Show constantly reminded us throughout the season that it's about community that was destroyed as much as it is about the crime itself. Unfortunately, when all is said and done we don't see much evidence of the first one and the story surrounding the crime is disappointing on multiple levels.
For a show that's called True Detective, detectives are pretty clueless - constantly on the wrong trail, and completely in the dark about what happened until everything is spelled out for them by mr. Julius. Not only that story behind the crime isn't that interesting but we get big exposition dump that explains everything in a manner of a Youtube recap video, most of which isn't even hinted at in previous episodes.
They had an opportunity to play around with unreliable narrator given the problems Hays has with remembering stuff which could be interesting in combination with the interview , but unfortunately that whole memory aspect boils down to nothing more than a backdrop for some nice editing transitions between time periods. One could argue that except last few minutes it makes no difference at all to the story. Whole interview aspect also went nowhere, and seem other to give them a reason to take one last look at the case.
This is by far the worst season as it clearly had nothing interesting to say - second one was a mess for the first half, but then found it's footing and even matched greatness of season 1 at times. At the very least it didn't try to backtrack to try to emulate what made season one so popular but was completely it's own thing.
Saw an advance screening of this one.
This is one of the most original and creative films I have ever seen. In the words of Casetify defending their copyright theft: it's "a bastion of originality".
Let's get a quick rundown of the plot:
Some farmers are chilling on their farm, enjoying their peaceful life. They have enough grain for themselves and a little extra. Big evil outsiders come in, and want their grain. This is a problem, because they want all of it. So the evil outsiders announce that they'll be back in ten weeks to take all of their grain, and boy howdy had they better have that grain ready, or else bad things will befall this little peaceful farming town. So the peaceful farmers decide to send out two of their people to go and find some SPACE WARRIORS:tm: to defend them from the evil empire.
At this point, you're probably saying to yourself, "This sounds familiar", but I assure you, it's a story never been seen before on film. Not once.
checks notes
- Seven Samurai
- The Magnificent Seven
- Battle Beyond the Stars
- A Bug's Life
- Star Trek Enterprise: Marauders
- The Magnificent Seven (again)
- etc, etc, etc
Now, what makes this one different, is that it's with Star Wars vibes!
rechecks notes
Oops Mandalorian did this one too in S1E4, "Sanctuary".
So what this movie lacks in originality, it surely makes up for in characters, right? Wrong! Out of the six or seven main characters in this film, all of them get less development than a random spider villain that shows up briefly halfway through. There are two interesting characters, one of which is the main character, Kora, whose flashback stories are infinitely more interesting than her present predicament, and Jimmy, a robot voiced wonderfully by Anthony Hopkins, who disappears after about five minutes of screentime.
This movie consists of the main characters going to a place, seeing a person do something cool, stowing that person in their spaceship for later, repeated a few times. We get a cool scene of Shirtless Guy trying to ride a bird lion thing, which is lifted straight from Avatar, a very derivative film in it's own right. There's a scene of Asian Sword Lady taking down a spider person, which is cool but again has no impact on the story or other characters whatsoever. It's a list of cool action scenes Snyder wanted to string together and came up with some very thin reasoning to get there. It also has the advantage of being a "Part 1", which means the movie is all setup and no payoffs, so nothing really happens in this film. The Moon does not Rebel.
The main Nazi Guy does get killed by our main hero, which should be a pretty permanent thing given that he is in fact dead. I almost gave Snyder a pass here for this next part, because earlier in the movie, he sets up a character that can bring things back to life! Holy reveal, Batman, she's still alive! Nope, they hook him up to some hoses and put him in a water balloon, and he's all better and more ready than ever to subjugate some farmers on a back moon somewhere for some grain, sans the re-aliving princess.
I will give a little credit to the visuals of the film; they're outstanding. This movie was great to look at, even better if you only look at the trailer and don't have to deal with the plot, which is what this film was designed for. Most of the exciting trailer shots were five second flashbacks which weren't fleshed out. I watched more slow motion shots of rice in this movie than actual characters interacting.
To paraphrase Honest Trailers' criticism of Nolan's Tenet: This movie is not Zack Snyder at his best, but it's certainly Zack Snyder at his most.
All that being said, I had a great time. Solid movie. Would recommend. Can't wait for Part 2.
First off, my sincere condolences to the families of the 22 victims who lost their lives during the 2019 eruption of Whakaari. Unfortunately, it feels like, in the quest for tourism $$, the government, as well as tour companies and officials DOWNPLAYED the potential for injury and DEATH in the case that the volcano did indeed erupt while there were people on the island.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but, IMO, a LACK of knowledge and training, caused the tour guides to NOT recognize the subtle signs that things were different on that day. The volcano gave ample warnings, i.e., the water in the streams was hotter, the water in the crater lake was white, frothy (steam venting more than usual) and still covered in ash from activity the previous few nights. A lack of an emergency plan contributed to the situation, in that, there wasn't, even a rudimentary (concrete) shelter near the area where tourists could potentially hunker down and possibly ride out such an occurrence. If you're going to put people at risk, as the one couple who survived stated, at least be sure people have a fully INFORMED consent, that, this is NOT a Disneyland ride, and if shizz goes pear shaped, you could lose your life, or have it severely changed.
Mega-Kudos to the tour boat Captain and crew for going back to get survivors from the second boat, even as the volcano was still popping off, as well as the helicopter and fixed wing pilots, who put themselves and their crafts at SEVERE risk to fly into the ash and steam cloud, find a place to land, and pick up the walking wounded, even IF some of them later succumbed to their injuries. You could literally see the trauma in their "1000 yard stares" as they shared their recollections of that fateful day.
However it's BUCKWHEATS for ANY of the Guvment' officials who refused to send additional help to rescue potential survivors, when it was obviously an "all hands to the pumps" moment. Spare us your condolences, do everyone a favor, and retire from public service, as you obviously haven't a clue as to what public "servant" actually means. SMFHID!!
....and finally, BLESSINGS to those who DID survive, who have managed to carry on in spite of the suffering they have endured. In the meanwhile, hopefully, the Māori Chief's words may bring them, as well as the friends and families of the lost, some semblance of closure, that, Whakaari called their kinfolk to join the pantheon of the ancestors, forever to be protectors and guardians of the sacred island.
I quite enjoyed the show until the end. This, however, felt like an amateur film to me. I know it isn’t because of the actors that are involved, but almost every directorial choice in this film makes no sense to me. For starters, it’s really hard to get a grasp on its tone. One minute it feels like a heightened, theatrical comicbook film, other moments feel like they’re being lifted from the Se7en/Silence of the Lambs playbook. The dialogue, story choices, blocking and Andy Serkis’ hair are weird and illogical. Why did we need this prison section? Why does Andy Serkis’ character feel like a mashup of several Batman villains? Why am I supposed to root for a detective who escapes from prison and acts according to his own will ? This takes place in modern day London, not Gotham City, right? Was this a black list script that has been retooled to loosely fit with the show? Cuz I feel like I’ve been tricked into watching a B-movie I’d never watch if the Luther brand wasn’t attached to it. The movie is at least a little elevated by Elba’s performance and a few effective moments of tension, but even a lot of those beats are clearly lifted from other movies. For example, there’s this whole chase scene that takes place in the London underground which blatantly rips off Skyfall (a movie that’s visually “referenced” on multiple occasions). It’s just very, very weak on a creative level. It’d probably be slightly more watchable at 90 minutes, but it thinks it’s this big epic that can sustain a long runtime, which is a little misjudged to say the least.
2.5/10
Another great episode in this season. I know some people complain that there isn't enough action but I feel like the story doesn't always need the blood and gore to maintain a strong story, in fact, these in depth episodes make me bond with characters more and they make them more relatable. I think a lot of people (including myself) suspected that Dante wasn't a good guy. He appeared somewhat out of the blue in this season and they focused a lot on him, now finally we have confirmation and I gotta say, it makes him cooler in my opinion. At first he was just an annoying character that got too much screentime but now we know he is there for a reason. Poor Siddiq, I believe he could've gotten out of there alive if he had kept him cool, he didn't. I like that Dante felt somewhat bad for killing him. He kind of lulled him to sleep. I like that they went full circle with this episode. From 'open your eyes' to 'close your eyes'.
Even though I suspected Dante to be a whisperer spy, the clicking of the tongue followed by Siddiq's flashbacks still got to me. I actually think the way his story was told, the trauma, him dealing with it and his ultimate death was told very beautifully. tragic of course but again without the gore. They could have shown a lot there, with all the head chopping being done in that shed, but they didn't. Good choice.
"Says the princess who was given all the mattresses in the world to sleep on and still complains she can feel a pea." - Not Dottie dropping truth bombs. Love is very much a hypocrite.
I know it's a hallucination but Love imagining her and her brother naked in the bathtub together is wild. I understand the symbolism and what it was supposed to represent but still, it was weird to watch them.
