did a phenomenal job. And I'm pretty sure I held my breath for like 5 minutes at the end there. The moment the Doctor realized that they had to stay on the bus and watch, unable to help because they needed to keep history intact... It was devastating. But Rosa's choice felt absolutely triumphant. I love that we got to see her receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And what a lovely ending with the asteroid.
Jodie really nailed it once again, especially the more intense moments. I loved both her conversations with the other time traveler (whose name I didn't catch because my ears suck and there are no subtitles yet). I can't be the only one who saw a bit of Twelve shining through. The editing, with the quick cuts between the two characters and the (sometimes extreme) close-ups, made those scenes feel very dynamic and intimate. I also adore her facial expressions. Her face does all kinds of crazy things and it's so completely Doctor-ish. When Graham put his arm around her shoulders at the motel and she scrunched up her nose in disgust... I am head over heels in love with this woman.
"- You ain't Banksy!
- Or am I?"
I can't believe I stan this absolute nerd.
All three companions played a big role, which I'm very happy about. We saw a bit more development from Yaz - a lot of people complained that she didn't bring as much to the table as Graham or Ryan in the previous two episodes. I think she really shone here. I also love that Ryan just vaporized the antagonist without hesitation. Good stuff. And I'm glad they haven't magically forgotten about Grace and she still gets mentioned a bunch. It is a very fresh tragedy, after all.
This was hands down the best episode of the season so far and it's probably gonna be remembered as one of the most iconic stories of the entire show. I hope we can keep this up. It looks like next week the Doctor is finally gonna get her gang home and they're gonna be fighting some good old-fashioned space spiders. Which means a ton of dumb fun. Hey, I'm not complaining. We need episodes like that too. But "Rosa" was excellent on all fronts and I'm definitely gonna have to watch it again.
God, I love this show! What an episode: entertaining, funny as hell, bonding and sweet. And finally we got to see Luci doing something supernatural like getting shot and surviving. I've really missed this in last episodes.
"I thought since I'll never likely penetrate you, I'd commemorate the one time you penetrated me", lmao. That was absolutely brilliant.
I loved the flashbacks with Candy and how they just befriended so quickly. I loved the "Candy Morningstar" episode but knowing what happened in Las Vegas before just made me realized how meaningful that episode was.
The ending scene with everyone passed out in the penthouse was great. Btw, Dan's random and casual appearance with a drill was so good. He's a sweetheart. The bonding between Chloe and Luci is lovely. I loved the scene about lying when Chloe was in bed. It was great to see Lucifer being so honest. That hug at the end.
Chloe imitating Lucifer's accent was so good, lmao. "I'm Lucifer Morningstar. I can play the piano and I'm a fancy British man", lol.
We got Lucifer singing again! Nothing will ever top his version of Sinnerman but I loved it. Tom Ellis' voice is just glory.
Hamlet! And love, Will? Lol. I really really loved it. And that Hitler comment, that was great.
Ella's t-shirt! I want it! I loved to see her working with Lucifer on a case. Although her backstory in Vegas was kind of obvious to me, I did enjoy it. And what's up with the voices she hears? Does she have schizophrenia or something? It's definitely a red herring but what if those voices are addressing to a previous life? Or what if she's an angel and she doesn't realize? Let's see.
Anyways, enjoyable episode even though it wasn't connected to this season's plot.
Holy Mother of... That cliffhanger! Oh my God! His wings!!! I can't believe it. that ending confused the fuck out of me. So many things happened in the episode. The wings, that desert, and mom's in an alternate universe. Let's Supernatural this, boys!
as much as I want Chloe to know who Lucifer really is, I swear I had the goosebumps when he was talking to her on the phone. he wanted to spill the beans! But then Lucifer gets hit from behind and is driven to a whatever the fuck was that place, gets hit by who knows and his wings appear. mother of all cliffhangers. I need answers so desperately. Oh my God, when he comes back,every single time he takes his shirt of (not that it matters to me wink) his wings are gonna come off. How do you hide it? And who has the power to get his wings back? God, probably. Plus, that someone knocked him out when Chloe wasn't even there so it has to be God, right? Or Michael? Although I always thought Amenadiel was the version of Michael. Maybe he got his wings back because he was a good son and taking care of mom? Not entirely sure why he was just drying in the dessert, though. Lots of unanswered questions.
And that tear in reality looked exactly like the one we saw in Supernatural, just saying. Loved also the possibility of Mom ruling Hell, like wtf.
Even when Lucifer is covered in blister and beaten the hell up, those wings make him even sexier.
Now that I think of it, what if that scene was a flashback of when he first fell from Heaven? Although he landed on a beach and not the dessert.
I loved that Charlotte is still alive. I loved the actress, though I hated mom. But I loved her performance. Dan is a sweetheart and no one will convince me otherwise. And my poor Linda. Ufff, thank God she's ok. I couldn't handle her getting killed off. Maze is absolutely awesome and seeing Amenadiel happy makes me happy. So I guess both the wings and Amenadiel's powers coming back were a gift of God for doing the righteous thing.
[7.5/10] I continue to be in awe of the way WandaVision marries difficult emotional truths with the trappings of the televised form. This week, we’ve made it to the late 2000s/early 2010s mockumentary stage, with a style borrowed from shows like The Office and Modern Family. As always, the show does it well, with the talking head segments and characters looking at the camera (or “Jimming”, to borrow a term from Community) that capture the humor of that style of comedy.
The thing that grabbed me about this one, though, is that it uses that form to lean into Wanda’s depression, her sense of meaningless to life after witnessing and suffering so much trauma, her lurking fear that she’s endured so much pain because she deserves it. So often, the show has used its sitcom homages for subtle horror, when there’s something odd at the edge of the laugh track or TGIF rhythms that make us uneasy about what terrible thing might be lurking beyond the polished exterior.
But this week, the jarring part is that we’re still doing the cheery sitcom sheen but instead pairing it more directly with Wanda’s abject despondency. She has trouble getting out of bed. She’s incapable of doing anything. She can’t take care of her kids. Our title character (or one of them, at least), has basically given up.
That’s low-key dispiriting. There’s a realism to all of this. I’m sorry to say I know what it’s like to be with a caretaker who’s suffering from this kind of depression, and once again, WandaVision is unnervingly real in its depiction of it here. The fake ad this week (a pitch-perfect spoof of pill commercials) hints at what Wanda’s going through, weighed down not only by the losses she’s experienced so far, but by the sense that the perfect world she’s constructed is now crumbling too, especially with Vision seeming to have left her.
“Breaking the Fourth Wall” conveys that nicely (and in a visually sharp fashion) as objects within the Maximoff household start fritzing between different eras. It’s a nice way to communicate that Wanda is being overtaxed and overstretched, to where without the object of her affections and the person she ostensibly did all of this for, she can’t hold the focus or will to maintain it. She doesn’t know why, but she seems to ignore it in favor of her depressed stupor, hinting that it’s an emotional issue, rather than a magical one.
