K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month(ish) I step through the TV series I completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format. These are the shows I finished (mostly) in December '23 and January '24.
This "month":
For All Mankind Season 4 - AppleTV+
The Crown Season 6 - Netflix
Letterkenny Season 12 - Crave
Fargo Season 5 - FX
Slow Horses Season 3 - AppleTV+ (6 episodes)
Echo - Disney+ (5 episodes)
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The Plot 100: There's an established multinational base of operations on Mars, but there's division between the military-bred employees of the government, and the for-hire menial labour, especially after a particularly catastrophic asteroid mining operation gone wrong. Meanwhile Cold War tensions reignite after a military coup in Russia.
(1 Great) The episode with the strife in Russia was easily the season's most compelling. It brought stakes to and fallout for every aspect of the show. Margot, particularly, was held captive as a dissident but who are her captors reporting to? On the Mars base tensions run high as there's division amidst the Russians as well as with the Americans, North Koreans and the "neutral" third-party work-for-hires.
(1 Good) Apple isn't shy with their budgets, and FAM never ceases to surprise me with how good the sets look, whether it's era-specific living rooms on Earth, control rooms on space ships, or outdoor settings on the Red Planet.
(1 Bad) Our lead character, Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) was already an experienced pilot and astronaut at the start of season 1, which was set in 1969. This season starts in 2003, 34 years later. Ed is, conservatively, in his late 60s but seems to be acting closer to his early 80's with his bad grey hair dye and his thickly slathered-on wrinkles and his pained posturing. I can't believe this old man, regardless of his accolades, is still in the rotation. He's also a direly unlikable crank at this point, a self-absorbed hypocrite, and they hint at a romantic entanglement with a Russian cosmonaut at least half his age which was just...no thank you.
META: At this stage there's three original characters left from the first season. The rest have retired or been killed off or don't fit the storyline. It means introducing more new characters, which the show doesn't seem to care about as people, but just as devices for telling their story of class struggles. The carryovers from season 3, Kelly, Aleida and Dev, were supporting cast now bumped up to spotlight players, and I don't think any of the roles are up for the task. By the time I gave up on the show, I was only invested in Margot's story, and even then, hardly enough to keep watching.
FAM is a show built around moving forward in time quickly, and dreaming of a different reality where the space race never ended, leading to a much different focus for our modern conflicts, all centred around journeys into the great unknown. But it does so at the expense of stability. I think its creators (Ronald D Moore, Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi) have a clear idea in mind of each step of this series, where it's going and where it wants to end up in terms of advancing humanity's reaches into space, but it struggles with grounding itself in its characters. Conceptually they know what types of stories can be told within the framework, what type of intrigue and drama there can be, but it's always gotten weighed down by cast and striving for continuity. I think Season 4 might have played far better had it been an entirely new cast front and center, with maybe small cameos from old characters. I think then it would feel like it was advancing.
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The Crown Season 6 - (10 episodes)
The Plot 100: Broken into two parts this season, the first half deals with divorcees Diana and Charles, and the ever-growing circus around their lives, culminating in Diana's death. The second half deals with the fallout on the family, with Diana's spotlight now shining on William, as well as Elizabeth and Charles coming to terms with their futures as monarch.
(1 Great) - This is a particularly banner season for its one-off stories of reverence for and scandal amidst the royal family. I'm not a tabloid guy so I didn't actually know much about the Diana/Dodi relationship, and it was fascinating to watch it unfurl, especially with the prior season's spotlight on Mohamed Al-Fayed and his fixation on the royals, and how he used everything, including his son (and his son's death) to try to ingratiate himself to them, only to be rebuffed (was it racism, or just being too keen, and trying too hard to be liked?).
(1 Good) - My favourite episode perhaps was "Ruritania" which pitted Elizabeth against Tony Blair, who successfully petitions Bill Clinton's aide in the Kosovo War and is riding high, much to the Royals' chagrin. Losing a popularity contest against the PM, she consults Blair in "modernizing" the crown, but in the process unveils centuries of legacy traditions and roles that would otherwise be lost were the crown not to preserve them. I liked that spotlight, even though I still felt like Peter Morgan was taking bad faith pot shots at Blair because of his party's position on the monarchy that conflicts with his own.