I have to say, the last two episodes have been a little slow and dragged quite a bit. The domestic drama between two serial killers is interesting but I don't feel any chemistry between the two cheating stories. I really don’t care about Marianne or Theo. At least, Theo ties in with the murder (because he is Matthew's stepson) while Marianne is just the next obsession for Joe. I think this storyline felt like a very rushed and quick change in plot line. It would've been more interesting if Joe was stalking Marianne, but she had no interest in him at all. I just don't see how a woman like her would be into a man like him. At first, she came across as too smart and sassy to be manipulated by someone like Joe, then one conversation about their childhood and boom, she has feeling for him. The writers didn't give her enough time for character development. Also, I hoped this time it would be different because it seems like every woman Joe stalks, she likes him back.
Why are they pretending Marienne speaks French?
How did it take Joe until episode 6 of season 3 to realize he's got mummy issues? He's slow.
I have a feeling that Joe will end up killing Marienne’s ex-husband.
let's get the important stuff out of the way
onto the actual review:
do you like mike flanagan? do you love incredible actors getting to give intense monologues that make you kind of want to die? are you okay with the fact that literally everything is going to be sad (of course you are, if you said yes to the first question)?
then watch this. you'll enjoy it, no question. just be down for a slow pace, bleakness and intensity, and the usual not-quite-horror vibes. flanagan's work never rests on horror laurels and i feel like it makes his pieces stronger.
also: i spent the entire time leading up to the actual release having no idea that hamish was the Mysterious Charming priest character and spent the whole first episode going ZACH WHY ARE YOU SO SAD AND NOT MYSTERIOUS but tbh it all made sense soon enough.
anyway, for those of you wondering who shouldn't watch this: a LOT of talk of death. alcoholism. small town trapped feelings, and loss of life that gradually picks up pace throughout the series. i'd say skip this if bleak content puts you in a bad place. i also have a relative recently diagnosed with alzheimer's and that made the first couple episodes a bit harder.
since it's pretty obvious from the first or second episode, the rest of my comment isn't technically a spoiler BUT if you like going in totally blind, stop now!!
i think the way this show handles vampirism mythology is actually quite unique. it focuses far less on the vampire lore itself and far more on how easy it is for people desperate for answers to the universe to fit everything from completely ordinary occurrences to an actual batwinged monstrosity into a religious context if they just quote the right piece of scripture.
"Sara and Jess not twins but are one singular person in a split personality. There are TONS of clues to this.
1) The hair color is an obvious choice. It plays a role later, but to tell the difference, we see two dramatic changes. Could just be cinematic ease, however it does play a role later.
2) She always says that when her sister makes bad choices, she has to come and save her. Sara is the passive personality, and "comes forward" during times of high stress or trauma. This split originated during the trauma of the parents murder/ suicide. Sara said she never saw the scene, so when Jess faces that sadness it sparks Sara to the rescue as Sara can hide behind the idea that she never saw the trauma. One very specific case of this is the second suicide attempt. Sara said she had not heard from Jess and could not reach her on the phone, so she had 911 check on her. You call 911 locally. You do not call it across states, so Sara called 911 when Jess took the pills to save her. Another thing is the use of pills, which someone dealing with this level of scarring would have high amounts of medication, like the ones seen in her bag. If we were to look closely at the pills, I bet there would be heavy medications for schizophrenia.
3) When Sara tells Rob that she needs to go save Jess, Rob looks like he has dealt with this before. What he sees is that Jess has relapsed into Sara, and is doing his best to keep her grounded. By "sleeping on it," he is trying to buy time for Jess to take over, but in the morning she has all ready left. One small aspect is we never see her in a plane, only in an apartment and then in Japan. Jess was actually in Japan teaching when she had a snap, and Rob did not have to fly to catch up to her. It may even be possible that Rob is her psychiatrist, and the apartment was his office. More on him later.
4) When she dreams about Jess in a tent, you see two silhouettes, but when she opens only 1 person is in the tent, which is Jess.
5) Sara knew exactly which direction Jess' tent is in. We never see the two together ever, except in pictures or during the split event. Jess was lost for 5 days, yet when she runs to the rescue party at the end she was at her tent.
6) When Sara searches her apartment, she looks at all of the hair products (which I bet hair dye is one of them)
7) When she sees a picture of Jess on Aiden's phone, it was actually a picture of her he had taken for the article. She does not recognize it is her because she views herself as blonde, but Jess is the real person so any picture would be of Jess and not of her perception of blonde hair.
8) The Sara Teasdale poem
"And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone."
Translation: No one knows about her splits warring for control, and no one will care about the Sara's death as she is not real. Neither bird or tree relates to the forest gaining another spirit upon the shedding of the sadness. When she awakes at dawn, she barely knows the war took place as she never acknowledged she was split, but she does scarcely know she is gone.
9) When she explains the twin link, its a sound or buzz, and when the other is dead, it is silent. That is the quiet in her head after the split no longer occupies her subconsciousness. In this case, both personalities have a reality, but only one exists. The noise is the presence of the other personality in her subconscious.
10) When Jess comes out of the forest, Rob says "Sara?" They have opposite hair, so he should recognize that it is Jess. When she says nothing, he changes the name to Jess. She then answers. To further this, he strongly asks her if she has seen Sara. Knowing Sara is the trauma, he needs to know if Jess has regained control. When she says she is still in the forest, Rob knows it may mean Sara has been eliminated from Jess. She also says "she came to save me," which I think is when she realizes that Sara took control. More than likely, Jess understands their is a Sara, but is unable to control when she takes over.
So, to sum up the story. Jess moves to Japan and takes on a job as a teacher, but has been dealing with this mental health and trauma from the child's view of the horror. She knows the forest is where people "find themselves" and can "face their sadness." She had a tent, brought along reading material as she is their for a walkabout to finally face her trauma. During this, Sara takes over while she is in the forest. Two things could happen here. Since the story is told from Sara's view, most of the Sara adventure is just a completely false reality happening while Jess is in the woods, or Sara completely takes over, changes clothes (why Jess' clothes are hanging in the woods) and goes back to her psychiatrist in which she believes she is married to. Then the story goes as we follow Sara through backtracking to Jess. Jess said she was lost for 5 days, meaning she was in the woods for 5 days, but that is also how long we have followed Sara.
The story comes to an end in the ranger's cabin when she kills Aiden, and then is faced with the basement scene. She protects Jess from seeing the scene, telling her to not look, but then Sara sees the scene. Sara would not know what this looks like, as she said she never saw it but the scene was obvious to her. This is where Sara is forced to face the fact that she saw the horrible scene, and cannot hide between a split that is a witness to it and one that is safe from it. She then finally, once and for all, faces it, by literally asking her dad why, and then cutting him away from her. This of course is the suicide of Sara, but it is the killing of the split, leaving Sara to die in the basement where she was created. After the suicide, Jess awakens, and both can be seen running parallel to each other, indicating the return of control by Jess. This is the moment where they pass each other in the main control of Jess. Jess comes forward as Sara is running, causing Jess to run. She eventually emerges from the forest, having faced her trauma, and left behind a soul for the forest to keep. The Yuri are the remnants of the sadness left in the forest by the people who faced their sadness, regardless of suicide or success.
Nichi could not handle the sadness of losing someone under his guide, and this is why he is now susceptible to seeing the spirits, and Sara comes for him in the end."
I'm quite surprised to see so many high ratings for this film - 10/10? Best film ever? Really??
This film had a germ of a good idea and the special effects are a plus point, there are even some solid jump scares. That said, the characters are pretty flat and underdeveloped (an antagonist for the main kid character, Cody (Jacob Tremblay), is literally just referred to as "bully" and is a generic character with no rhyme nor reason to be picking on Cody) and the storyline feels like it could have done with about an extra half hour to unfold more, e.g. it was quite ridiculous that grieving parents Jessie and Mark, played by Kate Bosworth and Thomas Jane, just accepted and immediately exploited Cody's special powers, as if superpowers are a very unremarkable thing. I think perhaps one of the biggest WTF moments for me was when Cody's dreams killed Mark but Jessie didn't take a moment to morn him or feel angry at Cody for taking her husband away from her, especially after she had tragically lost her biological son. She even ends the film continuing to live with and look after him!
As for the ending, it was OK and probably sounded better on paper than the actual execution. There was also no explanation for why the kid had these powers; it just was, as if that was all that was needed.
If you've got a spare 90 minutes or so and want to watch something fairly unchallenging and that is occasionally creepy, then Before I Wake fits the bill. Beyond that, though, there are plenty of better films out there. I found the plot too ropey and the characters too flat to recommend this outside of a "it's not terrible but it's not great".
It's definitely a batshit-crazy story for our times, and I enjoyed the mad ride. However, the producers really had an agenda going into this, and I find myself resentful of their overall editorial approach. A few points:
Joe Exotic is a bad guy. He's charismatic and fascinating to watch, but the show does a lot to gloss over his actions. The series does its best to gloss over what he did and let him express his own side of the story, but come on. The guy was being harassed by Carole Baskin for legitimate reasons (exploiting and breeding exotic animals) and reacted in the most insane way. This is a guy who manipulated straight guys into marrying him in exchange for a steady supply of drugs.
