[9.8/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] This is the most wild and creative format bender The Simpsons has done since “Trilogy of Error” (the Linguo episode) and maybe since “22 Short Films About Springfield.” “Lisa the Boy Scout” feels like a modern-day successor to that installment, which uses the airtime give mini-stories to almost everyone in Springfield, albeit with a more meta-twist that left his feeling like something out of Community or even Rick & Morty.
(Though hey, shout out to “The Seemingly Neverending Story” which also used some creative storytelling moves in the post-classic era, even if it’s been ages since that one too.)
I love the basic setup here, with a group of hackers unleashing a spate of rejected story ideas and clips from the series in an effort to ransom their way into big money and maybe even bring down the Disney corporation. In truth, my only mildly significant gripe with the episode is that the hackers from the frame story falling in love elicits more chuckles than guffaws. But the duo spoofing Anonymous and using forbidden or aschanned Simpsons bits to get what they want provides the show an excuse to break loose from canon and go wild without disrupting the show.
Boy do they! I’ll confess, part of what made me enjoy this episode so much is the way it’s definitely targeted at terminally online Simpsons fans like yours truly. They poke fun at all the dumb fan theories -- like Ralph secrelty being Eddie the cop’s son. They take aim at the popular meme of the show predicting the future, with “Bart to the Future” era Bart beaming back to the original “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” premiere to feed his family some info from later days. They reference the fact that Wise Guy pops up all over the place with an amusingly out there explanation. (Though what of Squeaky Voiced Teen?) Heck, even the idea of whole run to this point being a coma dream from Homer after he fell into Springfield Gorge has some extra spark in its fan fiction-y pastiche.
Alongside those bits, there’s tons of fun meta-gags to tickle the funny bones of longtime viewers. My god, I died laughing when the hackers declared they were unleashing the worst of the worst to truly drive The Simpsons into the ground, and amid the original comic material crafted for this episode, they also included infamous real life clips from the show, like the dreaded Jockey Elves and Homer fighting a bear. Plus, the way the show perfectly captured the rhythms of a typical Simpsons episode with its bookends, replete with a self-jab about Homer doing something terrible to Marge and making it better with an apology, had me in stitches. This is, impressively, the most self-referential the series has been since “Behind the Laughter”, and the show’s ability to make comic hay from its own conceits is outstanding.
That said, it returns to one of showrunner Matt Selman’s hobby horses: poking fun at prestige television. I could be overreaching here, but I took the amusing scene of Sea Captain and Groundskeeper Willie communicating only in “Yar”s and “Aye”s to be an homage to a famous scene from The Wire where two detectives communicate using only the word “fuck.” I loved the scene where it turns out Martin is a 36-year-old undercover blue collar cop with a wife and kids, for its delightful absurdity and perfect rendition of those tropes. And the sequence of “enough of the lies” followed by glass throwing and major revelations worked brilliantly as a spoof of the need for big dramas these days to unveil familial twist after twist, no matter how contorted or strained, to keep fans talking and guessing.
But as with “22 Short Films about Springfield” I also just enjoyed the rapid-fire looniness of the whole deal. Santa’s Little Helper learning to talk, followed by Homer only being shocked that it’s morning is a classic Simpsons swerve. The array of punny names with single-episode images was a good laugh. And even the line about the show being propped up by NFL fans who fell asleep brings the meta humor back in a good way.
All-in-all, this is a real gem of a late-season episode, which takes some big chances and gives us something like Simpsons fans have never truly seen before. I don’t want them to go back to this well again, but seeing the Community-style, free associative, self-deprecating metahumor at play was a real treat for longtime fans like me. Bravo!
[7.6/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] There’s been a worthwhile effort from The Simpsons in recent years to develop some of its tertiary characters. Sometimes it works well (Sarah Wiggum). Sometimes it works poorly (Brandine Spuckler). But I like the show choosing to deepen its bench this late in the show’s run.
