So much of TV is drek nowadays. There are very few shows that leave me wanting to watch more than one episode, even less that make me want to watch one episode right after another. The ones that make me want to watch it all twice are rare and this is one of them.
For those who don’t remember, Squid Game Season 1 was a surprise hit in the fall of 2021. It had a lot going against it, mainly because it was a South Korean show that Americans would have to watch either with subtitles or with English voices dubbed over. Most English speaking viewers will give a hard pass to a show like that, but the content was something to be hold.
There’s no way around it. It’s violence porn. The body count is substantial and downright disgusting. And yet, there’s also a metaphor for the game of life, how every day we wake up and play a game within our own little world. If we screw up badly, catastrophic events unfold. We lose our jobs, our families, our livelihoods, all that and more can happen with a single error in judgment.
True, it’s unlikely that an error will get you instantly shot (although sadly that often does happen) but as Squid Game players are turned into cannon fodder over insignificant errors while playing kids’ games (i.e. drop a marble and you’re dead) the message is clear – life is a game and if you screw up, you lose big time.
I thought the first season would be a one and done. The game was presented as so vile and treacherous, the villains as so ruthless and cunning, than anyone, such as the protagonist Gi-Hun, who manages to escape with his life and a big bag of money would run as far away from the game as possible, never to return.
But darned if they didn’t find a way to make the new season interesting and watchable. Here, Gi-Hun has gone from pathetic doofus in S1 to hardened tough guy in S2. Surviving the Squid Game will do that to you. He has used his winnings to recruit a legion of mob flunkies to search for “the recruiter,” that ne’er-do-well who tricks unsuspecting rubes into joining the game.
Gi-Hun manages to connive his way back into the latest iteration of the game, hoping to take it down from the inside. But along the way, he will have to play, and with a new cast of players, including an old friend, a mom/son duo, a trans ex-soldier, an evil rapper, an expecting mom to be, a crypto coin fraudster and more.
Detective Hwang is back, still leading the chase to bring down his brother, the evil “Front Man” behind the games.
If I tell you much more, I’ll spoil it all. But I’ve watched it twice and even went back to watch the first season, all since S2 dropped the day after Christmas. To get that much attention from me is something.
If you’re a social media enthusiast like me, then you know there’s a lot of hate afoot for this show. The YouTube reviewers REALLY don’t like it. And honestly, they go way overboard. They’re basically hating hard on the show for attention, though I don’t deny their hate isn’t genuine or that the show hasn’t earned it.
But honestly, sometimes the reviews are a bit much. I watch these reviews and they’re like “OMG! THE ACOLYTE IS A FLAMING HOT DUMPSTER FIRE THAT SMELLS LIKE RAW SEWAGE, HOBO TURDS AND REFRIED MOLDY DOG VOMIT! AVERT YER EYES LEST YE PUKE YER GUTS ODD FROM THE HORRIFYING SIGHT!”
And then I watch it I’m like, well, no, while this show does suck, it doesn’t smell like hobo turds or dog vomit or anything. So its almost as if by going too far overboard, the reviewers do the show a service. When you go in expecting hot poop on a shingle and get served cold snot on a shingle, you’re relieved by the upgrade.
All that said, I give the show a solid C, and for most shows I’d say, eh, if you’ve got the time, feel free to waste it on a C. But when it comes to Star Wars, this brand is so beloved by fans that it really burns our biscuits to see anything produced that isn’t a solid A.
The first problem? Star Wars was very much a product of its time. George Lucas invented special effects that audiences of the late 70s and early 80s had never seen before, so it’s hard to recreate a moviegoing experience when people of that era thought they :::checks notes::: LITERALLY THOUGHT THEY WERE WITNESSING MAGIC COME ALIVE ON SCREEN!!!
Flash forward some 40 years later, and we’ve been CGI-ed up the wazoo. We’ve seen it all and we’re so jaded little surprises us anymore. We expect good writing to go along with our CGI fest, which is a challenge for Star Wars, given that it is a story about space wizards who fight aliens and robots with laser swords and push stuff around with magic. Also difficult is that the property is primarily geared toward children and must be produced with children in mind, yet middle aged and even downright elderly fans will scream like stuck pigs if the stories don’t come with some adult sized depth.
Alright, all those challenges aside, Disney is one of the greatest entertainment companies in the world, right? They got this, right? No. Not as such.
Disney has been pissing Star Wars fans off a lot the past few years. It began with Last Jedi, where Luke was turned from hero into crusty old blue milk drinking depressive head case. It carried on in Season 3 of Mando, which took the great success of the first two seasons and pooped on them by turning the third season into a 70s variety act where any asshole in Hollywood could stop by for a cameo. No, Star Wars fans did not want to see a planet run by Lizzo and Jack Black.
There were other offenses, too numerous to mention. The force being turned into a magic “do it all” button with no rhyme or reason. There used to be rules to the force. Now if some character wants to do anything, the force just does it, and dweeby ass purists like yours truly who live and breathe this shit because we haven’t touched a woman in ages get pissed because if we’re just ignoring rules now, then why bother watching?
And don’t even get me started on the lightsaber stabbings that characters just walk away from…except sometimes they don’t. It’s a freaking sword that burns hotter than lava yet sometimes people survive getting gutted by one (I’m no medical scientist but I’m pretty sure a blade that hot would cauterize your intestines and cause you to fart fire out your asshole but that’s just my theory) but if the character needs to live, that a lightsaber stab is like a scratch that you just walk off.