The series does a huge disservice to Carole Baskin. Is she insane? Hell yeah she is. But crazy isn't a reason to send someone to prison. Yeah, she's as obsessed with big cats as the rest of the cast of crazies, but the huge difference is that she RESCUES exploited animals. She doesn't breed them. She doesn't sell them for profit. That the big takeaway of the series is "Well, she is as insane as the rest of them" really does a huge disservice to a significant difference between Baskin and the exotic pet breeders.
The series really overplays the "Baskin killed her husband" angle to prop up Joe Exotic and for the shock of it. It presents a lot of "facts" as-is to support this without exploring the arguments against them. For instance, Don's Power of Attorney included the activation clause for disappearance because Don Baskin was legitimately concerned he might disappear without a trace in Costa Rica.
So. A cool story, overall, and a crazy cast of characters, but it's unfortunate that people are taking this series as definitive documentary truth when it's a well-spun fiction with amplified craziness for the sake of shock value.
A very nice thriller in treasure hunt mode with a pretty dark mood. I'm not too much into thrillers but I always appreciated treasure hunt movies where the characters start with one clue that leads to another, that leads to another until the end.
Here the first clue happened to be the main character's daughter's phone number found inside the head of a dead body he's autopsying. Original, morbid, a good start. The rest of the clues happen to be on an unaccessible island because of a storm so he ends up directing a random girl on how to inspect and autopsy a corpse over the phone. Again, a great idea, that's the best part of the story, pretty gross and funny at the same time.
The suspense is perfectly handled, combining Paul's current search for clues, the links to his past, his daughter's situation, Linda's stalker story, there's almost no slow part. Adding the night and storm into the mix, the whole thing feels a lot like Millenium-like nordic thrillers. There are also false clues which are very well used. Ingolf which is suspicious af for the whole thing but turns out to just be a convenient mean of transportation. Linda's stalker ex boyfriend that could very well have been there but is just not. Great thing is that they're not on purpose false clues that would only be there because of a very precise scenario that would lead the viewer to a theory just to be able to turn it around later in the story. They're more like natural real life random coincidences, and that makes it so much better.
On the same level, an interesting part is that the whole clue hunt doesn't go at all like its creators intended, not only because of the storm preventing to go to the island, but as we can see, because Sadler is not dead. On one hand that makes it more pressing and suspensefull.
However on the other hand, what the fuck ? When you think about it a little, what would have been the goal if all went according to plan ? A very complex and morbid 4-5 dead bodies clue hunt that would probably scar Hannah for life, where all the participants have already killed themselves and the main culprit, so all of it just to play a sick game of "I told you so" to a guy who just refused to break the law and lie about the evidence in a police investigation ? Really ? It was worth going through all that, the whole thing is pretty extreme, that's a lot of imagination and work, and even hurt an innocent girl like their daughters (and as we see, it could have gone really bad for her because they fucked up), even after already having their vengeance, when the only goal is to behave like assholes to a guy that did nothing wrong.
Though because the story is well written, with a good rythm and you only discover information a piece at a time, this incredibly stupid starting point is not really visible until you take a step back after the end. During the movie you're just jumping from clue to clue like the characters and it's a very masterful story that catch you from beginning to end.
Show is still going strong.
I particularly like the focus on Cavill and Layton, its pretty clear by now, that this isnot just a stretched out version of the movie - itgoes even deeper in the question of what is more important: The survival of the human race or being humane.
The show continues to portrait a situation where you actually have to choose. Because if Layton succeeds with his plan, humanity won't survive.
And that is where Cavill comes in. She isn't cruel because she wants to be, but because there simply is no alternative.
The system of the train is fragile and everything in it is needed.
The third class delivers the seemingly mostly uneducated workers, I have no idea who is in 2nd (probably the people which are hard to replace) and 1st class as a peaceful buffer-zone - since you can only have people which will never rebell near the heart of a train which is the engine.
Even the tail, although not initially planned as such has a purpose in delivering replacements for unplanned outages of workforce (and yes, I deliberately chose the word outage - since they are part of the trains system - just like we are part of our societies system).
The focus on her after the catastrophe was great for visualizing this.
I'm kind of intrigued.
Yes, the concept of a train which essentially runs for all eternity and may never stop doesn't make much sense, since a perpetum mobile isn't possible and its obviously not fueled via solar or other renewable energy - but its acceptable as a universal truth of the story.
What I like about the story in general is, that the villains aren't really villains.
Divisions into classes of people with low chances of advancements are found in all societies and all experiements getting rid of them (democracy, socialism) ended up creating new class systems.
So you will always have people having more and other having less.
The system was designed to feed and cloth a certain amount of people. Having to feed additional people disrupts the balance of the system.
I'm kind of wondering how the antagonist (I actually like her better than the protagonist, but she is portraied as bad, so I'll run with it...) actually hired a police rookie, but no one able to investigate crimes.
Criminal behaviour is an anthropological constant, as far as I know there isn't a single society in which no crimes were committed.
Regarding the cast:
Connelly is a great choice!
She is convincing as a rationalist. And the final scene shows beautifully that just because people like us are able to make hard choices and can seem heartless when we make decisions seemingly bad in order to keep a system running, that doesn't mean that we don't have feelings (although very subtle, which makes me like the scene even more).
To sum it up: It was a good start, we will see what they make of it.
I'm expecting more sociological study than action show though (which I would have wished the movie had more of) :)
The second episode does bring the action with an extremely impressive space battle, though fortunately not entirely at the expense of character. I was particularly intrigued by the flashbacks to Burnham's Vulcan upbringing and her initial arrival on board the Shenzhou (finally answered my question about the weird "lateral" transporters, too!). I loved the sneaky tactic of beaming a warhead onto a dead body, and the resulting explosion was great.
I wasn't quite expecting the deaths of what seemed to be main characters (although honestly, I wasn't completely expecting Michelle Yeoh to hang around all that long), so seeing T'Kumva meet his end this early was surprising. It didn't really feel like Burnham did much to try and capture him, as was the initial plan - couldn't she have stunned him and then beamed back with him as her prisoner?
Her interactions with the computer in the brig felt like something we've never seen before on Trek, as typically when a character tries to engage the computer in some kind of speculation or discussion it ends up getting confused. But I liked it. I'm a little bit sad, though, that the computer voice isn't provided by Majel Barret, as there were so many rumours going around that she recorded a vocal library before passing away which could be used to synthesise her voice.
The Klingons feel like the weak point to me. The redesign bugs me a little bit, but not enough to ruin things. More problematic is if they insist on speaking Klingon all the time then it really slows scenes down due to how stilted the actor's dialogue becomes. However, I quite like that they've given them much more of a culture and meaning, as opposed to the drunken "honourable" warrior caricatures that '90s Trek reduced them to.
I'm impressed that the show has done enough this early to make Captain Georgiou's death have an impact. I must admit, thought, that I'm quite surprised that we still haven't seen the USS Discovery.
"Die Dinge des Herzens kann man nicht erklären. Es macht, was es will"
This show is just perfect and messed up. I feel like if someone had better sex educated everyone in Winden, none of this would've happened.
This is so messed up right now. Jonas is his own great great great great great grandfather.
So, Jonas and Alt-Martha have the cleft lip guy, who gets with Agnes and have Tronte, who gets with Jana and has Ulrich, who gets with Katharina and has Mikkel, who gets with Hannah and has Jonas.
Also, Tronte gets with Claudia and have Regina, who gets with Alexander and has Bartosz.
But before that, Hannah gets with Egon and has Silja, who gets with Bartosz and has Agnes and Noah.
Noah gets with Elizabeth and has Charlotte, who gets with Peter and has Elizabeth and Franziska, who gets with Magnus.
So, trying to make everything less of a mess. Jonas and Martha are literally responsible of creating everyone in Winden. At this point, there cant3be any happy ending to this mess of a family tree. Probably, the whole Winden and its inhabitants will just delete themselves from existence.
However, at this point I think I'll just be happy if Jonas takes a damn shower and washes his hands.
I love that we finally got some clarity as to who the trio are. I also loved the fact that he said he had no name. He's the son of Jonas and Martha, Adam and Eve. So I'm guessing he must be Cain? No idea. But the reveal at the end, although I thought about it during the first episode when he burn the place to the ground and the reaction shot was that of the pictures of Jonas and Martha, but it was a very nice reveal.
I loved the whole Helene-Hannah scenes. So it turns out that Katharina was named after Hannah. Not only did she sleep with her husband and son, but she's also responsible for her name. Lol. And I also loved that scene because the fact that Helene was getting an abortion explains why she got so angry at Katharina for having sex with Ulrich. Seriously, this show is so well thought that I'm quite surprised it doesn't get more marketing.