There’s other big plot happenings to be enjoyed though! For one, we pair up Vision and Darcy, the latter of whom has been officially sucked into the Hex. I honestly don’t love the pairing, as their comic energy isn’t brilliant. But I suppose it’s necessary, to bring this Vision up to speed on what’s happening both inside and outside this bubble. There’s some good comedy in the impediments that Wanda sets out for Vision to prevent him from making his way back home, and as much as they’re used for comedy, there’s something quietly heartbreaking about Vision’s confessionals, where he’s unusually emotionally raw about what he knows and what he suspects about the things his wife has done and his strange state of identity. Him getting fed up with the construct and just flying toward Wanda is a big move, both in terms of plot and his character.
Arguably just as big is Monica Rambeau not only making it inside the Hex, but maintaining her sense of self. It turns out that her aerospace engineering pal is just a friend of her mom’s who’s willing to deliver a favor, which is admittedly a bit of a letdown. But the purpose is to show the strength of the Hex and, by extension, the strength of Monica when she discovers her powers. The hardcore aerospace tech can’t penetrate the bubble (and even gets turned into a wood-paneled minivan in the process), but Monica wills her way through.
I’ll be honest. I had trouble hearing the echoing voices that presumably spoke important sentiments from Monica’s life as she burst through the barrier. Given her comments later, I took it to be a commentary on trauma, that Monica too has lost people and suffered, but chooses to keep going and finds strength in that, literally and figuratively. The strange body scans were a harbinger -- she’s got abilities of her own, and she wants to use them to help Wanda, to reason with her, as someone who’s experienced similar losses.
The confrontation goes about as well as you’d think, with Wanda trying to blast her away again, but Monica being tough but firm with her target. She’s running out of time though, as Director Hayward not only wanted to use Vision as a weapon, but is planning some sort of tactical strike. I gotta say, that’s my least favorite part of this one. We’ve done the “Government agency guy has a villainous, weapons-focused motivation” time and time again in the MCU. Unless there’s some unseen wrinkle here, it’s just not an interesting twist anymore.
What is, on the other hand, is the reveal that Agnes is behind it all! That may not be a shocking revelation, but it’s still a cool one. I’ll admit, I both thought Agnes was the likely culprit going back several episodes, but also bought into last week’s headfake where she pretended to be under Wanda’s influence. WandaVision unveiling her as Agatha Harkness, another “magical gal” in town, with ominous plans still totally work.
I have to say, I love the “Agatha All Along” montage and the fact that she gets her own theme here. Kathryn Hahn is a total pro, and the way she channels the cheesily cackling and winking baddie vibe on the one hand, while conveying some actual menace on the other, is really impressive. The little outro is very funny at the same time it fills in tons of gaps, and the villainous laughter coda that she killed their little dog too is the icing on the cake.
Beneath that heightened, audience-nudging reveal is some real terror though. The prospect of what happened to Billy and Tommy concerns me, especially when Wanda finds an expansive, gothic basement containing a box like the one that she and Pietro were kept in back in the day. One of the twins, the one seemingly with psychic powers, likes her because she’s quiet inside, something far scarier than it should be. She clearly has plans for them, and children’s lives in danger chills the blood of any adult.
As it reaches its closing stretch, WandaVision puts its cards on the table, telling us who the villains on the inside and outside are, reaching the present (more or less) with its homages, and giving us four superpowered beings within the Hex prepared to do battle to save/protect/convince Wanda of what has to happen left. It’s a hell of a setup, emotionally and story-wise, and I’m excited to see how the show finishes it.
Is American Horror Story: Cult the television equivalent of Marvel’s Secret Wars event? Fan favorites like Evan Peters are turned into unrepentant fascists, characters like Twisty make unexpected and inexplicable returns, and as nakedly as Cult demonstrates its aspirations toward political commentary it remains unclear what the show is trying to convey. The complexities of the issues Cult is trying to take on may result in a season that is as in poor taste as Secret Wars, especially considering their shared ideological murkiness. Because the show seems to take aim at both Sarah Paulson’s left-leaning Ally (the name, as AHS always is, is painfully on the nose) and Evan Peters’s Kai, one might accuse Ryan Murphy of false equivalence. And yet, Ally is unquestionably heroic and Kai is unrepentantly villainous. This distinction is important. On a day when DACA is under threat, representing an existential horror far beyond what AHS is artistically equipped to depict, the perspective that “everyone is worried over nothing, ‘both sides’ need to calm down” is unwelcome. At least as of the first episode, I’m not immediately alienated by some poorly thought out centrism.
While Cult is a high risk (and, perhaps, low reward) proposition, it gets a lot right. I found this episode inspiring fear and dread in excess of other seasons of AHS. It’s not just the political drama, either. Peters is a menace on the screen, chewing scenery, firing off nonsensical diatribes, and committing heinous acts. The sinister nanny is also a powerful fear-generating machine. The powerlessness of Ally and Ivy to intervene on the life of their child and protect him from this intrusion is profoundly unsettling. But beyond on that, it’s slick camera work and memorable costuming that does the job. The monstrous clowns that terrorize Ally and her son and commit suburban murders are as striking as the returning Twisty.
I’m appreciative that the show verified Ally’s encounters with the clowns as “real” as opposed to long-playing the possibility of hallucination. Horror rarely treats mental illness with the nuance it deserves and Cult is no exception. Ally’s condition played up as an isolation based horror is crass, and her treatment by both the narrative and the other characters is unconscionable. The quicker the show decides to pivot away from this hackneyed plot device, the better.
Overall, I’m intrigued by what is on offer with this season of AHS. I don’t expect any groundbreaking political commentary. For some, that might be enough reason to dismiss the show at best or argue it should have never been made at worst. I’m sympathetic to those arguments. But there’s something about the craft of this first episode that has grabbed me. And I appreciate seeing the naked fascism of Kai on screen, rendered as incoherently and unsympathetically as it deserves. But I shudder to think what other viewers might take away from Murphy’s glib and over-the-top depiction of the entire political spectrum. The fact that Kai might affirm or embolden some white supremacist is a horror of which I don’t need to be reminded.
9.7/10. I am still amazed at what they managed to pull off with The Mother in Season 9. There was necessarily so much build to who this woman had to be, all the things she had to represent and all the ways that she had to fit naturally into this world and the lives of our protagonists. And she does! This is a woman who totally makes sense for the gang, and totally makes sense for this show, and totally makes sense for Ted.
But there's more to her than that. She's not just a pot of gold waiting for Ted at the end of the rainbow. She is a woman with her own journey from the past to the present, with her own stumbles and trials and tribulations, that makes Ted just as much a light at the end of the tunnel for her as she is for him.