(1 Bad) - this season, more than any other, seems less guided by a narrative for Elizabeth. In fact, Elizabeth shrinks into the background throughout most of the season, as the sensationalism of Diana's life and death captures all the attention. It is a series called The Crown afterall, so it should be about the monarchs yet to reign as well, but Elizabeth has been such the core of the series that when she's not, it feels like it's missing something, as compelling as it still is.
META: I think perhaps because of the time period this season takes place is when the royals were most in the public eye the dialogue felt the most overwraught and pointed, unnatural and hyperaware. It's not the first time I noticed the dialogue in The Crown but I have never noticed it this continually. It's not bad writing, but the family often felt like characters, and not real people, especially Diana and Charles. The glamour of Elizabeth Debicki and Dominic West, well above that of their real selves, was positively distracting, despite being incredible performers.
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Letterkenny Season 12 (6 episodes)
(1 Great) Episode 2 finds Jim Dickins wanting to make a country song and accompanying video, and learns that the gang, to his dismay, don't really have any time for country and western music. But they agree to help him anyway, which of course means they find Strt and Roald are involved on the creative side. They've broken down the components of country and western music into two essential elements: 1) a unique, dumb hook that's also the title (the dumber the better), and 2) as much hick shit as possible. This leads to a music video that is at once a tribute AND parody to nu-country music.
(1 Good) The main story of last season found the gang taking in a former "good guy"-turned-upcountry degen Jivin' Pete in and trying to help him turn his life around (the implication being he's trying to kick a meth habit), but when he relapses they beat the shit out of him and his degen friends. It's a weird message. This season, Dary falls in with the degens, because, well, he's sick of being the punching bag among his friends. Up til now, the degens have largely been an amorphous group but here they get into the weeds of it all and, yeah, they're trash and proud of it, which just makes them that much worse. Dary gets in too deep, but the message of friendship prevails.
(1 Bad) Flashbacks? Seriously? Letterkenny, for 11 seasons, has been FULL of callbacks. It's not that it gets mired in the past, but rather, it's a show that's developed a population for its fictional town and a shorthand of patter to go along with it. The characters remember jokes they enjoyed in the past, stories told, fights that happened, and refer to them like anyone would. It's just a part of the rapid-fire comedy machine that Jared Keeso built. But they've never needed flashbacks. Flashbacks just get in the way of the rapid-fire comedy. The key trait needed to watch Letterkenny is an attention span, because paying attention pays off, so why in Season 12 do they think we've all of a sudden stopped paying attention. It's a not-very-funny comedic slap in the face.
META: I burned out on Letterkenny in December of 2022 when the wife and I did 10-season binge-watch leading into Season 11. At that stage I'd seen the first few seasons a half dozen times at least. I knew the show inside and out. Strangely my favourite part of Letterkenny was the relationship dramas (such that it was, it was always pretty subtle but made for good cliffhangers). However once Marie-Fred and Long-Dick Dierks were out of the picture, the relationship drama didn't seem like it had anywhere else to go. Those were pretty high points. So season 10 and 11 felt a bit...floundering and directionless. But Season 12, in turning the relationship drama inward, into conflict between Dary and the group, made for a pretty good season, even with flashbacks.
The season's other arc is found the characters exploring feeling "stuck" only to, in the end, find themselves content with their lot in life. You're only "stuck" if you're unhappy with where you are. It's a satisfying end note that, like many a cartoon, signifies that this comedy machine *could* keep on trucking for another dozen seasons if it wanted to, but, perhaps, the creatives are thinking that they themselves are *stuck* and need to move on from Letterkenny. So while the characters are left happy where they are, Keeso and Jacob Tierney are getting unstuck, set to prove that they can succeed elsewhere, outside of Letterkenny. It's bittersweet saying goodbye, but it definitely feels like time. I don't know that this gives the whole town the sendoff it deserves, but, besides those darn flashbacks, it otherwise doesn't feel too pointedly a "final season", which is a good thing. Fitting.