Enter Shauna Chalmers, who’s never been one of my favorite recurring characters on the show. She’s a one-joke player, and I suppose it’s good to have a teenage girl on the show, filling out one of the few demographics not otherwise represented by the series’ milieu, but her generic “whatevers” and “I’m Shauna” lines have never really done much for me.
Somehow, though, pairing her up with Lisa brings out the best in the character. We see little bits of further shading here, like her being generically rebellious against her dad despite his general supportiveness, the fact that she cares about things even as she pretends not to, and that she’s genuinely capable of bonding with a bright young girl like Lisa. The big sister/kid sister relationship the two forge is exceedingly wholesome.
The two of them connecting through a shared love of music makes it easy to warm to them both, especially in a clever split-screen montage showing their bond developing. Lisa bringing out the confidence and effort in Shauna, and Shauna helping Lisa to take things a little less seriously and feel a little cooler makes for a nice give-and-take between them.
Likewise, as neat as the sisterly bond it is, I like what cracks it. Going to a teenage party where Lisa feels abandoned by Shauna, and Shauna feels narc’d on by a scared Lisa feels like a real sort of issue that might come up in this teenager/younger kid friendship. The two patching things up as a babysitter, when Lisa’s hurt by Shauna acknowledges Lisa’s good influence on her, doesn’t exactly fix it, but is warm and messy enough to pass muster.
Not for nothing, this one’s also pretty darn funny! There’s some solid wordplay. (“Thirst Trappist” comes to mind.) Chief Wiggum’s on-the-nose speech about teens supporting one another while a knock-off Dawson’s Creek tune plays is a good laugh. And the general back-and-forth between Shauna and Lisa has some clever lines and wry writing behind it. Probably more smiles than guffaws here, but still good comedy.
That extends to the B-story. Full disclosure, I’m a craft beer fan who likes Belgian brews in particular, so this was right up my alley. The little gags about Trappist “traditions” was a good chuckle. More to the point, Chalmers and Homer bonding over home-brewing is a good plot for the two of them. I like that it ties into something emotional, with Chalmers reveling in the simplicity of knowing a beer will turn out the way he hoped even if he’s not sure if his daughter did. And I like how it dovetails with the main plot, with the teens taking their home-brewed beer, the two dads worrying that they’ll go to jail for accidentally supplying minors with booze, and the whole thing turning out alright since Homer the dunce accidentally failed to add the yeast necessary for fermentation.
Overall, I might try to leave more time in the back half of this one for Lisa and Shauna to reconcile. It comes off a tad rushed. But otherwise, this is an unexpectedly superb outing that makes Shauna into an actual character and finds a nice way to connect her with Lisa, while also giving the two girls’ dads some quality material as well.
[7.4/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] Not bad! I’m a sucker for a good musical, so watching The Simpsons parody and pay homage the likes of Rent and Wicked and other 1990s/2000s musicals was right in my wheelhouse.
And the parodies were good! The lyrics weren’t necessarily on par with the joke-a-minute cleverness of the show’s golden years, but musically they were on point, and there was even some clever wordplay in “Remember the Times.” The team that cooked these up clearly had affection for and knowledge of the musicals both classic and modern they were spoofing, and it showed. (Plus a Y2k-based Rent parody worked much better than I might have hoped.)
I like the emotional undercurrent of this one as well. As is often the case, with Matt Selman running the episode, there’s a better sense of an emotional core for the main character that sustains the episode. In this case, having Marge fondly remember her time as a stage manager in high school, realize in the present that she was actually excluded by the other theater kids, trying to get revenge and then making peace with it works as a nice psychological trajectory for the Simpsons’ matriarch.
My one beef is that this one skates over some pretty rough behavior. If this was all just about the members of the high school musical cast having fun without Marge, that would be one thing. But them having a party at Marge’s house when she was away, causing enough damage to get her family sued and forced to declare bankruptcy, is pretty serious. Marge has a right to be angry about it, and the show tossing it in and then glossing over it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
THat said, I like where this one ends. Marge doesn’t fix the past. The cast (including a pinch-hitting Homer) still has fun without her in the present day. But despite feeling unheralded and underappreciated, Marge gets her laurels from current high school students, who admire her behind-the-scenes work and view her as a legend. It’s a nice way to give her some validation without pretending that the old wounds could be healed with the same old medicine.
