Eric

VIP

5

The cynical side of me wants to call this Everything, everywhere all at once for consoomers.
The optimistic side of me sees Kevin Feige finally pushing the boundaries of his own franchise.
I guess it’s a little bit of both in the end.

Undoubtedly, the best thing the movie has going for it is the Sam Raiminess of it all. His fingerprints are all over it; you’re getting the weird camera angles, camp, his sense of horror, etc. It definitely has more style than some other Marvel movies, though there's also still some of the usual blandness. I'll give it to Marvel for putting in a scene where a talking corpse gives a heartfelt, sentimental speech. There's more of a psychedelic feel to it than the first film, but every time it tends to get really interesting it feels like Raimi's being reigned it to adhere to Marvel's demands. Elizabeth Olsen and Benedict Cumberbatch are giving some of their best performances as these characters to date, and the music’s really well done. But ultimately the film’s Achilles heel is its own script, which is complete junk. The story is thin, messy, nonsensical, and at times flat out embarrassing. The set-up in the first act is very rushed, while the second and third act feel like they’re written by a Reddit fanpage (you just know for a fact that Marvel only went in this direction because of the 2 Batmen that have been announced for The Flash). It’s Marvel at its most ‘producty’, and it’s going to trick a lot of people into thinking the film is better than it is. Regardless, I hope Patrick Stewart got a big paycheck for ruining his own perfect send-off in Logan at the very least. A lot of the story beats don’t make sense either, with most of the characters arcs feeling rushed and nonsensical, even despite the copious amounts of exposition that are desperately trying to tie everything together. The choices made with Wanda in the third act are baffling, and I still don’t know what the takeaway is supposed to be by the end of the film. Her motivation is problematic in general, and I don’t like the use of the [insert plot device] corrupts the mind of the villain trope, which is becoming very overused in the MCU (Ant-Man, Winter Soldier) and just a lazy way of forcing a conflict where the villain stays redeemable. The new character (America Chavez) is a boring, underdeveloped plot device, while Strange himself doesn't even have a real arc. It's the kind of film where a lot happens, but very little leaves an actual impression. I’m not sure what happened, but I get the impression that a significant portion of this film was reworked and rewritten during post production. The action didn’t impress me whatsoever, but that’s been a case with these films for a while now (some of the stuff in Shang-Chi excluded). Some of the visuals look tacky and unfinished, the action’s a bunch of people shooting flashing lights at each other, shots don’t linger enough, people move like animated characters, it’s all the usual bs (and this is coming from someone who thinks the action and effects in the first one are still underappreciated to this day). Inbetween the first film and the sequel, Marvel has become a machine that’s now collapsing under its own pressure. If Disney would allow it, they really should go back to making 2-3 properties a year. The consistent mediocrity of their current output is killing their own longevity.

4/10

Oh, and your kids will be fine watching this. I’ve seen some uproar about the ‘horror’ and violence of the film, and it’s honestly not that shocking. There’s way more creepy stuff in some of the Harry Potter and Indiana Jones films (or just your average 80’s kids film in general).

This is an honest, spoiler-free review coming from your average fan (not a critic):

I just saw this new marvel film, and I have to say... it's no where near as bad as the critics make it out to be.

Yes there is a lot of dialogue. But it gives the characters a chance to shine and for scenes to breathe.
People call this film dense. I would disagree. Yes there is a fair bit of plot and history told, however I would say that other mcu films have simply much simpler plotlines most of the time.

There are moments when things are just about to become exciting, and then it is interrupted with more dialogue which instantly kills the suspension.

There are a number of plot twists in this film, and some unexpected things happen that I wouldn't have seen coming.

This film has a slow burn, but sometimes that's a good thing. Would I have liked more action? Yes. Was I unhappy with the action we do get? No.

I will admit, going into this film I was expecting a masterpiece, and while I wouldn't quite call it that, its definitely a well-made film, marvel or not.

Oh. And expect to have to do some reading at the very beginning. Kinda reminds me of a classic Star Wars opening crawl.

In Captain Marvel, I didn’t like the main character, but I thought the movie around her was quite solid.
Black Widow is the exact opposite: I quite liked the two leads, but the movie surrounding them doesn’t really work.

Pros:
- Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh are easily the most entertaining part of the film.
- I liked the first act. It feels like Cate Shortland is trying to do an impression of a Jason Bourne movie. It’s fairly humourless, the cinematography is bleak, and the score is intense. It has a tone that no other MCU film has.
- The action (minus the final battle) is fairly well done. As per usual, less editing would’ve made it better, but at least it feels weighty.

Cons:
- The story itself isn’t that interesting. The themes and main mcguffin are oddly similar to Captain Marvel, though it’s not executed as well. The villains also fail to make an impression.
- This movie really loses its identity as it goes along, to the point where it turns more into a generic Marvel movie as it goes on, and eventually a generic action blockbuster by the third act. Everything gets way too big and bloated for its own good.
- Not a fan of the Russian accents, they sound very tacky. Just let everyone speak with a normal American accent, I can look past the fact they’re Russians. Besides, they even had a story based reason to ditch the Russian accents entirely.
- I found David Harbour quite cringeworthy in this.
- The main characters are protected by strong plot armour. Most characters should’ve been killed 3-4 times based on the things that happen during the action scenes. This isn’t even a ‘suspend your disbelief, it’s an action movie’ situation, it gets really ridiculous, to the point where it’s almost Fast and Furious level.
- The pacing is a bit inconsistent, you really feel it slowing down during the second act.

Finally, I want to address that I already find the use of Nirvana songs in movies like these quite distasteful, but the cover that's used during the credits literally sucked all the life out of the song.

4.5/10

If this film is a cake, then it’s got the best possible frosting you could wish for. The cake itself, however, isn’t great.

I’ve always had a strange relationship with these films. I don’t really care for the Raimi films (I think they’re overly cheesy, poorly acted and dated, though don’t expect anyone from around my age to admit that), the Webb films are fine (really like the first one, second one’s a mess) and I’ve really liked the 2 recent ones (not as much as Into the Spiderverse, but still good in their own right).
Compared to the previous 2, this one pretty much ditches the John Hughes aesthetic as it goes along, and it goes into full on, operatic superhero mode.
Unfortunately, it is another one of those project that puts nostalgia and fan pandering over story and character, the kind of blockbuster we’re seeing over and over again in a post Force Awakens world.
This story is completely hacked together, consisting of so many contrivances, conveniences and established characters acting out of character that it becomes a bit of a shitshow ( Doctor Strange, a genius, is being tricked by teenagers; Peter not knowing about the consequences of the spell is a very forced way to set the plot in motion; Ned being able to open portals is quite ridiculous when the Doctor Strange movie made a point about how hard that is to learn; why is Venom in the universe given how they set up the rules of the multiverse, and the list goes on ). The problem is that they needed to take that bullet in order to make the film they wanted to make here (or rather, the film fans wanted to see), but that doesn’t make it the right choice by any means, because it leads to a nonsensical film with a rushed pace.
Look, you can nitpick this film to death ( why would a university publicly admit that MJ and Ned are rejected because of their connection to Peter? ), but that’s not even my point. It’s heightened and not meant to be taken that seriously, I get that, but you at least need some form of internal logic, you cannot just do these unearned things because the plot demands it.

It’s not all bad though, Holland’s Spider-man still has a very good arc with some great emotional beats in it, and they make some very bold choices towards the end that I hope they stick with. It’s very similar to the first Fantastic Beasts, so I hope they don’t pull a Crimes of Grindelwald by retconning everything .
The acting is great, Holland and Zendaya give their best and most mature performances yet, and the villains are all good. I really like that they toned Dafoe down a little bit.
It looks fine. It has some of the best cinematography out of the trilogy, but some of the action looks very animated (again, stop touching up the suit, just let it wrinkle ffs) and unfinished, which is probably because this thing was rushed out, as we know.
For instance, there are some really wonky shots in the scene where Spider-Man fights Doctor Strange, the close-ups with Benedict Cumberbatch look like a weather forecast on television.
The references to the previous incarnations are a bit of a mixed bag. I like that they progressed some stuff and did interesting things with the things they referenced ( for example, you really feel like time has passed with Tobey and Andrew, they’re not giving a copy of their original performances, which is also a great excuse to tone down the awkwardness and lack of personality in Tobey’s version. Also, the banter between them is very nice, of course ), but most of it plays like a pandering greatest hits compilation. I don't need Dafoe to say you know, I'm something of a scientist myself again, it is nothing but a cheap attempt to trigger my nostalgia button.
Finally, it also has some of the worst tonal balance and comedy out of the trilogy, especially with some of the lines that are given to Benedict Cumberbatch.

5/10

In summary/TLDR: great idea for Sony’s bank account, but the seeds for this needed to be planted much earlier in order to make it a good film.

[7.7/10] Another really entertaining episode. This is more explicitly doing Bewitched and 1960s sitcoms, and there’s a lot of sheer entertainment to be had from a riff on tropes of odd couples trying to fit into their idyllic neighborhoods.

I also appreciate the recognition of classic sitcom tropes and how they’d evolved in the subsequent decades. That goes beyond just the different decor in Wanda and Vision’s home. We see them walk outside and go seemingly on location, beyond the confines of a single set. We also see many more people of color populating their white picket fence town. It’s small details, but they add up to show change.

The notion of Wanda trying to impress Dottie, the queen bee of the neighborhood (Emma Caufield, aka Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and Vision to get in good with the neighborhood watch, so as to further their joint initiative to fit in works as a great premise for the episode. There’s a lot of humor to be wrung from off-beat Wanda trying to fit in with the Stepford-esque ladies under Dottie’s purview, and awkward square Vision accidentally fitting in with the guys of the watch.

What’s more, the set piece of the two of them trying to pull off a magic act at the local talent show, where Vision is functionally drunk due to some literal gum in the works, and Wanda has to work to make people think it isn’t magic, is fantastic. There’s a great, frantic energy to the whole routine, and both Olsen and Bettany play it to the hilt.

This was also a great episode for stray lines. The running gag of people chanting “For The Children” in unison brought a lot of yuks. The poor mustached man from the prior episode going “That was my grandmother’s piano” when Wanda turns it into a wooden standee was a solid laugh. And one of the housewives in the audience asking “Is that how mirror’s work?” when Wanda uses them to try to explain Vision’s phasing hat trick had me rolling in the aisles.

But it’s not all laughs. There’s more horror at the edge of the frame that’s done quite well. The presence of an airplane that’s visibly Iron Man’s colors seems to shock Wanda as revealing that something’s wrong here. When Wanda assures Dottie that she doesn’t mean any harm, Dottie says “I don’t believe you,” in genuinely frightened tones, while a strange voice cuts through the radio, causing her to break a glass and bleed fluid that likewise breaks through the black and white color scheme. It’s another superbly done unnerving moment.

There’s also some interesting lines that have double meanings that are quickly glossed over, like their new friend saying “I don’t know why I’m here,” seemingly referring to the garden party, but also suggesting she’s been wrapped into this fantasy world somehow and doesn’t know why. There’s a lot of little bits of dialogue that work like that in this one, and it’s fascinating.

We also see and hear some loud thumping, played for laughs in the “move the beds together” scene (another wink toward classic TV changes), but also witness it used for legitimate scares. There’s some frightening imagery when the man emerges from the sewers in a beekeeper outfit and more “Who’s doing this to you, Wanda?” calls are heard, especially when Wanda uses the power to rewind the tape. The advent of a pregnancy is an interesting development, and the arrival of color with their kiss is some great effects worth.

I’m nursing a theory that this is all part of Wanda coping with the loss of Vision, feeling sick or afflicted and unwittingly creating this fantasy world out of some kind of grief, wrapping more and more people into it. Whatever the answer, color me appropriately intrigued by the mystery, charmed by the pastiche, and appropriately disturbed at the hints of something deeply wrong with all of this.

Ahhhhhh i’m so happy they are not shying away from the tough conversations on what it means to be Captain America in this decade. I love symbolism in storytelling and there’s no stronger symbol than that shield, and the way they have used it as a vehicle and representative of the different American identities (good and (really) bad) has been incredible.

Steve Rogers, John Walker, Sam Wilson and Isaiah Bradley all represent sides of the US that co-exist, and John Walker being the effective Captain America for most of this show isn’t accidental - he’s the side of America that’s most present and salient right now (in the world off the screen), but ending the show with Sam Wilson carrying that shield - and going through all the issues that that might bring up - is as powerful a message as any - one of hope and of what the US should aspire to be. Steve Rogers is no longer enough, Steve Rogers is the American Dream - Isaiah Bradley the American Reality - and Sam Wilson is both. This show, and all of Captain America’s storyline, is about so much more than just men in spandex and they’ve done a fantastic job taking it even further here. Glad Marvel is still delivering after so many years, makes me proud to be a fan!