Don’t even get me double started on all the chicks. I’m all for women in sci-fi but sometimes Disney has cast so many women and so few men that it’s like the only thing the Empire and Rebels can agree on is a hiring freeze on anyone with a weiner.
Don’t even get me triple started on Kenobi and…you know what? This is a Acolyte review, so let’s get to it.
The story is a Jedi semi-police procedural or Law and Order: Star Wars Unit, if you will. If, like me, you assumed that veteran sci-fi actress Carrie Ann Moss of Matrix’s Trinity fame would save this drek, you thought wrong, because her ass gets got in the first five minutes and from there on, the Jedi of the High Republic Era rush to solve the mystery of who killed her character, Master Indara.
Master Sol (Lee Jung-Jae of Squid Game fame) leads a team with Jedis Yord (Charlie Bartlett) and Jecki (Dafne Keen, who you might remember as a young Wolverine protege in 2017’s Logan except she’s all grown up now.)
They investigate and arrest ex-Jedi Osha, at first assuming she committed the crime, but we quickly discover that her long assumed dead twin sister, Mae, is in fact, very much alive. Both sisters are played by Amandla Stenberg.
Mae is on a quest to hunt more Jedi, with the assistance of the red saber wielding, smiley masked “Stranger” and ally Qimir in tow. It’s up to the Jedi to stop Mae from killing their BFFs and unravel the mystery of why Mae wants them all outta the picture.
And honestly, that write up I just presented to you makes it sound way better than it is. I thought about explaining more, but I’ll let you watch it, if you choose to do so. There’s really no wrong answer to the question of if you should. You might like to watch it just to see what all the fuss is about or to critique it or to crap all over it. Some of you might actually like it. Truthfully, there were some parts I actually did enjoy but you know what they say. Every poop has some corn.
For example, characters like Sol, Jecki, and Qimir were pretty fabulous and I would have loved to see them in a better project. All the actors did their best with what they were given, even Amandla Stenberg. IMO she didn’t deserve all the negativity the reviewers gave her. And I believe all the stars will find this to be their breakout role with more roles to come.
I do understand the online criticism. Producer Leslye Headland was pretty vocal in interviews about hiring writers who knew very little about Star Wars and it shows. To Star Wars fans, this is the equivalent of hiring a non-doctor who has never even read a medical text book before to do your spleen surgery. Add to that, Stenberg saying Star Wars fans are gay (pretty sure she was just joking around, guys) and Bartlett confusing Luke with Anakin when it comes to the destroyer of the original Death Star and you had a team that just gave an overall impression that they didn’t really care about the world they were trusted with.
Does it sound silly? Maybe. Until you hire someone to work on your house and they have no idea what a hammer is, don’t know how to work a power drill, openly admit they’ve never fixed a house before….this is your beloved house, you’d get annoyed, wouldn’t you?
So ultimately, you had a team that didn’t know a lot about Star Wars and boy did it ever show. Long established rules and canon are thrown out the window and OK, if you’re not one of those nerds who is going to run to twitter and bitch about where a certain alien has three antennae or four, I get it, but even within the show itself, there’s just a lot of silliness, goofiness, and overall absurdity when it comes to the quality of the writing. Plotholes galore.
What are the problems? Too many to list but ultimately, it descends into a “oppressive cops got it wrong” tale. There are lesbian space witches afoot. They prefer to call the force the thread, a different space culture of force users entirely. The Jedi see them as a cult and fear they are abusing Osha and Mae and they need to be taken away and put under the Jedi order’s protection for their own safety.
Sounds like a really horrible abuse of authority…until the show goes out of its way to make the lesbian space witches do all manner of horrible things such that if you were a Jedi, you might say “eff this lesbian space witches” and whip out your lightsaber and fight them to save the children to.
Of course, and not to give it away but I guess I will, all the “bad things” are misunderstandings and the sights the Jedi saw and thought were horrible weren’t really but, you know, holy shit, if you were in the Jedi’s position and saw what you saw, you can’t really blame them so…ultimately I suppose its all an allegory for allegations of police brutality, because god knows that’s something every single last fan was clamoring to see in a Star Wars show.
I could go on. There are some dumb science mistakes and I know, it’s a show about space wizards but holy shit, just things like a crackling campfire in space. What the fuck. Sorry. I didn’t mean to swear.
I could rant for days but I’ll leave you with this. Imagine there’s a new Sex in the City Movie and all you lady readers who are into that sort of thing go to see it with 3.5 of your gal pals. It opens with Carrie and her friends drinking mimosas at brunch, about to dish the latest hot goss on the men they are seeing when…KABOOM! A fuckin’ tank blows up the side of a bank building and a hundred ninjas pour out. The ninjas run inside and karate kick the guards and steal all the cash bags but are instantly foiled when a renegade team of big swingin’ dick mercenary commandos show up on the scene and what? Where’s Carrie and the girls you ask? Fuck ’em, this is an action movie now, because I wrote it and you gals need to like it, you bigots.
What’s that you say? A female rom com written to appeal to male action enthusiasts is a stupid idea and everyone involved should be fired and made to wear a dunce cap? True. That’s probably why it never happens and yet, for some strange reason, Hollywood absolutely refuses to stop gearing action movies toward women.
Oh well. I suppose the all lady audience for movies about space wizards fighting aliens and robots will show up someday if you give them another 20 years.