Overall, this was a solid jumping off point for (gulp) Season 33, with a good Marge story and fun musical spoof to get the season off right.
(As an aside, I get why the show has stuck to the “floating timeline” idea which now places Marge and Homer’s high school days in the 2000s. But it still just feels weird and off to me. It’s not a serious criticism of the show, but the strange feel of it can make it hard to settle into an episode.)
[5.7/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] Maybe I just need to have seen more spy films to make it work, but man this was an unfunny half hour of television. There a handful of solid gags here and there (mostly during the boardwalk scene, for whatever reason), but otherwise this was just an absolute desert of comedy. The series has thankfully mostly veered away from jokes that make me actively roll my eyes or scrunch my face up from the lameness of them, but it happened multiple times here. Even if the story’s alright, that really weakens the proceedings.
The story’s no great shakes either. The gist is that Terrance, an old British spy, is tracking down a mysterious Russian asset codenamed “Gray Fox”, and he assumes it’s Grampa. Terrance warms up to Homer to try to convince our favorite oaf to help spring the net on his own dad. I guess there’s something there, but the episode feels pretty lacksiadiscal in the effort, more interested in sprinkling a bunch of unavailing spy gags in than actually giving this a real throughline either in terms of plot or emotion.
The closest we get is a few scenes about Homer’s relationship with Grampa. It’s nice that in the end, Homer cares enough about Abe to try to protect the old coot, even when he thinks Abe’s a turncoat. Their scene in the trunk is actually kind of sweet. But it’s the unearned kind of sweet, meant to paper over the show garden hosing a bunch of tepid espionage jokes at the audience in lieu of real story and pouring some sap on at the very end. And the swerve that, of course, Abe isn’t really a russian spy doesn’t feel particularly clever or fun.
Also, this isn’t really an indictment of the episode since it’s such a small part, but I hate when The Simpsons includes live action footage and photos. The Third Man is great, but just animated the scenes from it rather than playing the real live footage from it! Seeing animated characters watch real people is jarring and, frankly, a little lazy.
Otherwise, this one may be a treat if you’re a diehard devotee of classic spy films, but aside from the recognition gags, there’s very little that does more than scrape the surface here, either in terms of obvious spy gags or an undercooked take on the Homer/Abe relationship.
Trivia
+Near the end, Stanley delivers a soliloquy about losing seven pounds and then bows his head and raises his right fist. This scene is a homage to two black American sprinters, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who won gold and bronze medals in the 1968 Olympics. They generated controversy by raising their fists while on the medal stand as the national anthem was being played.
+We find out Pam's weight in this episode. According to the scale calculations, the entire team weighed 2,336 lbs when Pam was on the scale and 2,210 lbs when she got off. So Pam weighs 126 lbs.
+When Jim visits Pam at her Residential Advisor room, Jim misdirects the cameraman away and closes the door. This is the only time where you hear the "documentary" camera crew, namely a sigh.
+Holly's real first name is Hollis.
+When Holly is shown at her desk, right before she finds Kelly making her juice, you can see her name plate revealing her real first name to be Hollis.
+There is a point where Jim is talking about having to spend his lunch with different people while Pam is away, during this time Michael is shown without a goatee, which he has had the entire episode because Ryan has one. Michael is shown afterwards leading a meeting with his goatee still there.
+It is revealed via Holly's whiteboard that the remaining Dunder Mifflin branches in operation are: 1) Scranton, PA; 2) Nashua, NH; 3) Camden, NJ; 4) Utica, NY; 5) Buffalo, NY; 6) Albany, NY; 7) Yonkers, NY; 8) New York City Corporate Center.
