31 Days of Halloween: Carrie

2026 - Amazon

How do I write about TV again?

Every year, at least one TV show appears near-to or during the season. This year, we get at least three, which are automatically on the slate: Yaga which starts at the end of the month, the Newfoundland shot and based monster-in-the-water series Below that starts tomorrow on Netflix, and this one, the latest from favourite Mike Flanagan.

Insert Fanfare Emoji

There have been a lot of Carrie adaptations, the debut novel from Stephen King, going all the way back to the 1976 De Palma / Sissy Spacek movie. Then there is its "sequel", the terrible The Rage: Carrie 2 in the 90s, and the 2013 version with Chloë Grace Moretz, and there was also a 2002 made-for-TV movie written by Bryan Fuller; it was meant to be a backdoor pilot, but that never happened. I will also mention there were two stage productions, but I refuse to even dig into them.

This is Flanagan, whom we love love love, but I have to admit... I had no great anticipation for this one. I might have to admit no great fondness for the King story, despite it being his first. It was likely my fifth or six of his books. I might have soured on it due my own high school drama; nothing involving buckets of pig blood, but I do not look fondly back on those years. But I will watch it, and I will enjoy it despite getting in my own way.

It begins with the death of Carrie's father (Tahmoh Penikett, Dollhouse), a construction worker, but more importantly, a prep'er and anti-government whacko who kept to himself. Nobody at work knew him at all. It continues with the authorities finding Carrie(ta) and her mother (Samantha Sloyan, Midnight Mass) in the closet. Nobody knew they existed. But, I should say it begins with the simul-cast preamble, interviews with people regarding the incident that started in the high school gymnasium during prom, and ended with the entire school burned down, and most of the town. The same interviews explain that, pending funds being setup for the now widow and her daughter, Carrie (Summer H Howell, Night of the Reaper) has to go to school and mom has to work.

Smart move from Flanagan, as most people watching already know the story behind Carrie in that a young girl with powers gets a bucket of pigs blood poured over her and she ... explodes, taking everyone with her. Not literally, but powerful telepathic response. So, we know the ending, but do we know the story.

The setup is familiar enough. Carrie is new to this world, pretty much all of it. She's weird but resilient, open to every new experience. High school girls are demons, cliques within cliques. New people are fodder, new & weird even more juicy. Her first few days of homemade clothing, sexual awakening, popularity machinations and her first school shooting drill do not go well. We also see that there is an emerging conflict between Carrie and her mother, as Carrie begins to understand how much she has been kept from.

The episode ends as the torture begins. Carrie gets her first period, something her mother neglected to prepare her for ("my daughter is a child...") and the other gym class girls go wild on her, throwing feminine protection at her, while filming her confusion and panic. The episode truly ends with the introduction of something new, an Xavier style school of other girls with psychic powers, one who is sensitive to Carrie's awakenings.

Like all Flanagan, we begin with characters, good and bad, slow burning our way into a story. He's brought only a few of the usual suspects along so far, but I suspect more will come along.  Its a sold opener.

1-1-1-KsMIRT: not enough and too much

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.  It's back(!), because I'm feeling too scatterbrain to think unfettered.

This Month:

Fallout Season 2 - AmazonPrime [8/8 episodes watched]
Daredevil: Born Again season 2 - Disney+ [8/10 episodes watched]
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2 - AppleTV [10/10 episodes watched]
Scrubs Season 9 - Crave [13/13 episodes watched]
Widow's Bay Season 1 - Apple TV [10/10 episodes watched]
Dark Winds Season 2 - Crave [6/6 episodes watched]

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Fallout Season 2
season 1
[created by Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet]

The Plot/What 100: Lucy travels the wastelands with the Ghoul, looking for her father who has run off to Las Vegas to enact the next phase of the plan. Whatever that is. Maximus tries to prevent a war, and in the process, probably starts a war. Stephanie, now overseer of Vault 32, seems to have her own machinations in play, while Betty in Vault 33 finds resources dwindling and an inbred uprising fermenting. Lucy's brother Norm has awakened the management, and finds his leadership skills wanting. Something big is about to start, and it probably can't be stopped.

[1 Great] Often flashbacks in a TV show serve as information dump or as a means of exploring a character's backstory a little more thoroughly. It's often aside from the main plot, maybe thematically connected, but having little bearing on the progression of the in-world story of today. The flashbacks in Fallout have served to show us the world before the wasteland, and the life of The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) back when he was a famous movie star, war veteran and pitch man for Valut-Tec. This season, though, Cooper Howard is brought in through the back door of the conspiracy to blow-up the world...you know, for profit! And he has to navigate not only the twists of the shady people involved in the conspiracy and those trying to prevent it, but also his wife's part in all of it. It's actually pretty gripping, and since it's largely all from Coop's perspective, we only really know what he knows and so the rug gets pulled out from us both multiple times. It's pretty awesome and Goggins is fantastic.

[1 Good] Since I don't play the games, all of the world of Fallout is new to me. So I never knew that there was a war between USA and Canada, as the U.S. tried to annex my country. Toasty filled me in that this has long been a part of the lore of the games, so it's not just a reactionary bit to the Trumpian whim of terrain expansion. It's not explored too deeply in the season, but we learn that Stephanie's nefarious machinations are all in the service of Canadian resistance, and while the show tries to play her off as the bad guy, I'm firmly on her side. "Don't think of them as human beings, think of them as Americans...." That line gave me chills and really speaks more to how the teaching of American Exceptionalism others everyone else to Americans, rather than any desire for Canadian aggression towards our neighbours to the south (many of whom are really good human beings).

[1 Bad] There's nothing really bad about this show. I found myself pretty enthralled by this entire season. I was maybe a little frustrated at nebbish Norm and his inability to level up, not at all like Lucy did. But that's Norm's character flaw, he's just not very good at stuff. Lucy on the other hand wants to remain an optimist but boy does the world grind her down. It's a little tough to watch, but her confrontations with Hank (and the Ghoul) when she's finally had enough, well, pretty great.

Meta: It had been over two years since I watched Season 1 and I had forgotten how richly constructed the world of this show was, all the different threats it weaves together in a way that may feel loose but is surprisingly cohesive.  The addition of Justin Theroux as Robert Edwin House, the billionaire Coop is told is going to blow up the world is an excellent addition, and the character's impacts both in the past and future are deeply felt. Funny, gross, and richly satirical about both capitalism and totalitarianism, it's a surprisingly deep show for how ludicrously fun it is.

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Daredevil: Born Again Season 2
Season 1
(created by Dario Scardapane and Matt Corman & Chris Ord)

The Plot/What 100: Daredevil attacks a secret shipment of weapons through New York's harbour, a deal Mayor Wilson Fisk had made with the CIA (?), and now it's causing headaches. Anti-vigilante laws are enforced with brutality, anyone suspected of allying with a vigilante (or anyone Fisk just doesn't like) is rounded up and caged. Bullseye has turned "friend" to Daredevil, but his violence is too extreme for his liking (and people get caught in the crossfire). BB Urich manipulates Fisk's protege, Daniel Blake, in to revealing classified information, which she then uses as anti-Fisk propeganda. It's not going to go well for either of them.

[1 Great] I still think Charlie Cox is the perfect Daredevil, even if he's not written so perfectly.

[1 Good] Jessica Jones is back. Loved seeing Kristin Ritter back, if only for a minute.

[1 Bad] It's all just so goddamn tedious. It's a show that just keeps hitting the same points over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. It's so damn exhausing. Matt doesn't want to kill anyone, but he's always debating with people whether he should. And debating with people whether he should let them kill. His conflict is now not even a religious one but one of a guy who has to decide whether he believes in the law and legal institutions of the country in the role he performs, or, you know, puts on a costume and doles out concussions on a nightly basis. We've seen it all before. And it's a show that just teases and teases and teases out it stories and threads as if it had 25 episodes to fill. It doesn't and there's so many of these characters we don't really care that much about (sorry BB, sorry Daniel, sorry Heather, sorry Karen, sorry to the rest of you...) mostly because  they're so boring. The sombre, sober tone of the series, the smug self-satisfaction over even attempting to comment on modern times and governmental descent into fascism, it's all so off-putting.  Fisk needs to be put aside for a good long while. He's not Daredevil's only villain, but outside of the Hand in season 2, it's been nothing but Fisk, and it's gotten stale. Nothing new is said about their relationship this season. And they totally mishandle Jessica, severely underusing her and ...depowering her in fits and starts? Why? Ugh.

Meta: I really gave Season 1 a pass. I decided I liked it because I was happy it was back. I really, really like Cox in the role and was just so plussed to see him again. But, in hindsight, Season 2 only highlight that Season 1 was just as much of a drag. I recall Lady Kent and I taking a day off work, ordering enough pizza for two meals and just binging 16 episodes of a season of Daredevil. It was exciting to us. By the third episode of this season, watching Daredevil felt like a chore, like something we had to do, and it was definitely not something we were enjoying. We were counting down the minutes until Jessica Jones' arrival and that little baloon of hope deflated almost instantly.  Cox's best appearances as Matt and Daredevil were not in the 17 episodes of his own series but in an episode of She-Hulk and a cameo in Spider-Man:No Way Home. 

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Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2
Season 1
(created by Chris Black and Matt Fraction)

The Plot/What 100: Keiko Mura has been rescued from Axis Mundi, 60 years after she disappeared into a wormhole, and she's only 60 days older than when Shaw last saw her. Her world is rocked to be reunited with her son and meet her granddaughter and grandson having missed most of their lives, but Monarch, the organization she founded with her husband Bill Randa, is not what it once was, and faces some stiff private sector competition.  Not just competition, but organizations looking to control the kaiju for their own agendas, and developing the technology to do so. But the immediate crisis is the reappearance of Titan X, last seen by Keiko, Bill and Shaw a lifetime ago.