STATUS: Not shelf-worthy. I’m tired of all this seemingly endless trend to make the Jedi the bad guy. I get it. You gotta do something different but this isn’t different. They’ve done it a thousand times. We want to root for the Jedi. We don’t want them to be the bad guys.
BQB here. Can you believe that The Sopranos first premiered 25 years ago today on Jan 10, 1999? Wild, isn’t it? In honor of this anniversary, I’m going to rewatch the series and post reviews of each episode throughout the year. If you like the Sopranos, get some gabagool from Artie, then go down to your basement and turn on the air ducts to keep the Feds from listening in, then check out my Sopranos review blog:
Somewhere beyond the sea, a review is waiting for thee, 3.5 readers.
SPOILER ALERT: This is less of a review and more of a discussion, so if you haven’t seen it yet, go watch then come back and discuss.
It’s an alternate version of the 1960s, one where the technology for people to control robot replicas of themselves with their minds while their real bodies are asleep is possible. Astronauts David and Cliff (Josh Hartnett and Aaron Paul) are on a six year mission aboard a space station, so they use their replicas to carry on their lives back home on earth with their families.
The co-workers couldn’t be any more different. David loves culture and conversation, living in California with his family, he reads heavily, draws, paints, and goes to movies where he holds himself out as a hero to passersby who recognize him from the news.
Cliff is quiet and reserved, prefers the great outdoors, having moved his wife, Lana (Kate Mara) to a remote home in the wilderness. Chopping firewood and physical labor, tending to the property are his pursuits.
From time to time, the duo return to their physical bodies aboard the space station to take care of space business. During one such return, a Manson-like cult lead by Kieran Culkin in a scary bit of acting, breaks into David’s home and murders his family, payback they said for embracing the unnatural, i.e. allowing the robot version of David to be part of their lives.
Aboard the space station, the real life David is horribly broken, mentally and physically, forever psychologically damaged by the crime. He witnessed it through his robot body and even lost it during the murders, so now he is stuck in space, unable to return to earth via robot replica.
Feeling bad for their friend, Cliff and Lana agree to allow David to spend some time on earth using Cliff’s replica. At first, this is a welcome delight for David as he’s happy to just be on solid ground again, to see nature, to talk to people, to do anything outdoors really.
Ah but trouble ensues when David talks Cliff into allowing regular visits to earth via robot Cliff. Dave, while in Cliff’s bot body, starts falling for Lana. Lana is cultured, loves reading and the arts, and David pleads with her, pointing out that they have much more in common than she ever could with Cliff.
For a while, it seems as though David and Lana might fall for each other, and they might very well run off, leaving the real Cliff to suffer alone on the space station. As mentioned often, running the station is a two man job, so anyone left their on their lonesome will perish.
But Lana remains loyal. In fact, she’s outraged that David would abuse the trust they gave him when they allowed him to borrow Cliff’s double. She gives him a piece of her mind, and aboard the station, Cliff gives him another verbal tongue lashing. No more Cliff replica visits to earth for you, David.
SPOILER ALERT
The mission continues in space for awhile, until one day, David manages to swipe Cliff’s double while the real Cliff is busy. He does so briefly, but long enough to murder Lana and the couple’s young son. Real Cliff discovers this when he returns home in his double to find blood soaked walls.
Back aboard the station, David sits at a table, seemingly unremorseful by what he has done. He kicks out a chair, inviting a visibly angry Cliff to sit and talk. The implication is that David got his revenge for being rejected and chewed out, and knows he has Cliff painted into a corner because if Cliff kills David, he essentially kills himself for as we know, running the station is a two man job.
It’s up to us to imagine what happens next. Maybe Cliff is stuck working on the station for four more years with a psycho he despises or maybe he loses control, doesn’t care, avenges his family by killing David.
What lessons do we suss out? A) Sometimes the right thing is the unkind thing. Don’t trust people. Don’t let them into your life. Don’t let them borrow important stuff, especially your robot body. You think you’re being kind but you’re inviting trouble. Feel sad for someone who has been hurt, but save yourself.
B) Tech can put us in unnatural states to be avoided. You can’t be in two places at once and expect to take care of both parts of your life successfully.
C) Appreciate what you have. There are times when it feels like Cliff didn’t quite appreciate what he had with his family but sadly, knew what he lost when he lost it. Cherish your loved ones and go out of your way to protect them.
Other thoughts:
#1 – I thought it was unlikely that David would do what he did, given he went through the horrible murder of his family, felt bad about it so wouldn’t want to bring that pain to someone else. Then again one might say he was so broken that he was driven to do it by insanity. In the end, Black Mirror always brings a scary, horrific ending.
#2 – Aaron Paul does his best acting since Breaking Bad. Cliff seems like his usual moody, sullen guy baseline, but in the moments where he’s David, he captures David’s artsy pretentious mannerisms well.
Get ready to pucker your butts in terror, 3.5 readers.
SPOILER ALERT: This is less of a review and more of a discussion, so if you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it, then come back and discuss, although trigger warning, this is probably the scariest, twisted episodes of the series.
Are some scabs better off left unpicked?
You’d think so. The gavel comes down. The suspect is judged guilty. The high-profile case is over and all the TV cameras leave town. Years later, the horrific crime that rocked a community becomes but an eerie footnote in local history.
