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EddyTheMartian007
Also, Watch FX's The Shield (2002-2008).
Ratings Guide:
9.5+/10 = Masterpiece
9+/10 = Amazing
8.7-8.9/10 = Amazing, but flawed
8+/10 = Great
7.7-7.9/10 = Great, but flawed
7+/10 = Good
6.9/10 = Good, but flawed
6-6.5/10 = Okay/Decent
5-5.5/10 = Mixed/Mediocre/Meh
4-4.5/10 = Bad
3/10 = Terrible/Awful
2/10 = Horrible,
1/10 = Worst thing I've ever seen, nothing is competent.
Note: I've had this account since I was a kid so there are some very dated ratings I'd probably change on rewatch. As of 2022 I'm changing my ratings to be harsher, especially with TV show episodes. I may go back to fix some ratings, but as a rule of thumb, if it is rated before that year it may be a bit dated. The less amount of episodes a season has, the more weight those ratings hold.
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Reviews
Gen V: Guardians of Godolkin (2023)
A terrible finale to a bad season. After Episode 4 the series completely falls apart.
The first half of the series I was pretty mixed on it but still on board. Marie's backstory was solid, and her pushing her values aside to make it in the world. The whole drama surrounding Golden Boy and his suicide, the mystery, the woods, and his friends was interesting. I liked a lot of the family drama with the parents of these supes, and the popularity contest this school feels like. There's interesting stuff here, but it slowly unravels in a way where the story begins to fall apart, and the interesting developments are brushed aside. Why was this show so horny and obsessed with pairing every character? Yeah college students are horny, but Cate cheating on his Golden Boy with his best friend was so unnecessary. Then Jordan and Marie get together out of nowhere. Emma and Sam immediately are into each other. There are so many pointless sex scenes. It feels like a cheaper version of The Boys. A lot of the humor comes off this way. Like the series can never fully take itself seriously. So many edgy jokes, so many pop culture jokes, trendy jokes that are going to age terribly and again felt cheap. A lot of the times I don't even think they knew the full context of what they were joking about. The series is funny on occasion but corny and cringey a lot of the times. Most of the times I laughed at the show, not with it.
This show just has a major problem with tone. It doesn't know how deal with serious topics, and the characters don't seem to act realistically. Tek Knight is introduced as such an interesting character with his own detective show, and then at the end he's undone by this brain tumor that makes him want to do anything with a hole. There's actually potential here but they turn this very serious condition into a joke. It feels so cheap. There's literally a character who almost gets raped but they don't really do much with that. A character accidentally almost kills someone in the beginning of the show and then forgets about it. Multiple of these characters kill people like nothing, and are watching their friends kill people and don't really care too much. There's a puppet murder spree... kinda cool actually. They do things that should have larger consequences like nothing and just move on from things so quickly. The whole subplot about the supes virus has such a sudden and rushed conclusion it feels like it was just used to set up The Boys cause ultimately it barely has any effect on the plot of this show.
A lot of the show's plot just simply does not hold up to scrutiny. It had me questioning many moments that just wouldn't add up. Characters just get places inexplicably when they have to. The character's powers aren't fully established so they're stronger or weaker depending on the plot. There's also some laughable moments of contrivance and exposition like when one of the scientists of the virus goes into his boss's office (how?) to piss in her drink while talking to himself about the virus. This is all so our "heroes" (notice the quotation marks) who happen to be there overhear him, and get the information they need. Another moment like this is when they find Luke's brother and he says he knows all the cells' codes because "they think I don't listen." The more I think about this show, the more it falls apart. The series really losses itself around the end of episode 4 onwards. We get to a place in the plot where it feels like a climax. They've found Luke's brother, they're getting closer to discovering the wood's secrets, and everyone comes ahead at once... until everyone blacks out! And we get a whole episode of the characters figuring out what happened... Seriously?