[1 Great] It's never not awesome watching giant monsters fight, and the show does a pretty decent job of showing scale when it's happening.  Obviously the show doesn't have the budget of a Godzilla x Kong feature, or even the budget that Season 1 had, so the fights are few and far between, but pretty great when they happen. 

[1 Good] There is an episode where Shaw, in trying to figure out how to lure Godzilla out of Axis Mundi, winds up receiving an S.O.S. from himself decades before when he was briefly trapped in there. Since Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell are playing the same character, there's no reasonable way that they could share the screen together, but this is the next best thing. A novelty episode but still kind of great that has some real emotional elements for both performers to work through in completely different times in their characters' life. The show does a pretty good job throughout this season finding consistency between the Russels' performance of the character. 

[1 Bad] Much like Daredevil: Born Again this show frustratingly treads water because it needs to bide its time between its big budget setpieces. This results in some incredibly stupid (and sometimes very confusing) character threads where certain characters go off and do their own thing for reasons that never truly feel justified, and then return to Monarch for reasons that never truly feel justified, only to get into arguements that never truly feel justified, and then to do really stupid things that never truly feel justified. Most of this shit is our young cast of Kentaro, Cate and May. They make my eyes roll involuntarily far too often.

Meta: Monarch is not a good show. It's wildly inconsistent and seems to lack purpose other than to be an in-world flourish to the Legendary series of Kong and Godzilla features. The characters amble so much one has to often ask what they're actually contributing to the story.  The scenes set in the 1950s and 60's are far more interesting, as the setting gives a pastiche for the series to play into and often it seems like it would be a better program had it firmly set itself in that time and explore the Kaiju with their technological limitations.  I honestly don't know if I would watch a third season should it return (maybe if they get Bill and Lewis Pullman to play, like, an adversary to Shaw...that would be enough to get me back in).

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Scrubs Season 9 (aka Scrubs: Med School Season 1)
(created by Bill Lawrence)

The Plot/What 100: Sacred Heart teaching hospital now has a whole campus, where we see J.D., Turk, and Cox all hold classes, and Elliott is pregnant so she's on light duty. The new batch of recruits includes Lucy Bennett, a midwestern, daydreamy "horse girl" who's naive and optimistic, which Cox wants to drum right out of her, lest he wind up with another John Dorian. Drew dropped out of med school a half decade ago, had a rough bit of life experience, and is back with reinvigored focus, only Cox has taken an unsettlingly deep interest in him. Cole is a SoCal-bro all the way, a prototypical rich kid whose parents funded half the wings in the hospital, so despite how annoying he is, he's teflon (he finds a friend in retired and sexually rambunctious [to the point of sexpest-ery] Dr. Kelso), and Dr. Denise Mahoney, the sarcastic, and jaded T.A. It's Scrubs but with new people, and some of the old people.

[1 Great] I was honestly surprised at how quickly the Scrubs formulae worked being reworked like this with a nearly whole new cast. I think having some of the old guard around some of the time works quite well (especially John C. McGinley whose Perry Cox is maybe the most critical ingredient to the show, though Eliza Coupe as Denise certainly could have filled the void in the eventuality of McGinley's departure). Dave Franco nails perfectly the irritatingly entitled dirtbag Cole but never fully as the villain, and the writing staff find ways to round down his sharpest edges to make him pretty much a likeable character. Kerry Bishé as Lucy is and isn't just a female J.D. And putting them side by side for a few episodes early in the season (before Braff departed) was the perfect way to highlight both. The new cast, gels pretty quickly, and it helps that they're all pretty talented performers (Coupe and Franco, obviously, go on to bigger and brighter things) who settle into their roles quickly and the writers find a voice for really fast. It's basically Scrubs-by-way-of-Community just maybe a year too early. 

[1 Good] My favourite part of the season was the blossoming relationship between Denise and Drew. Denise is a Tough.Nut and is such an Eliza Coupe role that's perfectly suited for her. Drew has a hardened past and his own embarrassing secrets, but can almost go toe to to with Denise in the cynicism department. They find very quickly that they have similar world views, and yet they're two quite different people that have a real challenge with compromise or, you know, emotional vulnerability. Watching them actually negotiate being together is the biggest joy of the season.

[1 Bad] I haven't watch original flavour Scrubs in a very long while, but did it have so much gender-based "comedy" as well. There's so much name calling and put-downs, mostly to the point of calling someone (usually a male character) a "girl" or a "bitch" or something more clever insinuating that the guy is soft and/or feminine. There's also one episode that has a B-plot rotating around Turk and Cox dealing with a lesbian couple (both played by very attractive actresses of course) and being total children around the idea. It's pretty embarrassing for the show and the characters.

Meta: Having just watched the reboot of Scrubs earlier this year, I was curious about the ill-fated season 9 that was intended to be an independent spin-off but ABC chickened out in letting it be its own thing. I don't know if it was ever going to be successful, as people had a certain idea of what Scrubs was and that centered around Zach Braff-related silliness, of which this is in shorter supply. Maybe it is just having watched the reboot, which, quite frankly, feels more like a reboot of this season of Scrubs: Med School than it does of Scrubs proper, but this went down pretty smooth (dated jokes aside). I had a really great time with this and would have liked another couple seasons with this crew.  Maybe it's because I knew half of this cast already from elsewhere or maybe it's because this season of television the writers pointedly made a decision to focus on the new crew (as opposed to the reboot, where it's more than half about the old crew, and less than  half about the new crew) but I think I like this season better than the reboot. A little bit more at least.

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Widow's Bay Season 1
(created by Katie Dippold)

The Plot/What 100: Tom Loftis is mayor of the remote New England island town of Widow's Bay. Unlike most people who live there, Tom wasn't born there but married into island life, his wife having died during childbirth 17 years ago. Tom has lofty ambitions of being the new Martha's Vinyard, and rallies the town behind his new tourism push. The only real objector is Wyck Crawford, a grizzled fisherman who vociferously insists that the island is cursed and that outsiders should definitely not come. He is correct on both counts. 

[1 Great] It's so very hard to choose one single thing that is great about Widow's Bay since it is uniformly terrific. Merging horror, comedy, and emotional drama the show very ably builds a small island community where it makes sense whenever any two or three cast members share the screen and the personalities are so well defined without being too trope-y that we kind of know exactly who these people are, until we get to know them more. Any character can be given a spotlight and ably hold it, the performers on the show all very keenly get the assignment, while the directors (including Atlanta's Hiro Murai and horror director Ti West), writers (including comedic performers Colton Dunn and Neil Casey) and crew all seem to be completely enthused to be  working on the show that lets them toe so many lines, and step over them, and step back. By the show's third episode there was already a stand-out episode, and then they deliver another, and another.  It's still very much a genre show, but it's doing it as if it were Parks and Recreation crossed with Midnight Mass, and it's even been told that creator/showrunner Katie Dippold originally gestated this idea as a script for Parks & Rec, but just couldn't make it work).

[1 Good] The music by David Fleming is incredible, absolutely nailing the assignment. He's able to strike a tone that is ominously lighthearted when it needs to be but can go strange, mysterious or intense when necessary. His score leans into the conventions of scores from the more mass-audience friendly horror of the past like Poltergeist, Jaws, the Omen, or the Exorcist without ever directly referencing any of them. He's found the vibe, the tone of those scores perfectly, and using their most cliched aspects as much for terror as for punctuating the humorous or absurd. It's a very deftly conceived soundtrack, one that makes me take notice without pulling me out of the moment. 

[1 Bad] The premise of the series is sort of a Jaws scenario, where there's danger lurking but the mayor won't sacrifice the town's economic prosperity for the possibility of danger. There's also an X-Files set-up where certain people in the town are aware of its curse, and are pretty comfortable with it, in fact, but Tom wants to just shrug it off. Within three episodes, though, Tom can no longer shrug it off. As we get deeper into the season Tom may be in denial at points, but it's clear he knows deep down what's true about this island. And then it's staring him plainly in the face...

I don't generally agree that TV was better when it was 25 episode seasons, as that type of American TV show created a lot of bloat. What we lose in going down to 10 or 8 or 6 episode seasons is the ability to focus more intently on secondary characters, or sometimes, as with Widow's Bay things move a little bit faster than you had expected. Tom's journey from disbeliever to skeptic to true believer happens in about 7 episodes and while I wouldn't want this season to be split into two to slow the pace of his progression, if the season were longer, with more time to expand its focus to the town at large it could really have benefitted from such a scope increase, even just three to five more episodes. The "bad" is, basically, I want more.

Meta: Widow's Bay is probably the best season of television this year. Just a lightning bolt of a show that comes out episode one firing on all cylinders and then injects the nitrous oxide into the tank in the second episode. Matthew Rhys has had a trio of prominent dramatic series over the past 15 years, but this show lets him step out of being miserable and deadpan and instead into a funnier misery, and he absolutely excels at it, both physically and verbally... he has great comedic timing...who knew? While he's been a revered dramatic actor for years, Kate O'Flynn, playing Tom's assistant Patricia, steps out of small-time character actor shadows and into the limelight, and completely destroys. Patricia can be weird and off-putting to start, but O'Flynn is able to elicit deep compassion and sympathy for Patricia, eventually turning from loser to unlikely hero (though Patricia is still incapable of going full badass).