I'll admit, I found it a little too neat, and a little too "small universe" how many connections there were between her and the various important people and places from the show's history. But at the same time, I appreciated how the show filled in the gaps with things we already knew about, like her night at the club, or Ted's accidental class, or the return of the yellow umbrella to her apartment.
More than that though, I really appreciated the story, that would have absolutely worked as its own show, of a young woman who lost a significant other very young and very tragically, and believed that she'd basically won the lottery on her first ticket, and wasn't likely to win again. Telling that story in 22 minutes is hard, but the episode did a nice job at showing a woman who was weird and nerdy in a way that makes her fit to be a Mosby, but also different and someone with her own important journey to "a little ways down the road." The story of her moving on past her heartbreak with Max was quite poignant, and Christina Miloti delivered that monologue to her dead beau like a champ.
And my word, if you can avoid being move by her rendition of "La Vie En Rose," then you're a stronger man than I. It's such a lovely little moment, conveying both the melancholy and sweetness of her love. Her philosophy on the universe giving you one person works as an interesting counterpoint or echo of Ted's own philosophy about waiting for The One. While Ted is still trying to find his soulmate and worries he never will, The Mother thinks she'd already found hers and will never get another chance at something like that again. It's a nice way to show that the two have the same perspective, and yet have different flavors of it. All-in-all, it's a wonderful format-bending, mythology heavy episode, that still takes time to make us care about The Mother apart from our heroes, which makes the inevitable meeting that this show has been building too all the more meaningful.
**SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THE SERIES. DO NOT READ BELOW THIS POINT IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE ENTIRE SHOW**
In hindsight, it's interesting how Tracy moving past Max and being mistaken in her belief that the universe only gives you one person to truly love foreshadows Ted eventually moving on from Tracy and going after Robin in the finale. I still don't care for that decision, and I think it undoes too much of what this season accomplished, but in retrospect, I appreciate that Thomas and Bays set up that choice thematically here. It's good writing, even if I don't like where they went with it.
I loved this episode so much, even though it was heartbreaking. Is it really bad to love the Devil? 'cause I do. I just wanted to give him a hug. I loved when Maze tried to walk Luci away from the pub when she saw how happy he was. Maze keeps on being the best character on the show. She's so well-written and portrayed.
I really, really hate mum. Not my own, don't get me wrong but the goddess of all creation. She's the actual Devil.
And what a philosophical concept they showed in the episode. The psycho doctor's gonna have one hell (no pun intended) of a meeting. I kind of was expecting something to happen to Chloe at the very end, ever since she sent that threatening message to our crazy professor. Now I guess Luci will have to have one hell of a hell intervention with our lovely psycho professor. I hope he goes to hell rather than to Heaven, actually.
Since last week's promo I knew that first scene with Chloe wasn't real. But I completely lost it when he said "those are my love handles". I had to stop and I couldn't recover until 3 minutes later. I think Chloe certainly suspects he's the real Lucifer. I mean it was only hell of a faith leap she made letting Lucifer handle the gas chamber and running after the psycho doctor.
Anyways, let's see how it all ends up and how Luci makes the doctor tell him the poison reciepe to save her, and how on Earth is Luci going to explain it to Chloe.
Season 4 was simply amazing. What a finish!
I am a bit sad that the series hasn't picked up for a fifth season. Conversion therapy fallout and Betty's story would provide great frameworks for at least one more great season. But I sadly suspect this season finale is the series finale.
Libby: Caitlin FitzGerald really amazed me in her transformation. And this season is easily her very best, oozing confidence and sexiness. I am really happy that her character ended in a triumphant note.
Johnny Masters: Big claps to Jaeden Lieberher, who gave very surprising and poignant performance on this episode. He really played this under written character with a big heart, channeling a bit of River Phoenix in his teenager years.
Art: Art was totally played by Nancy, but he kept his dignify and my respect. It's sad that Art wasn't invited to stay. If the series is renewed, I strongly suspect he will come back either as an ally or as a foe joining Barton Scully.
Nancy: Every great series needs a villain and Nancy was a character that's all too easy to hate. But her drive is realistic and at least understandable. I am glad her character did not end in stereotypical total defeat. I suspect she'll thrive, although at far reduced capacity than she had hoped.
Lester: I am a bit disappointed that Lester did not get the full respect nor love he deserved. In a way, he dug his own grave, but he's a lovable loser and I was giving him a high five when he hooked up with a hottie caterer.
Betty: Betty has been absent in the last few episodes and her absence was greatly missed. She is by far among the most fascinating characters on this series, third only to Bill and Libby Masters (sorry Virginia). I hope she manages to regain custody with Austin, another great character.
Virginia: Virginia was never among my favorite characters, but she had an amazing run on the first season and her "shrink session" with Art this season was simply amazing. So I am very glad that this season finale returns its focus to Virginia, who simply glows and shines on this episode.
Bill: This series cemented my deep respect for Michael Sheen. Prior to Masters and Sex, I simply viewed him as a token British character actor who was born to play Tony Blair (in The Queen). But here in Masters and Sex, he plays a fascinating character with uncanny realism and attention to detail.
On a final note, writers did an amazing job this season with all the parallelisms, creating rich texture at very high efficiency. And the show looked really amazing, from set decoration, casting, and cinematography.
[7.6/10] Well, I guess I was wrong about last week’s episode replacing the improv-based interdimensional cable eps we’ve gotten previously. But I enjoy this entree full of bite-sized adventures for our heroes. It’s a throwback to Harmon’s “clip show but with new clips” bit from Community and fun to see the mini-stories thrown out rapid fire.
I particularly liked the opening pair of stories. Morty mistaking his new guidance counselor for a scary moon man is the sort of Bailey School Kids schtick with a Rick and Morty twist that really tickled my fancy. By the same token, turning the usual “humans trapped in an alien zoo” routine into a Contact-based hoodwinking is entertaining.
But I also really enjoyed the fact that Rick didn’t just zap away the memories of things that were too heavy for Morty to take; he zapped away his own minor mistakes, like the phrase “taken for granite,” not to mention things that implicate his family members, like Beth choosing Summer over Morty in her alien Sophie’s Choice scenario.
While most of the stories were amusing in that black comic way the show’s mastered, it feels like they’re all another brick in the wall of Morty getting tired of Rick’s bullshit, and the rest of the family’s bullshit too. The twist that both Rick and Morty lose their memories and have to use the vials to figure out who they are revitalizes the premise a bit, but also leads to the bleak realization that after seeing all that stuff, the pair want to have a suicide pact.
It’s played mainly for laughs, with Summer barging in on them and refueling their memories in a desultory fashion like she’s had to do this dozens of times, but like most episodes of the show, it finds the humor in something that, at its core, is pretty damn dark. (And then “no wonder you guys fight all the time and are always behind schedule” sounds like a not so veiled bit of self-commentary about Harmon and Roiland, which is a little discouraging.)
