My second viewing party of The Handmaid’s Tale was, if anything, more horrifying than the first. It was also, inexplicably, more hopeful. This week, we’ll take ourselves episode by episode, so I can focus more on the individual episode’s brilliance and plot development than on the (still terrifying, still awful) political resonance. But fine one […]
*spoilers throughout* The second season of Rachel Bloom & Aline Brosh McKenna’s wacky, honest, fun, moving, groundbreaking, silly, progressive gem of a musical comedy moved fast. Really fast. Like, a full series worth of plot and character development in 13 episodes kind-of-fast. The ensemble was re-shuffled with one major character exit, one major character addition, and […]
The season finale of The Night Of is coming around the bend. It’s so soon, it seems unreal, despite how long the individual episodes run (one hour and twenty minutes, roughly, for those of us keeping score at home). So, in an attempt to provide a penultimate, final-feeling examination of the plot, I took a […]
There is a book, by Amitava Kumar, called “A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His …
Perhaps more telling of our generation than the procedural crime drama is the prison story. Jailbreaks, great escapes, masterful duels between the jailed and the jailers are sources of endless fascination for us. My theory? Imprisonment is a narrative that allows anyone to be a protagonist. We can side with the heroes of The Green […]
Should the magical creatures at the Fantasy Hospital start treating mortals? That’s the big debate following episode 5 of Fantasy Hospital “LIVE from the Opal Office.” I’ve really enjoyed the new webseries Fantasy Hospital so far. It has an amazing cast including Emma Caulfield, Wil Wheaton, Pete Holmes and Kunal Nayyar. It’s a funny parody of […]
This may have been my favorite episode of the show. Granted, it’s only the 2nd airing of The Night Of, and granted, John Turturro steals the show every chance he can get, and granted, this episode moves the point of view back and forth faster than a shuttlecock, but it’s still my favorite. Let’s not […]
In the long and decorated history of the procedural crime drama, there have been shows, movies and series which go far and beyond the standard pale. In our recent era, Law and Order reigns supreme in terms of broadcast history, the first season of True Detective ranks as most ethereally horrifying, and Twin Peaks probably […]
Finale Season six is over. Hard as it is to comprehend, girls and boys, they ended the season with an hour and twenty-two minutes of the best scenes everyone wanted, stuck together with the fading glue of human interest. The audience got what it wanted in this episode, “The Winds of Winter,” and it got […]
Is it better for a show to announce it’s ending as far in as advance as it can so fans have time to come to terms with their impending loss? Or should a show employ a rip-the-bandage-off kind of approach when it comes to series finales? Penny Dreadful decided to blindside viewers, not announcing the […]
“Battle of the Bastards,” the most recent episode in the sixth season of Game of Thrones, has me thinking about fathers. Well, not fathers, specifically (the word “bastard” implies the absence of fathers, usually, although in the case of our particular bastards, it’s mothers who are the mystery), but loved ones, family members, usually parents […]
This is a story about honor. A man marries a woman from a powerful family. That man’s wealth and status rise significantly as a result, and places him among a different bracket of rivals, rivals with just as much power if not more. He tries to live a good and true life, but in the […]
It’s hard to develop a sense of foreboding in Game of Thrones. This series has been nothing but foreshadowing, ominous vibes, constant hints of death and threats and the overarching “winter is coming” proclamation. People are always swearing vengeance here, giving grand speeches there, rallying the countryside for an all-out assault that never quite takes […]
In the past two weeks, Penny Dreadful had one of its strongest episodes to date, and one of its weakest ones. “A Blade of Grass” was pure artistry, while “This World is Our Hell” was, well…not. To be fair, “A Blade of Grass” set the bar so high, whatever followed was almost sure to disappoint. […]
“Blood of My Blood” is the title of this week’s episode. This refers to the Dothraki expression used by khals to their bloodriders, the three chosen warriors who follow their leader into battle. Specifically, it refers to their bond, a sort of blood-brothers type linkage that signifies the martial creed and the filial connections therein. […]
Dear readers, I cried during Game of Thrones last night. This was new for me. In my time watching the series, I’ve laughed, shouted, danced, …
After the dramatic reveal at the end of last week’s “Predators Far and Near”, you could be forgiven for thinking Penny Dreadful might take it easy this week. There were some parts that plodded along, but overall, it was another strong episode, with another shocking ending. (Spoilers ahead) The slowest part of the episode was […]
The worst time of year for me will always be Finale Season because all my shows are leaving me for at least four months. To make it worse, it coincides with summer, which most people enjoy, but without my shows, I run out of excuses to stay inside indefinitely. Hitting me particularly hard this year […]
“Book of the Stranger” comes to us, the viewers, as a hardball, line drive, forward thrust into the meat of the episode. This is the kind of episode memes come from, where we can have frank discussions about nudity and sex, where serious discourse regarding power struggles and political intrigue come into play (Tyrion Lannister […]
Penny Dreadful is back, and it was worth the wait. The first two episodes of Season 3 expanded the show’s universe with new locations, and teased of new horrors to be explored. (Spoilers ahead). Ethan’s storyline is probably the best example of expanding the show’s world. He is being escorted by Inspector Rusk through the […]
Well, season six of Game of Thrones is off to the races. The board is set, the pieces are moving, and the plot is unfolding like a complex origami maze. And like any origami, it takes a long time for the full story to reveal itself entirely. Yes, we’ve now hit the start of what […]
First they killed Stannis the Mannis, and now Spruce Bolton. I don’t think I loved a ‘bad guy’ on Game of Thrones more than I loved Roose Bolton. Tywin was the classic silver fox with a twist of Bond villain, but his appeal was more in his acting and charisma than his villainy. Viserys wasn’t […]
Death. We started with death…
I was a season one Girls hater, for all the reasons why so many people stopped watching Girls after that zeitgeist-busting debut. When I try to explain to one of said people why modern day Girls is not only worth returning to but might just be one of the greatest televisual creations available to the […]
“This is the real world”, says the beautiful, robotic Miranda Cosgrove as she fights with her new onscreen big sister Mia Serafino. Cosgrove is Shea, the ambitious, matter-of-fact aspiring astronaut moving home straight out of college because the government cut science funding, leaving her jobless. Serafino is Stella, the distractible, boy-crazy aspiring actress moving home […]
Before we dive into last night’s episode, let us take a moment to remember the Beast Mode Cowboy that was. I’ve always thought Caleb was great TV and predicted after episode one that Survivor was likely more his game than Big Brother. Sure enough, he was killing it. He was never going to be an […]