The whole Egon-Hannah-Doris stuff. Man, Doris was a little bit unfair with that divorce. And the fact that they made Egon a tragic characters. Damn, he was supposed to be just happy.
I think this has been enough for today. I'm gonna relax for now to be able to face new connections tomorrow. I'm sure that, if I watched any more episodes right now, I'll end up with a bigger headache.
"Die Frage ist nicht, aus welcher Zeit, sondern aus welcher Welt"
Can I borrow someone else's neurons? I think my brain is in the process of melting. I'm gonna create my a family tree in the wall, with strings. Like a freaking lunatic.
This show is beyond words. The writing is fantastic and the music choices and ending scenes are some of the best I've seen. I'm gonna be rewatching this episode a couple of times. It felt appropriate but there were a couple of things that were rushed. The reveal of Elisabeth being both daughter and mom felt rushed. And who would've thought I would feel bad for Noah. Jesus, at the end of season 1 I literally thought he was evil incarnate and look at me now. What an arc. The ending with different universes felt a little bit cheap. But then again, what if this new Martha, and thus, her universe, didn't exist u til that moment? Old pizza crust Jonas told him to either follow him or try to save Martha. And then he added that Jonas will know what to do. Did old Jonas already know that Alternate universe Martha would come to the rescue or is this new Martha's universe this New World that old Jonas wanted to create? That would explain why middle age Jonas was so hellbent on bringing Martha to the bunker, if he knew she was gonna die in his arms. This is getting really confusing.
I love and hate the writers at the same time. I love how they go full Ophra Winfrey with the whole "you get to time travel" and "you get to time travel".
The ending was way too much. I feel like the ending in season 1 was better tied up. Like there was a cliffhanger, but not this mindfuck. I don't even want to know what's gonna happen to my brain in season 3.
As if it wasn't complicated enough to follow the adventures of dozens of characters through three different timelines, now wait to see that in different universes. I love (and by love I mean adore) when a show makes my head hurt this much. So I already know I'm gonna love the shit out of season 3, which, btw, can't come any sooner.
The whole Doppler family is going full circle. Seriously, come to think of it, Peter just created his own granddaughter. He basically slept with his granddaughter in order to create his daughter, which in turn created his granddaughter-wife. This is so messed up. Honestly! So damn messed up. I'm literally not even holding him responsible for hooking up with the prostitute.
Also, are we like ever gonna find out what happened to Wöllers eye? And also, the casting in this show if golden. I'm on the verge of believing that all of them are somehow related and that they've been patiently waiting to shoot the show. Specially Ulrich's evolution. Normal and old were so alike that I thought he was normal Ulrich with some prosthetics on.
Overall, this show has been a discovery for me. Maybe I'm talking out of emotion but this is one of the best shows I've ever seen. I can't recall a time I've been more confused while watching a show and had a wtf face throughout. Besides, the German language and the atmosphere give something greater to it. This show has helped me with my German learning (up to the point were writing this is English is getting seriously tricky) and it's also provided me with entertainment and constant wtf. I tried to explain season 1 to my sister to help me connect the dots and the confused look on her face was priceless. Trying to explain this show to a non-starter is starting to get really tricky. I feel like I could be talking hours and hours about possible outcomes or discussing timelines, so I think I'm gonna get back to the family tree to include new findings after this episode and back to the board to try to connect everything.
So that was something.
What a CRAZY episode!! I was at the edge of my seat the whole time. The fact that most characters knew that the world was ending and yet only like four actually went to the bunker was absolutely annoying.
I had consider that Elisabeth was Charlotte's mother but then I told myself "That's just straight up something that happened in Futurama, they wouldn't go so far". And guess what? They went so far. Fry being his own grandfather walked so Elisabeth being her own grandmother could run.
This episode pushed to the limit everything, and I was totally into it (even though the Elisabeth and Charlotte thing was borderline ridicule). And then Other World!Martha appeared and it just... kinda threw me off. Like I suspected that we were gonna enter in multiverse territory eventually, but honestly? I was hoping that we didn't enter into that at all. I was hopping that, as heartbreaking and pesimistic as it sounds, that the past couldn't be changed, that we are all chained by time. It would be very bitter, but it's not like the show promised us sweetness. It is, after all, called "Dark". This multiverse thing changes the core of the show, and although it has been hinted, I'm not really into it (and also, they really just gave the actress a basic wig and said "there! Alternative universe look done!" Like camon' guys you can do better). Anyway let's wait to see how they handle it.
(Also and I really hope that I'm wrong about this but I feel that either this or other world Martha isn't gonna be related to Jonas and this whole thing it's just so they can get together without it being weird).
Anyway loved the episode until the last seconds, Bad Wig!Martha and the world thingy that introduced just wasn't my cup of tea (not that I don't like multiverse stories but for once just give me a time traveling story in which the travelers can't change anything). Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to the final season, which I hope will be as good as it's predecessors.
Oh lord. My mind just blew. I can't wait to see next episode but I need to digest this one first. Otherwise I think I won't sleep tonight.
Who would've told me that Egon Tiedemann's timeline would be the one that I'd be more interested in! I didn't quite like the character back in season 1. Now, all I want is for him to tie everything up and find out the truth before dying.
One of the parts that I loved the most was Egon's relationship with Claudia. I seriously got the goosebumps when old Claudia apologized to him. "Die Welt hat dich nicht verdient". And those three scenes in a row with Claudia and Egon, in 3 different rimelines. Damn, it was too good.
That poor family can't catch a break. His dad had cancer and now she sees her poor daughter going through the same. My heart broke when Claudia saw Regina. And only a couple of minutes ago she complemented her hair. Damn.
Noah and Agnes. I can't wait to see what's gonna happen next. And Noah mentioned Charlotte. Could he be her father? He looked really shocked and then he lied to Adam. Also, maybe it's just me but since everyone seems to be related to one another somehow, I'm starting to even doubt that Tronte's dad is dead. Maybe I'm overthinking it but, could it be possible that both Noah and Agnes are her parents?
Also, my heart hurts for Ulrich. I just hope he gets reunited with Mikkel. I'm just thinking now that Ulrich und Adam are connected somehow. Or maybe Ulrich is Adam. I remember he said something along the lines of "We all get what we deserve" last episode and Adam, at the end, said the same. "Am Ende bekommen wir alle, was wir verdient haben". Maybe it's just a stretch, but who knows with this show.
I'm sick and tired of Helge's mom. Her coldness really freaks me out. She reminds me of Serena Joy in The Handmaid's Tale. And also, there's something really wrong with her and Noah. It's like she's deeply in love with the guy.
Kind of obvious but still entertaining. Mediocre plot from start to finish. Like a lot of movies in this genre, there was more potential but they went for a pretty obvious route.
The minute Hayden showed up it became clear to me that it was him behind everything. They tried to throw in a twist with the 'Adam could've known the guy who robbed the diner' arc, couldn't sway me from my own suspicions. A plus in this story was that the female detective knew that Katie was innocent and tried to offer her a lifeline.
The ending was awful. Up until that shoot out between Adam and Hayden they had the suspense, I feel like they wrapped it up way to fast and why would Hayden want to drag this out? He could've killed Leonard, searched the house top to bottom and left. He didn't need to show his face over and over to Katie. The diamonds weren't THAT hard to find. Katie stumbled upon them.
Also, in four months time (at the end) we see Katie - now pregnant - working in her garden because she stayed in the murder house but whatever, and it hasn't rained in that entire time and she hasn't used the sprinklers or watered the flowers in any other form for four entire months thus not exposing the diamonds that are LITERALLY right THERE?! It's details like this that make or break a movie for me.
I don't know why some people are shocked at the ending. It’s basically the plot line of Crime and Punishment (the allusions to the book were given frequently). Joe isn’t punished in the sense of being in prison, and even though he’s technically free, now he is stuck with a girl just like him and a baby on the way when he would rather be with a “normal” girl he can manipulate and control. He is trapped and it’s a Gone Girl-esque ending. He even compared his new home with Love to a Siberian prison.
It was so funny watching Joe judge Love for all the shitty things she’s done. Like she was somehow worse. His murder sprees are not repulsive to him because he did them and he felt justified. That logic does not extend to others, just him. It’s a perfect mirror for showing just how delusional Joe is. The series isn’t about how he finds love. It’s about how Joe is a predator, using love as a way to convince himself he’s doing things for the right reasons. The whole point of Joe's character is that he will never be satisfied. It’s in his nature to crave what he can’t have. That’s why I thought the ending was perfect. Of course he is already interested in his “normal” neighbor. He is going to start fantasizing about her to escape his “tortured existence”.
Totally saw the Love twist coming from a thousand miles away. She was always coming on strong. Her killing Delilah was super predictable too. I actually liked that they made her psycho because Joe somewhat got a taste of his own medicine.
Overall, I enjoyed this season, but:
I’m a little disappointed in the lack of creativity. Season 2 had a lot of similar storylines to the first one: Love is the new Beck, Ellie - the new Paco.