Overall, it’s a fun, rapid-fire premise for an episode that allows the show to deliver its humor and demented scenarios in quick hit format, but which still uses the form to offer a commentary on its two core characters, what they’ve seen, and the frustrations and vanity and ego that drives them to want to end it all. The fact that the show can wring comedy from that is just another pelt on the wall of its achievements.
"Here's Major!"
Wow, that writing and acting, especially Rahul (Ravi), was simply amazing these two episodes. Too bad the zombie hooker (Natalie) wasn't there but I have hope Major is going to search for her in S3. I was genuinely surprised that they get rid off the whole Du Clark story branch so quickly (but I called it that Du Clark will help Major). Well, kind of, the replacement is much worse, holding the danger up that Max Rager is.
I do think it's a waste in a sense, as they could have gone a bit further with the whole Du Clark/Rita story and the Rita character.
But the same goes for Drake but he had the same kind of "heroic" end for him as the other guy Liv dated besides him and Major.
Blaine being such a badass was surprising. But here his blanko character naure played out, I'd say.
While I was figuratively at the edge of my seat these two episodes, overall episode 18 had more scenes that I really loved (Ravi was excellent).
I wonder where exactly season 3 will take us. Now that Clive is in the loop, Du Clark is out of the picture, Drake is gone. It does make me a bit anxious about the direction. It seems it's about to get dark in S3. But I hope it stays, most of the times, rather lighthearted.
6.5/10. There were some positives here. The titular song and dance number (with unexpected but pleasant return of Angie!) was a lot of fun, and showed off some hidden talents from the cast. It's churlish to continue to compare this show to Buffy, but this is just the kind of flight of fancy that series would employ from time-to-time to liven up things a bit and show that beneath the genre-trappings of its premise and occasionally darker and more serious material, it could kick back and just entertain. The colorful costumes, the well-employed dream logic, and the hoot of an ending made the opening of "A Little Song and Dance" one to remember.
And what's more, the scene between Peggy and Jarvis as they were walking along a desert role is one of the best in the entire series. It felt true to those moments when friends are at their lowest and know how just what to say to hurt the other. Jarvis's statement that everyone around Peggy dies was coldblooded, and his immediately dismayed reaction after saying it perfectly underscored what a terrible thing it was to stay. And yet Peggy, paragon of strength, not only wipes away her tears and remains unshaken, but turns around and not only owns the uncomfortable truths and justifying virtues of what she does with her life, but rightfully spits it right back at Jarvis for the lack of any price he's had to pay for these adventures. And his confession to Peggy about his wife's inability to have children, about his cowardice and his unspoken guilt at having been the cause of it, it doesn't change the truth or honesty of anything Peggy's said, but it changes her perspective and attitude. Jarvis is having his first taste of this kind of loss, and finding it doesn't agree with him.
But the rest of the episode was fairly dull and uninteresting, even as it was attempting to be flashy. I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- I have little-to-no investment in the love triangle between Peggy, Sousa, and Wilkes. Sousa continues to be a sort of formless space-eater of a love interest, whose dogged agent routine was tired before the show kept trying to glue he and Peggy together. Wilkes is, at least, a bit more interesting with the way he's been affected by the zero matter, but despite his scientific background, he hasn't been able to conjure up much real chemistry with Peggy either. So when too much of the episode has Peggy stumbling over these issues, I tend to push back.
Still, those elements didn't overwhelm the episode like the boring and repetitive plotting did. Agent Carter hasn't proven itself to be particularly adept at layering crosses and doublecrosses on top of one another in an intriguing way. With all the attempts at betrayal and charades and attempts to discern where real loyalty lay, the episode felt jumbled. While the various twists and turns on that front were not especially difficult to follow, they just felt gratuitous and unnecessary, and not early as mysterious or intriguing as they seemed to be pitched as. How many times did we need to see someone unexpectedly hold someone else at gunpoint in this episode? Eventually, it becomes comic.
Of course, with my utilitarian leanings, I tend to side with Agent Thompson for wanting to blow up three dangerous people who have each shown themselves willing to take the lives of others (two of whom have nigh-uncontrollable superpowers) rather than risk their killing anyone else. I realize that Peggy wants to save Wilkes on principle (and her defense of her decision to save Dottie and accusation that Jarvis is a would-be murderer dovetails nicely here and served as another layer to their earlier argument), and I can appreciate the idea (played with in Jessica Jones as well) that bad guys need to be brought to justice rather than summarily executed by the people going after them.
That said, we know, and they know, the kind of damage that Whitney Frost has caused, could cause, and seems poised to cause. Any of it that comes to pass is on Peggy's head now, because she and her team had a chance to stop these people and refused to take it. Even if, as Peggy believes, Wilkes is a purely good and innocent man who's being warped by the zero matter, how many other good and innocent people will have to die because she could have stopped Whitney Frost, or at least allowed it to happen, and wouldn't.
But hey, that's network television for you, even with a show that's as adventurous, and occasionally script-flipping as Agent Carter. The rest of the episode was hit or miss. Jarvis's scene with Ana was another strength here, as Ana Jarvis, who started out as a collection of quirks, has been sketched out well in her brief time on screen as someone who believes in facing facts even if they're unpleasant, while not letting them get in the way of her and her husband's lives. The support and love shown between the two of them is impressive, especially considering "Mrs. Jarvis" was an unseen character in Season 1. And Samberly continues to hew too close to the irksome side of the annoying-endearing spectrum for comic relief characters.
"A Little Song and Dance" is the kind of episode that earns being just above the doldrums through one incredibly fun scene and one with incredible emotional weight and character moments. The rest of the episode falls into cheesier tropes and messy plotting, not to mention weak romantic angles, that do no one in the show any favors. While there's plenty of interesting elements that have been teed up for the finale (I suspect we haven't seen the last of Howard Stark's gamma cannon in relation to Wilkes's transformation), this episode doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence that the series will be able to stick the landing in terms of its plot, even if it can pull off a pair of superlative sequences that show of the show's creative side and display the amazing relationship and strong performances between its two leads.
Watching through Buffy for the first time recently. I missed it the first go-round as i would've been too hardcore goth for such bubblegummy fare when it was first coming out. It's good timing, actually, i feel like the ensuing 2 decades have put me in a place to appreciate Joss Whedon's campy vision.
I feel like Teacher's Pet is the episode where the series starts to hit its stride. The main characters seem to be establishing their chemistry, which is excellent and worth watching for that alone. Secondarily, it's good, goofy late 90s fun. While this show could easily veer towards the obnoxious, somehow it toes the line and is charming instead. I feel like if this came out even 3 years later, it wouldn't have worked, as i imagine they'd have been tempted to use CGI instead of practical effects and the whole thing would've been rendered dated and cheap. Instead, Buffy has kind of a timeless quality, in lines with weird, goofy teen horror romps, from Eerie, Indiana to The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina.