But with the rise of streaming media, there’s an overwhelming demand for true crime podcasts and documentaries, especially since everyone is trying to be the next Sarah Koenig, she the mother of all true crime podcasts, Serial. Over the past decade, Netflix has become home to a seemingly endless supply of true crime docs. You could pop them on and never watch them all in your lifetime. Well, maybe you could if you never had to work, drink, eat or poop, but you get the gist.
Enter Davis and Pia. They’re film students from London, he a Scottsman and she an African-American living abroad. (Samuel Blenkin and Myha’la Herrold). They’ve returned to Davis’ hometown of Loch Henry to produce a documentary about an egg collector. Pretty bland stuff but hey, at least they can practice their camera work and score an easy A.
Or so they thought. Whilst visiting Davis’ friend, barkeep Stuart (Daniel Portman in his best role since Game of Thrones’ Podrick), Pia inquires why such a beautiful town, full of picturesque landscapes isn’t rife with tourism.
Much to Davis’ dismay, loudmouth Stuart spills the beans. Once upon a time, the town was indeed a tourist spot, that is until the late 1990s when town scumbag Ian Nadair was discovered to be a maniacal serial killer who kidnapped tourists, then dragged them to a secret lair where he tortured and murdered them.
Davis even has a personal connection to this sad tale. His father, Ken, was shot in the shoulder while attempting to arrest Ian. While Davis is proud his father is a hero who brought a madman to justice, he is sad the wound, while not immediately fatal, led to an infection that killed his old man, leaving him without a dad at a young age. So sad was he that he never told Pia this story.
Pia meets Davis mother, Janet, an old woman who is the epitome of sweetness, going out of her way to welcome the couple with homecooked meals. Though she is overly pleasant, there is a clear pallor of sadness and at times, she laments how the vile madman ruined her life by taking her husband from her, leaving her to raise a young son all on her own and now leaving her alone in old age.
Blah blah blah. Against Davis’ protestations, Pia declares that THIS is the story they should be telling, so screw that egg guy. Advised by a streaming media exec to find new dirt on this story long considered old news, the trio go about town digging (Pia and Davis for their film project and Stuart because the greedy little bastard hopes renewed interest in the town will bring paying drinkers to his long dormant pub.)
And boy howdy, do they ever find new dirt. There are some fake outs, some twists and turns, an occasional insinuation that Stuart’s crusty old father Richard (John Hannah) might have been involved, but one night, while Pia is editing tape (she prefers the grainy look of old video cassettes to digital media), she finds, to her shock and horror, an old camcorder recording of Davis’ parents, Ken and Janet, torturing a young couple that had been reported in the news long ago as missing.
I can tell you, I felt that disgusted feeling as I saw a young Janet dawn a creepy mask and saunter into the room in a skintight outfit, dancing about and wielding a drill, spinning the bit menacingly at the tied up hostages. And I gotta be honest, 1990s rap group’s K7 old party in the club standard, “Come Baby Come” will always freak me the eff out whenever I hear it, because now I associate it with Davis’ parents dancing around to it on grainy home movie footage while they torture people.
I’ll leave the plot there. More horrors ensue. In the end, Davis loses his girlfriend and mother (Pia dies by accident while running away from now elderly Janet, while Janet, fearing discovery, hangs herself, but not before leaving out a stockpile of new evidence for Davis to find.) The poor lad does get an award, but as the show closes, we can’t help but think he would have been so much happier if he’d just made his silly little egg collector movie. He’d still have a mother. He’d still have a girlfriend. He’d still bask in ignorant bliss, believing his father was a hero cop who took down a serial killer (not a scumbag who shot his accomplice to pin it all on him before he could tell on his accomplices) and his mother as the strong old gal who put on a brave face for her son’s sake all these years.
Critics have complained this episode, as well as a few others in season 6 have little to nothing to do ith the horrors of technology, as is the show’s theme. However, I’d argue that streaming media did indeed lead to an increase in public interest in true crime documentaries, and any schmuck who aspires to become a story teller can simply grab a camera and a mic, interview townsfolk who remember a creepy case, pierce it together with old news footage and voila, a documentary is born.
But will these documentarians be repulsed by the new dirt they dig up? Is it better to let sleeping dogs lie?
STATUS: Shelf-worthy though I have to say, I felt so dirty after watching this one. I do like John Hannah, always have since he played Evie’s con man layabout brother in the late 1990s Mummy movies starring Brendan Fraser, so I’m glad his character wasn’t the killer after all.
Kudos to Netflix. Between episode 1 Joan is Awful and this one, the streaming service really was a good sport about letting Black Mirror kick the crap out of them this season.
I’d heard rumors and mumblings that this show was good but avoided it for a long time. I started watching the first season in drips and drabs in late October/early November, somewhere around there, and at first I was a little bored with it but boy howdy if you stick with it, it really hits its stride by season 2.
The plot? Imagine Bonanza but with lots of murder and guns! My late baby boomer parents were huge fans of Westerns and always had their TV tuned to the Bravo Western channel, so I’m sad they missed out on this series because it is one of the best Westerns Hollywood has cranked out in awhile.
If you have never heard of Bonanza, it was the story of a family, the Cartwrights, who pretty much spent every episode protecting their vast ranch from being raided and stolen by a whole host of evildoers. But that show came out when, the 60s? So it was rather tame compared to today’s television.
Yellowstone follows the Dutton family and their multigenerational, longstanding quest to stop a constant onslaught from a seemingly neverending enemies from absconding with their cattle ranch. Seedy developers, crooked gas station casino operators, evil corporations and assorted criminals all want to get their mitts on the land.