+As Pam is running over to Jim at the gas station, she comments that "Montclair would have been closer" (as in, to meet halfway). Montclair is a real city in northern New Jersey popular for its arts centers and restaurants.
Goofs
Continuity
+Michael's goatee disappears in a lunchroom scene and returns for a weigh in. He later shaves it off.
+Pam comments to Jim at the gas station that: "Montclair would have been closer, so you have to buy lunch". This is untrue. Montclair, NJ, is 1 hour/ 50 minutes away from Scranton, PA (Jim) - but only 55 minutes from midtown Manhattan (Pam). That is not at all halfway between the two locations. Newton, NJ, would have been a better compromise.
Spoilers
Jenna Fischer actually kept the engagement ring that her future husband, Jim, gave to her in this episode. She has been seen wearing it sometimes in public and in interviews.
[8.5/10] Who better to challenge Archer than the offspring of Trip and T’Pol, who was trained by Archer himself? There is a great deal of mirroring in “E²”, of crews operating from similar principles, on similar ships, with similar goals. But I think that’s my favorite part of this outstanding episode -- Archer realizing how frustrating it could be to have to deal with someone who proceeds according to his own example.
Of course, to get there, we have to do some classic Star Trek timey-wimey nonsense. It turns out that the space vortex Archer was planning to take a trip though doesn't play nicely with Enterprise’s impulse engines, and instead of taking our heroes to Degra’s coordinates, will send them 117 years into the past. Except...it’s already happened, and that version of the Enterprise has been puttering around for that long until it was time to meet our heroes in the present!
It sounds more complicated than it is! This is some of the usual stuff the franchise likes to pull in episodes like “Yesterday’s Enterprise” where one of the standard space anomalies results in some time-displaced good guys having to reconcile with some currently-operating ship. But what makes this one so much fun, and so interesting, is that this Enterprise is the result of a Voyager-like generation after generation of stranded Starfleet officers building a floating society over the years.
That gives the show’s main characters a chance to get a glimpse of their (possible) futures. Archer has a great granddaughter and learns that his wormhole’d counterpart met and married an Ecaran. Hoshi, Mayweather, and Phlox all led long lives and had plenty of kids, while Reed, to his dismay, was a longtime bachelor (something he, true to form, aims to correct in the present). And most notably, T’Pol and Trip get married and have a son, Lorian, who is the captain of the alternate Enterprise and, thanks to his half-Vulcan physiology, has been for some time.
That gives everyone on the Enterprise prime a chance for reflection, to see their possibles selves and think about the distance between there and here. That comes through most clearly with T’Pol, who continues to have a Tracy/Hepburn dynamic with Trip despite the fact that they clearly have feelings for one another. I’ll admit, I’m tired of their will they/won’t they game at this point, given that they’re both mature adults who should be able to speak about their feelings rather than play this Dawson’s Creek crack. On the other hand, I like the challenge to their current frostiness that is a living, breathing indicator that, at least in one reality, they were the love of one another’s lives.
Granted, I still have real problems with the fact that T’Pol’s acceptance of certain emotions, of accessing different feelings, is not something by choice and camaraderie like it was for Spock, but rather the result of a chemical reaction. Still, I like the idea that she’s guided and encouraged in that by her older self. As much as I praise Jolene Blalock’s performance here, her efforts to portray an old lady Vulcan have a certain dinner theater quality to them (the same goes for the makeup), but that’s part of the charm.
There’s an Noonien Soong vibe to the whole thing, and in some ways, this episode has the same vibe as that appearance, at least where T’Pol is concerned. An elderly, wise, cantankerous, and arguably mischievous version of our favorite Vulcan is a treat, and the advice she gives to her younger self is intriguing and encouraging. She puts T’Pol prime in a state of dismay when she tells her that she’ll never fully recover from the result of the Trellium, but that Trip can become a conduit for her to express those feelings. It’s a literal version and a metaphor for the strength that comes through emotional support, which helps validate the show’s most promising relationship far beyond the standard love triangle crap.