[9.8/10] It seems like every season, there’s one episode of BoJack Horseman that just floors me, and this may be the best of them all. More than BoJack’s dream sequence in S1, more than his unforgivable act at the end of S2, more than the even the harrowing end for Sarah Lynn in S3, “Time’s Arrow” is a creative, tightly-written, absolutely devastating episode of television that is the crown jewel of Season 4 and possibly the series.

The inventiveness of the structure alone sets the episode apart. It feels of a piece with the likes of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for finding outside the box ways to communicate the idea of dementia and the brain purging and combining and reconstructing dreams and memories into one barely-comprehensible stew. The way that the episode jumps back and forth through time is a superb way to convey the way this story is jumbled up and hard to keep a foothold on for Beatrice.

And that doesn’t even take into account the other amazing visual ways the show communicates the difficulty and incoherence or what Beatrice is experiencing. The way random people lack features or have scratched out faces, the way her mother is depicted only in silhouette with the outline of that scar, the way the images stop and start or blur together at emotional moments all serve to enhance and deepen the experience.

What’s even more impressive is how “Time’s Arrow” tells a story that begins in Beatrice’s youth and ends in the present day, without ever feeling rushed or full of shortcuts. Every event matters, each is a piece of the whole, from a childhood run-in with scarlet fever to her coming out party to an argument about the maid, that convincingly accounts for how the joyful, smart young girl we meet in the Sugarman home turns into the bitter husk of a woman BoJack is putting in a home. It’s an origin story for Beatrice, and a convincing one, but also one of the parental trauma that has filtered its way down from BoJack’s grandparents all the way down to poor Hollyhock.

And my god, the psychological depth of this one! I rag on the show a decent amount for writing its pop psychology on the screen, but holy cow, the layers and layers of dysfunction and reaction and cause and effect here are just staggering. The impact of Beatrice’s father’s cajoling and her mother’s lobotomy on her development as a woman in a society that tried to force her into a role she didn’t want or necessarily fit is striking in where its tendrils reach throughout her development. The idea of rebelling against that, and the way BoJack’s dad fits into that part of her life is incredible. And the story of growing resentment over the years from a couple who once loved each other, or at least imagined they did and then found the reality different than the fantasy is striking and sad.

But that all pales in comparison in how it all of these events come together to explain Beatrice’s fraught, to say the least, relationship to motherhood and children. The climax of the episode, which intersperses scenes of the purging that happens when Beatrice contracts scarlet fever as a child, her giving birth to BoJack, and her helping her husband’s mistress give birth all add up to this complex, harrowing view of what being a mom, what having a child, amounts to in Beatrice’s eyes.

The baby doll that burns in the fire in her childhood room is an end of innocence, a gripping image that ties into Beatrice’s mother’s grief over Crackerjack’s demise and whether and how it’s acceptable to react to such a trauma. The birth of BoJack, for Beatrice, stands as the event that ruined her life. BoJack is forced to absorb the resentments that stem from Beatrice’s pregnancy being the thing that effectively (and societally) forced her to marry BoJack’s father, sending her into a loveless marriage and a life she doesn’t want all because of one night of rebellion she now bitterly regrets. For her, BoJack is an emblem of the life she never got to lead, and he unfairly suffers her abuses because of it, just like Beatrice suffered her own parents’ abuses.

Then there’s the jaw-dropping revelation that Hollyhock is not BoJack’s daughter, but rather, his sister. As telegraphed as Princess Carolyn’s life falling apart felt, this one caught me completely off-guard and it’s a startling, but powerful revelation that fits everything we know so well and yet completely changes the game. It provides the third prong of this pitchfork, the one where Beatrice is forced to help Henrietta, the woman who slept with her husband, avoid the mistake that she herself made, and in the process, tear a baby away from a mother who desperately wants to hold it. It is the culmination of so many inherited and passed down traumas and abuses, the kindness and cruelty unleashed on so many the same way it was unleashed on her, painted in a harrowing phantasmagoria of events through Beatrice’s life.

And yet, in the end, even though BoJack doesn’t know or understand these things, he cannot simply condemn his mother to suffer even if he’s understandably incapable of making peace with her. Such a horrifying series of images and events ends with an act of kindness. BoJack doesn’t understand the cycle of abuse that his mom is as much a part of as he is, but he has enough decency, enough kindness in him to leave Beatrice wrapped in a happy memory.

Like she asked his father to do, like she asked her six-year-old son to do, BoJack tells her a story. It’s a story of a warm, familiar place, of a loving family, of the simple pleasures of home and youth that began to evaporate the moment her brother didn’t return from the war. It’s BoJack’s strongest, possibly final, gift to his mother, to save her from the hellscape of her own mind and return her to that place of peace and tranquility.

More than ever, we understand the forces that conspired to make BoJack the damaged person he is today. It’s just the latest psychological casualty in a war that’s been unwittingly waged by different people across decades. But for such a difficult episode to watch and confront, it ends on a note of hope, that even with all that’s happened, BoJack has the spark of that young, happy girl who sat in her room and read stories, and gives his mother a small piece of kindness to carry with her. There stands BoJack, an individual often failing but at least trying to be better, and out there is Hollyhock, a sweet young woman, who represent the idea that maybe, just as this cycle was built up bit-by-bit, so too may it be dismantled, until that underlying sweetness is all that’s left.

I can see why Marvel wanted to start with this show rather then WandaVision. I liked Wandavision, but this show felt more like the movies and had more of a direct relationship with them. It dealt more with "the blip" and seems like a more natural beginning of phase 4. Episodes of this length and substance are also more rewarding to watch week to week then the short run time of the wandavision episodes, especially given you had no clue what was going on until a few weeks in.

The opening action sequence was great, they made a good choice starting this story with Falcon and moving to Buckie mid way in. It was great learning a little more about Falcon being that they've really shed very little light on his story at all in the movies other than his loyalty to Steve. We know more about Bucky, so the focus here was correct. I like that these shows add more substance to the characters then the movies can fit in, it was sad watching Bucky come to terms with the damage he caused, but something his character needed since he was really only used for action scenes since the winter soldier all those years ago.

Very solid start for this show, I can't wait to see more but also felt satisfied with what I got which is something I struggled to feel with the short and mostly irrelevant WandaVision episodes.

And then the ending comes where everyone let out a collective "oh hell nah."

[8.7/10] The natural inclination in an episode like this is to go big, to make it loud and exciting and epic. It is the Original Trilogy meeting the Prequel Trilogy meeting Rebels, and so the powers that be could be forgiven for turning that encounter into an epic confrontation, full of fireworks and piss and vinegar.

Instead, “Twin Suns” is a quiet, deliberate, almost melancholy episode. That is a bold choice, one that pays off for Rebels and delivers one of its most meditative, understated episodes in a way that does justice to the various major figures it invokes in the effort.

It opens on the holy site of Star Wars, the deserts of Tatooine. There in the swirling sands, Darth Maul wanders the arid wasteland, searching in vain for his mortal enemy. “Twin Suns” commits to the desolation of the planet. Many times, it frames its character in wide shots, often at a distance, showing how small and insignificant they are on that vast landscape between those dual radiating stars. While there are moments of action, most of the time is spent with the characters wandering through those miles of nothing, contemplating what’s calling them there.

Of course, it’s not enough to just have Maul stalking the specter of Obi Wan, so Ezra Bridger feels the call to Tatooine as well. The reasons for his being there are thin, but adequate. He is, essentially, bait. Maul uses the same visions and hallucinations to draw Ezra to the desert planet so as to put him in danger. If Obi Wan is there, Maul reasons, he’ll be unable to stop himself from emerging to save the day.

So foolhardy Ezra heeds the call, follows the visions, and gets both Chopper and himself lost and desperate amid the sands of Tatooine. Despite the half-plausible excuse, Ezra doesn’t have much of a place in this story. It gives the character a bit of nice material, with deliberately disorienting edits creating his sense of being at a loss and in peril as the amount of time he spends out there remains unclear. But on the whole, his arc, to the extent it exists, is merely a familiar epiphany that he’s turned his back on his newfound family and should return to them rather than taking things on his own.

But it’s the man who offers him that advice who matters. Rebels realizes the Ep. IV-era Obi Wan Kenobi well. The franchise has yet to address the awkward business of bridging the gap between the Ewan McGregor/James Arnold Taylor incarnation of the character, and the version that started it all. But Stephen Stanton (who also voices Tarkin and AP-5), does his best Alec Guiness and it scans as true to one of Star Wars’s founding performances.

The Obi Wan Ezra meets in the desert is of a piece with one Luke meets in A New Hope. The years have blunted the edges of the reserved but adventurous man who fought in the clone wars. In his place is this wise old monk, one who has the zen and worldly perspective that Guiness and George Lucas imbued in the role. Rebels attempts to revive characters who’ve gone unseen since Return of the Jedi have been hit or miss, but kudos belong to Stanton and writers Dave Filoni and Henry Gilroy for capturing the spirit and demeanor of the character we know from Star Wars’s first act.

It’s not, however, inter-generational crossovers and desert-worn wisdom. Obi Wan’s time with Ezra is mercifully short, just enough to give him the lesson he needs and send him on his way before Maul arrives. Maul explains his manipulation in a suitably villainous fashion, and trades insults with Obi Wan as he gears up for a confrontation greatly hyped and long in the making.

When Obi Wan faces Maul, the scene is tense. Maul is inquisitive, probing, challenging his wizened adversary. He sniffs out why Kenobi is on this backwater planet, and the Jedi Master’s eyes subtly react with concern and awareness of what he’s revealed. Only then does Obi Wan ready himself to fight. The two men hold the tension, stand their ground, letting the potential of this grand clash linger in the air before the first, tremendous blow is struck.

Instead, it simply ends before it barely began. A few swift moves is all Obi Wan needs to fell his opponent. He moves slowly but decisively. Anything more would be a betrayal of the warrior we saw in Episode IV. There is mercy in his blade and in the way he cradles Maul in his arms after the deed is done.

But the purpose of that anticlimax is not simply fidelity to the source that began it all. It is a reveal, a demonstration, that these are not the fiery young men who clashed on Naboo. They are not the hardened warriors who met in battle on Mandalore. They are broken down old men, the last of a generation, finishing the last vestiges of conflicts that were already lost before they’d even started.

These are the last gunfighters, drawing one last time, because what else is there to do? As Maul seemingly dies in Obi Wan’s arms, he asks Kenobi if his task is to protect the chosen one. Obi Wan admits it, and Maul says the most curious, revealing words as he leaves the living force – “He will avenge us.”

Maul and Kenobi have stood on opposite sides of the battle lines for decades. They have seen the fall of republics and the rise of empires. They have done this dance across the ages, each taking pounds of flesh from the other. And yet, when the final blow is struck, the clarity of the last light reveals a simple truth. They are both victims of the same tormentor, the same individual who took away all that they had and believed in.

As Star Wars has gone on, it has evolved, showing more shades of gray within the hero’s journey that started with A New Hope. Before that little boy running across the horizon could rise up and strike down the evil that took so much from so many, too many had to suffer, both the good and the bad. The distance between the two seems as small as the distance between Maul and Kenobi. They are the twin suns, intertwined, eternally circling ‘round these same events, pulled by the same force, until they are snuffed out, ready for a new light, a new beacon, to sweep the galaxy, and wipe away their shared regrets, mistakes, and pain.

Even with the soapy melodrama, occasional bad acting and a considerably lower budget (probably 2% of the budget of this show per episode): Arrow managed to create better characters and more visceral, memorable and coherent action scenes in its first 2 seasons compared to this show. I’ll even go as far to say that it looks better, despite using incredibly basic set ups and filmmaking techniques. Getting Hailee Steinfeld was a great choice, but her character isn’t leaving a very strong or likable impression. In comparison, Joss Whedon managed to make you care about Clint’s character within 15 minutes of screentime. Well, enough to make you care as a side character.

Moreover, this feels like a studio giving their impression of a Marvel Netflix show, like Daredevil or Jessica Jones, but it doesn’t understand what makes those shows good. It’s so tame and uninspired. It seems to aim for 80’s cheese at points, but even those old action movies had some bite to them (despite how silly they could get). The comedy is mostly flat out lame and cringy, with the role playing scene probably being the lowest low of the entire MCU so far. The recent Marvel projects have had such a weird shift in terms of comedy. They used to be great at making mass product films that were at least a little bit clever and subversive. It’s no surprise that a lot of people who worked on Community also work behind the scenes at Marvel. It’s like they fired those writers after phase 3 ended, and hired the Friends team instead. Their quality control is spreading very thin.