In the villains’ defense, the Dutton ranch is said to be enormous, taking up a large part of the state of Montana and is so big it could be considered a state all by itself. Occasionally one of the so-called villains makes a legit point, i.e. why should one family control that much land when no one else is making anymore? The very future of Montana is at stake in that some want the land developed to build houses and businesses and bring more income and housing to the state. Others argue the last is best preserved in the Duttons’ hands as Montana is one of the last few bastions of undeveloped wilderness America has left.
John Dutton (Kevin Costner) is the defiant, stone-faced, tough as nails patriarch of the clan, the latest in a long line of Dutton patriarchs who have been tasked with the job of defending the ranch from villains who want it. Perhaps time is the greatest villain of all, for as we learn, privately owned family ranches and farms are becoming less and less profitable whereas the quickest path toward boku buckaroos is to sell and or develop land.
Hell, John’s adult kids even think maybe the best way to preserve the family legacy isn’t to hold onto the land but to liquidate it so as to preserve the family cash. If you thought your family was dysfunctional, the Dutton family includes Beth (Kelly Reilly) a constantly drunk, openly promiscuous, foul mouthed trainwreck yet somehow still functional to be a stock broker/corporate raider who knows how to use finance as a weapon to wield against the family enemies.
Her nemesis is brother Jamie (Wes Bentley), a Harvard educated lawyer who is highly skilled at using the law to thwart those who want the ranch.
Ah but while Beth and Jamie use finance and the law as weapons, John’s other son Kayce (Luke Grimes), a battle hardened army veteran and John’s ranch foreman/practically adopted son/eventual son in law/Beth’s love interest turned husband Rip (Cole Hauser) use actual weapons to dispatch of the various would be land grabbers who can’t be easily gotten rid of through Beth’s stock manipulations or Jamie’s lawsuits.
Sounds like a large ensemble cast? But wait…there’s more!
Gil Birmingham plays Chief Rainwater, one of the Dutton clan’s most admirable rivals and make no mistake, while there are a lot of scumbags who want the land, there are just as many decent folk with a good argument that the Duttons are, in fact, the ones who are the scumbags. At the top of the list is the Chief and his tribe, who once owned the land now known as the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. While his ancestors tried but failed to keep the land with bows and arrows, Rainwater is on a quest to take back the ranch using his own lawyers, financiers, casino revenue and his Harvard business education. Rainwater is a sometimes frenemy of John Dutton because on occasion, they team up against a scumbag who wants to turn the ranch into an airport or housing or shopping or other developments and Rainwater at least knows that Dutton shares his belief in keeping the land preserved and pristine, though Rainwater does want it back in the hands of the tribe. Rainwater finds help in a whole cast of tribal members as well as challenges from tribesmen and women who want to take over his post because they think they can do a better job of fighting the Duttons.
I could go on and on because the show really is that epic, grand and sweeping in size. Various subplots ensue, each as intriguing as the main plots. The Dutton ranch is run by a large contingent of cowboys (and some cowgirls), many of whom have taken a mafia-esque oath (and literal branding) of loyalty i.e. that they agree to do any dirty job, no matter how evil or illegal, to protect the ranch and in exchange, the Duttons promise they will always have a roof over their heads and a job.
Wow. That’s a lot, right?
But wait! There’s even more!
There are two prequel shows and honestly, the first, 1883, is one of the best Westerns (taking place in the old west and not today) that I have seen in many years.
1883 is all about the Oregon Trail and on the off chance you get to travel back in time and are offered the opportunity to ride the Oregon Trail, please decline, for it was the absolute worst. No other book, show, movie, or yes even the popular video game from my youth has convinced me more that the Oregon Trail sucked so, so much dirty ass.
This prequel follows a very early branch of the Dutton family tree as they make their way west on the trail in the hopes of claiming free land, the thought that the land already belonged to the natives being oblivious to the white pioneers at the time.
Real life married couple/country music stars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill play James and Margaret Dutton who go west with children Elsa and John (Isabel May and Audie Rick.) The show is largely Elsa-centric as she narrates and comes of age on the trail, makes decisions, falls in love, drives cattle, fights off bandits, befriends some natives and fights others. When I watched, I made the joke that Elsa is the 1800s equivalent of the modern college kid who goes off to college then comes home for Thanksgiving freshmen year to inform his/her parents that they know more than the parents do. Elsa falls for a cowboy and suddenly becomes a cattle driver. She falls of a native and is suddenly a native clothing wearing, bow and arrow shooting warrior princess. You get the picture.
Sam Elliot and Lamonica Garrett star as Shea and Thomas, a civil war captain and one of his soldiers, now in the Pinkerton business. A group of German refugees hire them to guide them across the trail and the Duttons tag along. Sam steals the show, lamenting how ill suited the Germans are for the mission (yet somehow this doesn’t stop him from taking the money) and sure enough, sadness, hardship and death are constant companions. In this undeveloped wild country, the body count gets higher and higher with each episode as pioneers fall victim to bandit attacks, native attacks, snake bites, critter bites, some become large animal lunch, disease, bad water, weather, tornados, cold, I mean seriously, holy shit, the Oregon trail really was the worst.