But “E²” is not all just self-reflection and relationship drama. It has one hell of a central problem, where Lorian and the alt-Enterprise failed in their attempt to destroy the Xindi weapon, and now must try to reinforce the Enterprise prime so that it doesn't get sent to the past like their ship did. Setting aside the predestination paradoxes this episode half-winks at, that’s a cool idea. It creates an air of “don’t repeat our mistakes” and the urgency of two ships devoted to the same, vital mission, with one having an extra century’s worth of knowledge but also tools that have a century's wear and tear.
That’s brought to the fore when alt-T’Pol disagrees with her son’s plan to get Enterprise to the rendezvous, and offers an alternative. Lorian gets frustrated with the delays, with the problems, with the chances of success for the alternate plan, and like Archer would takes matters into his own hands. The result is Lorian stealing the Enterprise prime’s plasma injectors so he can try the original plan himself, and Archer stealing back the alt-Enterprise’s power generators so that they’re at a stalemate. The standoff threatens to turn deadly, but ultimately, neither captain is willing the risk of casualties to win the battle.
That’s what makes this such an interesting challenge. You have two captains piloting essentially the same ship with the same goal and the same methods. Lorian feels surprisingly believable as the child of the Enterprise’s science officer and its chief engineer, and he has as complicated a relationship with his different species parents as Spock did with his, but he’s also a hard reflection of Archer.
Lorian is haunted by the fact that he had a chance to stop the Xindi attack on Earth, with a kamikaze mission, but couldn’t bring himself to kill all his crewmembers, and so carries the weight of those seven million lives on his back. Archer gets it, because it’s exactly what he’d do, exactly how he’d feel, and exactly the sort of promise he apparently extracted from Lorian.
Instead of remaining at odds, he and Lorian work together, using the dual Enterprises to fend off the foes waiting at the mouth of the vortex and getting our protagonists where they need to be. It takes just such a sacrifice from Lorian, now having found the strength to help his ancestors avoid his fate, an act of nobility that, in a weird way, may ensure that he never exists. (Again, don’t think about it too hard.)
“E²” is, like a couple other episodes this season, a fun sort of “what if” that explores the lengths the Enterprise crew would go to in order to save themselves and their friends and their planet. It uses that mirror image, that extrapolation of where Archer and company might be years and years down the line to inform the present, in ways that advances the characters’ developments, creates a thrilling central problem and set piece, and moves us closer to the endgame in a way that’s meaningful, not just a means of marking the time.
[7.4/10] I think my common refrain for Lovecraft Country is going to be, “I like the concept, but not the execution.” The show comes up with a good reason for Tic, Leti, and Montrose to go back in time to Tulsa in 1921. Hippolyta’s back and able to fix the machine at the Observatory and she can use her Afrofuturism abilities (that eventually turn her into Storm) to send them there to retrieve the Book of Names and save Dee. It’s a little convenient, but it works well enough as a plot motivator.
I even like the Back to the Future mixed with a family’s, and our nation’s, grim history. The former works better than the latter though. “Rewind 1921” isn’t exactly subtle about it, but I like the arc between Tic and Montrose here. Tic is initially ready to cut Montrose out of his life, only tolerating the abuse he suffered because he thought he needed to honor his father. Then he learns that Uncle Geroge might be his real dad, and it’s the final straw. The last tie holding him to this man is severed.
But going back in time, he can better understand the rough life Montrose led, and the way Montrose was, consciously or not, just perpetuating the cycle of abuse and the bad example he saw in his own father. We see the fear, abuse, and humiliation Montros suffered for being gay. And most importantly, we learn that biological or not, he desperately wanted to be Tic’s father, that being Tic’s dad matters to him in a way Tic never understood. Using the literal images of the past to inform Tic’s understanding of who his dad is in the present in a good approach.