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Fargo Season 5 (10 episodes)
(1 Great) This season is incredible! Tackling toxic masculinity, domestic abuse, female solidarity, right-wing extremism (in its various guises), class structures, city-vs-country, the debt crisis, trauma, and, ultimately, compassion. It's a lot, and it is not shy about it. It paints a very dense and intricate picture in how all these various components interact, and is sometimes blunt and sometimes sly in its messaging, but it's quite powerful throughout. It's also darkly funny and frequently intense opening with an incredible sequence that turns the baseline Fargo kidnapping-gone-wrong on its ear in spectacular fashion, and doesn't let up from there. This is Noah Hawley's tightest season of scripts yet (I'm assuming the extra time during the pandemic really let him hone this season to a razor-fine edge) Every episode has its purpose on its own but also in fulfilling the whole picture, and I can't think of a single one that felt like it dipped in quality at all.
(1 Good but also Great) The cast in every season of Fargo have been incredible, but this one was a pretty huge surprise, starting with Juno Temple. Coming out of Ted Lasso, I wouldn't have thought she had this kind of performance in her. Munch calls her a tiger, and he's not wrong. She is absolutely fierce, and resourceful, but she's not an action hero, she's a survivor, and she's smart. It doesn't mean she's infallible, and the show never walks into the trap of having her be anything more than human. I seriously didn't see this in Temple before, but now I don't think I can go back to seeing her as Keeley. Of course Jon Hamm is great. This character is basically the bastard offspring of Don Draper and Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), just a real self-entitled prick of a human who thinks god speaks through him and his extremist ideals and position of power make him untouchable. His comeuppance, 10 episodes in coming, is so sweet. Jennifer Jason Leigh delivers a stern, poker-face role of the smartest woman in the room, always holding the highest hand, but can still be taught a thing or two by the right person. Dave Foley pops up playing a fixer character, the likes we've seen him do a dozen times in sketches in years past, but bringing a certain aged entitlement and wisdom to it. New Girl's Lamorne Morris, Stranger Things' Joe Keery, and Never Have I Ever's Richa Moorjani both deliver marvelous performances that show some serious dramatic range outside their popular past roles, and Sam Spruell as Ole Munch, this season's force-to-be-reckoned-with manages to be seemingly the most dangerous piece in the chess set, but also have us filp-flop in rooting for and against him time and again.
(1 Bad) There's really no bad in this, besides bad people. So many bad people. But if I had to pick a "bad" in the story it would come from Lars (Lukas Gage), Moorjani's absolutely useless waste-of-space husband whose tick-like parasitic mooching, driving her deeper into debt and despair. This culminates in a barf-inducing "I want a wife" speech. It's every last dollop of male privilege and white entitlement wrapped in shit and hurled like a grenade with "love" being the pin that's removed to let it explode. The danger he represents is not a physical one, but one of confinement, of restraint, how immature men, led to believe in their own superiority, hold women down by being emotional and financial burdens.
META: Easily the best season of Fargo yet. It has all the same tricks -- all those Coen Bros. references, the metaphysical element, the cops, the dangerous hired help, the incredible set pieces -- but it transcends them. Season 1 took Fargo the movie and made a TV formula out of it. Each season was a remix of that formula, but still felt like the formula. This season felt like the formula was added to a whole new recipe, creating a much richer, more satisfying dish.
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Slow Horses Season 3 (6 episodes)
(1 Great) It cannot be undersold how incredible Gary Oldman is in this show as Jackson Lamb. He's committed to physically looking his worst, playing a disgusting, flatulent, belligerent sot who still manages to have the sharpest mind in all of intelligence and run circles around his superiors. Few can tolerate being in his presence, and those who can he pushes away at every opportunity. If he's punishing himself for something, we'd like to know it, but it's yet to be revealed.
(1 Good) Lamb is in charge of Sloe House, and, in each season, you keep expecting the band of MI-5 rejects relegated to Lamb's employ to show a certain level of competency at some point, yet at every turn the Slow Horses manage to affirm exactly why they remain at Sloe House, should Lamb deign to keep them on at all. I love that about the show... you know these are trained field agents, and so you can never anticipate when their competency is going to fail them.
(1 Bad) Watching this season week-to-week. We binged Seasons 1 and 2 together, but even compared to them, Season 3 was particularly cruel in its cliffhangers each episode. The latter half especially, where the shit started hitting the fan, and then just kept erupting like a geyser.