This brings us to the most problematic part of the series. The most important development of the amnesia episode is that Cate was brainwashing the group... Do I have to explain why this brings up SO many questions and makes no sense? Cate is probably the messiest character in the show. The previous episodes in the show make so much less sense because she's in on what the other characters are doing but just lets them for all this time. Then she gives them amnesia, and then she just goes along with the group because now she's changed her mind. I get that she was also brainwashed in a way, but I just don't think they executed her character in a believable and consistent way. The next episode we literally get a whole episode in her brain. I was so done by this point. This started to just feel like filler, and I don't think they made it believable how easily they forgive her. Also did they forget she accidentally killed this random student. This college is an absolutely hell-hole. You'd think they'd have better security (it takes a supes yelling to destroy the security system in the finale).
Getting to the final 2 episodes, things start to get more serious and we start getting more The Boys' characters involved, but at this point I think the show got lazy. The show tried to get political in a really badly executed scene. There's some retcons like Neuman's character having Marie's same blood powers, which then opens up questions as to why she didn't use her powers differently in other seasons rather than just blowing up heads. Like that's so much messier that just giving someone a heart attack. The ending was just baffling. So Cate goes psycho freeing all the supes in the woods. Sam is having a crisis on whether this is right or wrong and then he asks Cate to make him feel nothing. His next line is something like, "I feel empty. This feels good." I thought you were supposed to feel nothing??? (I know this was about his guilt, but I just found it funny). The college campus is in chaos, Homelander comes and lasers half of our protagonists for a quick cameo, and now they all inexplicably survived and are in some sort of lab for a Season 2 I don't care for and I doubt I'll watch. I take it back, this show is a lazy cash grab. I would want to write a longer and more proper review to elaborate on many of my criticisms more in depth, and have a proper conclusion, but I honestly just really don't care for this show and I want to get to watching The Boys Season 4 as soon as possible! That's what I recommend everyone to do, watch a recap and go to The Boys. Goodbye!
Gen V (2023)
Full Series Review: Just watch a recap before The Boys Season 4.
So I watched the entirety of Gen V to prepare for The Boys Season 4, and unfortunately I should've just watched a recap because this series kinda sucks.
Conceptually it's not a bad idea, even if making a spin off series of The Boys goes against what the series is criticizing. If this was a good series I would've been fine with it. I don't think this was a lazy cashgrab either. For the beginning of the season, while I wasn't loving it, I saw some potential. I do appreciate them trying to flesh out the world a bit more, setting some stuff up for The Boys Season 4, and showing a different perspective with a school of supes. I enjoyed a lot of the characters and performances. I think they carried the series and made it more enjoyable than I thought it would be. However, the writing was just not there.
The first half of the series I was pretty mixed on it but still on board. Marie's backstory was solid, and her pushing her values aside to make it in the world. The whole drama surrounding Golden Boy and his suicide, the mystery, the woods, and his friends was interesting. I liked a lot of the family drama with the parents of these supes, and the popularity contest this school feels like. There's interesting stuff here, but it slowly unravels in a way where the story begins to fall apart, and the interesting developments are brushed aside. Why was this show so horny and obsessed with pairing every character? Yeah college students are horny, but Cate cheating on his Golden Boy with his best friend was so unnecessary. Then Jordan and Marie get together out of nowhere. Emma and Sam immediately are into each other. There are so many pointless sex scenes. It feels like a cheaper version of The Boys. A lot of the humor comes off this way. Like the series can never fully take itself seriously. So many edgy jokes, so many pop culture jokes, trendy jokes that are going to age terribly and again felt cheap. A lot of the times I don't even think they knew the full context of what they were joking about. The series is funny on occasion but corny and cringey a lot of the times. Most of the times I laughed at the show, not with it.
This show just has a major problem with tone. It doesn't know how deal with serious topics, and the characters don't seem to act realistically. Tek Knight is introduced as such an interesting character with his own detective show, and then at the end he's undone by this brain tumor that makes him want to do anything with a hole. There's actually potential here but they turn this very serious condition into a joke. It feels so cheap. There's literally a character who almost gets raped but they don't really do much with that. A character accidentally almost kills someone in the beginning of the show and then forgets about it. Multiple of these characters kill people like nothing, and are watching their friends kill people and don't really care too much. There's a puppet murder spree... kinda cool actually. They do things that should have larger consequences like nothing and just move on from things so quickly. The whole subplot about the supes virus has such a sudden and rushed conclusion it feels like it was just used to set up The Boys cause ultimately it barely has any effect on the plot of this show.