[7.4/10] Gosh that was long. I don’t think that any episode of television, even an epic season finale for one of television’s marquee shows, needs to be two and a half hours long. Sure, many movies are that long. But movies have the structure and pacing for it, with rising and falling action, act structures, and other foundational elements that make 150 minutes not feel that long. “The Piggyback is basically” fifteen minutes of prelude, followed by two hours of a third act climax, followed by fifteen minutes of an epilogue. It’s just too much.

But there’s good moments here! Eddie’s death is meaningful. Him playing Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” to lure the bats with Dustin is cheesy as hell, but just as awesome. His choice to stand and face the horror rather than run away from it as he did with Chrissy is inspiring and earnest. And there is irony and tragedy in his demise. He was the town pariah and scapegoat, but secretly one of its biggest heroes. The world will never know how he gave his life to save a town that hated him, but Dustin knows, and his uncle knows too. It’s sad, but comes with a certain poignancy.

The same goes for Max’s heartfelt admission that she spent so much time feeling guilt over Billy’s death that she wished something would happen to her, something that would make her disappear. It’s one of the most honest renditions of survivor’s guilt I’ve seen on television, and Sadie Sink owns the scene. The loss of someone who hurt you, but who was also hurt, is a complicated thing, and for all season 4’s missteps and questionable story choices, it gets Max’s vulnerability and strength in the shadow of unspeakable thoughts just right.

As tired as I am of “power of love” stories, I did like that it’s Mike finally saying the L-word that gives Eleven the strength to do her thing. It completes Mike’s arc, with him worrying that he’s not good enough to be with a superhero and that admitting his feelings would make it hurt more. But him deciding that’s baloney and affirming his love for Eleven in every form makes for a beautiful little monologue. The finale lays things on a little thick with visions of everyone’s plans failing and good folks suffering, but the idea that love spurs us to “fight” is a simple but effective tonic to that idea.

There’s a number of lesser but still good moments in the lead-up to this. Argyle finding a kindred spirit in a Nevada pizza shop is a fun win for him. Jonathan validating his brother and wanting to support him no matter whom he loves is a wholesome moment. The Russian prison guard convincing Yuri to once again be a “great man” and help save the motherland by saving “the Americans” is the best thing to come out of that storyline.

But again, there’s just too much going on, and a lot of it seems superfluous. It’s admirable that the Duffer Brothers want to give everyone in the cast something to do. But most everything outside of the Eleven/Max/Vecna confrontation seems like perfunctory piece-moving rather than a vital part of the action.

Lucas closes off the jock jerk/satanic panic storyline, but randomly finds the strength of will to avoid being strangled out of nowhere. Erica likewise beats up a bully twice her size almost at random. Steve, Robyn, and Nancy burn up Vecna in the Upside Down, but it doesn’t even kill him, so it feels like they just mildly inconvenience him. Eddie and Dustin fighting bats includes some cool sequences, and keeps Vecna’s minions from attacking the others, but is a sidestory at best. And once again, Hopper, Joyce, and Murray fighting the demogorgons and demodogs in Russia is the most tangential, tenuously-connected part of this whole season.

Jumping around to all of these storylines is just plain exhausting. While I wouldn’t call any of it filler (okay, maybe the business at the Russian prison), a lot of it feels much less urgent and essential than what’s going on in the main event.

The main event is good though. Max retreating to her happy place, and it being the finale of season 2, is a nice surprise. Eleven finding out how to “piggyback” and fight Vecna via Max’s mind is a cool trick and thrilling moment. And Eleven turning the tide and defeating One, however temporarily, is rousing.

But things quickly devolve into tired exposition and monologuing, where Henry explains how he’s going to shatter the borders between his world and ours, and how it was Eleven, not Dr. Brenner who made him. We already got a giant infodump at the end of episode 7, which was already kind of a stretch. This one is probably necessary, but listening to One simply announce his backstory with some of the usual visuals doesn’t add much intrigue or excitement to the proceedings.

Plus, the episode makes a big deal about how our heroes lose for the first time, but...it seems like they shouldn’t have? Sure, Henry succeeds, and there’s a giant Upside Down-fueled “earthquake” that devastates Hawkins. That’s unfortunate, and I’m glad there’s some kind of cost to all this interdimensional adventuring.

But Eleven found her inner strength and obliterated the guy in the mind realm! Robyn, Steve, and Nancy burned the hell out of him in the Upside Down and blasted him with a shotgun out the window! I’m not saying plausibility is the key in a show where the supernatural is the rule of the day. Yet, nothing in this feels like a loss. It feels like, by all rights, they should have been able to finish the job here and now with Vecna, and the only reason they didn’t is because there’s another season of Stranger Things that needs a villain, and the Duffer Brothers don’t want to have to come up with another one. It would have been better if Vecna had enjoyed more of an outright win than something that seems like a complete loss that turns out to be mere table-setting for season 5.

That said, we do get some great work with Max. It is harrowing watching the life leave her body as she cries out about how scared she is in all of this. It’s a nice contrast to where she’s reminded of what she has to live for with her friends and doesn’t want to disappear. Caleb McLaughlin does an extraordinary job as Lucas reacting to Max’s apparent death with his own cries of pain. And we’ve added to Eleven’s messianic nature by having her effectively revive Max, creating the second of two “miracles” in the episode, even if poor Max remains in a coma.

The epilogue is nice enough. There’s the bevy of tearful reunions you’d expect, with Eleven and Hopper being the best of them, naturally. I’m glad that the show didn’t just jump from climax to cliffhanger. It’s nice that we get some of the denouement and emotional aftermath of all these grand events. But considering how many concurrent storylines and characters they’ve been juggling to this point, even that soon feels overextended.

Regardless, Robyn forming a friendship that has the potential to lead to more with her crush is a really nice scene, and it’s good to see her get the win. Nancy and Jonathan’s deal continues to be confusing and pointless. Lucas reading a Stephen King book to a comatose Max is a creditable homage to one of the show’s clear inspirations. And seeing the town of Hawkins wonder why they’re cursed and forced to suffer like this, with the aftermath of Vecna’s handiwork coming to the fore, helps add a sense of place and scope to the scheme this season.

Overall though, this season finale bites of way more than it could chew. Why this couldn’t have been broken up into three episodes, or even just been built into a better act structure, is beyond me. There’s a lot of good material here. Some of it’s even great. But it’s presented in a way that makes it really hard to get your hands around.

Still, I like some of the big swings the show’s taken in season 4. Vecna introduces a retroactive backstory and mastermind for all that’s happened which is kind of hard to swallow. But having a villain with a face and a personality and a motive escalates this struggle into something broader and more meaningful as a reflection of Eleven’s own struggles. The show’s done good work with a number of the key relationships in the series, and introduced some solid new characters while reintroducing old ones. (I’m glad we got more Owens this year.)

But at the end of the day, this also feels like half a story, despite the ridiculously bloated runtimes for every episode. This is as much a prelude to season 4 as it is its own distinctive thing. Maybe that’s to be expected in the streaming era, but while there’s high points and quality elements at play, the season’s never more than the sum of its part.

Still, a friend described Stranger Things as a show that’s still exciting and worthy of investing in even when it’s missing half of its shots, and I think this finale is a good representation of that idea. Not everything works, and the time required prompts a certain exhaustion factor. But this feels epic and grand and satisfying enough as a temporary resolution to the season’s events. There’s a lot more ground to cover, but also enough to tug the heartstrings and make you cheer, which is still worth appreciating.

Sarah Lynn has always been a source more of humor than of drama on BoJack Horseman. Sure, there's always been a dark edge to the jokes made about her drug-induced lifestyle and the ways in which she was doomed from a young age, but for the most part, it was part and parcel with the satire of Hollywood and its dark side that stretches throughout this series. And yet, in this episode, that humor is brought down to Earth. It's not that there's no ridiculousness here, but suddenly the show starts taking that part of Sarah Lynn's background seriously.

And the tragedy of it becomes much more clear. Both BoJack and Sarah Lynn have been harmed by this lifestyle, bereft of empathy and only seeking thrills and substances to try to fill that hole in their lives. But the difference is that BoJack came to acting as an adult. Sarah Lynn was forced into it as a child, she never had a choice, and she never had a chance, and that's tragic. That's what makes something truly tragedy -- not just that it's sad, not just that it's unfair, but that it's the horrible result of forces beyond a person's control.

There's a Trainspotting vibe to this episode, a sense in which both BoJack and Sarah are letting go of whatever control they have as they take a feverish jaunt across L.A. and eventually across the country. That leads to the episode feeling somewhat shaggy in places, but it works with the rambling, unfocused, black out experience of the main characters, and so it works. That tack gives the story momentum even when it's rolling all over the place.

That spree takes BoJack (repeatedly) to the door of Ana Spanakopita, where she delivers an assessment of BoJack that is possibly even more harsh than Todd's. When BoJack asks why she abandoned him when he needed her the most, she basically tells him that he is not only unsaveable, but that he brings down anyone who would try to help him. He doesn't quite understand it, but there's a cold truth to those words, especially as they come to fruition in the rest of the episode, as BoJack brings down two young women.

The first of these is Penny. After a frantic, misguided attempt to make amends to all of the people BoJack's hurt (which leads it a hilarious "Dianne is just Asian Daria" routine), BoJack stalks Penny at Oberlin. In the process, he discovers something surprising -- she's just fine. She seems happy; she has friends, and she seems cool and comfortable where she is. That is, until BoJack shows up to mess that up. His presence reminds her of what happened and rattles her in what seemed like a safe environment. As Sarah Lynn points out, she was good until he showed up.

Sarah Lynn doesn't have the same kind of self-awareness about the way in which BoJack brought her down as well. It's hard to say that BoJack is truly the cause of Sarah Lynn's downfall. After all, in the past there were her parents and the other parts of the Hollywood machine that helped turn her into the person she became, and in the present, the very fact that Sarah Lynn was only engaging with sobriety so that she could get a really good high later suggests this would have happened eventually regardless of what BoJack did. (And, true to life, people who relapse often overdose, because their tolerance has diminished but they still consume their drug of choice in the quantities they used to, which overwhelms their systems.) To a degree, there was an inevitability to this.

But BoJack could have been there, could have eased her away from it, could have been a voice of experience and an angel on her shoulder rather than someone who brought her into his desperate race away from his own misery. Instead, BoJack was feeling bad for himself, and had managed to alienate literally everyone else important in his life. So he resorted to his old co-star, the one he was a father figure to, and jumpstarted the process that led to her demise. Maybe this would have happened eventually anyway, but BoJack was there, he hastened it, and took part in it, and managed to lose one of the last people who'd bother speaking to him in the process.

BoJack has his own damage to deal with, and much of it isn't his fault. He has an emptiness and a selfishness that he inherited, both through nature and nurture. The problem is that he prioritizes his own pain over everyone and everything else, and doesn't care about what his means of trying to feel better, or at least feel less, does to anyone close to him. That's what makes Ana's words so vital here -- BoJack really is drowning, he really is thrashing and kicking and trying to keep his head above water. He has legitimate problems, and sometimes he even makes legitimate attempts to fix them, but he's oblivious to those connections to others in this terrifying world, and that's his greatest sin.

So we feel for him when he loses out on that Oscar. It represents something important for him -- a signifier that his life and his work meant something. And we sympathize when he wants to do anything but face reality when that falls apart. But then Sarah Lynn wins an Oscar, and we see how meaningless it is for her. All she can do in that moment is think about what it should mean, what it would have meant to her, before she went down this path. BoJack is a victim, but also a perpetrator. As far as we see, Sarah is just a victim, someone who was poisoned before she even really knew how to read. And BoJack could have done something to stop it, to help it, then and now, but didn't.

Because BoJack just wants to try to anesthetize himself from his own pain, to hold himself back from his own damage. That's why when he looks into the projected stars of the planetarium, he absolves himself. BoJack never accepts blame, never takes the fault. He looks at the vastness of the universe and the eons that pass in a blink when pulled out to that scale, and declares that he need not feel bad for anything he does because nothing he does matters. To put it in Brothers Karamazov terms, anything is permitted. BoJack takes it to the self-serving extreme, to ignore his fractured attempts at making good so that he needn't feel guilt.

There is, however, a catch the nihilist's way out. Try as he might, BoJack still feels a connection to Sarah Lynn. As they sit on that bench together, gazing at the sunset as they've done in the past, he realizes that she is one of the few people equipped to understand him. They may have come to it on different terms, but they've been through the same thing. He cares about her. He may not want to care about anyone. It's easier to justify your own bad actions, to compartmentalize all the terrible things you've done, if you don't care about anyone.

But he does. And Sarah Lynn dies. And he was there for it all.

That's the kicker. Maybe your choices don't matter on a cosmic scale, but they matter on a personal one. You can hurt the people you care about, and no matter how many beers you drink, how many drugs you take, how many false amends you yell into the night, you will still feel that. BoJack will still feel that. All of his attempts to run away from his pain have only caused more pain, for many innocent people whom he's dragged beneath the waves with him, and for himself.