Episodes 4 and 5 jockey for best episode of the season, with episode 4, "Beach Reads" putting Patricia and her high-stakes party planning front and centre, while episode 5 , "What to Expect on Your Trip" finds Tom accidentally getting dosed with mushrooms and blinking in and out of consciousness (I don't think I've ever seen an episode of tv told from a POV like this, where it just keeps jumping ahead in time, the viewer as disoriented as the character). It's like season two of The Bear all over again ... "Fishes" or "Forks"?

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Dark Winds Season 2
(created by Graham Roland)

The Plot/What 100: Jim Chee has left the feds to be a private investigator, and gets called to look in on a robbery at a wealthy landowner's home by his wife. Jim's case dovetails into a truck bomb investigation Joe Leaphorn is investigating, the clues to which lead him to believe Jim's client is somehow tied into the murder of his son. Joe's deputy, Bernadette, looks elsewhere for growth opportunities, while Emma and Sally ward off a white reporter from L.A. looking for a story around the heinous eugenics practices at medical clinics and murdered and missing indigenous women.

[1 Great] Each season is adapted from one of Tony Hillerman's series of Tribal Police books. Much like Slow Horses six episodes seems to be the perfect length to fluidly adapt the story without any padding. It does lead to the feeling that time has passed between seasons/stories, and I really enjoy how the first episode works as both catch up on what's happened to the characters in the interim as we as the place-setter for what the thrust of the season will be. The only one who doesn't seem like they're on a different path this season is Joe Leaphorn, who seems all to settled in his ways. But a pretty serious blow-up with Emma as well as confronting the man who may have killed his son sets him on a new path by the season's end, and his relationship with everyone in the show is different by the end (or at least our understanding of those relationships is).

[1 Good] People take their bloody lumps this season. It's a pretty taxing and brutal affair that Leaphorn and Chee get caught up in, and they pay the price. But determination, resiliency, stubbornness, and, in Joe's case, pure blind rage, get them through. It's a little harrowing to be honest, but the fifth episode trek through the desert is an epic 40 minutes of TV.

[1 Bad] I do not begrudge the series at all for attempting to tackle some of the horrific and disgusting practices that indigenous women have been subjected to, past and present, in America (and most of the colonized lands of the world, frankly), it's pretty necessary to put a spotlight on it. It's only "bad" in that it's unfortunate how tertiary this story line is to the show. Despite having not read the books, it's still evident that this plot doesn't come from the source, as it just doesn't fit with the rest of the events of the show and is of a different tone entirely. It gives something for Emma (Deanna Allison) and Sally (Elva Guerra) to do this season, but it almost feels more like that (needing to provide a story for the characters) than to hit hard on raising the awareness of these atrocities. Such a thing deserves its own central spotlight

Meta: Such an easily consumable, enriching and entertaining show. The three leads, Zahn McClarnan, Kiowa Gordon and Jessica Matten, are all incredible performers and have such a great rapport.  McClarnan's face is one of the most captivating on TV, while Gordon and Matten are just so damn good looking, and ridiculously charming together you just want to see more of them as a romcom (although the show's just looking for reasons to keep them apart). This season features Jeri Ryan in a guest-starring role and she's superb as a middle-aged femme fatale who may or may not be playing games with Chee. Veteran character actor A Martinez also turns up as Sherriff Gordo, Joe's friend and mentor. We also meet Joe's father (Joseph Runningfox) this season, an ex-cop and a hard man who Joe's still trying to live up to. Joe tries to fight his father's influence while also actively emulating him. It's a fascinating dynamic which we need to see more of. 

1-1-1: Fall of the House of Usher

2022, 8 episodes - netflix
created by Mike Flanagan

The What 100: Roderick and Madeline Usher were the bastard offspring of the CEO of pharmaceutical corporation Fortunato. Left nothing, the siblings work their way into the Forunato company on their own merit and climb the ranks, though a secret from their past gave them a decisive leg up. Roughly a half-century later, all the Usher's successes that seemed to have been unimpeachable actually have a bill that's come due, and the cost is the entire lineage of the Usher family.

(1 Great): The story of The Fall of the House of Usher, is told by Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood, Star Trek) to US Attorney Charles Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly, M.A.N.T.I.S.), the man who has been trying to prosecute him all these years for Fortunato's many crimes against society and humanity.  The story takes place in multiple times periods, with the "present day" - in which a grieving, repentant Roderick making his final confessions to a long-time nemesis - acts as framing sequence to the series.The late 1970s era find Roderick (played by Zach Gilford, The Purge: Anarchy) picking his path in life, pulled towards being an honest, if maybe poor man but loving husband and father, or a cutthroat businessman with Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald) pulling the strings from behind. There's also the weeks set before Roderick and Auguste are having their dark-and-stormy night chat, where each episode one of Roderick's six children face their horrific and untimely demise.  I love a good non-linear story, and Flanagan here constructs it masterfully. It's jumping from time to time, further expanding multiple different narratives, all while teasing right up until to the finale what the actual deal that Roderick and Madeline made with the mysterious figure (Carla Gugino) who is present at each of the kids' deaths. There's so many little mysteries that Flanagan teases out over the eight episode that make for compulsive viewing, once one episode is done, you want to dive right into another. As well, the premise of an awful family of uber-rich assholes each meeting a pretty grim end (each very loosely based around an Edgar Allen Poe story), makes for absolutely delightful viewing. 

(1 Good): Roderick himself was personally responsible for the development and exploitation of highly addictive, highly profitable painkiller Ligodone upon which he built an empire. He has hundreds of thousands of skeletons in his closet. I've seen Greenwood in many, many productions, and he's always a solid player in every appearance, but I don't know if he's ever been given a role like this which requires so much gravitas and control. Roderick is a man who is haunted, both literally and figuratively, and Greenwood plays both so perfectly. This is the story of a man recalling the glory and regrets of his past, a man trying to, in some small way atone for his sins, while within his story, he is a most assured and devilish man. Greenwood needs to work through an entire emotional spectrum with this character, all the while it has to feel appropriate and consistent to his character. He has the toe the line of being so evil that there's no chance we could like him, and then have Greenwood present little aspects of the character that show there's humanity underneath (we still don't like him, but there is a bit a sympathy, and even pathos among all the schadenfreude). The writing is largely fabulous, the performance is even better. 

(1 Bad): The only bad in what is otherwise delightfully grizzly October-friendly viewing was a few moments in the conceit of the framework. Some of the back and forth between Auguste and Roderick felt...forced, unnatural, often as the show was using the framework to jump between its time periods and narrative tracks and the attempts to direct the narrative through this dialogue felt shaky at points. In teasing out the history that Roderick and Auguste have, it makes investing in this face-to-face a little more difficult. But it's a really small quibble in an show that had me squealing and squicking in equal measure.

META: Flanagan has his ensemble of players that he uses again and again, and I'm of two minds about it. There's an aspect of it that's kind of fun, like how Hallmark just kind of mixes-and-matches their leads across their dozens of seasonal offerings each year, you kind of get to know and like these performers and look forward to seeing what roles Flanney decides to put them in.  But at the same time I also feel like it may be limiting the performances, that maybe by only casting familiar actors, he's maybe not getting the best performances that he could. But that reservation only holds water if I feel like any of the performances didn't deliver, and I couldn't really find flaw with almost any player. And it's not like Greenwood, Mary McDonnell, Lumbly, and Mark Hamill were regular players in the Flanney troupe prior to this, and they're all quite astonishing additions. Love to see them all in great roles.

One other thing about Fall of the House of Usher that deviated from usual Flanney tropes... there weren't the usual monologues that Flanney has a penchant for, but much of the face-to-face between Auguste and Roderick was monologue, but it's also narrative, so it made a lot more sense and felt more natural that it often does in Flanagan's shows.

[Toastypost - we agree!]

31 Days of Halloween: Fear Street: Prom Night

2025, Matt Palmer (Calibre) -- Netflix

This movie is another in the RL Stine based (movie) series that started with a trilogy on Netflix exploring a pair of communities that were subject to a curse (explored in the third movie) that left a shadow across both. Shady Side's curse leaves it dubbed the murder capital of America with more than its fair share of serial killers. This is one of those stories.

If the first trilogy of movies was impressive in that it wanted to explore and upend the misogynistic tendencies of slasher movies, this one is for today's world where that woke agenda is worthy of eye-rolling.

slash s, to denote sarcasm, as the kids would say. They don't, but I just did.

The point is that this movie abandons any desire to comment on the genre and just embraces runs with it in the most pedestrian, BINGO card manner, but also considering that current culture is more fine with beheadings than it is sex, we cannot have anything naughty in this movie, which in itself is a commentary on the genre. And yes, I will lay the blame entirely on the current political climate, just cuz.

In case you are shouting, "But its from books for kids !!!" the last movie was able to be both catering to youth but not pandering to the chaperone at the prom.

Its 1988, Shady Side. Six girls are competing to be Prom Queen: four beauty queens, one Tough Chick (Ariana Greenblatt, 65) and one Normal Girl (India Fowler, The Nevers). Instantly, because the Tough Chick is played by the Recognizable Face, and I guess the Drew Barrymore thing is a thing now, Christy is killed by a killer in an elaborate rain poncho and mask -- if anything, the killers of Shade Side have some flair. After a wee bit of attempt at "get to know the girls", we are at Prom Night and only a few people care that Christy is nowhere to be found, including the Normal Girl Lori's best friend Megan (Suzanna Son, Red Rocket), suggested lesbian and horror movie fan. Sorry, those are all the same girl.

Anywayz, Poncho Guy shows up and starts killing off the rest of the Beauty Queens, one by one, and any boyfriends who happen to be around at the time. To be honest, its not worth recapping because... yawn, its so perfunctory and vanilla in its presentation, you could almost think its an actual late 80s Made for TV Movie, except its not trying to be that ironically. But yeah, all the main girls are killed off, leaving Normal Girl (or Final Girl, if we may) to run away and reveal that it was one of the Beauty Queen's family, her Dad (Chris Klein, American Pie), who is the killer. Blah blah, his daughter had to win, chop off a few more heads and limbs, yawn.