But if 1883 is the story of how the Duttons found the Yellowstone Ranch (found being a misnomer because as the show explains, the natives were already there), then 1923 is the story of an early brutal war to defend it. Harrison Ford and Ellen Mirren star as Jacob and Cara Dutton, the patriarch and matriarch of the early 1900s Duttons. This one just began around the holiday season so I wont give too much away other than to say it pits the Duttons against Timothy Dalton and Jerome Flynn (the first of James Bond fame, the second of Game of Thrones fame), a rival rancher and a rich tycoon who want the land and frankly, like many throughout history, think the Duttons are totally bogarting way too much land. There’s a whole cast of adult Duttons in this generation but the most interesting thus far is Spencer (Brandon Sklenar), a WWI veteran who travels Africa as a big game hunter, too haunted by his war memories to come home but must to help the family protect the ranch.
STATUS: Shelfworthy. So very shelfworthy. Creator Taylor Sheridan (he has a part in the modern Yellowstone as a horse trainer) is the behind the camera star of the series. You might remember him as the police chief on Sons of Anarchy. He really created a whole world here. You wouldn’t think a show about Montana land rights and politics would be that interesting but it is.
Admittedly, at times the show is “a bit much.” Especially in the modern version, it is hard to believe that if so many body bags were being filled in all out war and bloody gunfights over a ranch, that the President wouldn’t declare martial law and take the land over but like many shows, suspension of disbelief is required. You’ll also need to suspend a lot of disbelief over Beth, who literally smokes and drinks enough to bring down a bull elephant every day, yet somehow is able to be a high functioning business woman.
But if you can get past the “bit muchness,” the show is a real hoot and very bingeable. If you have cable, then you should be able to get a free Peacock subscription which will let you watch the first four seasons. At this time, and at least in my understanding, you’ll need the Paramount Network to watch season 5. Not sure of other routes to the prequels though I watched them on Paramount Plus.
SIDENOTE: A year ago I thought Paramount Plus was very silly. Today I’m glad I bought a subscription because with Yellowstone, Tulsa King and a few other shows (there’s a werewolf show with Buffy actress Sarah Michelle Gellar I want to watch but haven’t yet), I think PP is poised to become what Netflix was 10 years ago and HBO was 20 years ago. Netflix and HBO Max, IMO are getting too deep into that hyper woke, devise a movie/show by committee to make everyone happy but skimp on the plot trend while Paramount is making shows for adults who want gritty drama.
I must admit I was skeptical when I saw Disney Plus was offering a Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. It’s only about 45 minutes long, a quick watch, basically a well produced 45 minute TV episode.
The plot? The Guardians have purchased a town called Knowhere from the Collector and are running it, busy assisting the alien townsfolk with all of their problems. When super song Drax and creepy mind controlling bug woman Mantis (Dave Bautista and Pom Klementief) learn that their leader, Quill (Chris Pratt) didn’t have a very happy Christmas under the watchful eye of pirate Yondu, they set out to make things right by doing a lot of wrong, namely, by kidnapping Quill’s hero, actor Kevin Bacon and bringing him to space as a present.
The running joke is that Drax and Mantis are dummies. They see nothing wrong with the idea of kidnapping someone and gifting a human being as a present, so Quill must set them straight on that. Also hilarity ensues when the alien duo realize that Bacon really is not a great man who has done a lot of great things but in actuality, is an actor who has just pretended to do them.
My one complaint is “shit” is said by one of the characters and look, I’m not a wallflower. I watch movies with dirty language all the time. My complaint is the film spent 44 minutes being something that parents and kids can enjoy together only to drop an unnecessary word right at the end.
Not to give a spoiler, but the running joke is that all the aliens are disgusted by actors, the idea of someone claiming false glory, pretending to do great things instead of actually doing them. Throughout the show whenever they learn Bacon is an actor, they pretend to vomit, call him gross and disgusting and lament how they have ruined Christmas by procuring a disgusting actor. It’s funny and a good joke on the acting profession. Then right at the end when Bacon proves his worth a character says, “Wow I guess all actors aren’t a worthless piece of shit” or something liek that. They could have just had her say all actors aren’t worthless. They managed to go the whole episode without swearing yet still being enjoyable and funny without the bad language.
I worry about the direction Disney is headed in as of late. They had She Hulk talking in unnecessary detail about Steve Rogers sex life, something that still could have been done if more tact had been used. I think in the end everyone is forgetting that while adults enjoy Marvel, the kids have to come first and it has to be suitable for them. Disney’s stock and projects have been tanking as of late and I think it is largely because parents aren’t happy with what they are seeing. They need to dial it back a bit.
Beware the Watcher, 3.5 readers. He or she (or they) might be watching you!
BQB here with a review of this ultra creepy Netflix series.
If you’re looking for the perfect scary TV show this Halloween season, look no further than The Watcher. Your occult side will cringe at a plot ripe with blood drinking cults, ritual murders, and psychopaths galore. However, if you do not fear such silly stories, then surely your adult side will cringe as every homeowner’s worst nightmare comes true – i.e. when what they thought was a sound real estate investment loses its resale value and can only be sold at a substantial loss. In today’s real estate market? We’ll never be able to afford another nice home in a neighborhood with such picturesque views and good schools, access to quaint shopping centers and don’t even get me started about these beautiful countertops! EEEEK!
Such is the fate of the Brannock family, a clan of trendy Manhattanites who yearn to leave the dangers of the crime ridden big city and stretch out in the stately, beautiful home at 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey. At first, Dean and Nora (Bobby Cannavale and Naomi Watts) believe all their dreams have come true, only to have them dashed when they start receiving a series of anonymous, threatening letters signed only by “The Watcher.”