Who knows if Sarah Lynn would ever have become an architect. Maybe she would, as Tony Soprano once put it, ended up selling lawn furniture on Route 9. But maybe she would have been happy. Maybe BoJack could have helped her be happy, made himself happy, or at least avoided letting one more lost soul into his morass of discontent. Instead, a young woman dies, and for all his attempts to avoid his own hurt, to avoid the results of his bad acts, they finally catch up to him, and to those unfortunate enough to be in his wake when that reckoning comes.

Without lots of action, without much of the popular Star Wars lore like the Force, Jedi, Lightsabers, this show delivers with every new episode.

It was very interesting to see that Mon Mothma was reluctant to delve fully into engaging the Empire in open Rebellion. We've never seen that side. I also like that they adressed that people are and will be dying like Luthen told her. It's not much of romantisizing. It's war. And the Empire responds the only way it knows how. By asserting even more power. By being predictable, thus playing into the Rebels hands.

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Which at least some inside the Empire seem to understand while others still think of their position.

We also see the glimmer of hope from the people that things are about to change for the better when they hear off the attack on Aldhani. And althought Star Wars is not known for portraying contemporary problems within the story telling, I wonder if the similarities are just random.

I really interested how characters like Syril and Dedra will develop moving forward. Could they actually (well maybe one of them) end up with the Rebels ?

Oh, and the world building in this show is also great: Bureau of Standards. It's the Empire put in a single building and again something that reminds me of our present.

[9.1/10] If there’s one thing I consistently admire about BoJack Horseman, it’s the show’s creative use of structure. Framing this entire episode as a “listicle”, and using that setup to jump back and forth in time, across continents and situations, is exceedingly creative, and allows the show to play fast and loose with the timeline and with Diane’s emotional state, in a way that pays both comedic and character-based dividends.

I like how the show uses Diane’s trip to Vietnam (and the lead-up and aftermath to it) to explore her cultural heritage, the difficulty of divorce, her newly awkward friendship with BoJack, and much much more. “The Dog Days Are Over” splits the difference between spoofing the “woman finds herself overseas” tropes and deploying them with more earnestness than most tearjerkers can manage.

As usual, there’s some traditional movie parodying being done here (Lost in Translation in particular comes to mind), but there’s also some real feeling, both of being separated, of being aimless, and being in an emotionally fraught place. You have some standard travel and silly animal gags, from the hilarious American family who can’t understand that Diane is from L.A., to the importance of the almighty screen to “AmeriCrane Airlines,” to the “executive grip” with whom Diane pretends to be a non-understanding native speaker.

The latter gag is mostly played for laughs, but there’s also a persistent theme in the episode of Diane trying on different “costumes” and personae in the hopes that she’ll find one that fits the new her post-Peanutbutter. The way that plays out over the course of the episode, from traditional Vietnamese garb, to a kicky new look for Mr. PB’s party, to more psychological changes in presentation is very well done.

After she was mostly absent in the premiere, it’s nice to get some focus on Diane here, connecting her sense of directionlessness in her life with a sense of unfamiliarity and the unknown being in a foreign country. The episode isn’t subtle about how starting a new phase in your life is like being in an unfamiliar place, and that the idea of breaking habits isn’t an easy one no matter where you are, but it does these things well, so it works.

“The Dog Days Are Over” also introduces Mr. PB’s new flame well, and uses the timeline shenanigans to deliver the maximum emotional punch for Diane’s discovery of the courtship. But it’s also hopeful, that Diane is, in her own words, “going through some shit” right now, but also surviving it, even if she doesn't necessarily know waht direction she wants her life to take from here.

It’s one of those BoJack episode that treads the line between comedy and drama well, with plenty of well-observed bits and good laughs, but also telling a touching story of a young woman overcoming her divorce while also making fun of movies and T.V. shows about women overcoming their divorce. It’s a tightrope to be sure, but the balance of humor and sentiment is nigh-perfect, with just enough profundity to rise above the clichés.

Overall, an early favorite for the best episode of the series.

[7.9/10] I don’t know how Stranger Things wants me to feel about Papa. From my vantage point, he is, as Eleven calls him, a monster. In both flashbacks and present day scenes, we’ve seen him abuse the children in his care. So much of the first two seasons in particular was centered on Eleven moving past that. She embraces this new, wholesome, loving family, and discards her old, pernicious one. She finds a real dad, one who loves her and cares for her, rather than to have to swallow the harm presented as love she’d endured for so much of her life.

But then this season presented him as a force for good, at least to a degree. He helps Eleven regain her powers, as the ability to lift the giant metal drum indicates. He thinks she’s the only thing that can stop Henry/One/Vecna. He’s trying to make her better, make her well.

At the same time, though, Papa doesn’t care about what Eleven wants. He doesn’t care about her psychological well-being. Owens calls him out for it. He reminds Brenner that this bunker was never meant to be a prison and upbraids him for freaking out Eleven with the threat of Henry breaking the boundary between worlds, rather than easing her into it. Papa thinks he knows what’s best for his “daughter”. He holds her against her will, declaring that it’s for her own good, trapping her in the same shock collars he once held all of his other “children” in.

I was, frankly, glad to see that. It played like a reminder that Brenner is not a good man. After a season in which the show seemed to be trying to rehabilitate him, it finally had his worse, controlling, abusive nature rear its ugly head. Confining Eleven, ignoring her wishes, drugging her and putting her under your control, is legitimately monstrous.

And yet, when the military baddies show up, he tries to save her. More to the point, he wants her to believe that he always meant well, that he wanted what was best for her. God help me, maybe he did, at least in his own mind. I want to give Stranger Things credit. I want to believe it understands the nuance of abuse, where abusers do not necessarily see themselves as monsters, but think they’re doing the right thing for their victims. I want to buy that it sees the shades of gray in Brenner, someone who does unspeakable, repugnant things to innocent kids, but in his own twisted way, thinks he’s helping them. There is truth in that, and a complicated villain is a better villain.

The fact that Eleven grants him no absolution, but simply bids “Papa” goodbye, suggests the series understands. The feelings of the abused toward their parents is complicated. Love, attachment, care remains, even if it becomes hard to reconcile with the horrors inflicted. In a show that’s not afraid to spell things out, it leaves all this to subtext, a bold, subtle move that leads to humble, foolhardy viewers potentially overreading the situation.

Speaking of subtext, I don’t know if we’re going to get a scene with Will and Mike more emotionally explicit than the one we got here. The Pizza Van crew finally matters to the story, showing up to rescue Eleven from the Bunker and take her where she needs to go. But the most important thing they do isn’t plot-relevant.

It comes when Will reassures a worried Mike. Mike fears that Eleven doesn’t need him anymore, that he was a dumb schmuck who happened to find her, but that it’s not fated they be together. Will offers an emotional reassurance, about -- how it’s Mike’s heart that holds him together, how much he still means to her, how much he’ll always mean to her -- when it’s clear (to the audience at least) that he’s really talking about himself rather than Eleven.

It’s a great performance from Noah Schnapp, who absolutely kills it with the projected emotions he feels when speaking about someone else’s relationship. The reveal with his vaunted painting works and weaves together the complicated feelings of all three members of this unorthodox love triangle. The catch is, I don’t know if I want the show to go further than this. Will professing his true feelings in plain terms seems like a bill that’s due for the show at this point. And yet, there’s something poignant about Will having these feelings but, due to societal prejudices and recognizing where his friend’s heart lies, not being able to express them. There’s something true to life, even artful about that, and I wonder where Stranger Things will leave it.

I wonder far less what’s going to happen with Joyce, Hopper, Murray, and their pair of reluctant Russian allies. The most important thing in that corner of the show right now is the reveal that the Soviets are experimenting on creatures from the Upside Down. The scientists at this facility are vivisecting demogorgons, seemingly cloning or growing their own army of this sort of fauna, and even appear to have a mind flayer contained within their walls. Who knows what it means exactly, beyond the obvious -- the Ruskies are prepping for a war with extraordinary, albeit uncontrollable, weapons at their disposal -- but it’s an intriguing reveal.

What’s less intriguing is the Joyce/Hopper crew trying to find their way back to the United States. Escaping from the Russian prison is surprisingly easy. (Apparently Yuri’s van is bulletproof, which, fair I guess?) Their mission to use some combo of Yuri’s helicopter and a coded message to allies in the USA to get back is fine. But even this penultimate episode can’t escape the sense that this is a sideshow to keep the adults away from the major events happening in Hawkins and the the desert, rather than a meaningful part of the story in and of itself. Even Hopper and Joyce’s mutual “I thought you were dead” conversation doesn’t have much juice to it.

We get more character moments among the now united Hawkins faithful though. There’s still some excitement here. Nancy witnesses the horrors Henry experienced and then, in a big surprise, he lets her go as a messenger for Eleven. The crew steals a winnebago and collects weapons to fight Vecna’s demons. And they sit in fear with the knowledge that he means to use “four gates” to shatter the bounds between his world and ours, putting everyone our heroes know and love at risk in the process.

Still, this is mostly a “calm before the storm” part of the story for the Hawkins kids, which tend to be some of my favorite parts of genre movies and shows. It’s a chance to have those important character moments before the last act fireworks take the stage. We get to see the players bouncing off one another, expressing what they mean to each other, rather than just hacking and slashing at the dramatic CGI beastie du jour.

Some of these moments are small. Erica telling Lucas that even if they bicker, he’s still her brother, is quite sweet. Eddie roughhousing with Dustin over his puns and telling him to never change is weirdly flirtatious, but also very rousing in how he sees the kid’s greatness. And as much as I’m down on all the teases of Steve and Nancy getting back together, Steve waxing rhapsodic about his dream to have a whole “brood of Harringtons” roaming the countryside in a car like this, while Nancy looks on admiringly, is a really warm moment.

But there’s bigger moments too. Robyn seeing her crush with a boy and it hitting her like lightning is sad and sympathetic. But the same goes for her and Steve aiming to reassure her about it, while she insists there’s bigger fish to fry right now, but he still shows care for his best friend. Likewise, Max and Lucas’ heart-to-heart -- about Max’s willingness to be the bait for Vecna because she doesn’t want to be in harm’s way, about her confidence that she can best him by finding her happiest moment that just so happens to involve Lucas, and Lucas’ insistence that if things go wrong he’s going to deploy Kate Bush in a heartbeat -- affirms one of the sweetest and most earnest little romances on the show before the going gets tough.

Let’s be real, it’s stupid as hell for the kids to strap up and head into the breach to fight a psychic, telekinetic demon dude. Sure, there’s the patina of plausibility to the plan, with the notion that they can get him in his trance while he’s going after Max, something he needs in order to reach this world. But Eleven’s right to fear for them after she uses her mental wandering powers to learn what they’re up to. The blaring sounds of a Journey ballad undercuts the gravity of the situation (and weakens the vibe) more than a little as the episode comes to a close, but it’s a still an ominous thing our heroes are walking into.

There’s grace notes for other villains here. The jerk jock whose name I’ve forgotten in the month or so between episodes menaces Nancy at the gun shop, but never feels like more than a tertiary villain from another show. The big bad military dude shows he’s truly evil (if the torture didn’t do it) when Ownes gives him a safe way to test his theory that Eleven’s behind all the killings, and the guy decides to just kill her anyway. And Henry gets a few more chances to show his victims what waits in store for them if they continue down this path.

The heart of this one, though, comes with Eleven’s confrontation of her would-be father. She takes out those military goons with comparative ease, under the circumstances. SOme of the show’s best imagery comes with her and her pals amid the desert blaze. Eleven even enacts violence against Papa when he threatens to cage her again, force his will upon her “for her own good.”

In the end, though, forces beyond his control prevent him from enacting his plan. To his dying breath, he wants his “daughter” to believe that he meant well. Eleven won’t grant him the forgiveness and understanding he seeks, because whatever lingering attachment she has to the man who raised her, he doesn’t deserve it. But now, whatever his wishes, she is untethered, recharged, and ready to save the people who do deserve her care, and her love.

[9.0/10] One of my biggest complaints about the early seasons of BoJack is that its psychology was too simple. It would try to draw a direct line from point A event in BoJack’s past to point B problem in BoJack’s present to try to account for some bit of bad behavior or mental pathology, when the truth is that most of our problems’ causes or more complicated than that.

How encouraging it is, then, to witness the evolution of this show’s take on that sort of cause and effect about what ails BoJack, to an episode like “A Horse Walks into Rehab”, which not only resists oversimplification when trying to account for alcoholism, but which weaves a tapestry of events that led him to this point into a larger frame story about trying to get clean and remember why you’re doing it.