I also like to imagine a world where teenagers go out and watch live music almost every day. Makes me miss going to shows.
[7.3/10] Well, that was bold. I have to give the show that much.
Let’s start with the big mystery reveal. I suppose I have a bit of egg on my face after my last write-up when I railed about how Penn couldn’t be the real bomber. The show gives him a good bit of motive and opportunity. We see him having been harassed and disrespected by all the Spring Breakers, which gives him reason to hate them and want them gone. And his interest in true crime gives him the understanding of how these investigations proceed to be able to (a.) potentially get away with it (b.) feed the investigators what they need and (c.) understand how the explosives work, something he’s been working up to.
You can also see how the whole Murderheads thing makes him love the spotlight, idolizing killers, until the two combine and he realizes the best way to hang onto the spotlight is to become one of the murderers he so admires.
But I don’t know, at some point it just requires too much contrivance to really make complete sense to me, less from motivation and more from action. Can you really picture Patton Oswalt lugging the body of his “friend” Don or getting the neck bomb on that kid? And at the same time, for his plan to work, he had to be able to play Veronica and Keith to a degree that feels impossible, requiring them to pick him up at just the right time so he could leave his bag in their car, and lead them to Don, and all this other stuff that just seems kind of implausible.
Beyond Penn turning into a Bond villain and delivering monologues to Veronica at the end (which you can at least attribute to him watching true crime shows and aiming for their same sense of grandiosity), beyond the sort of visceral implausibility of Penn managing to stage all these crimes, it just requires too much to go right for him for everything to work out the way it did.
Granted, I think of the 7 major mysteries the show has done at this point, I think I only found one of them fully satisfying, so there’s a fair argument that this sort of thing is just the show’s M.O. and a decade and a half after the series’s debut, you’re either on board with it or you’re not. I like Veronica Mars for the great humor and dialogue, the strongly-written character relationships, and the fun and twists of the mystery along the way, regardless of whether the answers make complete sense.
But man, those character relationships take some pretty big blows here! I admire the show’s boldness in killing Logan right when he and Veronica are at peak happiness. This show was often compared to Buffy the Vampire Slayer in its early days, and that’s a very Buffy move. The ethos for this show has always been that in Neptune, where everything is rigged, even when you win, you lose. To have Veronica solve the mystery, marry the love of her life, and get a clean bill of health for her dad, only to see the bomber take one last pound of flesh, and to have the corporate and gentrifying interests take over the beach anyway, feels true to what the show is and has been.
I’ll admit, though, that I don’t really like the fake out with it seeming like Logan was going to bail on the wedding. I understand needing to have some stakes in these moments, but it just came off cheesy to me, as did the whole “last recorded voicemail” shtick. Still, as a BSG fan, it’s always a thrill to see Mary McDonnel pop up, and I appreciate that the silver lining to all of this is Veronica accepting that she needed to deal with some shit and going to therapy.
I also neglected to mention that however contrived the situation is, I really like the scene at the heretofore unmentioned Kane High School commemoration. For one thing, it’s just fun to see Veronica show up and crash another Kane event (almost literally). But there’s legitimate tension when Veronica has to watch Keith stand there and try to convince Penn to confess and defuse the bomb before they’re both blown up. Say what you will about how the show crafts its mysteries, but it knows how to pull off a suspenseful scene.
Otherwise, I like where things land for the most part. I appreciate the reveal that Maddie is the one who stole the ring (Vinnie was right!), which establishes her rough-around-the-edges bona fides that makes her fit to fill Veronica’s shoes at Mars Investigations. I like that in the end, Keith still can’t abide what Clyde did, despite how endearing their bromance is, and I like that Clyde ends up with his girlfriend and his car dealership, underscoring the anti-”evil never prospers” message of the show. And I like that maybe, just maybe, Veronica is genuinely ready to move on from Neptune, to go see what else is out there, now that the best life she was living there has been ripped away from her.
Overall, I’m not entirely satisfied with the answer to the big mystery, but otherwise I really liked this season. It definitely had the tone and sensibility of the show right. It had some good personal developments with the main characters, and brought in a slew of interesting new fresh faces. And it made some bold moves here, that challenge our hero, and live up to the show’s perspective rather than sanding it down. Good, bad, and otherwise, this season was still very much the Veronica Mars that I remembered, and that’s a good thing.
So there it is, the worst thing HIMYM had ever done, or would ever do. "The Robin" was once my breaking point on this show, the point where I stopped harboring any illusions that it might one day return to being the show and I had known and loved and accepted that, instead, it had metamorphasized into a pale imitation of its former self. HIMYM had previously had bad episode, bad characters, and bad storylines, but none of them was so fundamental to the mythos of the series, so bafflingly wrong-headed, and so essential to the show's past and its future, as "The Final Page."
But before we explore the horror, let's take just a minute to chat about the things that are okay, even good about the episode. The comedy subplot about Marshall and Lily having their first day off since Marvin was born gets pretty broad, between their minute-by-minute list of activities, to their cartoonish lullaby, to their immediate separation anxiety, but it's pretty standard HIMYM Season 8 comedy, with a few cute moments, and that's enough to give it a pass.
What's more, Ted's speech to Robin about the virtues of making an ass of yourself is a lovely little scene, that manages to delve into Ted's fairly unrealistic view of what loves means, and yet draws it back to something sweet -- that even his wildest misfires have helped him to find a great friend. I've never really bought into the show's thesis, first presented in Season 7, that what was holding Ted back from finding The One was that he needed to get over Robin. But accepting that premise, his words are heartfelt and the gesture of taking Robin to the WWN building is meaningful.
With that out of the way, let's talk about the event that manages to wreck one of the show's foundational relationships, botch its romantic-arc storytelling over at least the last season and a half, practically ruin two of the show's main characters, and infect nearly everything that came after it: The Robin.
The result is simple -- essentially everything from Barney's profession of love to Robin in "Splitsville" has been part of a play, a scheme on Barney's part prime Robin for his proposal. The drunken kiss, the dating Patrice, the whole kit and kaboodle, were one grand effort at manipulating Robin into loving him.
Let's address the first problem with this whole plan -- it's tremendously implausible. The problem with a lot of works, be they dramatic or comedic, aping the Tyler Durden-esque twist that reshapes everything you've seen previously, is that too often they require all too much convenience in order for these sorts of byzantine plots to work. Too much of "The Robin" requires people to react in just the right way, at just the right time, on just the right schedule, or the whole thing falls apart.