And even a requisite Fake Out, cuz Mom's (Katherine Waterston, Inherent Vice) in on it too. And their little daughter Tiffany (Fina Strazza, Paper Girls) too!!

Stifled yawn, no cackle.

I just don't know why they will produce something with so evident lack of energy or effort. Sure, I cannot fault any of the actors, as they power through the pablum they are given with devotion. But again, no flair. They left that for his rain poncho, only.

KsMIRT: well...maybe I do

 KsMIRT=Kent's Month in Reviewing Television in which Kent (that'sa me) reviews the television series he watched in the past month (*cough* April *cough*) in the patented 1-1-1 format. I have been writing these things rather expediently at the beginning of each month and yet, for some reason, sitting on them for weeks (and weeks), and posting them at the end of that month, so they're, like, a month behind (*cough* now, like, three *cough*). Whatevs. Let's do this:

This Month:
The Residence (8/8 episodes, Netflix)
Mythic Quest Season 4 (9/10 episodes, AppleTV+)
Yellowjackets Season 3 (7/10 episodes, Crave)
Dark Winds Season 1 (6/6 episodes, Crave)
Daredevil: Born Again Season ? (9/9 episodes)

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created by Paul William Davies

The What 100: There's been a murder in the White House (not the president this time) during a state dinner with the Australian Prime Minister. The victim is the Chief Usher of the White House (Giancarlo Esposito) and the suspects are plentiful with, like, 60 staff members and residents plus nearly 200 guests. Given the sensitivity of the issue the chief of the Metro PD calls in a favour and brings world renowned detective Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba) on the scene where she takes control locking the premises down for as long as she can against mounting opposition and unrest.

(1 Great) I haven't ever really considered myself a big fan of murder mysteries, but the recent spate of eccentric detective mysteries like the Poirot films, Knives Out mysteries and, especially, Poker Face have certainly brought me closer to fandom. Uzo Aduba makes for a wonderfully eccentric detective, as Cordelia Cupp obsesses as much about her birding as she does the case, and often applies her vast knowledge of the birds of the world to the case at hand.  She is exceptionally observant, patient, and never gets ahead of what she knows (she never identifies a suspect, more just persons of interest). She's certainly not a people person, but at the same time, Aduba manages Cordelias frankness as something more charmingly humorous than rude or abrasive. She puts some very powerful people in their place.  8 episodes is a long time to maintain a murder mystery like this given that most of these kinds of stories are done in a 2 hour movie or 1 hour TV show format, but the show makes it less a whodunnit and more about Cordelia's process.  She's an exceptional detective and she knows it, and has a little bit of an ego about it, but it's also clear she enjoys the challenge the work brings.  I also appreciated that amidst it all she remembers that there's an actual person who lost their life in all this. It's a pretty breezy watch.

(1 Good): I do find myself enjoying these big ensemble murder mysteries, and here we have a sizeable cast of recognizable faces. They're not all big, big stars, but if you've watched any TV/streaming in the past decade (or even just the 80's) you're bound to recognize at least a half dozen faces, if not more. You've got Jane Curtin (3rd Rock From the Sun), Jason Lee (My Name is Earl), Bronson Pinchot (Beverly Hills Cop), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (The Wire), Randall Park (Aquaman), Ken Marino (Party Down), Taran Killam (Saturday Night Live), Al Franken (Saturday Night Live), Eliza Coupe (Happy Endings), Mel Rodriguez (Last Man on Earth), Mary Wiseman (Star Trek: Discovery), and even Kylie Minogue as herself, among so many others. It's a sprawling cast that makes you point and say "heeyyyy!" over and over again throughout the first episode or two, and nobody is so obviously outsized compared to the rest to be the immediate obvious choice for who did it.

(1 Bad): I really did enjoy the show, quite a bit, and found it really, really easy to digest. Buuut... it was too long, and there were obvious points in the show that felt like padding. There were at least three lengthy cold opens that take place outside the central mystery, starting with the opening of episode 4 which finds Cordelia on Hawaii teaching her nephew birding. It's a nice mini-story in itself, but it really hastens the narrative thrust of the central mystery.  Likewise, the framing device of a Congressional hearing about White House security turns the whole story into a retelling, and, again, it was unnecessary. It is where we get former actual senator Al Franken and Eliza Coupe sparring with each other, but I don't think any aspect of this framing device was really servicing the story. This could have been 6, or even 5 episodes easy. 

META: The final episode is almost 90 minutes, so, movie length. The majority of this episode is Cordelia assembling her shortlist of persons of interest (not suspects) and then walking them painstakingly through the events of Chief Usher A.B. Wynter's death. It really is a tremendously convoluted mystery and there's no way the casual observer could figure it all out given the clues presented, because there's still clues revealing themselves in this final episode that tie it all together. It mostly works, but if there are more Cordelia Cupp adventures, it can't be a repeatable formula.  I would hope a future series might be movie length individual adventure (Columbo/Sherlock-style) or a series of shorter, tighter mysteries.

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season 1 | season 2 | season 3

The What 100: Ian and Poppy have returned to Mythic Quest but are the runners-up to their former protege Dana who has a massive hit on her hands with Playspace -- a game development tool and user-developed-game sharing hub -- and developed a massive ego along with it...but is seeing none of the monetary rewards. Jo and Brad have gone all-in on backing Dana, but find even their considerable abilities to manipulate David has its limits. David and Rachel are called before Congress regarding an inquiry on whether Playspace is actually child labor. It goes poorly. Oh and Poppy has a boyfriend...and then gets pregnant, and Ian just can't handle it.

(1 Great): This season of Mythic Quest has been, generally, quite fine, and consistently so. It's settled into its character types and their dynamics pretty well and knows how to get the mileage out of them for a lot of chuckels, chortles and laughs. The season's best episode, though, is "The Fish and the Whale", episode six, which finds Brad attending a poker night at David's house thinking he can completely shark David, and win Dana a release from her contract. David's space, vintage 70's decor through-and-through is perfection, and the local first responders that he's assembled as his poker crew, who genuinely admire him no less, baffle and dismay Brad to no end. Danny Pudi's narration certainly recalls the classic "My Dinner With Abed" episode of Community, mainly in how it stands out from the normal structure of the show. Pudi usually only gets the spotlight once a season, but he always makes it count, and David Hornsby is really the show's secret weapon. He's the Charlie Brown of the series, so it's always tremendous when he actually gets to kick that football.

(1 Good): The second best of the season is "Villain's Feast" where the gang are summoned to a murder mystery party by a mysterious benefactor, and sussing out the benefactor becomes more of the objective than the murder mystery. Everyone's dressed up and the manor that the episode is shot in is perfection. It's a real work-outing detour of an episode which allows all the main cast to interact with each other and to really hit those dynamics hard. As noted above with The Residence, I'm liking a good murder mystery and this one is so silly and fun.

(1 Bad): It's not a bad season, but the past three seasons of Mythic Quest have all had a definite highlight in their stand-alone episodes which usually travel back in time and explore characters and subject matter almost tangentially related to the show. Lady Kent and I were really anticipating such an episode this year, and it kept us waiting later in the season than ever, episode 8, "Rebrand"...and it wasn't really worth the wait. It's not a bad episode but it's also decidedly not as good or emotionally impactful as any of the three prior standalone episodes. This one focuses on a now late-teens Pooty, Ian's estranged son and massive YouTube celeb. He's a kid who has everything he could want but realizing that money doesn't buy happiness or a genuine connection with his father.  I dunno, I just don't really care about the struggles of a YouTuber, and even though it finds an emotional core, it still doesn't resonate very strongly. 

META: David might be the glue of Mythic Quest, but the dynamic between Ian and Poppy is what the show has grown to revolve around. It's the heart and the muscle of the show. This season does a really solid job of showing Poppy wrestling with life decisions (ugh, the dreaded pregnancy), and then showing how Ian is wrestling with those same decisions that are Poppy's to make, and thinking he has a say in any of it.  The end of episode seven land like a meteorite, just threatening to crater the show, and I was really curious as to what that would look like, but after stepping back for the Pooty episode, we return to ...not really face the fallout, and to just get back to Mythic Quest's usual chaotic "who's in charge" nature. It's all quite fine, but not the strongest of the show's run.

After writing (and sitting on) this "review" it was announced that Mythic Quest had been cancelled by Apple, but they were giving the show a chance to re-edit the season finale to provide different closure. [edit: the change, it turns out, was the tweaking of the last scene. In the original "airing", Ian and Poppy share a kiss to which they immediately a confusedly recoil from, while in the edit they simply get back to work. I did not like that first ending and was glad for the re-edit]. After writing this I had been thinking how Mythic Quest was a rare show in this streaming age that was surviving beyond the two or three season run, only for it to then be cut down. I will miss it.

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season 1 | season 2 

created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson

The What 100: In fallout of Nat's death last season, Misty looks to solidify her friendships with Van, Tai and Shauna, but to no avail. Lottie burdens herself on Shauna, only to turn up murdered? The 'jackets investigate. Shauna is harassed by an unseen person, but blames Misty. Back in the 90's in the woods of Ontario, the 'jackets have forged a new life and society  in the wake of the cabin fire that left them unhoused. But finding coach Ben once again starts creating schisms in the group as they put him on trial. And the woods present new surprises.