A lot of the show's plot just simply does not hold up to scrutiny. It had me questioning many moments that just wouldn't add up. Characters just get places inexplicably when they have to. The character's powers aren't fully established so they're stronger or weaker depending on the plot. There's also some laughable moments of contrivance and exposition like when one of the scientists of the virus goes into his boss's office (how?) to piss in her drink while talking to himself about the virus. This is all so our "heroes" (notice the quotation marks) who happen to be there overhear him, and get the information they need. Another moment like this is when they find Luke's brother and he says he knows all the cells' codes because "they think I don't listen." The more I think about this show, the more it falls apart. The series really losses itself around the end of episode 4 onwards. We get to a place in the plot where it feels like a climax. They've found Luke's brother, they're getting closer to discovering the wood's secrets, and everyone comes ahead at once... until everyone blacks out! And we get a whole episode of the characters figuring out what happened... Seriously?
This brings us to the most problematic part of the series. The most important development of the amnesia episode is that Cate was brainwashing the group... Do I have to explain why this brings up SO many questions and makes no sense? Cate is probably the messiest character in the show. The previous episodes in the show make so much less sense because she's in on what the other characters are doing but just lets them for all this time. Then she gives them amnesia, and then she just goes along with the group because now she's changed her mind. I get that she was also brainwashed in a way, but I just don't think they executed her character in a believable and consistent way. The next episode we literally get a whole episode in her brain. I was so done by this point. This started to just feel like filler, and I don't think they made it believable how easily they forgive her. Also did they forget she accidentally killed this random student. This college is an absolutely hell-hole. You'd think they'd have better security (it takes a supes yelling to destroy the security system in the finale).
Getting to the final 2 episodes, things start to get more serious and we start getting more The Boys' characters involved, but at this point I think the show got lazy. The show tried to get political in a really badly executed scene. There's some retcons like Neuman's character having Marie's same blood powers, which then opens up questions as to why she didn't use her powers differently in other seasons rather than just blowing up heads. Like that's so much messier that just giving someone a heart attack. The ending was just baffling. So Cate goes psycho freeing all the supes in the woods. Sam is having a crisis on whether this is right or wrong and then he asks Cate to make him feel nothing. His next line is something like, "I feel empty. This feels good." I thought you were supposed to feel nothing??? (I know this was about his guilt, but I just found it funny). The college campus is in chaos, Homelander comes and lasers half of our protagonists for a quick cameo, and now they all inexplicably survived and are in some sort of lab for a Season 2 I don't care for and I doubt I'll watch. I take it back, this show is a lazy cash grab. I would want to write a longer and more proper review to elaborate on many of my criticisms more in depth, and have a proper conclusion, but I honestly just really don't care for this show and I want to get to watching The Boys Season 4 as soon as possible! That's what I recommend everyone to do, watch a recap and go to The Boys. Goodbye!
Aku wa sonzai shinai (2023)
Super slow build up to an obvious twist that takes the whole movie to happen and then the movie ends without doing anything interesting. It's up to the audience.
I was immediately entranced by Hamaguchi's seemingly deliberate direction and pace, accompanied by that ominous score. The slow scenes that suddenly cut so quickly-just like the music does-had me getting closer and closer to the screen... I thought something deeper was going on under the surface and it would jump out and make everything fall into place. Very early on I thought it was clear the daughter character was going to get harmed or killed due to the neglect of the father, and I thought this would be the impetus of the plot... but the movie kept going.
We get this side plot of Glamping invading this town's way of life, and then the characters from that storyline take part of the center piece as well. Then I thought Hamaguchi was trying to make a separate point, an environmental message. Many things managed to continue keeping me enticed, like a shot where a character poses exactly the same as the painting behind them, or little hints at characters back stories. It was like watching seeds being planted, and I was excited to watch them sprout.