Now HIMYM has always been a show that runs more on emotional logic than on real logic. To some degree, you accept the level of willing suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy this show, or you pretty much have to give up on the whole thing from the beginning (or chalk it up to Future Ted as an unreliable narrator). I'm generally okay with that idea, and the other contrivances that are necessary for the grand gestures that are the stock and trade of HIMYM to work. But this one stretches the reality of the show too far. Maybe it's just that there's too many moving parts; maybe it's that the plan stacks implausibility on top of implausibility until the whole bit is too unwieldy to pass even the most generous of B.S. detectors, or maybe it's that I don't like what this routine is in service of and that colors my willingness to accept it or not. Whatever the reason, "The Robin" feels like a bridge too far in terms of the coincidences necessary for Barney's ploy to work, and while that's far from this episode's greatest problem, it does sincerely damage the effectiveness of the twist.
So let's get into the greatest problem, which is really two fold: that Barney would do something like this and that Robin would accept it.
The first part is arguably, devastatingly in-character for Barney. There have been several episodes to rehabilitate Barney as not just some sort of Lothario on the prowl, but as an actual human being with real feelings and a desire to love and to be loved. The results have been mixed, and all too often the show falls back into the idea that Barney is basically a sex-minded wizard, conjuring spells on unsuspecting dames at the bar with little moral compunction.
So then it's not crazy that Barney would offer this bizarro version of something Ted might do. Barney too goes in for the big gesture, for making an ass of himself, but he does it in the most deranged, cruel manner imaginable, that plays into the worst qualities of the character. Manipulating someone that you claim to love, knowingly putting them through the pain and humiliation and instability that Robin has been suffering from over the past few episodes, doesn't amount to a grand profession of love; it amounts to the revelation that Barney doesn't really understand what love is.
Because what's striking about "The Robin," and what is supposed to ease the audience into accepting all of these horrible things, is that Barney has no malice in any of this. Barney isn't trying to hurt Robin; he's not trying to trick her into loving him; he's not trying to be an amoral monster about something as sacrosanct as two people pledging the rest of their lives to one another. He just doesn't understand. "The Robin" unintentionally reveals that the Barney's arc from, at a minimum, the end of Season 2, where he slowly develops from a sexual predator into a mature human being, is a failure. It leads to a person who believes he loves another person, and maybe, in his own way, he does, but through his twisted methods, shows he has no concept of what love really is.
Love is not torturing someone so as to catch them off guard with your proposal. (I'm also looking at you, Friends.) Love is not intentionally driving someone "nuts." Love is not toying with people's emotions. Love is not spying on your friends. Love is not pretending to date the object of your heart's desire's worst enemy just to get to them. Love is not an elaborate game where if you lie and cheat and steal enough along the way, you get a human trophy at the end.
These are not the acts of someone who truly cares for another human being. These are the acts of a sociopath. This is the best Barney can do. This is him playacting as a romantic. This is him trying to replicate the rhythms of the Mosbies of the world while having no facility, maybe even no idea, about what truly loving another person means.
And this is the point where Barney crosses the moral event horizon. It is telling that the show's creators patterned Barney's "long con" after a similarly elaborate plot from Breaking Bad's Walter White (occasional HIMYM guest star Bryan Cranston). That moment in Breaking Bad is arguably the point where Walter White goes from being a man with good intentions and bad impulses to being the monster he would become. "The Robin" presents a turning point for Barney as well. This is where he goes from being a character who does some pretty terrible things that you can write off as an exaggerated, nigh-satirical take on "pickup artist," buoyed by the character's accumulated vulnerabilities and affections, to becoming someone who would enact this horrifying, violating scheme and view it as a sincere expression of love.
Maybe it is. Maybe this is the closest Barney can come to expressing the emotions that he believes amount to love. But if so, that's terrible, and speaks volumes about the fissures in the foundation of a relationship HIMYM doesn't just wants us to be on board with, but which has been, and will be, at the core of the series' final three seasons.
But perhaps even more insulting is the idea that Robin accepts it. Robin herself has deteriorated a bit as a character since the beginning, becoming more and more exaggerated herself as the late season dearth of places to take the show's characters became more pronounced. And yet there is little in her history that suggests the cynical, pragmatic, independent woman we have seen over seven-plus years, would not only excuse Barney's deplorable behavior, but accept it as a sign that the two of them should be together.
Robin herself offers the most convincing and powerful rebuke of Barney's inherently messed-up gesture. "Seriously, Barney?" she asks. "Even you, even someone as certifiably insane as you must realize that this is too far. You lied to me, manipulated me for weeks. Do you really think I could ever kiss you after that? Do you really think I could ever trust you after that? This this is proof of why we don't work, why we'll never work. So thank you. You've set me free because how could I be with a man who thinks that this trick, this enormous lie could ever make me want to date him again?"
That should really have been it. Robin should have walked away, resolved never to talk to or let Barney into her life ever again, and recognize him as someone who could not trusted to be honest, to be open, to be a mature human being in an adult relationship. Instead, she realizes that this is all, in fact, leading to a proposal, and convinces her to have a complete change of heart about the whole thing.
And it makes absolutely no sense.
How that sense of betrayal becomes instant acceptance of the offer to marry this cretin is beyond me. The most charitable interpretation is that Robin appreciates this as Barney being all-in as only he can be. But that doesn't erase the horrible things he did to her to get there, or offer any indication that he couldn't or wouldn't twist noble ends into terrible acts once more. The less charitable interpretation is that Robin has been left so off-balance and messed up by Barney's machinations that she's in a bad enough place mentally to be willing to accept this sort of thing. The even less charitable interpretation is that no reasonable human being would ever look at what Barney did as a genuine sign of love, or at least as a sign that someone can be trusted to be a committed, loving partner in life, and the show just fiats Robin's emotional acceptance to get us to an end point it not only hasn't earned, but which is the antithetical result to all that we've seen thus far.
Or maybe there's another explanation.
The version of Robin Scherbatsky we've seen over the last handful of episodes has not been good or decent or likable. She is pointlessly horrible to Patrice. She selfishly tries to sabotage what she thinks is Barney's relationship with Patrice. And she only returns to wanting Barney after his declaration that she cannot have him. This too, is not the foundation of a real, committed relationship, or the kind of person with the maturity to be in one. Robin has always been much more of an adult than Barney, and even within the heightened reality of the show, felt like more of a real person. But the version of her we've seen in the lead up to "The Final Page," presents a discomforting possibility.
Maybe these two people deserve each other. Maybe they both have such a fucked up view of what it is to want and care for and love someone that they are made to visit these types of violations of trust and of conscience upon one another again and again, in a spate of co-dependence rather than legitimate connection. Though Barney's missteps are much greater in magnitude here, both he and Robin act terribly in the lead to this mid-season finale. They mislead, don't consider the genuine happiness or well-being of the other (not to mention innocent bystanders), and above all act with wanton disregard for anyone's interests but their own. Perhaps that level of myopia leaves them unexpectedly well-matched, even if not portends a thoroughly unhealthy relationship to follow.
