Mar 28, 2016 by Oliver Ward
(Warning: this post contains spoilers.)
With so much anticipation for next week’s “Last Day on Earth,” it’s difficult to focus only on the second-to-last episode of the season. Ignoring as much as possible the imminent arrival of Negan and Lucille teased in the promo for the upcoming finale, “East” both closes the sixth season’s philosophical narrative and sets the stage for massive events that could drastically alter the dynamic of the show (as such, the last episode may seem like an introduction to a new, even more brutal series). In “East,” this feeling of finality is reinforced by the autumn scenery under heavy grey skies and every conversation between characters reads like a warning of some reap-what-you-sow reckoning doubtlessly underway.
“It’s all a circle: everything gets a return,” Morgan tells... Read More
Mar 21, 2016 by Oliver Ward
(Warning: this post contains spoilers.)
The season finale promises to be an epic bloodbath, so in order to save some oomph for later while still pushing the narrative toward said disaster with “Twice as Far,” fans got a plodding, dual storyline episode that suddenly takes off in the final fifteen minutes.
Storyline A: Denise convinces Rosita and Daryl to lead her to a gift-shop / apothecary so she can finally get Tara some Orange Crush get more medicine for Alexandria. Covered in bloody handprints, the apothecary looks like hell, but the only walker inside is, well, not actually a walker. It’s mostly a pile of decomposing mush with a cast on its foot-mush. Still, they get the medicine and ultimately Denise finds that can of soda she’s been asking... Read More
Jul 27, 2015 by Alex Castle
Things are finally clicking into place in this second season of True Detective. The five preceding episodes of character development and table-setting have revealed their purpose: to set up and inform this episode, by far the most engaging of the season. If the last two episodes can stay as focused as this one, season two still has a chance to go down as a worthy complement to season one.
Nearly all the best scenes in this season were packed into this one episode: Ray confronting Frank about the mistaken tip that set him on the path to corruption and self-loathing; Frank bonding with his murdered employee’s son; Ray trying to bond with his son, finally recognizing he’s damaged the relationship irretrievably, and walking away for good; Frank tracking down... Read More
May 26, 2015 by Alex Castle
Just when it was starting to feel like this whole season has been stuck on Herschel’s farm, this week delivered a number of plot developments, including the inevitable blowback from Cersei’s Operation Faith Militant landing her in a cell adjacent to her hated daughter-in-law, Sansa’s discovery that her brother, Jon Snow, is not just alive but Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, and the meeting we’ve all been waiting for: Tyrion Lannister finally locked eyes with Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons.
The people who are finding this season distastefully sadistic still got a bit of ammunition for their thinkpieces, as yet another rape scene was barely averted at Castle Black, and Ramsay showed Sansa just how much worse he could make things for... Read More
Apr 07, 2015 by Alex Castle
We have come to expect a certain level of fireworks from season finales: shocking revelations, reversals of fortune, betrayals, hookups, breakups. The first season finale of Better Call Saul had none of these, instead serving as a kind of quiet postscript to last week’s wrenching episode in which Jimmy was so thoroughly betrayed and rejected by his big brother and role model Chuck.
Still stinging from finding out that it was Chuck, not Howard Hamlin, who had been blocking his professional progress, Jimmy headed home to Chicago and reconnected with his old running buddy Marco for a week of cons and scams, ending with Marco dropping dead of a heart attack in the middle of a reprise of the old Rolex routine.
When Kim calls to tell Jimmy... Read More
Apr 06, 2015 by Alex Castle
It is always great to rejoin the characters at Sterling Cooper at the beginning of a new season of Mad Men; they’re all such sharply drawn, specific characters that more than most shows, they feel like real people, and it’s exciting to see what they’ve been up to since we left them. Last season (or half-season) ended on the moon landing and Sterling Cooper & Partners selling out to McCann Erickson, making the partners rich and saving Don’s job, and as the story picks up nine months later, in April 1970, Don and Roger are catting around, Don is visited by a vision of Rachel Katz (from season 1), who he soon learns has just died of leukemia, Peggy and Joan are dealing with a rather startling level of chauvinism... Read More
Mar 30, 2015 by Alex Castle
Just when it looked like The Walking Dead was about to do something unconventional and interesting – namely, have its protagonist go crazy and force the ensemble around him to deal with it – the show blinked. Rather than show Rick as an increasingly hostile, uncompromising, paranoid megalomaniac deciding to get the girl the same way he’s learned to get everything in the zombie apocalypse (by taking it), instead his group rallied around him and the people of Alexandria decided they didn’t really have a problem with his erratic behavior.
With just a little sweet talk – “I was thinking, How many of you do I have to kill to save your life? But I’m not going to do that. You’re going to change.” – Rick is back in... Read More
Mar 16, 2015 by Alex Castle
This week continued to explore the interesting notion that Rick, Daryl, Carol and the rest are too damaged by what they’ve been through in the post-zombie hellscape to ever assimilate into a “normal” society again; last week Carol graphically threatened a child who caught her stealing back some of the group’s firearms, and this week Rick seemed to be considering killing a dude so he could steal his wife even before the guy was suspected of being an abuser.
But is Alexandria a society this group would even want to really assimilate with? They are not exactly bursting at the seams with valor, as we see them leaving each other to the wolves (the wolves in this case being zombies) throughout this episode. “I’m not combat ready,” Eugene insisted; “I’m... Read More
Mar 10, 2015 by Alex Castle
Last night’s episode of Better Call Saul shifted things into another gear by putting Jimmy’s parking-garage nemesis Mike, who Breaking Bad fans know will eventually become Saul’s fixer and private investigator, at center stage and filling in the back story only hinted at previously: how Mike went from being a cop to a ruthless, unflappable assassin.
It seems that a couple of Philadelphia detectives have taken Mike in for questioning, but they can’t get any more out of him than a stonefaced, one-word reply: “Lawyer.” Jimmy owes Mike one for helping him find the embezzling Kettlemans a couple episodes back, so Jimmy’s card is the one Mike gives the detectives. When Jimmy arrives and Mike won’t tell him anything other than how he wants Jimmy to help him lift the... Read More
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