(1 Great): I can't talk about the surprises that the woods present at the end of episode 8, but it's a fantastic reveal, which leads into episode 6 which may be my favourite episode of the show since season one. I just didn't see it coming, and it's the shake-up the show needed. I had started to tire of the woodland rites and rituals of the now savage 'jackets, but Coach's trial was certainly unexpected and the fallout from that trial (which carried on longer than I thought but mercifully not as long as it could have) is pretty wild and surprising. 

(1 Good): I'm sorry but Shauna and Tai, in the present day, are outright villainous, and Misty, the diagnosed psychopath, is somehow now the most sympathetic character of the modern day crew (you would think that would be Van, given the cancer and, well, being saddled with Tai...but she's kind of riddled with inaction). I've grown up watching Christina Ricci grow up and I've basically had a little crush on her the whole time, and it persists. With Misty she threads a fine line between too much and wounded bird, with woman-of-action wedged right in the middle and she's a delight to watch no matter what's going on. 

(1 Bad): Shauna seems to be getting pushed further and further into being the most awful character on the show in both time periods after, seemingly, being ostensibly our protagonist in the first and second season. I'm feeling a bit jerked around by it all and she's becoming an increasingly frustrating character to watch in both time periods...whether that's self-destruction, the show setting up specific stakes for later payoff, or just the complications of the trauma she's experience, it's all very, very hard to look at her the same way we once did.That her daughter Callie calls this out directly shows an awareness that the show

META:  The weirdest part of the show this season is Lottie's sudden murder. It seemed so out of the blue and not anticipated. It all happened off camera in episode 4 after Lottie being rather present for the first three episodes. It was just weird. Dark Taissa makes another return and she's an unsettling figure...but I find regular Tai to be even more disturbing, just a purely unhinged woman.  These 'jackets survivors are severely fucked up.  I feel like after a very rocky start the first half of the season, the second half really rebounded, capturing some of the wild, go-anywhere sensibility of the first season.

[Edit: In the spirit of honesty, I had written the above write-up thinking I had just finished episode 9 with only one episode to go, when I had in fact just finished episode six. The radical turn of events that happen in episodes 7 through 10 rather reinvigorated my interest in the show. The writing team upended the status quo twice in those four episodes and, yeah, they quite clearly are painting Shauna as the wickedest of the bunch. That twist at the end of episode 6 perked me up on the show when I was feeling pretty down, and then a special guest star shows up for two episodes that rocks the status quo even further.  The creative team also introduce a new "facing who you were" motif that bridges the character's pasts and presents in an uncertain metaspace that, once again, toys with the metaphysical in a way that is so typically non-committal of the show, but seems presented with real intentionality as to where it's all leading.  For the first time since the earliest of episodes of season 1, it feels like creative is in control and know where it's all going.]

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created by Graham Roland

The What 100: It's the early-mid 1970's and a bold armored car heist in Gallup, New Mexico has drawn the feds to the nearby Navajo reservation.  Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police is trying his best to investigate a murder where the only witness is a blind woman, but he doesn't have the resources. Enter the FBI, who give him a "you scratch my back..." offer if he will investigate the heist. The Feds plant a new deputy in the form of Jim Chee, who seems uncomfortable being out of the white man's world, but slowly finds connection he didn't know he was missing.  

(1 Great): Ever since season 2 of FX's Fargo, Zahn McClarnan has been an actor I'm always on the look out for, and just adore watching him perform. There are some actors who elevate any material they touch, some actors who don't know how to fail in a role. That's definitely McClarnan, and here as Joe Leaphorn, the center of the show, the question is how did it take so long for him to lead a series? (Answer: systemic racism, of course.)  He is the center of gravity upon which this show spins, and he's never seemed more comfortable, like he's been ready to be up front and in charge this whole time. We've seen him play dangerous, we've seen him play goofy, we've seen him play paternal, and here he's playing stoic, intelligent, observational, but with, so clearly, a deep wound inside him that he's pushing through every day. The scenes he has with Deanna Allison who plays Ellen Leaphorn, his wife, are a new take on the strained relationship of a cop and his domestic partner, one that has its own history and strains, but there's still a connective bond that refuses to separate them.

(1 Good): The tone of Dark Winds is integral to what makes it so special. It's a show that is proactively putting Native American culture and heritage as well as trials and tribulations specific to its community front and center. It's containing most of its show within the confines of the Navajo reservation, but the ugly influence of the white man's world - capitalistic greed, systemic oppression - it all is weight in the subtext, as the characters and community can sense it. But it's not a show that buries itself in weight,it's not a message show outright. It's still a detective procedural in its own way. In the sun-drenched New Mexican desert lands - often shot beautifully, and just as often shot with intensity - the subtext is just the sweat running down one's back.  

(1 Bad): This is really nitpicky. Some of the sequences feel under-baked, lacking vision, and so the edits or the framing might feel cheap or out of place in what seems to otherwise be a prestige drama. I'm curious to see if those awkward moments show up in the second or third seasons, or if it was just a matter of the crew learning as they go.

META: My expectations for Dark Winds were set, oddly enough, by an episode of Netflix's Unsolved Mysteries.  Season 3 featured an episode that put the spotlight on the rangers of the Navajo Nation, and the rangers who investigate paranormal activities reported by residents across the grand span of the land. If ever there were a new take on the X-Files that needed to be a series, this was definitely it. I thought Dark Winds would be, if not outright be a paranormal-only show, at least have a foot in the paranormal door, kind of like True Detective.  The interesting thing (and not actually disappointing) about the show is that it's never overt about anything metaphysical, but it's there, they acknowledge that there are aspects to life and culture that have unexplained origins, even if, at least in this season, there's nothing paranormal at all about the events. It's a very human drama.

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created by Dario Scardapane, Matt Corman, Chris Ord

The What 100: Wilson Fisk is elected Mayor of New York City, because, hot take, all elected officials are criminals. He's instilled a ban on costumed vigilantes and assigned a task force of the NYPD's most unhinged and morally bankrupt officers to take down anyone who would dare do some masked crimefighting. Thankfully for Matt Murdock, he's already hung up his horns after the death of Foggy Nelson pushed him to the brink, and Karen Page left, unable to stand by and watch him self-destruct (again). But a series of event in Matt's professional lawyering life force him into doing more on the streets of Hell's Kitchen again, including taking on a mass murderer and paying Frank Castle a visit. Matt also dates a psychiatrist who also happens to be Fisk's marriage counsellor.

(1 Great): It is remarkable how much goodwill there is out there for Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock/Daredevil. He was in three wildly uneven seasons and one definitively not-great crossover series on Netflix in the mid 2010s, but nobody ever questioned how good Cox was in the role. And when Cox turned up in Spider-Man: No Way Home for a brief cameo, people lost their shit, and many cite his appearance in She-Hulk as the series highlight. So it really is just great to have Cox in the role back on the screen any time he wants to play it. It's a pretty comfortable glove for him and he wears it very, very well.

(1 Good): Born Again is not "Season 4" of the Netflix series, nor is it a reboot. It is a hybrid sequel that takes what it can of the past while seeding its characters and setting much more firmly into the MCU, and you know what? I liked it a lot. Fisk making a comment about Spider-Man, Matt getting invited over to Kamala Khan's house for dinner, callbacks to characters from Hawkeye... yes to all. Shared universes still make me giddy (maybe less so than they used to, but I can't help it).

(1 Bad): While I generally enjoyed Daredevil: Born Again it definitely does not hang together as a whole. It fails to find a thematic through-line to build its season around, even though it has so many options. Talking about corruption at the highest levels of government and the people who support them and how just punching and kicking will not take it down would be one theme it could explore. Another would be talking about police brutality and the injustice that takes place when the men in blue use their influence to protect even the worst of their kind. Another could have been just exploring trauma, both Fisk's post-near-death experience and Matt's grief over Foggy (and his fear of his own rage in response)... dating a psychiatrist should have yielded so much more. It winds up taking these elements and more and tossing them into a pot of soup such that no individual piece has its own flavour anymore.  The story arcs are ill-defined, which, in a way, gives it a very 1980's comic book feel, back when serialization was still kind of experimental, but it was somewhat unsatisfying as a week-to-week experience overall.

META: Born Again began life as a much longer project, it was intended to be Disney+ and Marvel's longest single-season series (it was to clock in at 18 episodes) and be more forthright a continuation/season 4 of the Netflix series, last seen in 2018. But around half-way through production, Marvel execs could see that either what they had wasn't working, or what they had wasn't working for the new direction they wanted to pivot to. And so the head writers/showrunners were let go, a new team brought on, new scenes and episodes filmed, and never is that patchwork more noticeable than in the first episode.  But it continues to be felt throughout the entire series where the total whiplash can really wreck your brain.

There's definitely more Daredevil to come, I just hope there's a better plan (and more actual Daredevil in costume) next time around. And I want to see Matt at the Khan's for dinner.

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Watching: The Lincoln Lawyer S3

2024, Netflix

I am tempted to not write about this show that I thoroughly enjoy, even so far as to anticipate that I am on season 3, in an era where so much I enjoy gets cancelled after season one. But the problem is that I am not watching any particular reason (a crime to solve, brilliant lawyer antics) but for the characters. I just so much like the characters, and I never stop talking about how I like shows with likeable characters. And the more the climate of the world makes all parties playing unlikeable, and the more my own toxic work environment makes me wonder if "niceness" is a myth, the more I gravitate towards decently written, decent people.

As I have said before, its hard to do these TV posts about later seasons, because.... do I explain the premise all over (dude, its not "all over again" because you have never actually written about the show before), or forget about all of that and just talk as if you already know everything? 