Unfortunately, the episode lays it on a little thick elsewhere and relies on a lot of contrivances for everyone to reach that point. Our heroes manage to spy on their past relatives at just the right times to learn all of this information. They’re welcomed into homes and overhear exposition in just the right ways. People are willing to sacrifice their own lives to save randos from the future without that much proof and to preserve a timeline they don’t even know is good. It all just feels like a stretch, in the way a lot of the non one-off elements of the show do.
A lot of the Tulsa material doesn’t work especially well either. It feels a lot like the use of Emmett Till in the last episode -- something that “Rewind 1921” points to and heavily underscores as awful, but treats mostly as a side dish to its time-hopping adventure story. I wish we spent more time on Montrose’s trauma at returning to this place, and less on unconvincing CGI immolations and people walking through explosions.
There’s at least some solid stable time loop material. Once more, the show signposts too heavily that Tic is the famed stranger who saved Montrose, George, and Dora back in 1921, but it works as vindication of Tic’s renewed relationship with and understanding of his father. Likewise, Leti’s experiences with Tic’s great grandparents are pretty rushed, but it’s a decent explanation for why nobody missed/could find the Book of Names for long.
It’s just all something of a bumpy ride. (Not to mention, the assorted drama with Leti/Ruby/Christina and the suspense over what’ll happen at the autumnal equinox continues to fall flat for me.) You can see the show trying to excavate family drama and point to key horrific moments in America’s black history, and sometimes it truly succeeds. The acting’s good across the board here, and the craft of recreating 1921 is impressive. But a lot of the dialogue and writing overall is weak, and the show continues to have trouble stringing together all of its disparate elements into a cohesive and satisfying whole.
[7.3/10] I’ll be honest. I don’t know quite what to make of this one. I like the themes of empowerment here. It connects to the idea in episode 2, where Titus gives the parable of God allowing Adam to name things, and that being a form of power. Here, Hippolyta is given the chance to name herself, and by extension, to define herself and empower herself. That’s a cool notion.
But the execution is...confusing? I kind of like it! I like weird, impressionistic things that I don’t understand. Still, the episode did leave me feeling like I wanted more out of it, and maybe less of other things.
Again, I wish the show would just commit to telling one-off stories, but that ship has clearly sailed. A lot of the non-Hippolyta material here feels disconnected or outright extraneous. Tic finding someone who knew his mom’s family and discovering he has a portentous birthmark is fine, but seems random. Leti and Ruby reconnecting and reconciling, with the prospect that they may nevertheless be playing for different teams is nice, but again, feels more like seedwork than anything so compelling right now.
Hippolyta’s story is just kind of...weird though? It feels like a series of homages to things I’m only faintly aware of. That leads to a sense of disorientation, but it’s also kind of exhilarating, and works well to situate the viewer with the character. Her trip across one of the “Many Worlds” to a futuristic spaceship and a scene that looks like something out of the music video for “What’s It Gonna Be” is a little jarring, but once she starts naming herself and hopping worlds more deliberately, business picks up.
For one thing, we see all the intelligence she displays that’s otherwise been squelched or unfed up to this point, discovering how to open the orrery and making the calculations necessary to use the machine at Titus’s observatory. It’s a nice way to show she’s full of untapped potential.
Her interlude dancing in Paris with Josephine Baker was a trip though! The sequence there is so fun, but I love the epiphany that comes at the end with it. Her exchange with Josephine is a touch overwritten, but I really like the notion of Hippolyta discovering a world of possibility in a freer society that she hadn’t even conceptualized before. It reflects the real experiences of black soldiers stationed in Paris during war who found themselves more accepted there than in the places they come from.
The Afro-Spartan fight against a horde of what seem to be Civil War soldiers was, again, weird, but also rousing in its way. Watching Hippolyta find her strength, go out and kick ass like an action hero, and give a Braveheart speech about casting off the shackles of oppression and proving what women like them are capable of is empowering. The action scenes are well-shot and appropriately bloody for HBO, and it’s a cool vignette overall.