Realism isn't necessary in fiction but some of the plot holes were annoying. How did Candace know exactly which storage unit was Joe’s? How could Forty turn on Joe so fast? Officer Fincher thought Joe could have been the murderer because of some expensive headphones but has done absolutely nothing about it. Joe reconstructing the glass box in the storage container was a bit of a stretch for me. This whole season, while entertaining, is completely unrealistic. It requires all characters to be morons and the hugest of coincidences to happen at every turn.
I was incredibly disappointed absolutely nothing from Joe's old life came back (other than Candace). He moved to a new city and changed his name - poof all his problems are solved? What happened to the PI the Salingers hired?
Candace's character had potential. They hyped her up in the first season so I thought she would do something but no, she didn't have an actual plan and was outmatched at every turn.
Was it the writers intention to insert cringy millenial jargon into every possible piece of dialogue? Really went too far compared to last season. And all the "woke" dialogue was so cringe, boring and trite.
While looking for the dragonballs Kylo Vegeta Ren finds the emperor and he reveals a clown car with 10 trillion death stars in it. Instead of conquering the galaxy the emperor chooses to just give it to Kylo as long as he kills Rey, because she is a sayan prince or something.
Meanwhile Rey is also looking for the dragonballs and to find a dragonball she needs a wooden stick that some guy made 10 days ago.
Luke and Lanpedo have been looking for this stick for 10 years, but Rey finds it after falling in a hole and helping a snake. She blows up 10.000 people with a kamehameha, but is sad because she lost her dog. Their robot needs to talk with an alien monkey on another planet because it can give him red eyes. Rey goes on Kylos ship to find her stick, kills a few hundred more people with a gun and finds her dog. Rey notices the stick looks like a death star so they go to the death star and find the dragonball. Vegeta comes and is killed by Rey because his mom calls his name. Rey brings him back to life because she wants to smooch and kills his mother. Kylo finds his sayan spirit and becomes a good guy (he only killed a few million people no big deal). Rey rams her ship into another planet for fun and finds another stick that points to the emperors clown car. The emporer wants to get whipped, by his granddaugther, because he is into that. Rey charges a spirit bomb with the power of her 10 trillion fans, but the emporer snaps his fingers and kills all her fans in 1 hit. Kylo comes to help Rey whip her granddad, but he slips and falls down a staircase. Rey grants her grandad's his dying wish, but because the she used the wrong whip they are both dead now. Kylo revives Rey, they smooch and he turns into a ghost. Also his mom now is a ghost. Rey uses the dragonballs to destroy 10 trillion death stars and become a dirt farmer with a different last name, because some ghosts nod their head. Somehow her 10 trillion fans are back alive, her dog gets a medal and Lanpedo starts an inappropriate relationship.
10/10
[6.5/10] The Rise of Skywalker never stops. From the first minute, it is relentless, reintroducing major characters, blowing through plot point after plot point, tossing in a new face every half hour or so just because it can. Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy speculated that had co-writer/director J.J. Abrams known that he would do Episode IX back when he originally signed onto Star Wars, he would have saddled up and directed the whole damn Sequel Trilogy. The Rise of Skywalker bears that out, if for no other reason than it feels like Abrams tried to cram two movies into one.
Episode IX throws everything and the kitchen sink at the audience. There are major retcons to The Last Jedi. There are check-ins with every character of note. There are major expansions of the lore. There are new planets and alien species. There’s returns from the last remaining Original Trilogy figures who’ve stayed on the sidelines until now. There’s a caper. There’s a lightsaber fight. There’s a throne room scene. There’s a massive dogfight. There’s a speeder chase/podracing homage. There’s a star destroyer escapade. There’s an endless series of chases. There are multiple “not actually dead” fakeouts. There are force ghosts galore.
However much the producers and writers and cast swear up and down that this is it, it’s dubious that The Rise of Skywalker will actually be the last Skywalker Saga film. There’s too many Republic credits to be had when Disney’s coffers are feeling a little light for that to bear out. But Abrams treats it like the last chance to do anything Star Wars. It’s not enough to have another epic Sith vs. Jedi confrontation. A revivified Palpatine has to be imbued by the power of all Sith and Rey has to represent the collective strength of all Jedi to make things as epic as possible. Every Star Wars ship that’s ever flown has to crowd the skies above a villainous fleet, 10,000 times the size of the First Order’s, where every star destroyer is equipped with a Death Star cannon. For better or worse, Episode IX is the quadruple-loaded nachos of Star Wars movies.
Despite, or maybe because of all that, there’s really only room for two (or arguably even one) arc in the film. Like Luke and Anakin before them, Rey and Kylo Ren must each decide whether to embrace the Dark Side of the Force, or hold onto the light. There’s poetry in that parallel. Abrams conjures Return of the Jedi where the angry Jedi and the “it’s too late for me” Sith try to turn one another. And he even summons a heartening echo of Revenge of the Sith, where Ben Solo succeeds at what spurred his grandfather’s downfall -- saving someone he loves from death, albeit at the cost of his own life. For all its other faults, The Rise of Skywalker puts its focus in the right place, with the emotional trajectory and shifting alignments of its biggest hero and original villain taking the spotlight.
But that squeezes out meaningful character development for pretty much anyone else in the film. Finn and Poe get plenty of screen time, but end the film with half-finished or undeveloped arcs (at best). The film seems to set up some big character moments with Finn, whether it’s in the form of the thing he “never told” Rey, or the sense that he’s constantly trying to get her to return, or his realization that there are other moral, mutinous former stormtroopers out there. But Episode IX never really ties any of these story threads up, just letting them dangle in the jet stream until time runs out. Poe has a half-baked challenge to succeed Leia as a Resistance leader, but it’s over and done in the span of just a few short scenes.
It’s nice that Abrams and co. want to pay homage to everything significant in the franchise. But between reviving each member of the Original Trilogy, introducing a handful of new characters this late in the game (who each require quick backstories and basic motivations), making sure that Maz, Rose, Snap, BB-8, and plenty more get their moment in the sun, there’s just not room for much substance outside of the Rey/Kylo drama.
It’s not that these briefly sketched scenes are bad. C-3P0 gets the most affecting moment in the film; Chewey’s mournful roar sells Leia’s death better than anything else, and a nearly nonsensical return for Han Solo still contains the movie’s best echoing exchange. There’s just not time in a two-and-a-half hour movie to service all the characters and ideas Abrams wants to include, which leaves most of them feeling like they get the short shrift.
That’s before all of the retcons and expansions to the lore that Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio cram in. In The Force Awakens, some of the puzzling and unaccounted for developments or details could be written off as Abrams’s usual mystery box setup. But in the Sequel Trilogy’s final installment, Abrams offers just as many new questions as he does answers, building major new pieces of the mythos and overarching plot on the fly in ways that leave even the devoted Star Wars fanatic scratching their head.
Palpatine is back and tethered to some bizarre mechanical apparatus, with the only explanation being a borrowed line about abilities others find “unnatural.” He’s apparently been puttering around for the past thirty years, on a never-before-mentioned secret Sith planet, with a cadre of random Sith druids, a gazillion star destroyers he just raises from the dirt, and a tank full of Snoke clones. With a single line of dialogue, he takes credit for pulling the strings for everything that’s happened in the Sequel Trilogy so far.
If that weren’t enough, Leia apparently almost became a Jedi and was one lesson away from completing her training, replete with an extra legacy saber no one’s ever seen or talked about before. But she’s still knowledgeable enough in the Force to be Rey’s new master. Oh, and she and Luke both already knew Rey’s true parentage. And Rey and Kylo have some mystical Force bond that is super rare. And all Sith souls or energy or life force or something gets subsumed by the next living Sith. And that life force can be transferred or stolen. And you can’t kill a Sith while leaning toward the Dark Side or the Sith will possess you, but if you use lightsabers and good vibes to reflect their force lightning back at them, it doesn't count as slaying them and you’re safe from Sith possession so long as you’ve gotten your cootie shots.
Look, it’s Star Wars. Not everything is going to make perfect sense, and not everything requires an in-depth explanation, particularly in a movie that’s sprinting to encompass all it wants and needs to. But Abrams and Terrio just stack unprecedented Force rules and new bits of major backstory and significant retcons on top of one another in such quick succession that it’s like the Sith lightning round. The cumulative effect of all these quick-twitch revisions is stupefying, with the results seeming like shortcuts to a desired endpoint rather than an earned part of the journey.
This comes part and parcel with the biggest retcon of all -- that Rey is Palpatine’s grandfather. Nevermind the fact that this requires the audience to consider the wrinkly green wretch fathering a child. It reinforces Star Wars’s consistent small universe problem, where almost everyone of note has to be related to someone else of note. It’s a questionable change that undercuts the laudable “the Force belongs to everyone” message from The Last Jedi and makes noble bloodlines more important than the idea that the hero can be anyone and come from anywhere.
