KsMIRT = Kent's Month In Reviewing Television, in which I (Kent) review the television series I watched in the past month, which these days is not many. I don't know about you but I'm finding that starting into any new TV series to be daunting prospect. I think smartphones, social media, and video games have utterly decimated our ability to sit patiently, to relax into a passive activity like watching TV or movies. The new media is so build on providing tiny dopamine hits, whether it's in-game rewards or social media rage bait, or the constant promise of something more if you just keep scrolling/clicking/spending. So most of the TV shows I watch are subsequent seasons for things I already know I like, and in most cases, I'm either binge-watching through at a rapid clip, or waiting impatiently for the final episode so I can move onto something else.
This Month:
The Recruit Season 2 (6 episodes, Netflix)
Shoresy Season 4 (6 Episodes, Crave)
Severance Season 2 (10 Episodes, AppleTV+)
Paradise Season 1 (8 Episodes, Disney+)
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The What 100: Having survived (barely) his ordeal in Prague, Owen becomes the Agency's fall guy. He's given nothing to do but while away the hours in his, literally, empty office. But when a package is delivered (though not for him) his boredome gets the better of him and he finds a new greymail case that takes him to South Korea, and finds him getting in the usual trouble with, well, everyone. The case finds a Korean intelligence officer effectively blackmailing the CIA into helping him recover his kidnapped wife, perpetrators unknown.
(1 Great) Just as with last season, Noah Centineo is the deserved lead of this show. He has a real capacity for switching between super-competent and fecklessness that this show absolutely requires. His character, Owen, is quick-witted, for sure, and capable of stepping well outside his comfort zone, but the show gives the character side moments to breathe, to take in the events that have happened to him (or are still) and Centineo captures the weight of these moments quite well. Owen is a man with a moral compass working in a field that not only doesn't respect morals but sees them as a hinderance to getting the job done, and we see Owen get ground down over these past two seasons. Why he persists is still unclear. He has something to prove.
(1 Good) I really enjoyed the fact that this season stepped outside of Vancouver and surrounding are for its production and actually ventured into Seoul. Theres a totally different vibe to that city that you can't replicate with, say, using some "little Korea" area in Vancouver as sub-in. But the series is a globe trotting one, and Owen is seen hopping around multiple locations, but none of them have the liveliness and vibrancy of Seoul. Teo Yoo as the greymailer and Young-Ah Kim as the deputy director of the NIS were both excellent and brought the exact measure of wit, charm and intensity that the rest of the show is constantly balancing.
(1 Bad) The Recruit is not a reinvention of the espionage (or espionage-lite) genre, but it also isn't playing by the standard rules. It is a show that operates at a rapid clip, that jumps between its characters and their various settings with not a lot of segue, and asks the audience to keep up. It's not a complicated show, but it does throw a lot of information at you rapidly, and you need to keep up. Alongside Centineo, it's part of the draw, this propulsiveness. But at the same time, it is a bit taxing to follow all the characters, and how they fit into the larger narrative (but it is a process of discovery as it all fits). It's maybe even more to ask the audience to suspend their disbelieve as it expects you to think Owen is not completely falling apart given all his globetrotting (the jetlag must be insane). But part of the show being so Owen-centric, so focused on his pursuits is the excellent supporting cast wind up being very secondary in interest, and the level of investment in them is pretty small.
META: 6 Episodes? Only 6 Episodes? A downgrade from last season's 8 episodes. I hadn't realized that it was only going to be a 6-episode season, and by all rights, it seems like it was truncated during production. The finale of the season is so very abrupt, and while it closes out the greymail case at hand it gives us no real closure on Owen or most of his supporting cast. If we were in old school, pre-streamer television, where a season of a series would run 22 episodes, this would have been a very satisfying middle arc, with a third act that gets real personal for Owen and shows us why he's doing what he's doing, and keeps doing what he's doing (and likely has something to do with his father. But no, Netflix's hesitant second season order shows no commitment to the series nor any confidence in its performance. It took Netflix a month to renew it after the first season dropped and it similarly took it a month to cancel it after this second season. In a post-cancellation letter, show creator Alexei Hawley asked "Is two seasons and a movie a thing?" I think a big-budget, big-screen version of this might work even better than a series. It was fun while it lasted.