What 100. Last season ended with Mickey (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Pedro Páramo) taking on new client Julian La Cosse (Devon Graye, Nope), a tech mogul accused of killing Giselle Dallinger, who turns out to be Mickey's old client Glory Days (Fiona Rene, Tracker), who he assumed had left her prostitute life and returned to Hawai'i. Mickey is determined to defend La Cosse, but also find out who actually killed Glory, and why. Meanwhile Izzy (Jazz Raycole, The Quad) is replaced by an old babysitter Eddie Rojas (Allyn Moriyon, acting debut), as driver of the Lincoln(s) while Lorna preps for and passes the bar exam, to become Mickey's partner in the firm. Mickey's attempt to have a relationship with rival lawyer Freeman, but fails.

1 Great. To be honest, for me, the entire season was about Mickey's case manager & legal assistant Lorna (Becki Newton, Love Bites), who happens to also be his ex-wife (second ex-wife) getting her law degree. Lorna is portrayed as a bit of a ditz with flashy clothes and a cliche LA attitude -- an easily dismissed woman. But she was also always portrayed as whip smart and its no surprise she, despite some imposter syndrome, passes the bar exam on first try, with flying colours. And immediately Mickey installs her as a partner (fellow lawyer?) in his firm, but not without using the offer letter she typed up for him. She's fearless and fierce and I spent the entire season rooting for her.

1 Good. (look at you, using the format properly) The continuity and connectivity to previous seasons and characters. The show could take on the "case of the week" aspect, but being a Netflix series and not broadcast network, it has to have a more contiguous feel. Reaching back to season one for characters to expand upon the dangerous circles Mickey runs in felt like the showrunners know this show, and its characters, and its world.

1 Bad. The fridging of secondary characters for a bit of into and mid season drama. The season has to start with a shock that Glory Days has been murdered, which is annoying. But later on, they have introduced a character that I frankly didn't trust for most of the season, having expected him to emerge as some sort of mole or having an ulterior motive. Instead, they kill him off in a flash of violence, to remind Mickey and the viewers how dangerous the people he is going up against are. It was upsetting for the sake of drama.

Watching: Bad Monkey

2024, download

We are always on the look out for a "new crime show". I have been a fan of noir, but later in life I gained a great fondness for certain procedurals. Not everything. Its hard to define what attracts us to what crime show. We loved Longmire but have never got into Justified despite trying. We watch The Rookie but not Chicago: P.D. I am always on the look out for a new Luther but we have tried a number of times to watch Broadchurch and failed.

When this came along, I was curious. I am not a fan of Vince Vaughn, but also not bothered by him; he's just in that vein of comedy that generally never attracts me. I do currently have a thing for Florida, the Keys in particular. Not sure what it is, but it has replaced that desire to run away to a tropical island. 

What 100. Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn, Freaky) is disgraced Miami cop sent to do health inspection duty in the Florida Keys. He's a bit of a dick, but a lovable dick with a good heart, and he never lets anything go. When a severed arm shows up, Yancy can't let a good mystery go unsolved. It drags him into a somewhat low-key conspiracy involving con man Nick (Rob Delaney, Deadpool & Wolverine) and Eve (Meredith Hagner, Search Party), his sociopath wife, but travels around a lot with a bunch of supporting characters, including a Bahamian witch called "The Dragon Queen" (Jodie Turner-Smith, Nighflyers), the Miami coroner who Yancy falls for, and the socialite (Michelle Monaghan, Source Code) Yancy had an affair with.

And a bad monkey.

1 Great. Surprisingly, it was Yancy himself. As said, I am not a huge Vince Vaughn fan but what I do like is when humour is used to make the characters in the show laugh. Yancy is always cracking wise, but he never looks happier than when he makes coroner / new-GF Rosa Campesino (Natalie Martinez, The Fugitive) smile or chuckle. He's also just a good guy. Despite wavering towards fuck-up, he cares for people, even strangers.

1 Good. The locales. I love me some sitting in a comfortable chair looking out at the water, sipping on a tasty beer. When the series spins up, you have two characters, Yancy and Neville (Ronald Peet, Dicktown), both who have their Happy Places on the beach, one in Florida, one in the Bahamas. Neville wants nothing to do more than get back to that, while Yancy does yearn for more, as long as he can come back to his comfortable bungalow on the beach. The show contrasts this ideal against the "villains" who want big, expensive, gawdy and superfluous, and will stop at nothing to get it. Florida is usually the villain in fiction, but I have always had a fondness for warm sea air, even if I have never experienced it. I am from the Atlantic Coast far beyond any "warm sea air" but my desire for a place on the beach is always in the back of my head.

1 Bad. Any bad? That it ended, and that unlike ten years ago, with only a few exceptions, pretty much anything I enjoy only gets one season, and is then cancelled? This was a neo-noir (which is odd to say considering almost the entire show is in the bright sunlight) show about good people going up against bad people, and I am not sure the affability of Yancy fits today's climate. 

Alternative version of my own post is Kent's own, because we completely agreed.

Watching: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

2024, Amazon

I am just going to assume the writeup for the first season got eaten by my great TV Writing Malaise, which was not as bad as The Dark Year but does contribute to my "really, I didn't write about that?" reflections.

Kent did though. And this season as well. I am entirely fine with them making this series even if they don't attempt to be faithful to any Tolkien writings. For me, and my currently short attention span, simultaneously easily amused / bored by everything brain, just watching Tolkienest swords & sorcery play out on the screen is worth whatever travesty they are causing. Oh look, cool looking elves with sword & bow. Oh look, nasty orcses getting chopped. Oh look, a known Tolkien character! And another one! I am fine with it all. Marmy is not and she refuses to watch. But remember, she is the one who held a viewing party for one of the original movies and started it all with a background primer to the world. She knows her Tolkien and cannot abide the bastardization.

What 100. When we last left our liberal interpretation of the pre-LotR Tolkien world, a lot of shit had happened. We now find ourselves with Sauron (Charlie Vickers, Medici; sorry, but they need an actor with a more intimidating name than "Charlie" for such an evil figure) finding a new identity and a new patsy in Celebrimbor (Charles Edward, The Crown), vain smith of the elven city of Eregion. The survivors of Mt Doom flee the orcs back to the ruins of Pelargir. The rings have already started corrupting bearers and Durin's dad (Peter Mullan, Baghead) is fully engulfed. Galadriel (Morfydd Clark, Dracula) is at odds with Elrond (Robert Aramayo, Behind Her Eyes) about what should be done next. And not-yet-Gandalf (Daniel Weyman, Foyle's War) is separated from his not-yet-Hobbits but meets Tom Bombadil (Rory Kinnear, Men). Oh yeah, Númenor is fucked.

1 Great. To be honest I find it hard now, at least 5 weeks since I completed it, to remember anything actually great about it. I enjoy watching just about everything but nothing really digs in deep. I guess if there could be anything, it is the continued depiction of the dwarves. I have always loved everything dwarf and even the slightest bit of world building satisfies me greatly. The mirrors that bring in outside light to allow the gardens to grow! The appearance of other dwarves lords from other realms! The dwarven market place! Love it all, give me more please.

1 Good. Tom Bombadil. An almost unrecognizable Rory Kinnear as the cheerful, wise, always humming a tune side-character is just grand. He is there as a reminder that the wizards of the Tolkien world are not a bunch of normal guys who went to a school and learned stuff, but almost divine beings in their own right. 

1 Bad. I was not at all interested in the power-corrupts story of Númenor. I always balk at stories where an entire people can be entirely invested in their beloved "Queen" one day, only to be led down a garden path of "kill her! kill her!" the next day. Sure, if we currently look south of the border, utter lunacy is happening IRL but Númenor did not have social media and fake news, and to be such a power in the Tolkien world, they must have had more than a couple of people with backbone willing to stand up against obvious corruption. Its just tired story telling to me.

KsMIRT: step timber

 K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month (ahem) I step through the TV series I completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format.

This Month:
Bad Monkey Season 1 (2024, 10/10 episodes, Apple TV+)
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 (2024, 8/8 episodes, AmazonPrime)
Nobody Wants This Season 1 (2024, 10/10 episodes, Netflix)
Slow Horses Series 4 (2024, 6/6 episodes, Apple TV+)
Squid Game Season 1 (2022, 9/9 episodes, Netflix)
Unsolved Mysteries Volume 5 (2024, 4/4 episodes, Netflix)

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Bad Monkey Season 1 

The What 100: Andrew Yancy is a police detective with a problem... he can't let go. It's got him in trouble before, and it will get him in trouble again. Having been booted from the Miami PD to a small cape on the southern tip of Florida, Yancy's motormouth and unwavering conviction that the worst should be punished have now got him suspended and working as a health inspector. When a severed arm is reeled in by a fishing tour boat, Yancy can't just follow his chief's directions to just get rid of it. Instead it takes Yancy on a winding whirlwind of romance, action, deceit, and even a little magic.

(1 Great) Vince Vaughan. I was reticent to watch the show, mainly because I haven't watched anything with Vince Vaughan in it in a long, long time. Sometime after Made I just realized I didn't like his energy, his arrogance. But either I have softened or Vaughan has, because the energy he gives off as Yancy is astounding. Yancy is a very upbeat guy, very positive even in the face of bad things happening. Even if he genuinely dislikes someone he still tries to go at them with positive vibes, kill them with ...well, not kindness...affability. He's a lot. He's always talking, but the way in which Yancy twists moments, changes the timber of a situation...it's not that he de-escalates (though I think in his mind, that's what he's doing) but instead of making people want to shoot him, they just want to smack him.  It's a skill. He's charming in a way I haven't seen from Vaughan.  He carries a high energy vibe that still seems, somehow, chill.  And I like the way he wins people over with compliments, just as much as I like it when he pisses people off with the very same tactics.