The highlights of The Watcher’s claims? That he comes from a long line of watchers. His grandfather and father have been watching 657 Boulevard since the early 1900s and now it’s his turn. The creepy threatening letters go on to claim that the Watcher is watching the kids, that he’ll call to him when he learns their names, and that the house needs blood. Yikes. Not exactly the welcome to the neighborhood any family is looking for.
And thus, the Brannocks go down the most unsavory of rabbit holes as they attempt to unravel the mystery of who the heck this mysterious watcher is. They liquidated their 401Ks just to afford the down payment on this stinking mansion, after all, so they aren’t going to lose their equity without a fight! (You younger non-homeowners might balk at this notion but seriously, once you’ve cobbled together enough money to put a down payment on your first home, you’ll stop wondering why so many homeowners in movies and TV refuse to leave a house even after they find out it is infested with ghosts, goblins, werewolves, zombies, barracudas, sharks with laser beams on their heads, chainsaw maniacs or impolite time share salesmen. I’m sorry but we’re not going back to renting or, yeesh, living with our parents, just so murderous monsters can unleash mayhem on our dime, thank you very much.)
The plot thickens as the neighborhood harbors a seemingly endless cornucopia of yahoos, weirdos and malcontents, each with their own grudge against the Brannocks, largely over the fact that they were able to afford such a luxurious home that everyone in the hard to buy into yet highly desired neighborhood can’t afford. Possible watcher suspects include a laundry list of jealous neighbors, jilted bidders who also wanted to buy the property, greedy real estate agents, unhelpful cops, an eccentric private detective, a young alarm system installer crushing on the family’s teenage daughter, an architecture loving teacher, a historic society that believes it can dictate whatever you do in your home right down to your every sneeze, a suspected blood sucking cult believed to be operating in the area, the perpetrator of a gruesome murder long thought to be on the run but who has now returned, a mentally challenged neighbor who really like’s the house’s dumb waiter and…honestly, I forget. There are at least ten or twenty more suspects I’m missing.
Perhaps that’s the scariest element of this story. The Brannocks are the victims of a crime, yet with no smoking gun, no clue that blows the case wide open, they are left hopelessly chasing their tail between their legs, running round and around, yanking one thread after another but never quite getting anywhere. Everyone is a potential suspect, preventing them to ever feel safe making friends in their new community.
Sure, there is some unlikely silliness. The couple embarrasses themselves often when they pull an “aha!” out of their butts and public hurl accusations at random townsfolk who quickly make them feel like crap when they share a glossed over fact that proves their innocence. The Brannocks quickly agree to stop jumping to conclusions and to never again publicly confront a suspect until they have the hardcore, unvetted and undeniable proof so as to not embarrass themselves or others only to do the old, “Aha! It was you!” routine of public embarrassment again and again.
Meanwhile, forget the part above where I said a good homeowner will never leave their equity investment, psychos and monsters be damned. Eh, the silliness abounds when pets are murdered, mysterious videos emerge showing an unidentified party in the house while the family sleeps, a secret tunnel is found and a blurry figure is seen running into it yet strangely never boarded the eff up, all these and more signs of foul play afoot in the house yet the family never abandons the property. They do rent a motel to escape the creepiness, but the dad usually remains because, damn it, we must preserve equity!!!
In truth, once you get beyond all the frights and chills, the real villain might be the American real estate market. A family feels the need to keep up with the Joneses by purchasing a dream home, the down payment on takes up all their reserve funds, meaning if something goes wrong, they’ll never be able to keep up with the payments and expenses and will be ruined if forced to re-sell at a loss. Sure, they could have bought a smaller home, but they really like this one and fear they’ll never find another like it again. Meanwhile, the highly competitive real estate bidding process leaves buyers angry when they are left out in the cold. Even further meanwhile, covetous neighbors who are used to your property looking a certain way get angry when you change it.
If you think this show is creepy, feel free to read about the real-life story the series is inspired by.
I read the article and while the real-life Broadus family didn’t encounter a list of potential suspects who were anywhere near as wacky as the embellished Netflix series, they did undergo the horror of finding their dream home, only to have their dreams dashed when they received scary watcher letters. They attempted to figure out who said watcher was only for an investigation into myriad suspects to go nowhere. Alas, they never moved into their dream home and had to sell it at a substantial $400,000 loss five years later, without even ever living there.
The scariest thing of all? Lost equity. EEEEK!
Bonus points to Bobby Cannavale, he who typically plays tough guy cops and crooks but plays against type as a typical nerdy upper class suburban dad here. Naomi Watts does fine as the upper class suburban mom though one wonders just how many upper class suburban moms/struggling artists there are.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
SPOILER ALERT: (Look away if you want no spoilers.)
The in-show Brannocks never definitively find out who the Watcher is, just as the real-life Broadus family never did either. The mystery was never solved and you might experience angina as the show hurls an endless supply of schmucks and weirdos, each with their own motive, only for the undeniable “gotcha, you totally did it and here’s the undeniable proof!” moment to never happen. Sadly, we’ll never know who the Watcher was, what was their grudge with the family and what was the point of all those creepy letters?
We’ve got a coup. We’ve got an impending civil war. We’ve got dragons!
SPOILERS ABOUND!
GRRM and the show writers a) have a way of making things happen but not in the way you’d expect and b) good become bad and bad become good.