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The What 100: It's summer in Sudbury ("Sudvegas") and the Blueberry Bulldogs are celebrating their perfect season and championship win, maybe a little too hard. The boys who haven't gone home are busy tubing during the day and partying at every Sudbury landmark at night, and won't rest until they get accepted into the not-so-secret secret club Weird Sudbury. But Nat signs them up to be mentors, which curtails their party-hearty lifestyle. Meanwhile Shoresy has called it a career and doesn't know what's next, as Nat tries to convince him to coach, and his attempts at being an on-screen personality for a Bro-Dude sponsored sports show has mixed results. He also get serious about moving his relationship forward with Laura.
(1 Great) One of the subplots of the season was Shoresy's continued wooing of Laura Mohr. That Shoresy started out life as a faceless, crass, shit-talking nuisance on Letterkenny, and has somehow manifested into a viable romantic comedy leading man this season was both wildly unexpected and pretty damn cute. As with the good below, one of his young mentees he also takes under his wing showing him how to show a lady that not only are you interested, but you're willing to put in the effort. It's a great counterpoint to toxic masculinity which says you are owed a woman's affection, and here it's telling a male audience that you have to earn it.
(1 Good) Each episode of Shoresy comes with some exceptional laughs. Keeso is a big fan of repetition as comedy and knows how to employ it. But the greatest bits of the season came from the Bulldog's mentoring of a quartet of young high-school players graduating to bigger pastures. The elder generation of hockey jocks wrestling with the progressive aspects of the younger generation (such as the fact that they don't fully change in the dressing room or shower so as not to make any one uncomfortable) is a pretty sharp examination of societal norms. If we're seeing things from Shoresy's perspective, everything these kids are saying is absurd, and yet, when the kids explain the reason behind it, there are kernels of sense (like Letterkenny, I appreciate how the show is willing to wrestle with topics rather than decidedly make a stand).
(1 Bad) The show continues to twist me in knots though, as it, much like Letterkenny, toggles between respecting women almost to a level of worship, and objectifying and sexualizing them. The main female cast is almost uniformly adored, but any non-speaking role, any of the girls that the celebrating Bulldogs are picking up night after night, are just slow-motion ogled by the camera. It's a carry-over from Letterkenny that has been even further exacerbated this season with the excuse that the Bulldogs are slutting it up something fierce. Hockey players pull and a lot of these four seasons of Shoresy have "locker-room talk" which is part of the territory, but the show makes a choice to "lads mag" it up with its ogling and it just never sits right.
META: Look, I'm not a jock, never been a jock, and actively disliked the whole jock mindset most of my life. Shoresy is a show about jocks - obviously hockey jocks, to be specific - and yet, as we wade into trade wars and aggressive political stances with our suddenly unfriendly neighbour to the south, perhaps the "slug each other in the face when we're disrespected, and crush each other into the boards for a while, then shake hands and say 'good game' when all is said and done" is maybe more of what we need right now. "Elbows up" as they say. Fight on the rink then leave it on the ice. The thing about Shoresy that I like is it has a code. Just like Letterkenny before it, there's a code of ethics involved, a sense that, no matter who we are in life, we should be decent people and treat each other with civility if not always respect. We are not islands upon ourselves, we're parts of communities, parts of teams, and we have a responsibility to each other. It's not a bad message, if I'm being honest.
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The What 100: When we last left the crew from Lumin Industries, the innies got out into the real world thanks to hijacking the "Overtime Protocol". The world found out, and Mark, Irving, Hilly and Dylan were heroes (if just for one day), their outing rippling down to the severed floor, now led by Mr. Milchick, with some performative changes. But nobody, not a one, seems happy to be back, and the changes underground seem to only exacerbate the idea that they are imprisoned.