(1 Good) It's so hard to limit myself to just 1 Great and 1 Good thing with this show. I enjoyed it so, so thoroughly. I haven't mentioned that the show hops between South Florida and The Bahamas, where an unscrupulous land developer has impacted the small coastal town there. Jodie Turner-Smith was a real surprise for me in After Yang, a stunning woman but also a strong performer who, seemingly out of no where is acting alongside Colin Farrell. She turned up again in a smaller part earlier this year in Star Wars: The Acolyte and had real presence. Here she's The Dragon Queen, the mystical protector of the island who doesn't quite believe in her practice. Her role in the whole proceedings seems very outside the centre, but she gets her own story arc that weaves in and out of the main thread and it is both beautiful, intense, and tragic. 

(1 Bad) If I had one complaint, which is not even really a complaint because I enjoyed this show pretty thoroughly, it's that it felt maybe an episode too long. The eighth episode felt like it was barrelling towards its conclusion and the ninth episode felt like it was resetting for the finale.  In actuality the ninth episode was more about setting up character resolution where the finale was about closing out the plot, so it has its place...I think in this modern age of shortened seasons, any sort of breathing room feels like wasted space, even when it's certainly not wasted. It speaks more to changes in modern storytelling on television and how we consume it, than it does about quality of storytelling or even purpose of storytelling.

META: What got me into Bad Monkey, past my Vince Vaughan reticence, was Bill Lawrence's name in the trailers. I liked Scrubs, I loved (still love) Cougar Town, I really liked both Ted Lasso and Shrinking, so he has a very winning track record with me.  I knew that there would be something here that I would enjoy, as I always do in his productions...I just didn't think I would enjoy pretty much everything.  This may be, I'm boldly stating, Lawrence's best show.

There's a minor character, the owner of the charter fishing boat that opens up the series played by Tom Nowicki, who winds up being the narrator for the series. He's somehow in the head of every character (including Neville's pet monkey Driggs) telling you there innermost thoughts, sometimes at inopportune times. He also provides the best "previously on" recaps maybe ever, or close to it. The bit is he hates doing the recaps, and he lets you know this. They're spiteful recaps.

I could see some people finding the show a little unfocussed, the way it darts between Yancy's story, the Dragon Queen, Neville, Yancy's sometimes-girlfriend Bonnie, and others in ways that don't directly connect to the central crime story that Yancy is working on... but I love the fact that this show is more interested in the characters as characters than it is in them as agents servicing the main story. It a show where the world doesn't exactly gravitate around its main character and the main character's interest, and that's damn refreshing.  

The cast is uniformly phenomenal, with Vaughan, Turner-Smith, joined by Michelle Monaghan, L. Scott Caldwell, Rob Delaney, Meredith Hagner, Natalie Martinez and so many more. Even minor players in the story make multiple appearances, and it's always a delight to see them pop up again.

I imagine a second season will only see some of these players return, for obvious reasons, but the experience to see how it jumps around a whole new ecosystem of characters Yancy endears himself to (or pisses off)  absolutely puts a smile on my face just thinking about.  

An utter treat of a series.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2

The What 100: Lord Sauron has disguised himself as an elfin deity and wormed his way into Celebrimbor's forge, encouraging him to make more rings of power, rings that he himself will taint with his darkness, thus eliciting control over their wearers. The dark elf Adar and his army of Orcs, aware of Sauron's return, are on the warpath to find and vanquish him once and for all, and they don't care what they have to destroy along the way. King Durin, wearing one of the tainted rings of power starts making some terrible decisions for the Dwarven realm, leaving his son Durin conflicted over his devotion to his father and doing what's right. The Stranger and his Harfoot companions get separated but each find new allies who are somewhat familiar. Back in Númenor, following the awful defeat against Adar's army, the queen finds herself challenged, and her throne wrested from her by the most evil-looking guy in history. And other stuff.  A lot going on in Middle Earth.  

(1 Great) I could have just watched just a whole series about Prince Durin IV and his turmoil over, first, his spat with his father following his actions last season, and then the dire situation as Khazad-dûm enters a dark age following a tremor. And when King Durin III puts on that ring, and starts getting money hungry and going mad with an unquenchable thirst for riches, it's just really wonderful melodrama. I love all the dwarf actors - Owain Arthur is probably my favourite performer on the show. Just real soulful, deep-thinking performance in such a heavyweight layer of makeup and prosthetics and wigs and wardrobe.  

(1 Good) I've been strangely invested in the journey of The Stranger and the Harfoots Nori and Poppy in both seasons, even though their trials have kind of been the most gentle and most disconnected from the central plot. As disconnected as they are, they also provide a very whole-view look at Middle Earth, a "what else is happening" outside of the main conflicts, and their Hobbitsy adventures are so much more gentle than what's going one elsewhere, it's a nice respite.  But that gentile nature of their story means that any threat seems that much more severe.

(1 Bad) There are entire character plots that just get shoved aside, like Isuldur seems to be an afterthought every time he pops up. It's like "oh right, him!" His story gets tied up with Arondir, the ronin Elf, who I loved in the first season, but has no storyline at all here. His human love interest died last season, and his attempts to connect with her son don't work out, so he takes off and just roams realm looking for action. He's a badass fighter with the coolest chest plate ever, but he gets nothing. Ok, that's actually 2 Bad...well, here's a third... I freaking hated everything going on in Númenor.  Just the most blatantly evilest group of fucks with the most obvious tactics of riling up crowds into supporting them in overthrowing the queen.  They're goddamn Republicans and it was just too real.

META: At about the midway point of this season of The Rings of Power I was starting to stretch a leg out, ready to step away altogether. I didn't but so much of the show was about the corruption of power, of the people in charge, and how it was all so inevitable that it was all going sour everywhere. Given that this show takes place, what, 1000 years before The Lord of the Rings trilogy, it just means that it all goes very dark, very quick and doesn't come out of that darkness for a very long time.  I don't know if showing people the descent into darkness works as a cautionary tale or just reinforces the hopelessness of opposing it when people are acting so irrationally. There really isn't any light this season to guide the way and it's feeling quite oppressive...and feels like it's only going to get worse from here.

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Nobody Wants This Season 1

The What 100: Joanne hosts a successful dating and sex-themed podcast with her sister, Morgan. She's been very unlucky in love and her frankness about talking about it has garnered her a sizeable audience and a pretty relaxed lifestyle.  Noah is a rabbi -- some might even go so far as to call him "Hot Rabbi" -- who has just exited a long term relationship with his very devoted (and attractive) girlfriend after she dug out an engagement ring out of a locked drawer. Everything was perfect on paper, but the sparks were not there. At a mutual friend's get-together Joanne and Noah meet, and sparks fly, but can a rabbi really be with a gentile and keep the respect of his family and congregation, and will being in a stable relationship impact Joann's podcast success?

(1 Great) One of my favourite aspects of the delightful friends-sans-benefits sitcom Platonic was how low stakes it was. It didn't spend much time at all revelling in drama or tension. It presented its characters as conscious, conscientious, thinking human beings who don't immediately always jump to the tropey sitcom conclusion to create tired hijinks for our amusement. It's a comedy of rapport, and I'm on board for any show that wants to be such. Here, not only are the characters presented as thoughtful, but they're also observant, and they're open to conversing about difficult topics. Sitcom comedy was borne out of withholding and misunderstandings. Cringe comedy exploded out of the rise of Seinfeld which was not just withholding, and misunderstanding, but genuine selfishness and bad behaviour. It's really time for our entertainment to show us a new way of coexisting, a new way of engaging with one another, a way that shows us that bringing up a mistake or a shameful emotion with a loved one is far better than hiding it, only for it to explode like a time bomb.

(1 Good) The cast here is uniformly awesome. Kristin Bell is a bankable and reliable comedic presence at this point, and though it's sometimes hard to shave the Eleanor-from-The Good Place feels from my brain, she's really fun. Adam Brody is charming, funny, and thoughtful, very aware and receptive and open. He is the ideal dreamy nice-guy boyfriend, who happens to be a rabbi. As a duo they're exceptionally cute together and they play off each other well. They're both over 40 now, but playing like they're in their late 30s, which works, but just barely.  The real flavour of the show though comes from their respective siblings. Morgan (Justine Lupe, Mr. Mercedes) is both fearless and shameless and will shake up any room she's in, usually for the better, but not always. Sasha, Noah's brother, (Timothy Simons) is less fearless and shameless than he is kind of oblivious. He's desperate to be included and so he includes himself in everything whether he's invited or not, wanted or not. Morgan and Sasha become platonic buddies is one of the most far fetched but delightful spins of the show (a lesser show would create some weird secret romance, but here Sasha clearly loves his domineering wife [probably because she's domineering] and family, he's just happy to have a new friend who actually wants to talk to him).

(1 Bad)  Nobody Wants This does a great job at showing the stakes for Noah: he's up for head Rabbi at his synagogue, and the faith has a very strong edict to congregate and procreate, so his relationship with Joanne, while providing him the sparks he's always thought a relationship should have, threatens his professional life, as well as creates friction with his family (his sister-in-law is best friends with his ex, his mom is really against the pairing). For Joann, there's less intense focus on what she's risking.  According to Morgan, at least, her being in a happy relationship is having an effect on the podcast (she's telling boring stories), which is being eyed for purchase by Spotify. Most of the gamble here is the romcom threat of "losing the guy". It's a fairly savvy show, but (from my very male perspective) it doesn't adequately emphasize what she's giving up or sacrificing, it rather seems to only imply that she should.