But Episode IX at least uses the retcon to similarly noble thematic ends. The broader moral of the film is that parentage isn’t destiny, but instead, we choose who we want to be and who our loved ones are. Rey has always wanted to find out where she came from, to find new family, so as to help define herself. When she’s having dark visions and learns that she’s related to the Emperor, the itch she wanted to scratch so badly is suddenly drawing blood. She fears that her turn to the Dark Side is inevitable.
Instead, she chooses her found family, the people who’ve supported her, trained her, and in Ben Solo’s case, given his life for her, because they know she’d do the same for them. The final line in the film, where Rey calls herself a Skywalker, is a little too corny and imitative, but the impulse is a creditable one, to declare that the choices we make and the people we hold dear mean more than any genetic predestination could. It dovetails nicely with the theme around the Resistance -- that bad guys like the Emperor and the First Order try to make you lose hope by thinking your alone, but that there’s “more of us than there are of them” -- a commendable people power message in line with the Original Trilogy.
That message bears out with the human element that suffers the film’s best stretches. While The Rise of Skywalker often loses itself in convoluted lore and rapid-fire plot points, the sheer joy of seeing all our heroes working together and going on adventures keeps the first act of the film afloat and adds heart to the last moments. The tension between Rey and Kylo Ren remains potent throughout, and just as Daisy Ridley is able to play Rey’s fatalistic intensity with aplomb as the young Jedi teeters toward the Dark Side, Adam Driver does a superb job at not only conveying Kylo Ren’s renewed internal conflict, but also his more casual, dare I say Solo-esque bent when he pivots toward the light.
The film harnesses these performances in a series of solid action sequences, extending the locale-traversing force connection to fights and more corporeal confrontations. The saber stand-offs have character, and while the final act ends up as overstuffed and busy as the rest of the film, Episode IX can boast any number of stellar sequences. Likewise, despite occasional muddy visuals, the film’s production design, costuming, and design teams realize a score of new people, places, and things in beautiful detail.
That aesthetic excellence, mixed with John Williams’s always stirring score, create emotional high points that the film has trouble ginning up through other means. While not fully seamless, the effects team works around Carrie Fisher’s absence in creditable fashion, even when the script gets a little clunky in trying to write around those limitations. A swelling score helps cover for the script’s middling attempts replicating the semi-profound pronouncements the franchise is known for. And raw images -- of a Force battle between Rey and Kylo, of Chewey pawing at the ground in anguish, of our heroes enjoying a warm, victorious embrace -- muster more feeling than the whirlwind plot and fan fiction-y lore expansions ever could. The craftsmanship on display in so many areas deserves recognition, even as the film rumbles through so much while practically bursting at the seams.
The advantage of The Rise of Skywalker’s grand, film-length rush through everything is that it robs the audience of the chance to stop and process what they’re seeing. Taken as a cluster of individual moments, of vague feelings and isolated sequences smushed together, the movie has a certain propulsive allure. The charm, warmth, nostalgia, and kinetic energy hold the thing together -- sometimes just barely, via the same duct tape and bubble gum holding the Millennium Falcon together after all these years -- but it’s enough to keep you along for the ride.
But when the ride stops, and the viewer finally has a chance to actually stop and process what they just watched, the movie all but falls apart. The more you stop and think about The Rise of Skywalker, the more the ungainliness of the thing stands out, the more its narrative leaps seem questionable if not downright baffling, the more its efforts to channel the affection for characters and stories past feel less and less earned.
Cinema is always a magic trick, and savvy audiences, willing to dig deep enough and think hard enough, will inevitably uncover the sleight of hand. The brilliance of Star Wars, past and present, is that the trick is mesmerizing enough, the magicians so endearing, that it’s easy and even fun to handwave away all of the ruddy details. But Episode IX crumples its own weight, but also accumulated weight of ten other movies, scores of spinoffs, and forty-two years of this franchise swirling around in the pop cultural ether that it strains to pay off and pay tribute to in a single, off-balance heave.
It attempts to be and do everything, with resurrections, redemptions, and reunions that all happen so fast and furiously that almost none have time to really land before it’s on to the next thing. That pace protects Episode IX, keeping both its stronger and weaker moments weightless enough that the film keep rolling no matter what. But eventually, like all things, it has to end. It’s then that the accumulation of story beats and character moments and callbacks feels less than the sum of its parts, less than the proper culmination of nine films’ worth of storytelling, less than the capstone to Star Wars that it aims to be.
The Rise of Skywalker isn’t a bad film. But it is, well, a lot. Abrams and company attempt to bite off more than they, and maybe anyone, could chew. The ultimate result of all this tumult, revision, and rebellion, is a well-intentioned but ill-fated finale -- one that does too much and yet, somehow, not quite enough.
In the words of a crazy bat man "Weeel, SH¡T! Rick".
This episode was really something. All the awesome cameos and the little jump scares. Just an episode for us, the fans.
• Andrew Lincoln's dying man acting was superb.
• Jon Barnathal returned just to show how cool he is for making fun of his ears.
• Dammit. Hershel got sliced onions withing his barn. Also CGI field.
• Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan. Incredible. He actually made me feel sorry for Negan, like "common Maggie, just kill the poor psycho". I think this was the moment I found out it was the best casting choice for the role. Like when Rick bit the guy's throat. Like Norman Reedus' Daryl always has been
• Someone should give that magnificent white horse a medal.
• They tried to cameo Beth's blond pony tail, but no Andrea cameo. Good job, I noticed it.
• Next time someone will try to wake me up saying "you need to WAKE UP!" most chance he'll be punched and I'll wake up looking for zombies
• Daryl cried for the third time on the show. F@CK..
• Carol the 'Ice-woman' Peletier. Not even a little shock.
• WTF is "I got a B not an A. I've never had an A" even means?
• Even Rick can't believe he's still alive. The dude is though, but you wanna tell me he managed to keep enough Blood.
• Was that Dan Fogler. Possible gags on the show.
• Badass Judith. Because, yeah if Rick is dead let's had kids running the woods with revolvers and katanas. Rumor has it she's about to adapt Coooorral's characteristics from the comics. Haven't read it, but they say he is a badass there. So, probably.
Really really enjoyed it.
P.S: why we haven't seen an 'in loving memory of Scott Wilson'. Is it so complicated to add it to the end credits? especially in this episode. It's really upsetting me every time since season premiere. Read my comments AMC.
Thank you, Rick! Thank you, Andrew Lincoln!
I'm in a state of shock. This episode hit me right in the feels. And then, when my feels were already punched, Hershel appeared and it broke me. The scene with Shane was simply perfect. Good lord, do I miss him! And he even screwed with Rick saying Judith was his daughter and then the whole, naw, she doesn't have your nose. I burst out laughing. And then Sasha appeared. I was low key expecting Lori on my screen, tbh.
I knew it was the end but by heart was bouncing when he was at the bridge. I haven't been so glued go the screen in a very long time. Probably, the best episode of TWD in years.
The scene with Maggie and Negan was outstanding.Im digging these shadow shots. When he broke and begged for Maggie to kill him I was expecting a smirk on his face at he end. I thought he was playing Maggie so that he could live. When he described how he killed Glenn I realized I got PTSD from that episode.
Poor Michone. Watching her breaking when he saw Rick dead was heartbreaking. And don't get me started with Daryl. When he cries, I cry. No exceptions. It hit me like a train.
The real question I've never seen anyone asking, who the heck leaves a crate of dynamite on a wooden bridge in construction?
That Space Junk song at the end just hit me off guard. I was just listening to it and all I could think of was "Hey, you. Dumbass. You in the tank. You cozy in there?" I miss Glenn.
Did anyone else catch that voice saying "Where's your wound?" At first I thought it was Morgan mirroring season 1, but then the voice changed.
Now, after that time jump of like 7 years or so, they better give me a good damn reason for making me believe Rick would leave his family for so many years. Also, Judith freaking Grimes being a young badass and getting perfect headshots was far-fetched.
I saw the preview for next episodes and when I saw Carol with that hair, all I could think of was, she's Jamie Lee Curtis, and "What do your elf eyes see?"
*Old fashioned murder mystery on a ship.*
A nice easy breezy murder mystery. Full of fun. Don't count on anything serious or deep here just sit back with your popcorn and a soda and enjoy the movie. Nothing offencive here. Just an adult murder mystery romp. We don't get many like these anymore. Ignore the people who like to criticize everything because they think they are actual critics. Chemistry between Aniston and Sadler is awesome. I hope they make more movies together. Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler are the best!
My Score: 7/10.
^^*Trivias*^^
+This movie set a new Netflix record. In the first 3 days 30,869,863 accounts watched the film. 13,374,914 North American accounts & and an additional 17,494,949 accounts watching worldwide.
+The movie seems to be an Agatha Christi-esque style murder mystery thriller. At the end of the movie, we see the characters of Audrey and Nick on a train named "The Orient Express". This is a direct homage to Agatha Christie's famous "Murder on the Orient Express" (1935) novel.