And yet, I like the intimacy of her reconnecting with Uncle George, joyful in the reunion but also angry at how he made her feel smaller and kept her shrinking. She can voice that frustration now in a way she couldn’t before, noting the curiosity inside her that he admits he snuffed rather than fostered because he wanted to have her at home waiting for him. I like it because George clearly loves his wife, but it reflects how those sorts of patriarchal structures and expectations can weigh people down even in loving relationships.
But then she ascends and becomes Hippolyta the Discoverer. It’s a cool, retro 1950s futurist mood, full of bubble helmets and ringed skirts and other visions of what people thought tomorrow had in store seventy years ago. It’s some great production design, and a place where the show’s often less-than-convincing effects work for the unreality of the moment. Despite that curiosity and achievement feted, Hippolyta decides to go back, for her daughter, even as she wonders whether a version of herself this big, so full of life and meaning, can even fit in her old home. That’s heartening, and makes me wonder who she’ll be when she returns.
Overall, this one threw me for a loop, but maybe in a good way? It’s an out there episode, but out there is good, and the message and story of empowerment at the center of it boosts it like hell.
"The Thing" could be seen as the natural evolution of the formula that began with Ridley Scott's "Alien". The two movies have an entirely different setting and atmosphere, but share the same simple structure: a group of humans ends up being stuck in a confined space as they are chased by an unknown alien entity. However, the "Thing" manages to become something more than a beautifully designed hungry monster: it's a threat with no discernible appearance, as it has the ability to imitate the organisms it consumes and blend in with its prey. This allows Carpenter to convey his trademark cynical, nihilistic view of humanity, focusing on how easily a team of highly unlikeable characters can fall apart as they slowly get consumed by their distrust and paranoia. The "Thing" has no evil intentions and is just trying to survive, but it won't take much for the humans to end up turning against each other.
It must be said that the film takes a damn long time to get to the point, but Carpenter's "chilly" cinematography and slow camerawork manage to build the story's tension and keep us craving for more flamethrower bursts to warm up the atmosphere. As mentioned, the "Thing" never shows its true self, but in return offers a lot of grotesque "transformation" sequences that managed to turn a mild psychological horror into a true cult film. The practical effects surely aged a bit, but the art direction and design are so over the top and visionary that the final result still holds incredibly well.
On a side note, the film is supposed to be a remake of Christian Nyby's "The Thing from Another World", but is actually based on the science fiction short story "Who Goes There?" (which also inspired Nyby's film). Other than the title font, the two movies are very little in common. Just think that "The Thing from Another World" cannot change appearance, is always recognizable, and gets its ass kicked by a cohesive team of heroes.
What an absolutely botched ending to an otherwise strong show. Spoilers: Monica and Darcy are completely tossed aside, Evan Peters is entirely wasted as Quicksilver in favor of a dick joke, the writers show zero creativity in leaving characters to die and Wanda has ultimately learned nothing about her magic, ending the show exactly where she stood 8 years ago before 'Age of Ultron'. What a complete mess devoid of consequences, leaving characters storylines wide open for projects years away instead of tying character arcs up. Wanda apologises to the town members after tortuing them for weeks and we're supposed to feel bad when her fake children are erased? No, sorry, you're responsible for that. Monica really told Wanda the town should be grateful.... after she released them from their torture slavery. Wanda belongs on the Raft, Avengers need bodycams after this abuse. This is exactly what the Sokovia Accords were for. This isn't a show, it's a promotional ad to go see the next Marvel thing. I thought they were doing something special when the show began, embracing the wierd and unexplained magic in the MCU, but by the end the Marvel formula is intact and the story falls into laziness.
Who the hell was the missing person Jimmy Woo had in witness protection to begin with?