META: The show is following the novel series by Mick Herron and each 6-episode season feels like a novel divided into chapters. It feels like a very different way to adapt a novel series into television, being unconcerned with building a cast, in as much as the cast only stays as consistent as the novels. It doesn't matter if the audience likes X or Y, they're staying true, which gives the show the feeling of "anything can happen" which few shows ever truly have.
This season really delves into the games people play when they're part of this world, and adding "independent contractors" to the equation is pretty scary shit, but I'm sure even scarier and upsetting in real life. By the end, the status quo is shaken (not stirred) yet again, and it's a mystery if all the surviving faces from this season will still be returning in the next. I wait expectantly.
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Echo Season 1 (5 episodes)
(1 Great) Years before superhero fatigue set in globally, there was an entirely different fatigue felt about the Netflix series featuring the Marvel heroes of the streets of New York. They were series that came out the gate strong, a lot of good to great first seasons, but very quickly they started to feel samey and formulaic, and made for the sake of making them. Late stage superhero movies and TV shows feel like they've gone the same route, just a product made impulsively, without much or love or care. Echo is different.
Echo feels different. With lead actor Alaqua Cox, Marvel got a threefer, a Native American (Menominee) performer who is also deaf and wears a prosthetic limb. I'm not meaning to be reductive, since Marvel *could* have simply hired her to check boxes, but, on top of being who she is physically, she is also a very commanding performer. Tall, broad shoulders, with striking facial features that are both hallmarks of beauty and toughness. The jackpot keeps ringing. Alaqua doesn't change her facial expression much, but like tough guys of cinema past who were similarly stone-faced, the performance just makes you pay closer attention.
(1 Good) Echo would be nothing without having a story that embraces Echo's world, draws us into it. The show does so by having extended conversations in sign language, or extended action sequences without much audio, that put you alongside the star in her exploits. And it's so different as to feel shockingly fresh, even if it's largely using the same templates in the past. The sound variances, the amount of quite moments, they attention getting. It trains you early on that quiet moments are when you read dialogue, but then they quickly also become the times when the action is happening. Being in Echo's hometown in Oklahoma brings with it a heavy Choctaw presence, and a completely different pace than New York's Hells Kitchen. Like Reservation Dogs (which shares many of its performers with Echo), the atmosphere is a lot different, and it seems less melodramatic as a result. Of course, Echo is trying to escape her past, from her adoptive uncle Kingpin, Wilson Fisk (a returning Vincent D'onofrio, gargantuan and fantastically threatening). But Fisk is not just a ringer, he is both family and foe, and his story, which started way back in Daredevil which started 9 years ago, is deftly recapped here that provides something meaningful to both him and Echo.
(1 Bad) But Charlie Cox's Daredevil, heavily touted on the trailers and commercials for Echo is such a ringer. He's in one sequence, allowing a younger Echo from a few years earlier, have an encounter with the devil of Hells Kitchen and come out with basically a win, impressing uncle Kingpin. That is the extent of his appearance.
META: The show's opening half hour is a bit of a muddy trek as it tries to strip out what's still important from the Hawkeye series in which Echo debuted for this series. It mixes in new footage with reuse and there is noticable minutiae between them that really feels like disconnected hodgepodge. At the same time as it's trying to either catch up new viewers or refresh prior viewers, it's also seeding in its own lore based in Choctaw ancestry for Echo's power-set beyond being a tough-as-nails fighter. Once you make it past the rough opening, and Echo returns home, it's three and a half really, truly solid episodes of action-drama TV that sometimes transcend. The finale, though, feels the weight of its reduced episode order (from 6 to 5) as it does feel hurried and certain characters do get a bit of short shrift (I could have done with much more Devery Jacobs). I appreciate how Echo sort of de-escalates the situation rather than making it larger. It was a much appreciated tactic for shifting the whole thing. As a package, I liked it far, far better than I was expecting and it
I will miss Letterkenny, but I agree, it was time.
ReplyDeleteI think this has been my favourite season of Fargo so far.
As we discussed, you didn't really miss much noping out of FAMK when you did, or I guess I just don't find labour disputes/class warfare all that interesting (and it's a little dispiriting that even with all the advances in the FAMK world, the same things still happen as in ours).