(1 Great) The first season of Severance was pretty fixated on the world building with a measured hand in developing the characters. The time split between the innie and outie worlds found the innie world to be a surreal Lynchian workplace daymare, while the outside reality could only follow Mark (Adam Scott) for very specific narrative reasons. With the "Overtime Event" exposing the external lives of Irving (John Turturro), Helly (Britt Lower) and Dylan (Zach Cherry), we actually get to deepen our understanding of these characters. Irving's Innie has become utterly disillusioned with all that he once held dear, and his outie has become similarly obsessed with Burt's outie (Christopher Walken, whose shifting between charming softness, simmering danger, and seemingly violent intensity is just masterful). Dylan, for his "good behaviour" (read, betrayal), gets to meet his outie's wife, but in the process becomes even more obsessed with his outie's life than ever. Helly wrestles with her identity as an undercover Eagan, hating her outie, while Helena Eagan becomes obsessed with the liberties Helly has experienced not being known as an Eagan. Mark, on both sides, obsesses over learning that Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) is actually his (presumed dead wife) and seeks to re-integrate. Even the exterior worlds, such as they are, of Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) get explored this season, with Milchick's new role proving more and more uncomfortable and Cobel's rebellion against Lumin shedding the smallest glimmer of light on what is actually going on. In this much more character-focused season (where we get a whole episode dedicated to Ms. Casey and another - shot in Newfoundland - that gives us a sliver of insight into Harmony's story) the world building takes a backseat. This is not to say there isn't any, as there is plenty, but it's not as front-and-center as it was in Season 1. It's a pretty wise move, to further invest us in these characters, rather than just playing with revelations of the setting, and I think it pays off well this season, but will pay off more in the long run. The side effect of being character focused is it's juggling more story balls. Mark was the center of the world last year, and now he's sharing the spotlight he once held with five others, so the end result is a season that feels less focused because it is... and yet it's all building upon what was established last season. It offers some answers, but not in any way that is satisfying, despite being tremendously enjoyable.
(1 Good) The world of Severance continues to intrigue me. It's clear now that Lumin Industries is a far-reaching, global brand with its hands in many, many pies, but we're offered only a miniscule tidbit of what its business really is. They have, at the very least, a pharma wing (as Helena Eagan tries to explain her Innie's public outburst on utilizing a non-Lumin branded medication...always schilling). We see in the Harmony Cobel-centered episode that Lumin gave birth to many towns, and subsequently destroyed them, leaving hard feelings and addictions in its wake. It is clear that there's a cult-like aspect to the Eagan family that casts allusions to some Scientology practices (such as how it grooms its children through structure programs) but isn't going for a direct parallel (this religion is as much about capitalism, control and subjugation as it is about worship in a much more direct manner than most real religions are). I love that the world of Severance seems kind of stuck aesthetically in the 1980s and yet everyone has smartphones. This season is less fetishistic of its retro-futurism, and presents its irreverence (such as the goat people) in a clumsier manner than last season, but it's still so very, very stimulating to behold and try to puzzle out. It's this type of reality where you really don't want too many answers, because one answer that's less satisfying than the multitude of possibilities your brain might tease out.
(1 Bad) There really isn't a "bad" this season, except, for me, the return which, after 3 years, didn't quite live up to the explosive promises of the end of season one. I think I like it better this way, because the end of season one felt like a fire had been lit and it could have raged, but the showrunners are content to let it smoulder. They introduce in the first episode new work-mates for Mark (including Alia Shawkat and Bob Balaban) but it's a total fake out and they're gone within the same episode, which is too bad. They were certainly exciting additions for a brief moment.
META: It's been almost 3 years since season 1 and the wait, somehow, didn't feel all that excruciating. The show, as I described in my review of Season 1, is slow sci-fi, and with that subgenre comes patience. I've waited patiently. I think Kier would be proud. The reality of Severance is still so...well, if not enticing then curious, and I find it so compellingly bizarre. The message of the show, the "work-life balance" and the bullshit of corporate "employee first" initiatives is the satire in the background this season. It's nudging metaphorically at the tools that big organizations use to keep their employees placated so they don't revolt, but it's happening nonetheless. Corporations have a mandate to make shareholders money, and not to make employees happy. Throw in organized religion, which is all about control, and often about money, not actually about the people. I love this show. It's been said the creators know where it's going and where it will end. I'm eager (not Eagan) to see.