+Adam Sandler's real life wife, Jackie Sandler, makes a cameo appearance as the flight attendant on the plane.
+When Audrey goes to the first-class section of the plane, a passenger is watching a clip of Game Over, Man! (2018), another film directed by Kyle Newacheck.
+In the movie Nick mentions a guy named Eric Lamonsoff. Kevin James played a character named Eric Lamonsoff in Grownups and Grownups 2, also starring Adam Sandler. Most of Sandler's films reference that last name, in a nod to his old friend.
+Andrea Bendewald who plays a customer in the salon Jennifer Aniston is working at in the start of the movie. Andrea is Jennifer's best friend. She was maid of honour at her wedding to Brad Pitt. She also guest starred in Jennifer's sitcom "Friends"
+Adam Sandler's and Jennifer Aniston's second film together. The first was Just Go with It (2011).
+In 2013, a report surfaced from a German financier that Colin Firth, Adam Sandler and Emily Blunt would be joining Charlize Theron in the movie, which turned out to be false. Coincidentally, Sandler did become attached to the project in 2018, though Theron had already left.
+When Nick and Audrey arrive at Malaga Airport (Spain), the airport shown is actually Milan Malpensa Airport (Italy), not Malaga Airport.
+This is the third film featuring Luke Evans and Gemma Arterton together following Clash of the Titans (2010) and Tamara Drewe (2010).
+Charlize Theron was once attached.
+The shield shown by Nick on the plane and in the store is a patrolmen's shield yet he was referred to as a Sergeant.
+Luke Evans and Victor Turpin, who both appeared in "Murder Mystery", are a couple in real life.
+During the interrogation, the character yells 187. That is a California code for murder, not world or US code.
+John Madden was once attached to direct the movie. Anne Fletcher was attached to direct the movie later.
+The Rolls-Royce that Cavendish owns is a Phantom Drophead Coupe, License plate number EQU 617. Recent models (2016) approaches $533,000 new. It gets 14 MPG, has a 412 cubic inch, 453 horsepower V-12 engine, and weighs in at 5,780 pounds. (16.8l/100km, 6.8l V12, 2.6t)
+Game-Over Man (another netflix movie) is playing on the airplane when Jennifer Aniston's character is wandering around the plan.
Spoilers
+Body count: 6
+At the end of the movie when Nick and Audrey are on the train, the camera pans out and we see the name of the train is Orient Express. This is in reference to another famous murder mystery movie, Murder on the Orient Express.
What in the actual f*ck.
I'm a reasonable man, I realize I've been crapping on D&D even more than usual this season but I really do have to give them props for doing exactly what they set out to do. They hoped to subvert our expectations and they did just wonderfully in that regards.
We expected all of that buildup over the years to actually amount to something that at the very least passes for a presentable series finale but instead, we got an incoherent, steaming pile of shit. Expectations subverted!
We expected all of that character development to actually result in a beautiful pay-off that respects the journey of self-discovery each and every one of our beloved characters went through to get to where they are now but instead, we got a painful, disrespectful cycle of character regression. Expectations subverted!
We expected the final season of this show to keep us at the edge of our seats with thrilling writing that didn't subvert our expectations for the sake of subverting our expectations via low-quality shock value-seeking writing, but to introduce plot twists that make sense within the overall narrative of the story but instead, we got CW-level predictable, cringe material. Expectations subverted!
I get it. I really do. GRRM let them down by not getting the books ready in time and so they had to improvise away from his influence, but this? This? For a long while, Game of Thrones lived up to the slogan of its parent network, it wasn't just TV, it was something different, something unique and now to have to see it come to this... it's nothing short of disappointing.
On the bright side though, at least this episode didn't suck completely. The acting, score and cinematography were all on point, so I guess it's nice that I didn't walk out of it having appreciated absolutely nothing about it.
So why do I even bother anymore? I honestly could not tell you, though it's probably a mixture of masochism and a faint sliver of hope that they won't flush our collective investment into this series down the drain by the end of it, just one more episode dammit.
RKSS Films, the three person team of Anouk Whissell, François Simard and Yoann-Karl Whissell, follow up 2015's Turbo Kid with another piece of 80s nostalgia, though this time with a heavy touch more realism, and a couple of debut writers in Matt Leslie and Stephen J. Smith. I enjoyed Turbo Kid a ton, so I was pretty hopeful for this film at announcement, though I was aware of it catching a lot of flak for how people perceived it as "ripping off" the success stories of Stranger Things and IT. And it's hard to deny the resemblance, particularly when you can't turn around without running into another 80s throwback flick these days. I can't say that it's worn its welcome out completely just yet, considering that plenty of good things have come from this retro resurgence so far, but I am curious how much more steam the movement has in it.
But let's step away from that and look at the matter at hand. Summer of '84 feels familiar in both good an bad ways. The slick, synth score is as enjoyable as one could hope for, and the camerawork makes use of a few movements that would feel at home in a movie from the time it portrays. In fact the film looks really nice in general; well captured, well lit, pretty nice set design that captures the era without feeling overblown. But it also feels cliché and derivative throughout the majority of the first two acts. The characters and scenarios are archetypes and tropes that could've been plucked straight out of any other 80s flick with ease, making much of the tale feel tired and forgettable in the shadow of films that have already done this, but better. It's rarely especially bad, but as rarely especially good. The cast of kids give alright performances, hampered more by a script that is trapped in a loop of immaturity and shallow references than any shortcomings of their own. There are some standout moments of character building for some of the side kids, focusing on difficult home lives and failing marriages, that give some welcome depth to the feature, though most of it is sort of "one and done", never bearing any impact on the greater plot. The story only really turns things around in the third act, which I simultaneously found refreshing for subverting expectations by going to some dark places, and frustrating for false ending multiple times, and ultimately not addressing the impact of the conclusion in any meaningful way. Instead it opts to just replay the hokey voice over that started the film before rolling right into the title card and credits, the adventurous synth theme accompaniment clashing blatantly with what should have been an absolutely somber ending.
I found the movie easy enough to keep my attention on; I was interested in the outcome and happy with the general craftsmanship of the film. Honestly, I think the responsibility for my problems all sit with the script, which was lacking in both in the dialogue and the scenario for me. It really feels like a surface level take on replicating someone's favorite 80s films, with a dark twist slapped onto the ending to give it some edge. The pieces are there that could have given it some emotional weight, but they're rushed over or simply forgotten. Combine this with some painfully expected but unrealistic character decisions, and the mysterious absence of any sense of urgency by most characters near the end of the film, just to allow for the set up of that one big scene...it's just so transparent, and it annoys me. Luckily for the film, it has competent directors in the chair and a cast that, while maybe not amazing, is plenty capable of playing their part. In that regard, you could do far worse than this for sure. I was hoping for a bit more than that though.
That last scene was awesome. Too bad Euron couldn't of waited five more minutes for Ellaria to "invade" Yara. That drawbridge smashing someone was a perfect start to a big fight. RIP two of the three sand snakes. One of them cut Euron, did she poison the blade like Oberyn did to the Mountain? If he is poisoned and gets back to King's Landing fast enough maybe Qyburn can save him and turn him into an undead zombie too. So the gift is Ellaria Sand? It makes sense since she killed Cersi's daughter. Also poor Theon, Ramsay has ruined him for life. That cockless coward. The look Euron gave Theon and that laugh makes him certified crazy, right?
Daenerys plotting how to take over the Seven Kingdoms was fun. I'm glad they started right where they left off last episode. It is interesting to see all the women in power at that table. Daenerys calling out Varys was needed. He always seems like he is out for himself. He made a convincing argument but I'm not sure how much is true. Tyrion seems like he has the right idea with taking King's Landing with Westeros armies and Casterly Rock with the Dothraki. Too bad it doesn't look like that is going to happen. Will Daenerys take Olenna's advice and act like a dragon?
So is Melisandre going to be staying in Dragonstone and supporting Daenerys? Does she think the prophecy says Daenerys could be the one to bring the dawn or does she think that is Jon? It was also nice to see Missandei and Grey Worm finally show real feelings for each other. It did cross my mind that this is a sex scene with a unsullied.
Cersi trying to recruit is sad. Didn't seem like many came to her when she called and they aren't all convinced. Jamie talking to Randyll Tarly to become warden of the south but he still isn't sure he is on the winning side. So Cersi has a big cross bow that can go through an old dragon skull. I don't think they will kill any of the dragons. The only way I see any dragons dying is if they are fighting the white walkers. Then the Night King will bring it back and we could have a zombie dragon. Now that would be trouble. Would it breath fire or ice?
Jon leaving for Dragonstone is exciting. Daenerys and Jon meeting will sort of be a family reunion, because you know, Daenerys is his Aunt even if they don't know it. Sansa just keeps undermining Jon in front of everyone so might as well just put her in charge. Littlefinger is now on both Sansa's and Jon's shit list. I wonder how much longer he stays there or if he decides to turn on them?