The four vignettes we see to set the stage for the origins of BoJack’s drinking go back in time, tracing each event and unpacking them to make his present state seem more like an accumulation of sad moments and bad reinforcement than some straightforward explanation. He was too nervous to pull off a big scene on his show until an assistant gave him a little extra “juice,” and he’s suddenly pursuing the supermodel he was too nervous to convincingly kiss moments ago. He’s awkward at a party as a teenager, but then one beer later, he’s not only the life of the party, but being cruel to people who were kind to him.

He walks in on his dad cheating on his mom, and has what’s manipulatively framed as a father/son bonding experienced turned into a way for his dad to use guilt and a form of abuse to keep BoJack from spilling the beans. And another sad family celebration of a broken home leaves a tiny BoJack imitating his parents and trying to get that warm feeling of home any way he can. None is the sum total of why BoJack tries to numb himself with substances. Instead, each are a piece of the puzzle.

But we also get to see the endpoint of that, something we’re reminded of in the opening flashback to the night of Sara Lynn’s death, the moment when BoJack hit rock bottom. What’s so striking isn’t just that gut punch to start the show’s final season, but also the way his guilt and resolve not to repeat those mistakes is conveyed visually.

Those cuts to key moments in BoJack’s development as a drinker end with dissolves, the acid realizations boring back into his conscious thoughts. The opening montage starts as a humorous sequence of BoJack not really trying at rehab, only to see Sara Lynn’s picture on the clerk’s selfie wall, and be reminded of why he’s doing this, redoubling his efforts to take this seriously. And when he looks at the bottle he sneaks in, or other hints of his temptation and addiction, he sees the stars of the planetarium, a psychological reminder of what this vice has cost him, and the people unlucky enough to endure it with him.

Despite all that, “A Horse Walks into a Rehab” is a thoroughly funny episode! It finds a deft way to check in on the rest of the cast in a quick but funny ways, that delivers one of the show’s trademark wordplay parades and an amusing interlude about Diane’s phone number of all things. The layered swerves of BoJack and fellow rehab-mate Jameson dealing with their issues inside her dad’s giant movie memorabilia room is a real treat. (“The glass from The Graduate!” had me in stitches.) And even small bits like the idea of a gritty, Zack Snyder-helmed Mario reboot or the title card “Two Jamesons later” are eminently laugh-worthy.

Still, what keeps the episode from feeling indulgent is the story it tells in the present to connect with the past. BoJack’s efforts to keep Jameson from relapsing is a nice echo of his relationship with Sara Lynn, one where he’s working out his own demons but trying to keep the past from repeating. That’s a nice way to dramatize both his guilt and his growth, while letting the difficulties of getting better be channeled and shared by another personality who can act as a foil rather than giving BoJack the whole of the spotlight.

The reveal that Jameson is not merely some BoJack-like young adult with neglectful parents and slim chances to grow up healthy, but rather someone with a supportive dad who’s made some hard life choices, helps drive that home, for BoJack and the audience. It’s a story that portends a season-long theme of taking responsibility for your actions, even when they’re shaped by events and decisions that, if not fully forced on you, were also not fully in control. It’s that difficult line -- between responsibility and an understanding of other forces at work, that makes recovery so hard, and this exploration of it so compelling.

It’s the kind of complex, multi-causal storytelling that is a far cry from the simplicity the show started with. What led BoJack here is not just bad parents or a bottle. What might save him from is not just the memory of Sara Lynn. It’s also the decisions that he made, the people that he’s hurt, the number of friends and confidantes who still gather in his wake, and the possibilities he sees for something better on the other side.

What made BoJack horseman an alcoholic, what makes him the person he is today, is a cocktail of past and present, of kindness and cruelty, of regret and resolve. As BoJack Horseman embarks on its final season, it doesn't shy away from the layers of that, which BoJack starts to finally peel away here, however painful that may be. The person who shows up on the other end may not be the healthy person BoJack aspires to be -- there’s still an acid tongue that comes out when BoJack’s told to stop deflecting -- but with that understanding from him, and from the series, that the road to get here wasn’t simple or easy and that the road to recovery won’t be either, he and the show that bears his name may close things out as a more mature, understanding, complex creature than either began as.

Funny how now the Empire Remnant has a secret underground resistance against the New Republic. How the tables have turned.

This episode was way better in terms of storytelling but it left me very frustrated. I know that the Mandalorians are not likely to win if they want to keep the mythology. But just for once I'd like to see them come out on top. Gideon has become a bit ridicolous. He's the archetype of a bad guy. He was more interesting when he wasn't flying around as a Vader look-alike. I hate to see Vizla die but I should've seen that one coming because I really grew to like him. Grogu inside IG ? Come-on, he's a Force user. Despite the fact he choose not to train with Luke he still has the ability, no ? And we still must have a monster, doesn't we ?

Now, those are personal and, yes, biased points on my behalf. Like I said it was a great episode as such. In the end I see it as a win for the author if he invokes those reactions from me. There were also moments that gave me serious goosebumps. Like when Bo told them what happened between her and Gideon and subsequent how Din told her why he's following her. The talk about Thrawn didn't surprise me. I expected that pretty much from episode one forward.

Only one episode left and I hope there'll be some silver lining.

[7.0/10] Another episode that isn’t bad, but isn’t especially great either. It’s just square in the middle.

I’ll say this, I loved the interlude where Clint goes to play with the Larpers to get his Ronin suit back. There’s something so fun about him carrying a fake sword and just casually “slaying” his opponents in slow-motion while they overact in response. His fake “trial by combat” was a blast, and I like the idea that having suffered through so much over the years (including a wicked case of tinnitus, apparently), part of his journey here is learning to have fun and enjoy himself again.

Likewise, I’m not sure how I feel about the meta-commentary on how Hawkeye is the most low-key, least marketable Avenger. It’s a little too cute by half. But I do appreciate the continuing focus on the nature of celebrity and how Clint is uncomfortable with it, doesn’t care about selling things, and is a little over it all. There’s meat there, and I don’t know if the show is going to sink its teeth into it, like so many one-eyed pups chowing down on some pizza, but it’s intriguing nonetheless.

That said, I’m at least warming to Kate Barton a little. I continue to find her oblivious “straighten up and fly right” mom + probably evil stepdad situation to be too stock and unengaging. But she’s got a sly, deadpan sort of snark vibe that I appreciate. She and Clint don’t have the fun dynamic that, say, Sam and Bucky do. But him as the no-nonsense dad, and her as the wry rebel has some juice to it. I’m not totally sold, but there’s room to grow there.

Still, her stepdad is so cheesily evil to me that I’m desperately hoping it’s a swerve, even though all of my comics knowledge suggests it isn’t. Tony Dalton is a good actor! He’s great in Better Call Saul. But Jack is just such a nigh-literally mustache-twirling bad guy so far that he’s almost wholly uninteresting.

The same goes for the “track suit mafia.” There’s not much of an animating problem in this one. Jack is an obvious baddie, and the Eastern Bloc Bro Brigade has little going for them either. So what obstacles are we supposed to care about here? There’s something to be said for Clint’s “catch and release” ploy to get inside the bad guys’ compound, but it’s thin gruel.

I guess we have Clint’s promise to his daughter to make it home for Xmas, but again, very generic as these things go.

Overall, this feels more like a piece moving episode than anything that really deepens the characters or their situation. Clint playing temporary mentor to Kate has something to it, but the show can’t yet find a worthy challenge to throw at them. Kate’s story especially feels very rote and facile. Hoping that with more throat clearing out of the way, this one improves.

9.8/10. I realized, watching this episode, that I care about the relationship between Anakin and Ahsoka one-hundred times more than I ever cared about the relationship between Anakin and Padme. There's lot of reasons for that. We've gotten see Anakin and Ahsoka's relationship grow and develop over the course of dozens of episodes, whereas Anakin and Padme get scattered parts of a few films and a handful of episodes for theirs to be developed. The writing and plotting on The Clone Wars and Rebels has easily surpassed the horrorshow of the prequels. And as a franchise, Star Wars has almost always been better at stories involving neophytes and mentors than it has at romantic relationships.

That is what the finale for Rebels's outstanding second season embraces as it brings things to a close. The episode focuses on Masters and apprentices, with Maul and Kanan warring over Ezra's soul while they're forced to be temporary allies, at the same time Ahsoka finally confronts her former master face-to-face. In the juxtaposition, we see the importance of that type of relationship, the way it can scar you or lift you up, no matter what side of the equation you're on.

That idea comes through in the effort to install the Sith holocron into the top of the temple. The race to the top divides Kanan, Ezra, Ahsoka, and Maul into different pairings as they make a plan to divide the Inquisitors and are forced to abide the temple's "rule of two" design. Kanan warns Ezra about trusting Maul, fearful about what his apprentice will do after the warnings he's received about Ezra potentially turning to the dark side. Ezra pushes back, claiming that Maul sees his full potential, in words that echo those of Anakin's own words to his master and the same frustrations and sense of being held back that paved the way for his turn to the dark side. Ahsoka, on the other hand, reassures Kanan that Ezra will be okay, since he has Kanan's training. The subtext there is that Ahsoka herself managed to be good, to stay on the right path, thanks to her own master's training, even after she left the order.

And Ahsoka is right. When Maul and Ezra are paired up, they're confronted by the Seventh Sister. Maul holds her aloft and demands that Ezra kill her. Despite the ways in which Ezra has found a kinship with Maul and begins to trust him, he cannot bring himself to do it, something that Maul chastises him for. (This doesn't really cohere with how many times Ezra's been willing to kill stormtroopers, but you know, you just kind of have to go with these things.) Later, after Ezra makes it to the top of the temple and inserts the holocron into the obelisk, it offers him the power to destroy life (in Mother Talzin's voice, which is a nice touch). There too, he demurs, taken aback by what's being offered to him and declaring that it's not what he wants. As Ahsoka predicted, Ezra is given a glimpse of the dark side, of the power that lures so many Sith, and turns away from it. Whatever the fears that Ezra may one day turn to the dark side that Kanan harbors, his instruction and the good nature of his ward keep him steadfast despite Maul's cajoling and the temptation placed before him.

(As an aside, the use of the junior inquisitors here is pretty disappointing. For the Seventh Sister in particular, there were hints at there being more to her, which felt like Rebels was building to something. Instead, she's killed off without being much more than a colorful but easily survivable threat over the course of this season. It comes off like a waste of a potentially interesting character and the talents of Sarah Michelle Geller. The fact that Maul basically takes each of the Inquisitors out helps establish his bona fides as a powerful force-wielder at this stage of the timeline, but their fairly quick deaths still make them feel less developed or useful as antagonists than they might have been.)

Maul, however, is convinced that he's swayed Ezra, and calls the young man his new apprentice. He reveals that the temple is a battlestation that he intends to use to take out the Empire through raw force, and blinds Kanan with his lightsaber as Ahsoka goes off to find Ezra. Kanan finds a temple guard mask, like those worn by the guards he faced in the temple on Lothal, and manages to defeat Maul in battle, sending him into the chasm below. That fight is a symbol for the way in which Kanan's influence trumped Maul's over Ezra, and to get even more grandiose about it, Kanan's injury represents a certain blind faith he has in his apprentice, that he believes he can succeed even if he doesn't have a perfect vision about what the future holds.

That training, however, cannot prepare Ezra for a confrontation with Darth Vader, who arrives and quickly overpowers the nascent force-wielder. It's then that Ahsoka arrives, saving Ezra and facing down her own former master. It's a powerful reunion. Vader making an offer not unlike the one he'll eventually make to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, threatening to torture Ezra when she declines. It's then that, as Obi Wan once did, Ahsoka believes that Anakin is truly lost, that the man she knew would never do such a thing. Vader responds that the Anakin she knew was weak, and Vader "destroyed him." When Ahsoka vows to avenge her master, Vader declares that revenge is not the Jedi way, to which she responds with the line of the episode -- "I'm no Jedi."

It's the confrontation we've been waiting for from the very first episode of this season. There is so much power and history wrapped up between the two. Ahsoka is forced to look at what her dearest friend and mentor has turned into firsthand, and Vader is forced to look upon one of the last connections to his humanity, to the person he used to be. It's a charged moment from the very beginning, one wrapped up in all the struggles and shared history the two characters have up until this point.

As they begin to fight in the dazzlingly designed confines of the obelisk chamber, the episode juxtaposes one master and apprentice coming to blows with another coming together. Much in this episode focuses on the Sith rule of two, an ancient tradition meant to preserve a structure among the ambitious adherents, but "Twilight of the Apprentice" finds the goodness in that idea, that it may take two people working together to achieve these great things. That's why when it comes time to remove the holocron from the obelisk, to avert the potential disaster on the horizon, it requires a master and an apprentice -- Kanan and Ezra, working together, to accomplish this, a testament to the connection between them and the way they lift each other up.