The marketing and trailer of the film suggested a horror movie with a creepy monster. That may well be the case, but this is not a conventional horror film at all - there is far, far more to this outstanding film than that. To say more would give away the plot, but clear hints as to the identity of the “Babadook” and how it fits into the narrative ensure the reveal and resolution are unsurprising. That, though, misses the point - here the journey the audience is taken on is so compelling that the reveal and resolution to the story don’t need to surprise. Essie Davies plays a single mother still coming to terms with the death of her husband and the young Noah Wiseman is her son who is exhibiting behavioural issues. They both give outstanding natural performances and the film is rooted in such verisimilitude that the introduction of the horror element almost feels intrusive. Not that this is unsuccessful either - the “monster’ initially lurks in the shadows, creating a palpable sense of foreboding and dread and the sound design of the film helps to emphasise this, creating some wonderfully creepy moments. Fortunately, rather than worrying about horror conventions and gimmicks to scare, the filmmakers explore far more gripping issues and concerns - that of a mother’s struggle to raise a child on her own and cope with unresolved grief, loss, isolation and helplessness. If there was a minor criticism, it is that the final act occasionally focuses more on the conventions of horror and suspense that had been so carefully balanced throughout. But this is a nitpick at best and doesn’t detract from one of the finest films of the year and a strong message that true horror is as firmly rooted in reality as it is in the supernatural and fantasy.
After reading a rave review by a friend, I started binging this new Netflix series today. The English dubbing is horrible so do yourself a favour and set the audio to German and the subtitles to English. The acting is very good and shouldn't be ruined by poor dubbing performances. This series is darkly mysterious, more like the original TWIN PEAKS (without the bizarre humour), although it is being compared to STRANGER THINGS (although I don't see many similarities in the three episodes I've watched so far). The mystery is compelling - take in all the up front hints given before the pilot's opening credits - they set you thinking in the right direction. I got bogged down in episode 3 and had to make a chart of family relationships, but once I'd conquered the who's who I was back into the mystery. Looks promising. I'll come back with a final rating but so far I give it an 8 (great) out of 10 with the potential for a 9 (superb). [Who-done-it, What-really-happened Mystery]. A good work out for those little grey cells (I wonder how many calories will that work out burn in my LaZboy chair?) **Just finished season 1 (yes, it doesn't resolve but catapults us into a further plain) WOW, my brain is tired. So many threads, so many resolves, so many themes (determinism, free will, religion, science, time, space, interdependent relationships, cause and effect). It goes down every lane. Complex, great storytelling. Great acting. Can't wait for another season. It well deserves at least a 9 (superb) out of 10, maybe even a 9.5.*
[8.6/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale.] Nice to see the show returning to its roots, telling a cynical but character-focused and ultimately warm episode centered around the holidays. I think the first act is my favorite, with Marge’s misadventures on Black Friday. I used to do the Black Friday routine with my own mom, so the strategizing, cold lines, and anger at “cutters” rang true. Plus, it’s just such a great little Marge morality play, where she goes out of her way to be kind to her fellow man (in this instance, a characteristically pathetic Gil) and loses out on her own goals for it. Reverend Lovejoy buying the “Futon Friend” off Gil for a cool hundo is a nice touch to add insult to injury, and setup the emotional stakes for Marge.
In the second act, I like how much Homer in particular goes out of his way to be nice to Marge and try to brighten up the holiday for her since she always does so much for the family. Sure, rolling out to a terrible Florida resort is a pretty standard “the Simpsons are going to ____” setup, and drugging her to get her into the car is pretty extreme, but the effort is a kind one. The show also makes the most of it comedically, whether it’s the bumper sticker cycling (Go Area Team), the teeny hotel room, or the well-observed bits about a decaying amusement park.
Again, it’s rooted in character. Everyone trying to have a good time at this clearly decrepit resort, in order to cheer up Marge, is a sweet family bit that shows the Simpsons at their best. The show shortcuts things a bit to get them home by Christmas and cheer Marge up with the usual “happiness in unusual but familiar places” bit, which happens to take place at Moe’s. But there’s at least a sturdy enough arc there, and what Bart’s veep-head Godfather homage lacks in sense, it makes up for in comic absurdity.
Overall, this is the highlight of a surprisingly solid season, and it makes The Simpsons 2-for-2 on holiday episodes in Season 30!