But that's not what How I Met Your Mother seems to want its audience to take from "The Final Page." It wants us to take this all as the act of genuine devotion rather than of hopeless narcissism, as a moment filled with true love than a reveal of psychopathology, as two people who belong together beautifully and finally joining as one than as an implausible acceptance premised on falsehood and manipulations.
This, more than any prior missteps, more than any previous faults in the characters or the plot, more than even the justifiably polarizing finale, is the moment that broke the show, that proved it had truly and fully lost whatever tenuous grasp it had on its understanding of its characters, their stories, or how love and romance work. It's the point at which we were asked to accept the product of a depraved act of betrayal and manipulation as an enviable celebration of true feeling.
There was no turning back from "The Robin." No retcons could save it, and no amount of attempted rehabilitation could rescue the show in its wake. It is the point at which How I Met Your Mother ceased to be a series that had always had a certain rom-com view of romance but which grounded it in genuine human emotion and moments of real feeling, and instead became one simply playing out the string to its unsatisfying endgame, increasingly fixated on relationships that hadn't and didn't work, and which were founded on so much betrayal -- of character, of love, of common sense -- that it could no longer have even the force that came from the years of good will and myth the series had crafted for so long. "The Final Page" is, without question, the worst thing the show ever did, and true to HIMYM's non-linear bent, its ripples are felt in both the past and the future of the show.
[7.3/10] Far be it from me to turn my nose up at the imaginative, scifi-fueled tete-a-tete between Rick Sanchez and a president voiced by the inimitable Keith David. But I have to admit, this was a bit of a disappointment as a finale. Too often, “Rickchurian Mortydate” gets lost in admittedly inventive and amusing dick-wagging contests between Rick and the president, and doesn’t spend enough time grounding it in Rick or the Smiths’ personal issues or character flaws like the show does at its best.
The Beth story certainly does though. There would be an existential horror to wondering if you’re a clone, and there would be so few ways in Beth’s situation to reliably determine whether or not you are. But her story finds the beneficial side of that magnificent ambiguity in the prior episode. It doesn’t really matter to Beth whether she’s the “real” Beth or not. Being this Beth, being someone who loves her husband and her family, makes her happy, and in a nice counterpoint to last season’s finale, she’s willing to put up with not having her father around if she can preserve that.
What that means for Rick is that he’s not the center of the universe, or at least the Smiths anymore. Morty, the grandson who tags along through all of his adventures, is willing to tell his grandfather to leave him alone so that he can have a happy family once more. And contrary to the ultimatum from the Season 2 finale, Beth is willing to pick Jerry over her dad.
That leaves Rick unable to enjoy his victory over the President of the United States and the onslaught of toys and weapons and other technological doo-dads the Prez has assembled to be able to combat him. It makes Rck’s victory hollow, to where he’s willing to sacrifice his victory, the respect that comes from having bested the leader of the free world, in order to be a part of the Smith family once again.
He sees the rest of the Smiths’ happiness and tries to spit on it, to tell them that it doesn’t matter, but it does to them, and though he has trouble admitting it, it matters to him. They’re happy and whether that’s flawed or fake or just one petal on the swirling sunflower of infinite multiverses, it’s their pleasant and fulfilling subjective experience and they couldn’t care less if it’s unimpressive from a cosmic standpoint. While Rick, who’s achieved the most of what could be achieved from a cosmic standpoint, debases himself to have a piece of that, to be proximate to it, when he has all the talent and ability to just jump to some other universe if he wants to.
Maybe I liked the episode better than I thought. Part of it are too indulgent. Rick and Morty being blasé about their adventures evokes a sense of ennui in the writer’s room (or at least from credited writer Dan Harmon who’s not been shy about expressing when his passion for a project is waning.) That colors the hijinks between Rick and the President trying to one-up each other. None of it’s bad, but it’s Rick and Morty going through the motions. A crazy techno-fight here, a hilarious vulgar aside there, a well-placed pop culture riff some place else. (The South Park reference is particularly exemplary this week.) None of it’s bad, it just doesn’t hit the transcendent highs the show is capable of when it’s at the top of the game.
But the Beth story comes closer. Jerry reminiscing about the first time he kissed Beth is the most endearing, relatable, and understandable Jerry’s seemed in the whole series, and it’s enough to make you want to root for this pathetic man to get back together with his wife, and to understand why they made some modicum of sense in the first place. And Beth realizing that whether she’s real or not, she wants to like that night, to be happy with where she is, is a subtle but powerful statement from the show.
I don’t hesitate to say that Season 3 has been the best season of Rick and Morty yet. It’s been as consistently creative and inventive as any prior set of their adventures, and the level of emotional depth and self-examination the show’s engaged in on a weekly basis is nothing short of remarkable. From the surprise season premiere, to the infamous “Pickle Rick”, to toxic versions of our heroes, to Wire-inspired adventures, the show has continually topped itself with the places it’s willing to go and how well it goes there.
But “Rickchurian Mortydate” isn’t quite the perfect capper to so much greatness. It fits well enough as the culmination of a lot of things the show has been wrestling with this season: Morty wondering whether he needs his grandfather in his life, Jerry figuring out his place in the world in relation to his father-in-law, and Beth taking some time alone and figuring out who she is, whether or not it’s really who she is. It all comes together in the family deciding to reject Rick, and Rick sacrificing, in his own sideways way, to not be cast aside. That’s strong stuff, but at times, the finale of the show’s best season so far is more interested in laser-coated mayhem than that deeper, emotionally complex material that marks it as more than just a collection of wacky escapades.
Ah well. Still damn good. I’ll see you all in however long it takes for Mr. Poopy Butthole to grow a big Santa Claus beard. Don’t just screw around in the mean time!
Great wrap up to a wacky season! It was bound to happen, but still, I am sad to see Blum go (yes, I'm aware I'm in the minority, though I understand the Blum hate), but I am happy that he took Maia with him (I still don't like her). Judging by her last scene, he seemed to have ruined her, anyway, so nothing's lost, there.
Between the absurdity of the ASMR testimony and the silly Brooks Brothers riot re-enactment, that has got to be the most ludicrous trial we've ever seen in The Good Fight! And I'm glad for it, this show does not spend enough time in the courtroom, unfortunately, so I treasure every moment that it does. And this one trumped them all!
I did not understand if the whole ball lightning was supposed to be a metaphor for something. Nothing burned up in the end, Reddick, Boseman & Lockhart won the trial, so... What was that all about? Same thing goes for that cliffhanger... What the flying fuck?! I'm guessing Kurt will be charged for something. Or maybe Diane. Or both! Maybe the Book Club has something to do with it, like someone suggested around here. I hope we'll get to see the reason behind that scene by early 2020.
... Until then, enjoy Donald J. Trump, everybody!