Of course, even after retrieving the holocron, they cannot make a clean escape. Vader uses the force to stymie them as they head for their shuttle, but Ahsoka dives in to save the day, slicing Vader's helmet in the process. The temple begins falling apart as Ezra and Kanan try to leave and beckon Ahsoka to come with. It's then that Vader says Ahsoka's name for the first time in the episode. She turns to her former master and sees the man behind that helmet, the scarred face with the eye she recognizes. He speaks in the voice she knows from The Clone Wars, not the mechanical baritone of the monster she's seen this day. Faced with the choice to go with Ezra or attempt to rescue her former master, she force pushes Ezra onto the shuttle and speaks the words to Anakin that cut through me like a knife -- "I won't leave you, not this time."

It's an absolutely devastating line, one that speaks to the connection forged by this master and apprentice that survives even the horrors she knows Anakin has committed as Vader. It speaks to the guilt she has, the questioning of whether the man she once knew would have turned into something so twisted if she'd been there to help guide him in his hour of need the same way that Ezra was able to guide Kanan. Vader is too far gone, seeming to consider her help for a moment before returning to his attack, but in that, there is a glimpse of that humanity. There is a connection that emerges when people go through these events together, when they become teacher and student, mentor and padewan, instructor and friend, that allows them to, if only briefly, overcome all that's happened, all the betrayals, personal and ethical, that have happened between their time together and the present.

There is a sense of melancholy over the final montage, which portends so much for Rebels next adventure. In scenes with a noted visual devotion to symmetry -- representing the balance of the force -- a blinded Kanan and Ezra return to the rebels on Attolon. Rex's face falls when Ahsoka isn't with them. Maul flies away, out there to scheme and attack as before. Ezra begins to unlock the Sith holocron. Both Vader and Ahsoka limp away from their battle, their futures uncertain.

What is certain, however, is how those connections between masters and apprentice have defined the people enmeshed in them. Ezra stays on the right path thanks to the teachings of his master, and in return, he helps Kanan to survive the encounter at the temple. Maul is scarred and bitter at the way his master abused him, and it fuels his anger and resentments. And despite everything, Ahsoka refuses to give up on Anakin, even when he's encased in the horror that is Darth Vader, and that is enough to bring out the first glimpse of humanity we see from him since donning his new face. This type of relationship between people dominates the Star Wars universe, dictating who becomes a hero, who becomes a villain, who rises to the occasion, and who stands by the those who have brought them up, even in the face of unmitigated power and the threat of oblivion. In Star Wars, it always comes down to a master and an apprentice.

[7.7/10] What would you do if you went through life convinced that you were “burdened with glorious purpose” when, in fact, you were just another cog in the machine? What would you do if you found out the artifacts of power you so desired were mere trinkets that other beings used as paper weights? What would you do if you believed you were in control of your own destiny, your own choices, only to discover that you’re the plaything of greater beings and your life story has already been written? What would you do if you thought you were the protagonist of this story, only to realize that you’re a mere springboard for others to become their best selves?

What I like about Loki, at least in its opening outing, is that the show is equal parts meta, loopy, and existential amid this inquisitive backdrop. There’s not a lot of action in the series’s opening episode. Instead, there’s a lot of table-setting, a lot of throat-clearing, and a lot of talk. But it able sets the tone for Marvel Studios’ new villain-fronted show, one that’s irreverent to be sure, as befits the “mischievous scamp” at its center, but also willing to delve into personal pain and deeper questions of self that also feel true to form for the MCU’s favorite trickster god.

On the meta side, Loki’s opening hour features beaucoup winks at Loki’s status as a villain in the wider MCU. His handler and assorted captors poke fun at him for being a side character who fancies himself a protagonist. A particular stretch of the first episode goes so far as to deconstruct Loki’s need to be a villain, as a pose or posture to compensate for his own perceived weakness. There’s plenty of gags about his penchant for speechifying and betrayal, laced with deeper (if still funny) examinations of why he falls into these cycles that double as both psychoanalysis and gestures toward the nature of superhero storytelling.

More than anything though, the show starts out as something of a mood piece or curio. The first episode sets up the basic premise. Loki is in a Silence of the Lambs-type situation where he’s tasked with helping a timeline investigator pursue another temporal agitator. And that works. But it’s more fun just to hang out in the world that creator Michael Waldron and his team conjure up. Waldron is the screenwriter for the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (which gets a name drop here) and has credits on the likewise metatextual Rick and Morty, and his penchant for off-the-wall, science fiction-y fun is in full view here.

Waldron and company’s vision for the realm of the Temporal Variance Authority, an organization policing the “sacred timeline” to prevent multiversal war, scans as of a piece with Beetlejuice and Defending Your Life. The show frames this afterlife-esque realm as a Catch-22-esque bastion of bewildering bureaucracy, where gods are reduced to powerless pawns. Watching Loki flail through ridiculous set pieces of processing, adjudication, and interrogation that would make Terry Gilliam smile is a treat throughout, and the mixing of the wild and fantastical with a humdrum civil servant feel works like gangbusters.

In the same vein, Waldron has called to Mad Men as a reference for the show, and it’s a palpable influence beyond fellow star, Owen Wilson, cutting the spitting image of fellow MCU denizen John Slattery (who played Roger Sterling on Mad Men and Howard Stark as recently as Avengers: Endgame). The entire production design has a 1960s kitsch vibe, which makes the show’s take on a realm out of time more distinctive and fun. Seeing clean cut office drones and bulgy computers and a brilliant homage to sixties animation gives the place a flavor that would be missing from the standard “ten minutes into the future” set design. There’s even an homage to Don Draper’s famous carousel speech.

And yet, as entertaining as it is to watch Loki stumble through a byzantine tangle of afterlife-like red tape or engage in time-dilated shenanigans with judges and enforcers, Loki aspires to something deeper amid the gonzo antics. In the early going, at least, the show contrasts the central place we all occupy in our own minds, our sense of agency and even importance, with epiphanies about the depth and breadth of the universe and those with powers and interests far beyond our understanding and control that render those choices inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Loki enters the TVA believing himself a god in control of his destiny, and eventually prepares to leave it a man disquieted by his tiny place in the world, knocked around by forces he cannot comprehend, forced to confront himself (in more ways than one) and find a new purpose beyond the pose.

That is -- separate and apart from the fourth wall-cracking bent, inventive world, and existentialist metaphor -- the most promising aspect of Loki’s self-titled series. It is, like so many of the MCU’s best outings, a character piece. The first episode may offer a de facto recap of Loki’s journey so far and poke fun at his persona both in- and out of the universe. But it’s focused first and foremost on what changes these realizations provoke in Loki, what his connection to his family members spurs him to do and be in the coming years and episodes, and the well of pain and insecurity he’s making up for with this timeline-jumping jaunt.

Like the shows Loki is paying homage to, the series promises to match its humor and outsized premise with real pathos and big questions. Finding the right tone to do both is a tricky business, but also a trademark of some of television’s best shows. With a wry, talky vibe; creative production design to spur the imagination, and a plot that offers enough twists to keep casual fans talking for six episode’s worth of adventures, the series has plenty going for it out of the gate. Despite those advantages, I don’t know if Loki, or the show that bears his name, will be able to find a satisfying answer to such questions, but I’m excited to see both try.

[7.4/10] This felt like a midseason finale rather than a season finale. There’s nothing wrong with that, but considering we got so much build to Maarva’s funeral, with all the major players converging in one spot after so many disparate storylines and choices, I was expecting a rollicking ending to, at the very least, this chapter of the story, if not the entire show.

Instead, it ends with more of an ellipsis, suggesting that there’s much more to come next season, rather than anything that puts even a minor amount of finality on this one. Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that approach, but it does feel a little unsatisfying when it seems like we’re being strung along a bit, rather than settling much of the business here and moving on to new adventures next season. That said, if this were, say, episode 13 of a 26 episode season, I don’t think I’d feel the same way, so I don’t want to slate Andor too much over format distinctions.

Even taking the episode on its own terms, it’s a little unsatisfying. Part of the trade-off to Andor is that the time we spend on set-up and throat clearing in many episodes is fine and good, because they make the episodes with a ton of payoff more meaningful. Well, the problem with the finale is that, despite being a fairly long episode, there’s still a lot of throat-clearing. It doesn’t move the ball that much, and then the payoff is pretty good, but not as incredible as the escape from Ferrix, or the raid on Aldhani, or the prison break on Nakina 5.

Everybody's there. Everybody’s scheming or skulking around. Andor’s sneaking back and some folks are helping him, while others are tipping the authorities off. It doesn’t reveal much in the way of character or establish much in the way of what’s to come. All of this comes off like wheel-spinning before it’s time for Maarva’s funeral.

And yet, once we get to Maarva’s funeral, things are pretty good! The local orchestra marching through the streets, gathering mourners as they go, is mellifluous and mournful in perfect balance. The locals starting their processional at the time they chose, with as many attendees as they wanted, is a good show of defiance to kick things off. And Maarva’s closing speech, decrying the Empire as a disease, imploring her fellow citizens to wake up and rise up, shows the revolutionary spirit that her son would take to heart, and that the galaxy would catch fire with sooner than later.

I like the theme of this episode, and by extension the season, about what spurred Andor to go from a good-for-nothing scoundrel to a dependable agent of the Rebellion. Part of it comes from his mom, who has that revolutionary zeal and it inspires it in others. Part of it comes from his dad, whose flashback talks about recognizing the value in things other people ignore, that just need a little fixing up, a metaphor for Andor himself.

We even get to hear a bit of the manifesto, which is a little too cute in how it predicts the way a few choice losses will lead to the downfall of the Empire, on the idea that authoritarian regimes founded on control are too brittle to withstand liberty. It’s a little naive, but inspiring nonetheless, which is the right balance for something like this.

The actual skirmish is reasonably exciting as well. The action is a little more generic than in prior outings. But the scale is impressive, and the scenes of the proud people of Ferrix, growing fed-up with their oppressor, and trying to throw off the shackles of the Imperials, comes with a good amount of oomph to it.

The catch is that so much of what happens here feels like setup to season 2 rather than a close to this one. Cassian can’t save his mom, but he can save Bix, and rely on his contacts here to set those close to him off on their next adventure. Karn saves Meero’s life, seeming to give her a new appreciation for him, possibly clearing his name for losing Andor and giving him a leg-up to get back into the service. A regretful Mon Mothma introduces her daughter to the son of a well-heeled gangster, but in a clever ploy, she also works ISB by suggesting her money irregularities are the result of her husband’s gambling problem.

And last but not least, Cassian confronts Luthen about he and his agents being on Ferrix to kill Cassian as a loose end. Once again, these all gesture to future stories rather than close off what Andor set up so far, but they’re mostly teases. Reasonably good teases though. (The same goes for the reveal that the parts Cassian and company worked on in the prison were being installed on the Death Star.)

The first season of Andor was very good. It has a British spy film tone, which fits the material, and is pitched squarely at adults, which adds variety to a franchise that is churning out project after project at rapid pace. The craft remains impeccable, and the deeper grasp on politics is a welcome one. I will surely be watching Andor season 2 when it comes out, but I still wish what we had here was an end to the current season, rather than a mere prelude to the next one.

That was even more slice of life than other episodes, throwing us into the deep end. And like Sedge trying to keep pace, the story leaves us behind if we don't catch up.

So here's the breakdown:
"Modded" people are probably due to some biotech-stuff upgraded humans when it comes to their bodies. Maybe their minds, too, but we don't see much evidence of that. Probably not. We have plenty of evidence for the apparent boons of being modded though: Cold-resistant, faster reflexes, impressive body control, overall higher muscle strength, and likely some kind of better metabolism (the drug didn't hit them as hard as Sedge).
Now for the race and why they did it: Because they're bored teens and we all did stupid sh*t in our teenage years. It's as simple as that. It's basically a way to really push the limits of their modded bodies, plus it's a gesture of dominance and likely has effects on the group dynamics.
And that's why the younger brother faked his injury, giving his non-modded brother a chance to shine and earn enough respect to enter the group. The race doubled as a rite of passage and Sedge had no way of winning it. And surviving it probably would not have been enough to truly be a part.
Plus he let Sedge know that he gave him this opening. And for a moment Sedge could have been displeased by this behavior, but he realized that his little brother cares for him and truly did place himself in danger for him.

So I hope that clears it up a bit. The previous episode about the menacing vacuum bot was a lot less packed :joy:

[8.1/10] A very nice way to end the season. Let’s take thing story by store.

I loved the Diane-Mr. Peanutbutter story, because (a.) it felt so real and (b.) it really captured the best and the worst of them as a couple. Everything from little arguments in traffic, to nice gestures that don’t quite connect, to big gestures that lead to misunderstandings and emotional realizations. It feels like BoJack had been setting up Diane and Mr. PB to fail as a couple from the beginning, but credit where it’s due, they’ve soft-pedaled their falling apart nicely, to where it feels like the accumulation of a lot of little things, rather than some big blow up. Very well done, and lots of truth to how things seem headed for a split.