We finally got the reunion we all wanted, HOT PIE and Arya! But seriously I'm glad someone told her and winterfell so she can head home. Too bad it looks like Jon will be gone. Another reunion with Arya and her direwolf Nymeria was short lived. At least she got to see her pet was still alive even if she has to let her go live her own alpha wolf life now.
That Jorah Greyscale scene was gross. I'm guessing Sam isn't going to get it to work. He was writing a letter to khalessi. Maybe he will try to go to Dragonstone before he loses his mind and maybe the dragon glass could cure him. Stannis' daughter was cured and they lived on Dragonstone, it could happen?
Good episode, things are moving pretty fast.
At first I liked the Rick & Negan scenes but then it just felt like one thing after another to prolong their fight and keep Negan around. We get it, The powers that be like him and don’t want to kill him off. It continues to make the story worse. The powers that be are just trying their add drama.
I also feel like they’re pushing Simon’s blood thirst too much. There was a little be about how they’re all going to continue if Negan is gone...and combined with what the powers that be said on the Talking Dead, it seems like they’re trying to say Negan isn’t so bad. No. One is a sociopath and one is a psychopath. Both are bad.
I really wish the writers would do their research if they’re attempting to talk about the psyche in the show & in the press (& The Talking Dead). It’s just making it harder and harder to watch.
I hated Maggie in this. She was way out of character. And enough about Carl! We loved him but every time they say Carl wanted this or that it’s clearly the writers & show runner telling us “See? We had to kill him off!” Trying to justify it.
Killing Carl was stupid and bringing him up repeatedly is just painful and annoying already. Though I will say the lack of people grieving Carl is also annoying. Enid was emotional but everyone else is emotionless and acting like he died months ago. I really don’t get it.
I did find Georgie interesting and am curious what will happen with her and her people.
However, the revelation of the “key to the future”...seriously? Back in season one I already was wondering why people weren’t trying to find a library. You know the place where all the books live with this old knowledge like: how to build aqueducts, grow crops, architecture, agriculture etc.
So this revelation felt juvenile to me and a little insulting. Is it just me? Surely other people thought groups should have hit a library once or twice while looking for ways to survive... I really hope there’s more to Georgie though.
Overall I felt this episode was bipolar. Action then long boring scenes..,more action then even longer boring scenes.
[7.4/10] The opening few minutes of “Honor” are The Walking Dead at its best. If you want me to give your television show a little slack, to feel a little extra emotional resonance in an important sequence, then you’re hard pressed to do better than employing a little music penned by Conor Oberst (or, as TWD has also done, John Darnielle). “At the Bottom of Everything”, the opening track from Oberst’s seminal album I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, is the perfect accompaniment to the images “Honor” presents. It’s a story and an anthem about the absurdities we face and the joys we wring in the face of oblivion.
And that’s perfect for an episode devoted to Carl’s death, a death that is surprisingly satisfying given it’s shock value vibe in the mid-season finale, and the sense that this was an opportunity to do an overwrought departure from this mortal coil for the show. Instead, we see Carl emboldened, maybe even happy, despite the knowledge of his impending demise.
He makes plans to help people. He says goodbye to his little sister. He writes letters for the people he cares about. He enjoys the fresh air and the sunshine one last time. As befits the song these events are set to, Carl finds a freedom and a joy in knowing what’s to come, in the ideas of what really matters and what decidedly doesn’t emerging in the crucible of a known end.
The death of a child -- one who has often been the show’s chief symbol for the idea of innocence and the risk of it being corrupted in this new world -- could easily have been an opportunity to wallow, and instead the show uses it as an opportunity to vindicate why the things Carl believes in, the idea of a better tomorrow, are worth living for, and worth being happy about, even in the face of death.
That isn’t to say that that “Honor” is a bright, chipper episode filled with warm fuzzies in the death of a major character. The episode channels most of the grief through Rick and Michonne, which is the right choice given their familial connection. The Walking Dead plays to its strengths, showing stark images like the two of them sitting on a desolate porch having had to bury a son, or letting the actors convey the magnitude of the moment with the looks on their faces as they look upon Carl dying, or a bit of both as the episode’s director opts to shoot from below, as Rick and Michonne dig Carl’s grave with the sun behind them, only putting Michonne’s devastated expression into focus when a shadow strikes the right place.
As much as I give it guff at times, The Walking Dead has always been a strong show in terms of its visuals, and has plenty of outstanding performers like Danai Gurira, and it uses both to great effect here.
And as much as myself and others have ragged on the show for a sense of unremitting bleakness, “Honor” manages to spin this horrible event into an embrace of hope. Carl dies, but he dies trying to save someone he didn’t have to save, without regret or complaint. He dies surrounded by people who love him having taken steps to help protect them. He dies believing that though his life is brief, it is and was worth it to do those things, even in the crater or civilization, because of the world he envisions bringing about through those actions. Carl grew up surrounded by all of this violence, all of this horror, all of the worst of humanity on display, and still became someone who thought there was more to this life than that. It is, in its own way, a happy ending for the little boy who wandered around in his dad’s hat in the series’s opening episodes.
That’s contrasted by Morgan, who makes for a strong counterpoint to Carl’s portion of the episode as a man who lost his own son, and then a surrogate son, and felt that sense of nihilism and brutality creeping over him as the only option left. He and Carol maraude their way through The Kingdom in an effort to rescue Ezekiel, and Morgan unleashes that brutality on each of the Saviors he comes across.
Here too, the show’s visual panache and strong performances come out to play. The way that Morgan tears through his opponents, in some instances literally, is visceral and disturbing. Interspersed with scenes of Carl preaching the idea of something better than this endless war emerging, of saying “yes” to mercy and kindness, Morgan can only say no. He kills without hesitation. He rips a man’s viscera out in a tense moment, his hands covered with blood. This is someone who has lost everything and resorts to the most cruel, determined, atavistic parts of himself to cope.
He stalks Gavin like the monster in a slasher flick. The episode zooms in on his staff dragging on the ground, creating a sense of tension and horrible anticipation. Lennie James once again cuts the figure of someone who has lost the most human parts of himself and struggles to find them again when implored to by those on the other end of his weapon.
For every bit of light in the darkness from Carl’s part of the story in “Honor” there is a corresponding bit of hopelessness and descent in Morgan’s actions, and for a little while, you believe that The Walking Dead might just nail the landing on this one, that it might give you a heartening story of a young man perishing, contrasted with a good man falling in the face of tragedy, and tie those two conflicting ideas together in a compelling fashion.
But “Honor” falters where The Walking Dead always falters, when it tries to do too much, to overdo the dialogue that’s supposed to convey overtly what its images and performances already accomplish, and to make everything too over the top, too heavily underlined, and too obvious to pass muster.
Of course, the strong work of framing Morgan as an increasingly heartless killer and of Ezekiel as willing to sacrifice his life for his people is undercut by Gavin, a unique secondary antagonist, giving overly didactic monologues that put too fine a point on the whole situation. Of course, the episode overexplains the fantasy sequences that were cut into the season premiere, showing them to be Carl’s vision of the future, with the baffling choice of him envisioning Negan himself as a part of this paradise. It’s likely intended as the purest indicator that through it all, Carl has retained his optimism, but it comes off as comical, as the kind of convoluted faux-spiritual nonsense that the show does better to nod at rather than outline.
And, of course, the otherwise heartstring-pulling goodbyes between Carl and those closest to him turn into equally blunt statements about What It All Means. This is, as the show has indulged in a lot recently, an extra-long episode, and boy could it do without the excess girth. Just when it feels like the show hits its marks in sending Carl off, just when it feels like the show is being a bit grandiose, but passably so in the moments where Carl bids farewell to his father, the scenes going on for another ten minutes hitting the same notes over and over again. The same excruciatingly-written colloquies that have sunk this show time and time again come back in full force, sucking all the air and emotion out of what had, until that point, been a surprisingly effective exit for Carl.
It’s another instance of The Walking Dead being unable to get out of its own way. There is so much good here. There is visual style out the wazoo, with close attention paid to lighting and blocking and composition. There is great work done by the show’s actors, with Danai Gurira and Lennie James turning in their usual strong work, and even Chandler Riggs giving one of his best performances in the entire show. There’s a noteworthy thematic contrast between Carl and Morgan, with conflicting perspectives emerging from opposite sides of the parent-losing-child equation.
But then “Honor” beats you over the head with its themes, and has its characters make grand declarations so far removed from natural speech that they make these moments feel more abstract and real, and scenes stretch on forever, robbing them of any pace or force. As is The Walking Dead’s eternal struggle, its continuing pathologies hobble the show’s strengths, leaving the viewer with a sense of frustration and exhaustion that overwhelms the otherwise outstanding work in an episode where we say goodbye to Carl once and for all.
If only the close of this episode could be as strong as the way it opened, but no amount of musical splendor, either from Mr. Oberst or the great Bear McCreary, can fix its problems.