The talent agent is the most compelling character and the only character in the movie with some form of evolution. He was funny and unique. More interesting than the rest of the movie to be honest. Probably the best performance too. Everyone else barely changes, if at all. There wasn't much to the performances either, not that there needed to be. So many things seemed to be building up and getting introduced, all whilst we kept cutting back to the daughter who is just walking around doing nothing of actual substance. We see her cover her nose while walking past cow poop. This is just one of various scenes with her that if you cut the movie stays the same. Is there some symbolism with cow dung I'm missing? Maybe it's related to when she calls her dad a buttface. That was the second most compelling form of characterization in this film.
Then the movie continues to make it even more obvious that something's going to happen. The gun shots from the hunter. The dad forgetting. A repeat of the first scene and the warnings. I started to think, "is this a fake out? But this doesn't seem like the kind of movie to do that either." I realized the movie is rapidly approaching it's end, and of course the daughter ends up going missing. In the previous scene they mention that the only way a deer would attack a human is if it survives a gun shot and is trying to protect its cub. So guess where the daughter winds up? Next to an injured deer with her cub. The daughter (of course) gets closer to the deer. How much more obvious can they make this scene?
The subsides neglect the environmental damage for profits. The father neglects the daughter to not think of his dead wife, I suppose. That's the evil of the movie, or maybe it is the corporation invading their town, and the hunters invading the deer's land. Maybe there is no evil because everyone is just acting for themselves? What is it with these shallow films trying to seem deeper than they are with provocative titles recently?
Trying to read up on this movie I found out that Hamaguchi himself does not know what to make of it, and essentially built the movie around the score. Apparently this movie could have even not been released as it was meant for visuals to accompany the music, but he thought it was worthwhile to release. Despite being mostly engaged throughout, the cinematography, solid performances, and that awesome score, I can't say I got anything out of this movie. I would've rather stayed at home and done anything something else. The more I think about it the more I realize that the seeming seeds of intrigue planted are almost worthless if they don't sprout in some way. At least make the movie more interesting through the plot and characters, but there's almost nothing there either. When you try to latch onto something in the movie, there wasn't enough to get a hold of to keep my interest. That ending is the only interesting part of the movie. The whole movie rides on that ending because if it ended any other way there was no time to satisfyingly tie up all the plot threads. It doesn't even necessarily have to do that, but the movie didn't build up to any form of conclusion. This could've been the first half of a movie. Even with the obvious twist ending we got, the movie ends right after so they still do nothing with it. Yeah I get the point is for the audience to have their interpretation, but I think that's a cop out. The conclusions I derived earlier weren't that interesting to me cause the movie barely fleshed them out. Maybe I'm being too harsh, and there's more to take away from this movie. Or maybe I expect more from films. To be honest I just feel like I wasted my time, and that's why I'm being more negative. Sometimes there is nothing majorly wrong with a film and it can still not work. Some seeds are just defective and will never sprout. It's too late for the sun and water they need to sprout. They should stay buried.
(4.5/10)
Silent Night (2023)
John Woo misses again and wastes the awesome premise. Still though, good action and visuals coupled with the lead make this a tolerable watch.
As a John Woo fan I really thought this was going to be his comeback. The concept was so cool, and the trailer looked so good. I genuinely felt like this had so much potential and I was so excited to see it realized. I kept imagine how intense sequences of pure action must be without any interruption of dialogue. I kept imagining the unique focus on the visuals and sounds to replace the work of the dialogue. Mr. Robot pulled off a thrilling episode with no dialogue, so surely this movie could've too. Truly there was so much that could've been done and this would've been a classic. Unfortunately that trailer literally showed the best moments, and not much was done with the concept.
All they really had to do was follow the John Wick blueprint but focus more on the visual storytelling and give it a unique angle with the mute protagonist on top of the lack of dialogue that could've made this movie so much more tense. Unfortunately, the lack of dialogue detracts from the characterization and feels forced in many scenes. I feel like there could've been a lot more done with the protagonist who's very well performed, but not well written. I question his willingness to go on shooting sprees when his son was killed by a stray bullet. There is nothing really done with the protagonist suddenly becoming mute, and the drama with his wife has no real development. The mandatory set up for the emotional beats to hit are executed in such a boring and cliche way and takes up what feels like half the film. Every scene with the son felt so repetitive, and like it was begging you to care with the music, but I really didn't. It almost became cheesy, especially at the end. There's this cop character that's just... there, I guess. There's no personality given to the villains except it keeps cutting to the main villain drugging and shagging this random girl...