In my post-season engagement with podcasts and episode breakdowns, I was reminded that there's an aspect of the show that's dealing with emotional pain, and that a major aspect of Lumin and the religion of Kier is about managing or eliminating emotional turmoil. By the final episode we get a glimpse of their master plan, a rudimentary understanding of the "mysterious and important" work that the Macrodata Refinement team on the severed floor is doing, and why Mark is so central to it all. It's not 100% clear, but it is most definitely insidious. Ready for more, but willing to wait.
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**WARNING: SPOILERS FOR PARADISE***
The What 100: The president has been murdered in his home (not the White House though). Secret Service Agent Xavier Collins breaks protocol and waits on calling it in, assessing the situation for himself. This gets him suspended, leaving him to investigate without any official support.
And, oh yeah, did I mention, the world has ended, and this all takes place inside an engineered safe haven of 25,000 people inside a mountain in Colorado? No, oh. That's part of it.
(1 Great) Episode 7 of the series takes us through the final day inside the White House before the world ended. It builds on so much of what we've seen before in the series, as well as fills in so many of the gaps. James Marsden's President Cal Bradford is a heavy drinking patsy of the elite, placed into power through his mining tycoon father and rich donor pool, but a man who is torn between doing the job he *should* be doing serving the people, and maintaining the favour and goodwill of his allies. In the final hours, both before the disaster that befalls the Earth, and the last days of his life, Cal reconsiders his position, and what is right. There's the moral choice but also the responsibility of being the bearer of bad news, and the fallout that comes with it. It's pretty meaty, if only in subtext. Episode 7 mostly focuses on Sterling K. Brown's Xavier as he negotiates his role keeping the President safe and securing his evacuation while, at the same time, trying to get his family to safety as the infrastructure collapses. Episode 7 is a very well-thought-out, and very well-executed, a uncomfortably intense end-of-the-world scenario that has layers that keep peeling back until we return to the modern day.
(1 Good) Billionaires *are* the worst, aren't they. We're going to get a flood of entertainment that will be reinforcing this over the next few years, and we need to keep that pressure on. Billionaires are not superheroes, they are the villains of the piece. The narrative of this show is unravelling the origins of Paradise and how they tie to the death of the President who was at the helm when the world ended.
(1 Bad) We're dealing with Americans who develop an idyllic small town where the elite and the specifically chosen get to live. It seems both kind of magical and also totally *the worst*. It is an interesting society whose sci-fi sociological aspects are explored primarily in the background (this is not "the bad", in fact it's pretty compelling). It should be a society that need not worry about violence if it's such a carefully chosen community, and yet the president has an pretty sizable security detail, and there seems to be other behind-the-scenes security that seems excessive for a community of merely 25000 people. They don't carry sidearms besides stun guns, and one Secret Service agent laments the fact that she can't hold a proper gun (and later says "Feels good doesn't it?" when she gets one). But of course there are guns. It's America, there are always lots and lots of guns. And a major plot point in this series revolves around not just a gun, but all the guns, and it seems so ... ugly... when our hero, our chief protagonist, the best of the best guys Xavier runs around waving a gun in someone's face demanding answers. I wish the show were more inventive and thought of another way to run the same scenario without needing to be militarized up. It is a commentary in and of itself, and it is also commented in the show the fact that this cache of weapons exists at all. I just expected better and expected more out of our heroic characters than to fetishize the almighty gun. Bleh.
META: Toasty told me about this show last week and immediately had me intrigued. To paraphrase what he said "it's a show that starts off thinking it's about one thing, solving a murder, but then reveals it's totally something else". And he's not wrong. The murder of Cal Bradford is such a small, if central element of the series. It negotiates many characters, their back stories, their past lives and present lives, their dynamics with each other, their families, and the impact of their families on who they are today all while pursuing the perpetrator of this murder and exploring this new community coming out of the ashes of the end of the world. The sky is digital, and it's one of the first things that tells us nothing is as it seems, but hardly the last. It's not a conventional murder mystery. You're not necessarily going to be able to figure out the answer until they reveal it to you, but it doesn't matter because the journey overall, and the world building, is pretty engrossing. It hints at where a second season could go, and while it doesn't demand such, I would definitely watch, understanding it would be a much different show, particularly in structure.