META: A very quick blast of research finds that show creator Erin Foster a) looks a lot like Kristin Bell, b) worked a lot with her sister (including as Insta influencers and as creative heads for the dating app Bumble among other things), and c) converted to Judaism before getting married.  So this show, while not autobiographical, comes from a place of authenticity and truth. It's a really charming romcom that isn't about the act of getting together, but about what it takes to stay together.  It's not even that interested in the drama of tearing Joanne and Noah apart but instead the joys and rewards of unifying and being together.  I feel like this is such an antidote to Hallmarkies, and we're still a week away from those things ramping up.  EEP

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Slow Horses Series 4 (aka "Spook Street")

The What 100: There's a terrorist attack in central London. Meanwhile River Cartwright's grandad, suffering from dementia, shoots a man he thinks is River in his house. River fakes his own death and takes the place of this man, heading into France on a passport that's actually a "cold body", one of many MI-5 fake identities created for their field agents. But how is this one "in the wild" so to speak, and now in River's hands? It all billows out into something very personal and very dangerous.

(1 Great) This is the first season where it feels like Gary Oldman's Jackson Lamb is a supporting character and not the lead, and that's actually a good thing. Lamb has been so front-and-center that it's left him a little exposed as a character, as someone who is very much who he is, and not likely to change. River's always been the secondary lead of the show, and giving him the full spotlight here reveals the wild depths of his history and, in learning his origins, has potentially disastrous ramifications for The Park.  It's the most character-centric of the series yet, and it really, really works.

(1 Good) Nothing is stagnant in this show, things are always moving. When we ended last series, Taverner was looking to finally be accepting her place as First Desk, but this season we learn she's right where she was last season, with instead new First Desk Claude Whelan, a died-in-the-wool bureaucrat appointed to the position. He's an idiot, and an idiot is dangerous in his position. Taverner's used to playing games with other very intelligent intelligence officers, so manipulating an idiot is surprisingly difficult.  Whelan is played by James Callis who played the conniving Baltar in Battlestar Galactica... his character here is not that different than Baltar in ambition, but Callis plays him much, much differently. Kristin Scott Thomas as Taverner really revels in that steely, all-business, woman-with-secrets-that-you-will-never-know energy. I really hope one of these series deep dives into her life and history.  The games at the Park were some of my favourite bits this season.

(1 Bad) Oh God, I get angry watching this series week-to-week. I just want to eat it all up in one bite. It's so consumable, and it just pulls you through its story.  You can tell these were crafted out of novels because they're so perfectly structured to deliver the right amount of story and character moments for every ongoing character. We lose some, we gain new ones, and it's a roller-coaster where you're not sure what's happening to start with and it unfolds alluringly and brilliantly.  So yeah, it's great, but I don't like being confined by AppleTV's pacing (I could always wait...but I can't, I look forward to it too much).

META: Mick Herron's Slough House series currently consists of eight full length books and five novellas. I really, really wish that they would produce the novellas as like a standalone episode or extra-length episode between the series'.  So far we've only missed one, between series two and three, and there's two more series before there's another one, so we'll see... or maybe once they tap out of the eight books, they'll just do the novellas as specials to keep it going... I dunno, I just want it all...without having to actually read. Yuck!

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Squid Game Season 1

The What 100: You know what Squid Game is already. I'm just that fool who waited two years to watch it. Ok, quickly... 456 desperate individuals sign up to play games in hopes of winning a massive cash prize. Once they learn it's games of death, well, it ultimately doesn't change much, and the people enlisted will see it through to the bitter end. A detective, looking for his missing brother, infiltrates the compound and starts to uncover what, or who, is behind it all.

(1 Great) Despite this series being absolutely something right up my alley, it got real popular, real quick and you know me with popular things...I bristle. Well, if that many people like it, then it can't be any good, because people who make things popular generally have terrible taste. It was watching Lee Jung-jae in The Acolyte (second Acolyte references this post) that drove me to finally watch it. He was such a charismatic and soulful performer in The Acolyte that he really made an impact and I wanted to see more from him. And yeah, he's absolutely great in this. Here he's Gi-hun, a man in debt, divorced, and just mooching off his diabetic mother. He's not a good guy. It's not even that he wants to be a good guy, but he knows he should be. If he wants his daughter to respect him, if he wants his ex (whom he obviously still loves, but knows she's better off without him) to respect him, if he wants his mother to live and have a good life... then he needs to be a better man. But he doesn't have the tools for it.  And then he's offered an opportunity. It's within the confines of this horrifying environment that Gi-hun learns to be a better man, supporting other players, trying to understand people and help them survive, and giving most people the benefit of the doubt when it's obvious he shouldn't.  He's obviously going to be the victor, because the show is centred around him from the beginning, but can he actually live with himself if he does survive? 

(1 Good) So much of the show, being such a phenomenon, was spoiled for me before I even watched it, but  even if it hadn't been so popular, I probably could have guessed the rhythms of it. It's a formulae for a group of people in a confined space. They tribe up, there are betrayers, there are people who appear one way but are revealed to be something else...there are archetypes to these things and this plays right into them. But, the Squid Game offers the contestants an out...if they collectively, by majority vote, decide to end the games, they all get to leave. And after the first game, in which over a hundred of them are murdered, they decide to leave. So the second episode finds them back in their lives, back in their abysmal lives which have no hope, no promise of reward, just more misery. It's its most bold critique of capitalism in this second episode showing how without a social safety net people fall into despair and ruin with no opportunity to get out. As such, the Squid Game, with its death-or-prizes alternatives, seems like the more appealing option. It's unfortunate that it's the high-point of the season only two episodes in, but it's a great episode.

(1 Bad) Like I said, Squid Game relies upon tropes for character drama and conflict so it can feel pretty routine. It's only the games themselves that electrify the series, but even then I found the games to be oddly primitive, and designed with a lack of competitive spirit in mind.  They're games of death designed to kill, not to be won. The way the games masters manipulate their players especially outside of the games is all part of their fun, which is less fun to watch knowing that it's all stacked against them.  it feels like the games masters are just the writing staff who want to see as much death and misery and heap it upon the audience It should be a poignant commentary, about our fascination with observing human misery from a distance, but it never really does ask the audience to consider their role as spectator in all of this. So it loses its juice, its motivating factor if it's just entertainment and not asking anything of its audience in return.

META: I've said before how much I like the "man-hunting-man" subgenre of thrillers, your "Most Dangerous Games" and "Hard Targets" but this sort of "game show" version is another sister subgenre in the "Running Man" or "Hunger Games" style where it's a spectator sport. I thought it was going to be more of a spectator sport, much more public in a dystopian future, but no, instead it's a secret spectator sport for only the richest of rich to observe.  The detective who finds his way into the back-end of the Squid Game, and starts digging into its secrets unfortunately demystifies it too much, in a way that breaks the logic of it.  If they're stealing 400+ people off the streets of Korea each year for decades, leaving behind a lot of trace evidence like their weird cards, surely people will take notice.  I dunno, I found the more I learned about the behind-the-scenes, the less I bought into it.

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Unsolved Mysteries Volume 5

The What 100: An upsetting double homicide in broad daylight in a public park in Cleaveland. Roswell revisited. A paranormal investigator and his ghostly companion. Cattle mutilations are back (and really haven't ever left).

(1 Great) "Great" sounds too enthusiastic to talk about the very upsetting story of the two friends murdered in Cleveland. It's not great, it's fucked up and horrible, and the interviews with the loved ones of the victims is heartbreaking.  But it's also compelling the circumstances around it, and just how bizarre the situation is. Each season of Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix has had one of these... a murder case so unusual that it kind of breaks one's brain about how it could happen in the first place... and they linger with you, unanswered questions that, were I closer to the case, would drive me mad.  In this case, two friends of about 40-years-old meet up on a park bench. Within clear eyeshot is a parking lot where sits a truck. The two friends are executed, shot in the back of the head, and the guy in the truck sees and hears nothing. Less than 15 minutes pass between the time the woman last used her phone and their bodies are discovered. There's a busy road that goes right by there. Any suspects that knew the victims have been ruled out. Gang related? Hate crime (the man was black, the woman white)? But how brazen an act, and how is there nothing to go on? It's viscerally upsetting.

(1 Good) The investigation into the rash of cattle mutilations in Oregon in between 2019 and 2022 is just freaking bizarre on its own, but when put into the context of thousands of reported cattle mutilations across the US and Canada since the 1960s it's the silent epidemic that nobody talks about. The surgical precision of the removal of skin and the tongue and, often, genitals, why? To what end?  And the weird states that the cows are found in, sometimes upside down on fences, or sitting upright in full rigor, with very little blood on the scene... just completely eerie.  A true unsolved mystery that wants to lean into the "alien abduction" of it all but holds itself back at least somewhat by talking all angles.  Just wild.

(1 Bad) As much as UM gives us some upsetting cases of murder, and mysterious mysteries, sometimes its exploration of the paranormal just seem like weirdos or mentally unstable people putting on a show, being excited about things they're making up. The case about the paranormal investigator and his ghostly companion just made me giggle. The revisiting of the Roswell crash made it seem more and more like "this is a thing because people want it to be".  Here's where I've settled on Roswell... if there were actual aliens, and the President of the United States is advised about it, do you think Trump could shut up about it. He's worried about Mexicans, you don't think he'd be stirring up shit about grey aliens if they were real? He would not be able to contain himself. 

META: The past couple UM volumes have been more paranormal-heavy than I'd like. It's always been an aspect of the show, but I like the weird crime (doesn't even have to be murder) aspect far more, and it seems far more helpful to talk about unsolved crimes than it does about sasquatches and aliens.  But I love how the show upsets me with the horrors of humanity, and I've always had a bit of a soft spot for entertaining these flights of metaphysical fancy. I wish this were a weekly show again.