When we finally get to the action John Woo does deliver, but it's not his best work, and doesn't redeem such a thin story. There's moments of Woo's brilliance shining through what are mostly just pretty good action sequences by today's standards. A lot of the car scenes weren't the best either. The action has its moments and the visuals are often cool, but even then there are some odd directorial choices like overuse of slow-mo and some odd editing choices. I always just felt like there's this great action scene coming, and some parts were, but other parts were off. What's worse is that much of the action feels completely unbelievable and just dumb with the protagonist, of course, getting along through luck and pure incompetence from the villains. The last 2 confrontations in this movie are what really tanked it for me to call it bad. It's just plain ridiculous and unsatisfying how they unfold. Genuinely feels like some AI choreography, unreal, and it's so stupid character wise.
With all this being said I still mostly enjoyed the movie thanks to some good action and visuals, but I felt like it was more due to the goodwill I have for John Woo, like I owe him for his older awesome films. This was overall a disappointing film and such a waste of the concept. I hope someone else tries something like this again and does better. I don't want to be too hard on Mr. Woo though. Please John Woo, you are better than this, and we still love you!
(4/10)
Invincible: Atom Eve (2023)
Painfully mediocre story with questionable plot elements until a strong end. Not close to the great quality of the show, and kind of a pointless TV special.
Seriously, it's insane how generic and cliche this was. At every turn I could think of 20 things to make this story better. It's so weird because Invincible usually plays around with these tropes so well having good and original execution. Meanwhile this has been done before, and the execution was mostly mediocre. Not to mention how the plot doesn't hold up to scrutiny and compromises the world building, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
First off, the presentation. This has some of the most boring direction for animation. Nearly every shot is static and basic. The animation budget was clearly limited in areas of the TV show, but good direction hid it well enough, and they saved it up for the key moments, which made it look great. Comparatively, here, it's not well hidden thanks to boring direction. It just feels so lifeless and stilted. The only exception to this is the action scene with Eve and her "siblings" which is admittedly very good, but sadly the scene itself is another can of worms when it comes to the writing. Aside from that I also liked when Dr. Brandyworth explains Eve's backstory making it seem nicer than it was while the visuals show her homeless mom being paid rather than being a colleague who volunteered. And yup, that's about all I liked with the visual presentation. Don't ask me about sound and music because I already forgot. That's the least of the problems though, let's get to the writing.
The dialogue. It's hilariously bad. So bad at times, it's shocking this is what they went with. This feels like a first draft of a script, except I don't understand how it could have such cringe-worthy lines. They're still referring to super powered people as "freaks" in this. It's 2023, come on. In my entire life I've literally not once heard someone use that word in the way it's done here and in so much media. Eve also has the most cliche parents who hate her for being "weird" and by the slip of the tongue, they accidentally yell they wish she was normal! X-Men did this in 2000, over 2 decades ago, and it wasn't even the main focus of the movie! Look, this isn't even that bad, but I can literally pick apart the entire storyline for hours with the mediocrity and unoriginality. However, let's focus on the most glaring examples.
In this world, where there's presumably well liked, established heroes, are you seriously telling me that a kid who probably idolizes them would be freaked out and ignore her super powered friend? Especially her, who becomes Eve's friend out of nowhere because she's "weird." A simple change that doesn't really change the plot and has the same outcome, while subverting superhero tropes, is that her friend first has fun with this (and maybe we can flesh out the powers and show consequences), but then realizes being involved with a super powered person puts her at risk, and so then they come to an agreement to stay away from each other. Nothing actually changed but this is far more interesting, makes Eve's character more mature, is inline with the world-building, and doesn't make me roll my eyes!
Also can superhero content for once properly explain these stupidly over powered abilities and give them proper rules and limitations? This is the only issue the show has as well. We have the mental block for living matter. That's good. But there's still multiple moments where you ask yourself "why couldn't she just do this" or question the mechanics of her powers in general. (Kind of inconsequential, but when she's changing food, is she changing the actual taste or just the composition of the food, like what if this causes an eating disorder?). You can chalk that up to inexperience in this version due to how young she is, but whoever wrote this had 0 creativity and so there's no clever exploration or realistic learning of her powers. She only learns certain things in the heat of the moment from luck, I guess.
