Scott Von Doviak is the author of three books on pop culture including Hick Flicks and Stephen King Films FAQ. His novel Charlesgate Confidential will be published in September by Hard Case Crime.
For the last half of the third season of Billions, we’ve been watching two separate shows interweaved, connected only by the character of Wendy Rhoades. There was a tantalizing moment, about halfway through it, when Chuck and Axe set aside their mutual animosity in order to settle a matter that had become an enormous…
As penultimate episodes go, it would be hard to top last year’s “Golden Frog Time,” in which Chuck pulled off the Ice Juice caper that took the first half of this season to unravel. “Kompenso” doesn’t even try to top it; it plays more like a mid-season episode, with its major storylines just starting to ramp up. The…
If the back half of season three has been considerably less compelling than what has come before—and I think it has been, while still offering up some genuinely entertaining moments—it may be an unavoidable side effect of building a show around two antagonistic characters. They can’t always be coming after each other…
Because The A.V. Club knows that TV shows keep going even if we’re not writing at length about them, we’re experimenting with discussion posts. For certain shows, one of our TV writers will publish some brief thoughts about the latest episode, and open the comments for readers…
We knew it would come down to this in the end: All you need is love. Exactly how that would manifest itself in the fourth season finale “We Are The Flash” is something I never would have been able to predict, and I’m not certain it made any sense at all. But it was fast-paced, exciting, suspenseful, and full-on comic…
The downside to wrapping up your major storylines in the middle of a season is that it can take a while to get ramped back up again. In the case of Billions, the creative team appears content to take the show’s central conflict off the back burner entirely and stow it in the freezer. Instead, Chuck and Axe have each…
Because The A.V. Club knows that TV shows keep going even if we’re not writing at length about them, we’re experimenting with discussion posts. For certain shows, one of our TV writers will publish some brief thoughts about the latest episode, and open the comments for readers to…
“Think Fast,” the penultimate episode of this fourth season of The Flash, peaks early with one of the best action/effects sequence in the show’s history. After DeVoe gains entry to an ARGUS black site by posing as John Diggle (I understood everything about this except how he knows the counter-password to “Elvis…
A week ago, Chuck and Axe were working together. Now they’ve all but forgotten about each other. “All The Wilburys” ties up some loose ends and introduces a few new grievances, but it feels like the two lead characters are sharing a time slot, not a television show. With only Wendy to link their storylines, Chuck and…
Because The A.V. Club knows that TV shows keep going even if we’re not writing at length about them, we’re experimenting with discussion posts. For certain shows, one of our TV writers will publish some brief thoughts about the latest episode, and open the comments for readers to…
As the fourth season of The Flash approaches its conclusion, “Harry And The Harrisons” is a surprisingly low-key and uncluttered episode this late in the game. The stakes are high, but they feel abstracted: it’s usually a very personal threat at this stage of a Flash season, but this year it’s global. World domination…
Well, that didn’t take long.
Because The A.V. Club knows that TV shows keep going even if we’re not writing at length about them, we’re experimenting with discussion posts. For certain shows, one of our TV writers will publish some brief thoughts about the latest episode, and open the comments for readers to share…
“Therefore She Is” is a crucial episode for anyone truly invested in the overarching Thinker storyline this season. It provides the backstory and motivation for the season’s villain, and fills in the remaining blanks about the relationship between the DeVoes. For those of us who aren’t terribly invested in that story,…
Let’s start with the ending, which is both unexpected and inevitable, as well as the most tantalizing set-up for the second half of the season imaginable. The roadrunner and the coyote are forced to team up to save their own asses, and it promises to be a good time for all. It will be temporary, sure; they’ll…
“Paean To The People” is split into roughly two halves. The first is Homeland at its thrilling, suspenseful best, as Saul and his team attempt to make their getaway from Russia with Simone in tow while Carrie acts as a decoy. The second is more of an extended epilogue, or a series of endnotes, some which are executed…
Because The A.V. Club knows that TV shows keep going even if we’re not writing at length about them, we’re experimenting with discussion posts. For certain shows, one of our TV writers will publish some brief thoughts about the latest episode, and open the comments for readers to share theirs.
When the writers of The Flash decide to hammer home a theme, they don’t hold back. You could hardly miss it this week: Thinking is overrated, emotions are where it’s at! Now, when you’ve built your season around a villain called the Thinker, this is an obvious direction to take the narrative. As DeVoe becomes more and…
Sometimes it’s hard to believe Billions hasn’t already been on for 10 years, given the tangled web of backstory it has already amassed. For the first few minutes of every episode I’m in a mild panic as I struggle to keep up with the opening info dump of vaguely remembered names and events, but it’s to the show’s…
Forget Carrie Mathison’s personal life. She certainly has. As the episode title “All In” indicates, Carrie has made her choice. She is her job, and as the United States and Russian both crumble into chaos, she’s the only one in a position to put it all back together.