Perfectly good episode. The highlight was the story between Jarvis and Ana. The clear distress in Jarvis's otherwise prim and proper visage drove home the severity of what had happened, and his string of promises to bring her back to consciousness was a sweet and charming moment between the couple. I'm sure the Jezebel crowd will have a field day with the infertility development (and in truth, it feels fairly unnecessary), but Jarvis's care for his wife and anger at Whitney Frost were the most firm and resonant thing in the episode, and it showed.
The rest of it was good enough, if not particularly inspiring. Ken Marino is always a hoot, and the scene where Peggy storms into his restaurant and has a sit down with him was great comedy. There's also some thematic material in Frost's conversations with Wilkes about not resisting and using what's happened to them for their own ends. Again, the mystery of what zero matter is and does exactly isn't exactly compelling, but the characters are fun and the show has a light enough air about it to keep things interesting.
I continue to be pretty tired of the romantic stuff between Peggy and Sousa. Without beating a dead horse, the best part of it was Peggy challenging Sousa on his declaration that she needs to be dispassionate, and calling on him failing the same test with Wilkes not an hour earlier. If they're going to force these two characters with little-to-no chemistry together, at least they're not making Peggy into some goo-goo-eyed baby doll for him.
And Jack Thompson was pretty funny here! I've gone back and forth on the whole "battle for Thompson's soul" line, but Peggy's steadfast refusal to be blackmailed by him, and then admonition that he's better than that were the best exchanges in the episode this side of Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis. The Vernon Masters stuff hasn't seemed to go much of anywhere beyond this, but it worked well enough for what it was, and Thompson himself adds a spark to otherwise dull moments shared by Peggy and Sousa.
The scientist continues to be a fairly cliche, mildly annoying character, but he serves his purpose and the big special effects-fest in the desert was as shallow as it was entertaining, especially when Jarvis went full-on Wesley Wyndham Price on Whitney. The show at least maintains a sense of whimsy even if its storytelling and character beats are a bit all over the play.
Still, all-in-all, this may not have been Agent Carter's best outing, but it worked as a nice bit of movement from hear to the season (and sadly, probably series) finale.
First things first: MILLIE BOBBY BROWN IS A FRIGGIN' REVELATION AND SHE DESERVES AN EMMY!
The finale Episode showed once more how good the set-design was. You could see that the Upside Down was full of real props. Also the Byer's house had a real development. I told the story of the whole show in the background. It was like a focal point of the whole plot. Furthermore it showed the strength of the series storytelling: Chief Hoppers backstory was hinted in some previous episodes and one could already think, that his daughter is dead. So the flashback didn't feel forced but natural.
On the other hand the finale showed how bad the CGI was. It begun with the CGI flies in Episode 1 and continued through the whole show. It's sad, that they didn't try to make more with physical props. Like the portal. Did it have to repair it self and therefore needed CGI. I don't think so. It would be fine, even better without.
The last scenes in the Byer's house gave me last one kick in the gut. There are so many unanswered questions: What are those slugs. We saw them in Barb's corpse earlier. Why put Chief Hopper food in that box. It is obviously for Eleven. Where is she? Who and where are One to Ten?
Some thoughts on season 2: Now that the expectations are so high i fear that season 2 will feel worse, even it isn't. This show hit me from nowhere, this advantage will season 2 don't have. Maybe a time jump? (But i want to see the actors again). I really hope the Duffer Brothers will take their time and won't become the Wachowskis (Matrix --> Matrix 2+3).
Conclusion: Stranger Things showed us that you can build on existing themes and tropes and at the same time do something completely new. I think Netflix will learn something from this: Don't just continue an existing IP (Full House, Gilmore Girls). Nostalgia is prevalent in today's pop culture, but that doesn't mean viewers want to see old things with a fresh color. In building on a whole decade of cinema and Zeitgeist, the Duffer could develop new ideas. It's like: We like the 80s but we don't want to retell them. There are still new stories in this period that cinema and TV just hadn't time, money or motivation to tell. For that i am eternality grateful.
Good Night, readers, good night.
After a couple of superficially entertaining but broad and Michael Sheen-infected episodes, The Good Fight bounces back big time with its best episode in... ever? Yeah, this might be my favorite episode of the show. It's not only that Blum's presence is only strongly felt, not seen, but also that this episode is super-focused on the firm in every plot. And they really perfect the show's balancing act, between contemporary politics and character dynamics, between big picture theme and minute personal consequences.
How Lucca's video sparks off the rumination of the firm's racial bias (or its "supposed" lack of, depending on where you stand on the corporate ladder) is complex, difficult, and so damn exhilaratingly incendiary in the way it pushes our character identification of certain favorites against the important movement that needs to be pushed forward. It's all captured in how legitimate the grievances of Jay and Lucca are about this issue, but so too are the feelings on their faces for Maia when they learn she will be caught up in this. Even the sideplots of Julius/Marissa and Diane/Liz tie directly into this gray area, with all characters learning what needs to be done is never black and white, or that simple. This is The Good Fight at its best, really.
In terms of pacing, this episode feels like it slowed down a bit. Moving in chunks rather than flowing. Overall it's still a great episode with loads of things.
1. It's beautiful to see the relationship between these two. Post-wedding night, we see an intimacy we rarely see in shows, we see them opening up to each other. Jamie asks Claire if what they feel with each other is normal, do other couples have it? It's a bearing my soul moment and it's beautiful. Though Jamie can be considered a traditional masculine man (built like a tree, strong, fighter, works with his hands, one of the boys, etc), he is also soft in unexpected ways (he's always asking for permission from Claire, he's thoughtful, considerate of her, earnest, emotionally open even when he knows it could be embarrasing, etc).
2. We meet a friend of Jamie's and I'm surprised to see that he is mute (his tounge was cut as prisoner) and he has a physical handicap from an injury (walks with a stick/cane). And he is treated with the same friendship and respect Jamie offers to all. There is no pitying him or making a mockery out of his handicap/difficulties. Jamie speaks in a version of sign language and translates to Claire so she may also understand him. This friend is treated by the writers with decency and respect, no played for laughs or pity, and not treated without dignity. It's rare to find a person with a disability in period drama that isn't there for comidic effect or as a sob story.
3. I did found it hard to watch the two instances Claire was/was almost raped. But I do respect the writers for not sexualizing it, but rather focusing on the trauma of the situation and Claire's emotional state. Also the men who committed the offenses where seen as villains (and within their villanious characters).
4. Claire is almost seconds away from going home, something she has been longing to do, but I wonder if she could break the bonds she has created with Jamie if she had been able to go back. Having experiences Randall, would she be able to look at Frank the same way as before. We do get a glimpse in this episode that Frank is capable of the same/similar cruelties his ancestor was known for.
5. My favorite part of the episode was seeing the Mackenzie men showing Claire how to defend herself and fight back. It's endearing to see the caring they have for her, which she recipricates. These sequence creates a light moment within an emotionally heavy ep.