In battles we get no consequences for potential inexperience or misuse of her powers, so she's basically an adult. So much so that she literally commands cops to "fall back and form a perimeter or something." Clearly she says this not having any idea what she's doing. So of course the ADULT cops tells the KID "What? Get the hell out of here!" But then Eve saves the cop and suddenly he follows the orders??? This was literally done in The Avengers, except at that time heroes weren't prevalent, and cops were following Captain America, not a literal child!!! I cannot emphasize enough how embarrassingly idiotic this writing is. It genuinely pisses me off. You cannot be this unoriginal and silly, but I digress. Remember when in the show Grayson's inexperience with his powers literally made him harm people unintentionally? Couldn't this have been shown with Eve's much more complex and dangerous powers? Nope, because here Eve is perfect apparently! (I sympathize with her siblings more than her).
The Incredibles is literally a kids movie (but a masterpiece) where the superhero parents tell their kids the real bad guys will not hesitate to kill them. Here, when we literally have the TV-MA rating to explore this level of maturity, the criminals are quipping back at Eve with some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard. "The name's Kill-cannon, not get-beat-up-by little-girls-cannon." Imagine the first time she goes out to fight those criminals stealing dogs, she literally gets shot. Now under the pressure she escapes, and once back actually learns how to use her powers better to deal with this situation. It can also further affect her life. But nope, nothing. It is absolutely baffling there is no exploration of how being a kid superhero affects Eve psychologically. Why? Because she's pretty much a perfect hero since the beginning, and she never finds herself in actual dangerous or dark situations. Y'know what I want to explore? The consequences of leaving a metal mask on those criminals. What if these actions accidentally destroy their lives? But nah, this special is too boring to explore anything interesting.
Clearly horrendous dialogue aside, there's more questionable moments in the plot. How was Eve actually hidden? Because if the baby is just missing clearly they'd look for her, and it wouldn't be hard to find her with their resources and checking for everyone in the building. Or he'd have to replace the baby, with the dead one from Eve's parents, but then what about DNA testing? So I'm a little confused by that. They joke about Brandyworth finding her, but really question it. How does he do it with seemingly no resources (also why/how was he let go when they clearly could've used him?), when the evil organization cannot find Eve. Also hilarious when he's used as a Deus Ex Machina. Where did he get that car? Speaking of the villains, in the ending portion, you're literally shooting in the lab with your 3 most important assets, you've got to be kidding me. Not to mention how they trap Eve and can't contain her, brilliant. Maybe knock her out? Weaken her? No? You literally don't need her here.
The climax with her entire "real" family being killed off is quite good, and suddenly the voice acting got great too, but it was too little too late, and it's comical that she now cares about her siblings, some that she literally killed! I can't be the only one who found her behavior in that action scene to be morally reprehensible. It was the most interesting part of this story and her siblings are just portrayed as evil, killed off, and then somehow Phase 2 dies happy in Eve's arms, and she forgives him? Before this Eve's supposed brother explains how they were created due to her, and she literally just accidentally kills one (without much reaction), and what does she say? "Ok so you're less good versions of me. Then this should be easy." Literally sociopathic behavior. What the hell. She gets no consequences for the behavior in this action scene. Also they don't really do much with them being able to control organic matter, which is the main difference they have to Eve. Plus, why did this even happen? Did they release them just so Eve MIGHT fight them? We've established there are many other heroes in this world. Eve is a kid. They have drones, that how they spotted Eve in the first place! Tell me this isn't an illogical plan.