I also enjoyed the resolution to Todd’s crazy storyline with the rabid dentist clowns. Turning it into a way to motivate people to run is the sort of zany business idea he would come up with, and turning the fish from the Better Business Bureau into an asexual love interest for him is a nice place to end his arc for the season.

Princess Carolyn has a nice capper to her arc too. Her opening, Draper-esque monologue about how stories were great, but it’s important not to mistake storytelling for real life hits home. And I love the fact that after all her cajoling and manipulating, BoJack is good enough to do the Philbert show just because she tells him that she really needs him for it. It’s a subtle but effective sign of growth for him.

Last, but certainly not least, I love the resolution of the BoJack/Hollyhock saga. The lengths that he was willing to go to in order to help Hollyhock, with no desire for credit or expectation of reward, is such a sincere sign of change and an effort to do right by someone else. They did a great deal in S4 to show BoJack’s change through actions and showing, not just words and telling, and I really appreciate it.

At the same time, it’s great to use the Schindler’s List “done all I could” as a throughline. Seeing how far BoJack is willing to go, and using the same animation style for his “Piece of Shit” internal dialogue to illustrate it is a wonderful way to convey his learning to do and be something more selfless and empathetic than it was before.

His bonding with Hollyhock about the crappiness of honeydew, and the fact that his gesture breaks through is a really sweet moment. And the “but I’ve never had a brother” line, followed by BoJack’s little smile and the music playing over the end is just a perfect, heartwarming bit.

Overall, a nice capper to a stupendous season, full of creative risks, emotional moments, and inventive storytelling. For whatever reason, this show never fully worms it’s way into my heart when it’s not on the air (so to speak) but I always find myself appreciating it and admiring it when I watch it. I might need to go back and revisit earlier episodes more often, because there’s a lot there.

[8.0/10] The thing that stuck out to me in this episode was its influences. The visit to a criminal club felt like something out of a Michael Mann film (chiefly Collateral). Sharon Carter’s long-take, shakycam, bone-bruising fights with various bounty hunters reminded me of The Bourne Identity and similar films. And the globetrotting spy business with a political bent reminded me of Homeland. That’s not to say the creators of the series necessarily had these touchstones in mind when they made “Power Broker”, but it does mean that they’re taking stylistic cues from some strong contenders and melding them with the world of the show in an exciting way.

That said, I can see how this one might leave the nitpickers and plausibility experts bristling. It strains credulity more than a little bit that it’s as easy as it is to break an international supervillain like Zemo out of a high security prison. His status as a baron granting our heroes instant access to private jets and disguises and high priced cars is pretty convenient. And introducing Sharon Carter as a stolen art mogul in a pirate city scans as a little out there, to say the least.

But it all works on a moment-to-moment basis. Sam and Bucky wanting to get to the bottom of how the Flag Smashers found themselves with super soldier serum and hunting for leads is a good story engine for the episode. Likewise, the scenes we get of John Walker and Battlestar hunting similar leads and coming up empty, with Walker increasingly flying off the handle and failing to live up to Steve’s ideals, makes for a nice counterpoint between that duo and our main characters.

The results require you to turn your brain off a bit, especially with how readily they make Zemo a silent partner in all of this. But the style is so good, the interactions so alternatingly tense and chummy, that I was hard-pressed to care.

Watching the trio infiltrate a neon-drenched pirate island while playing roles not to arouse suspicion is cool as hell. The crew interrogating a post-Hydra scientist who engaged in an Operation Paperclip-like effort to recreate the serum for the CIA, and eventually for the highest bidder, both works as some down home spy shit and some ethics-questioning looks at power and hypocrisy. Watching Bucky take down a bar full of toughs, or Sharon Carter neutralize a shipping yard full of bounty hunters, gives you those action thrills while at the same time making you a little leery about good people falling back into violence and old habits.

To be frank, there’s more going on under the hood in “Power Broker” than I really expected and am qualified to unpack. You have the discussion of the American government experimenting on Isaiah and treating him like chattel, something that makes Sam wonder if Cap’s shield, and all it represents, is a symbol worth preserving. You have Sharon, a CIA agent who did what she thought was right, having to stay on the run, be separated from her family, and not get the welcome or pardon that the others did. You even have Zemo, near single-minded in his efforts to ensure that no more super soldiers emerge, at the same time those newly-minted super soldiers seem to be trying to make opportunities for their communities that are being denied them by the slick but jack-booted GRC.

Maybe the answer is that we just get the patina of broader social and political subtext to this episode and there’s not much else there. But I think the show is at least toying with some legitimately complicated ideas, in legitimately complex ways, and I’m here for it.

“Power Broker” is also just a neat episode to watch from a pure visual style standpoint. The hyperrealism of the Captain America films translates well to this type of chapter, with a grittiness mixed with sharpness that pays off in Madripoor. There’s some cool costuming, not just with the road trip trio’s getups for the visit to Southeast Asia, but with the various baddies they encounter there. And the episode delivers combat in both darkness and daylight with aplomb.

On the whole, I’m much more on board with where The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is going after three episodes than I was after one. The show is making use of the characters and lingering threads from the Captain America movies, while also taking advantage of the post-Blip environment of the MCU to say something. Coupling that with good character dynamics between the title characters and their former enemies/allies, plus the steadily more interesting forces working against them makes for compelling weekly viewing.

I know what you think & NO it's not just for kids.

This show has exactly everything "The Avengers" 2012 movie has + even more.
It has great humor, sarkasm, of course lots of action and sometimes the camera focus on the curves of female characters like Black Widow or Maria Hill.
The voices are fitting so perfectly it is amazing! Especially the voices of the HULK, Thor and Kang are sooo f great - they coulnd't be better!
The intro (season 1 titel song) is so awesome I am literally singing along with it everytime - I can not resist ;D
And boy these episodes are sooo good, they are absolutely compelling, the 25 minuntes feel easily like 45 minutes, packed with best entertainment.

Honestly, I would like to give the producers and the whole crew a hug for this freaking awesome series!
It's the best Marvel animated stuff I've seen yet.
When I am watching it I feel like I am back in my childhood, constantly thinking "this is so cool", "this is so awesome"...
The characters, dialogs, fighting scenes & just about everything is so f****** creative & with a beautiful amount of detail...
I LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT - every minute of it.

Just watch until the second episode (fight against Gravatar) and if you don't like it - I'll give you 8 bucks each ;)

[7.3/10] We’ve reached the point in the MCU where even superhero story fans like me know little about the champions who take center stage in the various new movies and shows. I know Moonlight the faintest little bit from, of all things, Marvel’s recent Spider-Man cartoon, but otherwise he’s a big blindspot for yours truly. It’s interesting walking into one of these shows almost completely blind for the first time.

And if I didn’t know this was a superhero show, I’d suspect it was a horror movie or psychological thriller. Some of what “Dissociation” presents is fairly generic. There’s a mysterious villain type, and a put upon everyman, and some cryptic evil lurking just beyond the frame. But there’s also something distinctive about the setup.

I like the “lost time” conceit. Steven blanking out in key moments, finding he’s been gone for days, made dates he doesn’t remember, finding his jaw dislocated, is creepy in a cool way. Likewise, while it seems like an easy way to save on action choreography, I also appreciate the notion of him blacking out in the midst of moments where he needs to be a badass, waking back up to find himself in impossible situations. It’s an odd comparison, I’ll admit, but there’s a North by Northwest quality to it of an ordinary guy caught in an extraordinary situation.

Likewise, I appreciate the hints we get of Marc steadily putting his head above water to assume control. The recurring motif of mirrors and reflections that are just a touch off adds to the creep factor of the piece. And hearing the voice of the (presumably) Egyptian god speaking to Steven from the beyond is both unnerving and fun.

I take it as a pretty unavoidable part of the character, but the Egyptology bent is a little overblown. There’s a cool cultural angle there, but for the most part, the show hits some key bits of iconography and calls it a day. It is cool to see the protagonist running around the British museum. The collection of antiquity setting adds a certain flavor to the proceedings.

That said, the CGI here is a bit rough. While the image of the Egyptian god whose scepter just so happens to match Moon Knight’s symbol works well enough in brief glimpses, the more extended visions we get of demon hounds and the like feel too artificial and move without the right sort of weight. Likewise, when we finally see Moon Knight in action, the design and presentation is a little too Snyder-esque for my tastes, but I’ll have to see more of it in action.

All that said, I appreciate how much of this rests on Oscar Isaac’s considerable talents in the early going. Steven is an unusual character for him, more put-upon, less confident, more of a nebbish than I’ve ever seen the actor take on. Marc seems more in his usual wheelhouse, but it’s fun to see Isaac inhabit a role that feels real and recognizable, but outside of his usual on-screen persona.

Ethan Hawke as the judgy servant of a bad god didn’t do much for me in terms of how the character’s written, but Hawke does a solid job as a performer. And you can’t go wrong with F. Murray Abraham as the voice inside your main character’s head.

To that end, the first episode of Moon Knight feels a little like past Marvel flicks (albeit ones made by Sony), with analogues to Eddie Brock in Venom and Norman Osborn in the 2002 Spider-Man movie. The internal dialogue, sense of some other force taking over, and sign of something amiss the protagonist can’t quite put his finger on abides. There’s room to distinguish, particularly since Steven is a lot less self-possessed than either of those other two characters, but longtime cape fans will recognize the archetype.

Overall, this one has potential, particularly given the talent involved and the eeriness of the premise. But in this opening salvo at least, the show is perfectly solid but doesn’t do much to wow you as it sets the table for the season to come.

[7.2/10] I’d argue that there’s been three major themes this season, and “The Stopped Show” digs into each of them.

The easiest is the complicated ripples of the #MeToo movement and the benefits of it, but also the unexpected consequences of it and the briar patch that is trying to dismantle hundreds of years of entrenched patriarchy. I’ll admit, I got a big laugh out of the reversal here, where Henry Fondle’s risque quotes have gotten him nothing but success, but his technical statements about “low battery” and whatnot are the things that get him fired for sexual harassment.

But what’s really interesting is what results. Philbert is shut down, which takes away work from women like Princess Carolyn and Gina. Whattimeisit.com downsizes because of the controversy, which results in a number of women being laid off. There’s a really interesting idea at play about fighting the good fight, which causes you to lose a few battles, in the hopes of winning the war.

You see that in the interactions with BoJack and Gina. BoJack wants to come clean and be taken to task for his actions in the prior episode, but Gina calls him off. She says she doesn't want him to do that, because while it would assuage his guilt, it would just label her as a victim, as a product of this incident, for the rest of her career. So she just has to swallow the pain and pretend everything is okay for the cameras, and instructs BoJack to do the same, so that she can be her own thing and have her own career rather than having to be “the strangled girl” for the rest of her life in showbiz.

I like the acknowledgement of that complexity, of how systems are reinforced by people trying to fight the system from both ends, how succeeding amid a system that devalues but also fetishizes women’s pain ironically means not making waves for some women who have the unfortunate choice of exposing their abusers or getting to continue their careers without being tagged as part of a scandal. It’s one of the most nuanced and complex takes on this climate I’ve seen, and I appreciate that part of the episode tremendously.

It ties into the second major theme of the season, which is the push and pull between understanding and accountability. You see it with Mr. Peanutbutter, who’s not used to having to be the bad guy, for having to accept responsibility for bad actions, and so he just avoids them, because he doesn't want to have to test Pickles’s capacity to forgive him.

And you especially see it with Diane and BoJack. What’s interesting is that in a season where both characters were struggling with how much understanding and how much accountability each deserves for their actions, they more or less end up on opposite sides here. BoJack is the one who wants to be taken down, punished for his mistakes, and exposed for the sins he’s committed, and Diane is the one who concludes that there aren’t good or bad people, just people, who wants BoJack to get help more than she wants him to get punished.

That ties into the third major theme of the season -- learning to seek outside help. The past season was very much about BoJack acknowledging he has a problem and taking admirable steps to address it. But much of this season has been about him thinking that’s enough, that he has things under control, when the truth is that he did, as Diane asked him so many times, need to talk about it.

BoJack needed therapy. He needed confidantes to help him through the death of his mother. He needed rehab. But he thought he could handle it himself rather than seeking help from elsewhere. It takes Diane, who seems to have at least somewhat resolved her complicated love/hate feelings about her self-proclaimed best friend, pushing him to make that happen. It’s hard to call it a happy ending, but for a finale that feels a little anticlimatic and light on resolution, it at least works as a grace note to the ideas the show’s been exploring for the bulk of the season.

