I’d assumed the second part of the season seven Venture Bros. two-parter (which is arguably only a “two-parter” because the first episode ended with “To Be Continued”) would explain how Wide Wale got ahold of the Monarch in his Blue Morpho costume; but I hadn’t expected the whole episode would be focused on the…
How much wacky is too much wacky? That’s a decision each woman and man must make for themselves. For me, I think I started checking out on tonight’s episode when we learned the first step in the Featherstone/Tulip/Jody soul heist scheme: a fake presentation on sexual harassment in the workplace to give Tulip a chance…
It’s been two years since Venture Bros.’ last season finale, and, well. Things have happened, haven’t they? Boy have they happened. So there’s some immediate comfort in just how little has changed on the show. “The Venture Bros. & The Curse Of The Haunted Problem” picks up more or less where season 6 left off. Rusty,…
It bothers me that this episode is called “Hilter.” Episode titles are rarely that important; sometimes shows can get clever with them ), sometimes they can be funny or exciting on their own, but as a rule, I don’t consider the title when it comes time to review something. And I’m not really considering it here,…
There is one very good storyline in “Les Enfants du Sang;” one perfectly decent one; and one that looks cool but doesn’t really mean much of anything. I’ll leave it to you to decide which one is whi—oh, right. Review! I’m writing a review.
Oh hey, a pretty good episode! One with a clear arc, some fine set-pieces, a decent sense of wackiness, and legitimate forward momentum. Last week, I went off on how the show has more or less buried itself, its various problems stemming from some basic misunderstandings on how stories are supposed to…
Serialization can do wonders for TV shows. It can pay off emotional investment in characters, allow writers to tell more complex, nuanced stories, and, when done effectively, can create something incredibly powerful over time. But it can also create problems, and the one we’re stuck in now with Preacher is probably…
If Preacher’s third season (what little there is of it so far) is struggling to convey the real menace of Angelville, you can consider “Gonna Hurt” as something of a corrective. Last week, Jesse made his big play to get out. It was, and I’m being kind here, a stupid mess. (Jesse’s plan, I mean. The episode wasn’t…
For all its faults, when the Preacher source material was on, it was on, and the storyline the show is currently adapting is one of the comic’s highpoints; maybe the high point. It was a crucial moment in establishing Jesse’s character, in creating stakes going forward, and in showing us that for all its cynical…
Given how season three ends, it seems reasonable to assume that The Expanse did its best to get to the ends of two books this year instead of just one. That’s an understandable goal; whatever you think of the trip it took to get to the final minutes of “Abaddon’s Gate,” those final minutes are pretty clutch, providing…
In a shocking twist, Westworld saved its biggest reveals until the end. After a mixed season with some exceptional emotional storytelling and a lot of detached meandering, we get what really happened in the final 40 minutes of an hour-and-a-half-long episode. Here’s the story you’ve actually been watching, the writers…
What’s that old saying? “Home is the place where, when you take your dead girlfriend there, they have to bring her back to life.” Something like that. After a brief prologue reminding us just how nasty Madame Marie and her henchmen can be, Preacher’ third season picks up immediately where season two left off, with…
This week’s Expanse feels more episodic than usual for the show, and I don’t mean that as a criticism. “Fallen World” does something TV actually does better than books or movies, at least when it comes to genre storytelling: stopping to take stock of the consequences. In a book, scenes of the aftermath of events at…
It’s probably just a coincidence that tonight’s Westworld is airing on Father’s Day. But as (probable) coincidences go, it’s a good one. Mean, but good. Much of “Vanishing Point” is spent on William, both in the present and in the past, as we finally get more concrete information about his wife (played in flashback by…
There aren’t enough characters like Anna Volovodov on TV. I suppose that’s not entirely fair; part of the reason Anna is so compelling is that she’s played by Elizabeth Mitchell, and there’s only so much of her to go around. But on a show with its fair share of people trying to do the right thing—a show which, for all…
It makes sense that Westworld would have Indians. Not Native Americans, but “Indians”—the kind that used to show up in Westerns to menace homesteaders and go on warpaths. The park wasn’t built to offer up an informed, culturally respectful take on the past. The park, as we’ve learned multiple times, was built to offer…
It’s a small thing, but I appreciate how quickly Alex and Amos go along with Holden’s stories about Miller. Sure, they’re skeptical, and “Intransigence” gets at least one good joke about Alex doing his best to keep up, but they also don’t immediately dismiss him or assume he’s crazy. Partly that’s because they’ve…
We’ve talked before about how Westworld doesn’t have a particularly high view of humanity. There’s nothing wrong with that—plenty of great shows and books and movies and all sorts of art has been made that used our general crumminess as a main theme. The trick is that things have to be interesting even when they…
Okay, so let’s talk about cliffhangers.
“Phase Space” isn’t a terrible episode. It’s also not a particularly great one. There are sublime moments here, exchanges of unexpected emotional depth and texture, and one not-hugely-surprising-but-still-pretty-nice twist. There’s also some of that time-jumping obfuscation that plagued us in the first season; yes, it…