The king has died. Alicent shares her mistaken belief that on his deathbed, Viserys wished for Aegon to be named heir. Turns out, this never mattered, because Otto and his flunkies had long planned in secret to install Aegon as king anyway, so this news just strengthens what they were going to do no matter what. Perhaps though if Alicent had not misunderstood Viserys’ last words, she might not have gone through with the coup.
We see a mini civil war between Alicent and Otto and their respective flunkies in a race to find an undercover Aegon in King’s Landing and bring him back from a night of debauchery. Both hope to find him first and be the first one to talk him into agreeing or not agreeing to have Rhae killed. Unfortunately, Alicent doesn’t quite understand the depths of what she’s getting herself into. Otto might be wrong morally but correct in plan execution, in that if you’re going to pull a coup, you can’t try to warn Rhae or negotiate for peace or just put her in jail. You have to, sad as it is, kill her and all challengers before they and their supporters even have a chance to fight back, before they even know there is a reason to.
Aegon is an unscrupulous pervert who even admits himself is unfit for the crown, though once he gets a taste of a cheering crowd, it’s clear he wants it. Aemond is jealous for he has trained to rule his entire life but will not get to do so.
Cole goes to the darkest of dark sides when he kills Lord Beesbury, the elderly coin master and only member of the small council to stand up for Rhae and declare and his colleagues traitors.
The White Worm uses her power to stand up for the poor, abused and exploited children of Flea Bottom.
Oh, and we learn Larys and Alicent have a deal where she lets him spank the monkey while staring at her naked feet in exchange for him giving her information about her enemies…which frankly, tons of internet memes about the creepy relationship between this duo already called that Larys was a degenerate foot sniffer.
The coup de grace final scene is when Rhaenys crashes through the coronation on dragon back, having just broken her pet and bff dragon Melys out of dragon jail. She could have stopped a civil war before it started by burning up the entire Hightower side of the royal family, but declines to do so, the theories being that a) she had a heart b) didn’t think it was her place to do so and wasn’t going to fight Rhae’s for her and frankly neither side of the fam has done her right so she’s best not taking either side c) has a soft spot for mothers and women in power and Alicent standing in front of Aegon moved her but any rate she sends them the message that she could have cooked those fools if she wanted to. Alas, all the peasants crumpled under her dragon’s feet were not so lucky. Neither side really gives a crap about the peasants.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Another episode that got me to watch it at the moment it aired.
I did something Sunday night that I haven’t done in a long time. I sat down at the time when a show aired and watched on the first airing, rather than just wait until I was ready to stream it. Such has been my growing interest in this show and I haven’t done any appointment TV viewing since its predecessor, Game of Thrones, was on the air.
SPOILERS abound, so look away if you don’t want any.
My thoughts:
#1 – Paddy Considine really nailed this sendoff episode where his character, King Viserys dies. The king suffers from leprosy and old age, though more the former. I found out later he is only supposed to be in his 50s but being in your 50s and having leprosy were both dangerous things in ancient times. Yes, I know leprosy is bad think to have now but we’ve pretty much gotten rid of it with modern medicine and hygiene haven’t we?
The King spends his last day of life trying to protect his family and bring them together to avoid an all-out war, not to mention a family conflict that would tear the house apart. Addled by opium, he foregoes this ancient pain med to keep his mind as clear as possible. In one of the greatest underdog wins the day scenes on television in recent years, the down and out king surprises everyone when he staggers, clearly in pain, into the king’s chamber and up to the throne, thus thwarting an attempt by his hand/chief advisor and his queen to undermine his daughter, who he has named his successor, a dangerous move in olden times, for in those days, the people really preferred their leaders to have ding dongs and were willing to go to war to make that happen.
Paddy Considine deserves an Emmy for his performance. Online debate abounds as to whether Viserys was a bad king, a weak king, maybe too kind for the job, or perhaps the time period just handed him a great big lump of crap and he did the best he could with it. To be honest, I think he did the best with the info he had and made the best choices out of a series of options that weren’t the best.
Appoint your daughter the next queen and risk a civil war or name your unscrupulous, wife murdering brother who has shown signs he might be a tyrant if crowned?
#2 – In true GOT style, no one is completely wrong or right and GRRM shows us how bad people turn good and good turn bad. Ultimately, any quest for power is a dangerous game.
#3 – Vaemond lost his head! You know, Corlys just got a bad fever and suddenly, everyone starts fighting over his stuff. They didn’t even wait to see if he’d pull through. I suspect he will and will a) be pissed his bro tried to subvert his wishes but b) that was still his bro and he’s not going to take to him being beheaded lying down.
That was quite a scene, wasn’t it? Vaemond really, really leaned into shouting that Rhae’s children were “BASTARDS!” and their mother was a “WHORE.” Treasonous language that he had to have known was going to end badly for him, but in that moment, the second son of Driftmark went full on IDGAF and you could tell this was building inside him for years that it was a total catharsis for him to say it just before he lost his dome.
Note the king was only going to cut out his tongue though. Losing your tongue is apparently the remedy for slander in the GOT-verse so Corlys, if he pulls through, may likely think Daemon went way too far.
Bottomline: I think a lot of people assumed this show was going to stink. So many prequels and sequels and cinematic universe/in the same ballpark shows end up being silly fan fiction, explaining things no one cared about in the first place. This one really builds a world and characters (albeit the world was already built) but like its original, has us fans back online, spinning our wacky theories and debating the issues of the realm once more.
Bookshelf Battle 