There’s others bits and pieces here and there. The end of Whattimeisit.com means the end of Todd the executive. His tasering Henry Fondler and tossing away his suit feels more like a bland wrap-up than the conclusion of a story, but it’s amusing enough. The episode pays lip service to the work/motherhood balance that Princess Carolyn has been grappling with all season, but at least changes the status quo on that front here, as she gets her baby from the woman she met with in North Carolina. And Mr. PB proposes to Pickles in what feels more like a tease for some cheap drama than a legitimate ending to his story this season.

But maybe that’s the broader idea BoJack is playing with here -- that when it comes to things as varied as abuse and harassment, romantic entanglements, and self-medication and addiction, there aren’t really clean endings to be had. Nobody’s fully better or fully happy or fully ready for what’s to come at the end of “The Stopped Show.” There’s meaning in that very fact, and the sort of wide view the show takes to all the problems it depicts.

It’s not a perfect finale from a not quite perfect season, but it does what it needs to, and is messy in the way that real life can be. Season 5 of BoJack never quite hit the heights of prior seasons, but it still founds ways to make its audience laugh, and think, and consider some complex issues from unexpected angles as it put its characters through the usual hell. It’s easy to be inured to that tack five years in, but it’s still something impressive, that marks BoJack Horseman and its complex, funny animal melodrama as a singular series on television.

[4.8/10] Oof. Well, I feel bad about saying that I wish the show would stick to low-stakes quirky legal comedy material, rather than veering into more traditional superhero business, because this was the pits. Unfunny, too hokey, and downright irksome in places, this was a relatively brief episode that nonetheless felt like it took double the runtime.

Once again, the ideas here aren’t terrible. Sorcerer Supreme wants to sue local illusionist using the mystic arts for cheap (and dangerous) parlor tricks? That’s something! You could have a lot of fun with that! Instead, we get the broadest imaginable shtick with a stock douchey magician and the hokiest party girl stereotype. Once again, the proceedings are so cartoonish, like something out of a bad 1990s sitcom, that they can’t actually generate any laughs, despite Benedict Wong’s great comic timing.

The fact that the hack magician goes too far and accidentally summons demons that She-Hulk and Wong then have to defeat is fine, I guess. But it’s not especially clever or interesting as a resolution, even when Jennifer basically holds the schmuck hostage until he agrees to their terms, especially since that approach would almost certainly come back to bite her. It’s pretty weak broth outside of the (probably improv’d) tag where Wong and Madisynn discuss drinks together.

The same goes for the B-story. I feel like a broken record, but you could do a lot with the idea of someone struggling with the idea that they can’t get dates as their real self, but find that everyone’s only interested in their superheroic self. Instead, we get a host of hacky Tindr date humor that only provokes eyerolls. Once again, Jennifer trying to get with her hunky date, only to have it interrupted by superheroing, feels like something out of a two-bit sitcom. And the show breezes through the fact that the guy’s weirded out by She-Hulk having a civilian form rather than actually taking time to explore the most interesting concept in the episode.

At least we’re seemingly poised to get a visit from Jameela Jamil next week, but on the whole, this is a low point for the show that seems to demonstrate it’s as weak at low stakes humor as it is at bigger stakes personal drama and superhero challenges.

9.3/10. So much great, big time stuff in this one. As I've said in the past, there's something about these sort of operatic, mythology-heavy episodes that I really connect with. In a number of ways Star Wars has always been a franchise about big myths and spirituality made tangible. Leaning into that feels true to the core of the series. And it's hard not to be excited by things like prophecies and dire warnings and visits from old friends.

That starts with Kanan, who faces his own trials a la Luke on Dagobah to become a Jedi Knight. Admittedly, it's a bit of a cheat, but seeing The Grand Inquisitor (and learning that he used to be a Jedi) is a nice way to give impact and authority to the moment beyond the change in rank. I appreciated that, like Ezra, his trial had to do with accepting difficult truths, that no matter how hard he tried to protect and encourage Ezra, things could still go wrong; his pupil could still be tempted by the dark side, and he might perish in the effort. It's been Kanan's greatest insecurity for a while now -- that he's not a good enough teacher. But Kanan accepts that all he can do is train and guide Ezra as best he can and the rest is up to him. It's a nice form of acceptance and the key to his ascending to becoming a full Jedi, earning a bit of redemption from his wild and wooly days in the process.

It's also nice to see Yoda again. (I mean that figuratively -- literally his model looks off from both his Clone Wars model and the version of him from the films. It would be jarring if it weren't for Frank Oz's voice.) He follows up on his lesson with Ezra from last time, saying that one need not be without fear, but rather that even he, the wise and admired Jedi Master among masters, had to fight not to give into fear throughout his life. I loved Ahsoka's description of Yoda, as someone she spoke with but never really felt like she knew, that she wasn't sure if anyone knew. The way she speaks of him as carrying a certain sadness, of knowing what having been drawn into the fighting of the Clone Wars did to him and how he foresaw the end of one age and the start of another fits (albeit a little haphazardly) with what we saw from him in The Clone Wars series.

That ties into Ezra's conversation with him about whether to fight or not. The idea of finding Malachor works as a good story engine for the future, but more than anything, it's nice to see this philosophical side of Star Wars represented, with Yoda and Ezra debating the morality of this spiritual masters using their abilities to commit violence, even if they believe their cause is just. Sure, a lot of it is fairly rudimentary, but it's still surprisingly complex for a kids' show.

We even get some cool moments with The Inquisitors that hints at some greater depth for them too. The conversation between Kanan and the Seventh Sister suggests some kind of history. (That said, she's weirdly flirty with almost everyone, and I may be projecting based on the fact that the voice actors are married in real life.) The cold open with the two-on-two battle between Kanan and Ezra and The Inquisitors was nicely done. I appreciate how the Seventh Sister is portrayed as clever and unorthodox, with details like her using her droid in battle or being able to sniff out the rebels in the Jedi temple. There's a sense that she's a formidable opponent in a way that the Fifth Brother isn't, and it takes the ingenuity of Ezra connecting mentally with bat creatures (animal telepathy apparently becoming his specialty) to escape her.

They also have their own mystical experience inside the temple. The fact that they face the Inquisitor is interesting, though I'm not sure it really means anything short of a cool moment and an excuse for why our heroes escape. They also, of course, alert Vader to the existence of the temple, which leads to his first presence since the mini-film that opened the season. Hearing James Earl Jones in the role is still powerful, and makes the character's presence as chilling as ever.

But the absolute highlight for me, in an episode that had plenty of them, was Ahsoka’s part of it. “Shroud of Darkness” shows Ahsoka grappling with regret and self-questioning over leaving the order. The fact that she doesn’t want to participate in the ritual to open the door to the temple on Lothal, because since she’s not a Jedi it wouldn’t be right, hints at that from the show’s early going. At the same time, the fact that she’s watching a holocron of Anakin demonstrating forms and reminiscing about him hints at how her old master is still on her mind.

These little hints culminate in the most powerful moment in the episode, and possibly the series thus far. It hit me like a ton of bricks when a vision of Anakin appeared to chastise Ahsoka. In the Star Wars franchise, these temples have been about facing your greatest fears, the things that eat away at your soul and spirit in the hopes that you can overcome them. So hearing Anakin call Ahsoka selfish for leaving the order reveals her deepest insecurities – the question of whether leaving the Jedi was right.

That question is given greater power if you’ve seen the episodes of The Clone Wars where Ahsoka leaves the order, and you understand the circumstances under which she made that decision. It’s also given power by the show bringing back Matt Lanter to voice Anakin, giving his words more weight. And it’s especially affecting if you’ve watched the whole of The Clone Wars, and seen the connection between Ahsoka and Anakin grow and develop over the course of dozens of adventures and years of stories.

That’s why the most devastating moment comes when the vision of Anakin reprimands Ahsoka for leaving and asks if she knows what happened to him after she left, if she knows what he became. The ghostly image of Anakin is powerful on its own, but the camera focuses on Ahsoka’s eyes for a moment, showing the emotion of the moment for her, and then cuts back. In place of Anakin there is Vader, and the heartbreaking realization emerges – Ahsoka blames herself for Anakin’s descent.

After she made that connection with Vader, she hasn’t just been mourning what amounts to the loss of her friend or being in shock at the realization that the man she looked up to and learned from has become this monster. She’s been tearing herself up with the idea that she could have prevented this, that if she had stayed, been there to help and support Anakin during the events of Revenge of the Sith, that she could have saved him, prevented him from becoming this twisted creature, maybe prevented all of the Empire’s horrors from coming to pass.

That is a terrible weight to carry on one’s shoulders. Unlike with Ezra and Kanan, we don’t see Ahsoka overcoming this fear or accepting that she can’t control what will happen next. The closest we get is a brief reunion between her and the vision of Yoda, a gentle wave that suggests he’s looking out for her, and perhaps there is an answer
.
Guilt is one of those emotions that can be hard to reckon with. It is resistant to logic, more a feeling that cannot be escaped when a terrible thing happens, even if there’s nothing that could have been done to prevent it. The very fact that a terrible thing happens, especially to someone close to us, elicits that feeling within us. We lament the result and thus anoint ourself the causer of it, to our own misery and sometimes even ruin.

There’s a great pathos in Ahsoka blaming herself for her master’s turn to the dark side. When we see Kanan fight against the visions of the temple guards, we see his fears manifested – that he’s creating the next Vader, the next powerful being who will use the connection to the force to terrorize the galaxy and kill.

But in Ahsoka, we see that fear realized. She has to confront the idea that someone she cared for, someone she believed in, someone she loved as a parent and a brother, became something she doesn’t recognize, that horrifies her, and she cannot help but wonder if she might have been able to stop it. Ahsoka herself was betrayed by the Jedi, and managed, as far as we know, to stay good, to fight for the ideals she was taught even without the guidance of her former master.

Maybe, however, Anakin needed her more than she needed him, as a friend beyond Obi Wan to help keep him sane and steady. Neither she nor we can know if she might have helped. Instead, she is haunted by who Anakin was, who Darth Vader is, and the thought that perhaps, if she had made a different choice, she might have saved him.

9.6/10. I have to admit, I'm a sucker for stories where the hero and the villain get trapped together and have to work with one another in order to escape their predicament. The Clone Wars pulled a similar trick with Anakin, Obi Wan, and Count Dooku and it paid dividends. But "The Honorable Ones," which functions as something of a bottle episode, is far more intimate, far more small, and fall more personal.

I wrote a couple of episodes ago about the Lasat massacre and how it resonates for a Jewish viewer like myself, and I think that just makes me appreciate all the more Zeb finding common ground with Agent Kallus. Kallus's "just following orders" line was the excuse of hundreds if not thousands of Nazi soldiers, and it's still sort of chilling to hear. But at the same time, this episode goes a long way toward humanizing Kallus and elevating from being just a generic baddie going after our heroes.

It's interesting hearing his remorse for what happened on Lasan. There's subtext that things got out of hand and that he regrets it, even if he boasted about it before (a nice retcon), with the added bit that he carries the Lasat weapon around not as a trophy, but as a sign of respect for the honorable warrior who gifted it to him in defeat per Lasat tradition. There's also the interesting reciprocal story (which name drops Saw Gerrera on Ondoran, Clone Wars fans) about a Lasat warrior taking out his entire unit on the field of battle. There's a real All Quiet on the Western Front vibe here, a sense that even though these two guys have tried to kill each other any number of times, they have a certain respect for one another, they've each been through similar trials at the hands of the other's people, and that they're not so far removed.

It's a great dynamic. The way that Zeb and Kallus vacillate between disdain and appreciation for one another is well done, and Steven Blum and the should-have-been-Oscar-nominated actor David Oyelowo both do a great job at selling the layers of their characters interactions. Each has an opportunity to nigh-literally throw the other to the wolves in the attempt to get out of the ice pit and signal a rescue, but both show their respect in actions and not just words by cooperating, even when they could get away with looking out for themselves. It's all nicely done (along with the attack and escape in the opening act, which is a very confident action sequence) and tells a great character story for the two of them.

But the kicker is the contrast between the two of them, and the restraint the episode shows. When Zeb is reunited with his crew, he's embraced as family and warmly welcomed. When Kallus is rescued, he gets a curt recognition from the Admiral but then returns to his lonely cabin, still hanging onto the meteorite that Zeb offered him for warmth, and seemingly contemplates which side he should be on. The show never comes right out and says this, but the way it juxtaposes the two scenes and uses Kallus's body language communicates that idea beautifully.

Overall, "The Honorable One" is an episode that manages to find plenty of time for the traditional Star Wars action between daring escapes and fights with ice monsters, but the real fireworks are the ones that happen between Zeb and Kallus, which give depth to both characters and humanize one of faces of The Empire in a way that shows complexity and shades of gray that have made Star Wars great in the past.