The point of this special is to explain Eve's origins and develop her character more whilst presumably increasing her likability for the audience. Well, it backfired. I LIKE the character in the show, but the most forced sad upbringing, her lack of flaws, and actual development does not make me suddenly sympathize with her. Especially after morally reprehensible behavior. Explain to me why this story NEEDED to be shown to us this way, and couldn't have been simply told or subtly hinted at in the show, in a way that saves so much time, and probably fixes most of my issues since it doesn't have to be fully shown to us. There's so many more interesting stories to be told in this universe and you chose THIS? I hope this wasn't made by people who have big involvement in Season 2 because this genuinely worries me when I was beyond excited and confident for Season 2. I'm genuinely shocked people are liking this so much with how prevalent superhero fatigue has become. The genericness wouldn't have mattered if it was actually well enough executed. This is coming from someone who liked Blue Beetle! But this simply fell flat on its face for me, and felt pointless. The only reason I don't call it bad is because the animation is solid, and the climax was good, but It was close.
5/10.
Toy Story (1995)
Pixar Rewatches: Still so great after all these years.
Pixar's first, and what started it all. This movie was a lot simpler than I remembered. I was surprised how underdeveloped many of the side characters were, and how suddenly it ended. Like most kids animated movies, the plot is often contrived and too over the top. In particular near the end, but I don't think it ever detracts majorly from such a magical experience. Maybe the nostalgia is still hitting, but man was this movie still so much fun. The concept seems kinda dumb, but it's so genius with how it's executed and how it changes your perspective of toys. I love how creative it is with its small scale. Although there are some questions left about the logic of this world, it's mostly well realized.
One of the surprising highlights of this movie on rewatch is that it was a lot funnier than I remembered. With the script being so witty and clever, I was laughing consistently. Lots of adult jokes and subtle humor. Despite the humor though, it also manages to effortlessly blend genre and have its more mature and dramatic moments that work. I always love how Pixar films are able to blend genre so well, like the "horror" moments with Sid. I think this is one of my favorite Pixar films now and it's so rewatchable thanks to its fast pace and short length. What a smooth ride with such a tight script You can tell how this is the blue print for a lot of subsequent Pixar classics.
I also saw this movie in a different context due to some personal experiences. The simplicity in this case does work because you're kinda able to use the toys as examples for other things. Like I love how immediately when Buzz is introduced everyone is enamored by this new fancy toy, as opposed to Sid's screwed up toys, Buzz and Woody immediately assume they're evil. Just goes to show how real these toys feel and how well written the characters are. I really enjoyed Woody's and Buzz's arcs. They're kinda over the top, but in a good way. I forgot how jealous Woody is. It's hilarious, but it does feel quite real and I appreciate how they didn't stray away from making him kinda scummy at times. Buzz's depression after realizing the truth is also so real and hilarious.
Due to Toy Story's influence I am being more lenient and giving it bonus points. The animation isn't very good by today's standards. The real people and animals look iffy, but I actually think most of it looks good still considering they're meant to be toys, so it kinda works. The exaggerated facial expressions are also hilarious and add to the charm, which is lost in the sequels. Plus with strong direction even bad animation can work, and while it's no Brad Bird it's still extremely good. It's not quite as amazing as I remembered as a kid, but even after all these years this is still an impressive work and worthy of being praised among the best animated films. Another one of my favorite Pixar's after The Incredibles and Ratatouille.
(8.5/10)
[Note: For my thoughts on all the Pixar films (because I won't be making full reviews for all of them), and to see how my ratings changed on rewatch, check out my "Pixar Ranked" list.]
The Eric Andre Show: The 50th Episode! (2020)
A special finale for a special show.
This is not only a special episode because it's the season finale, but it's also the 50th episode and was even going to be the series finale at one point. Thankfully Eric has decided he will continue the show, with Season 6 airing right now! I'm sure many of us are happy about this . I want to thank Eric Andre and the entire cast and crew if any of them ever read this for making what is currently the funniest comedy show ever In my opinion (After Da Ali G Show and Nathan For You), and this episode definitely delivered, as well as the entire season leading up to it!
We begin with another classic prank where Eric is a cross guard with a green sign that says stop, and a red sign that says go that just caused an accident. Pretty normal prank, until--Bam!--Another car crashes in front the poor civilians. Eric then gets milk for the victim? And then starts kicking him?! But it's okay, cause he's disabled too, he has a milk eye? Absolutely hilarious reaction from the poor lady who witnessed all this. To tap it all off it then it turns into a commercial! I love the backstory of his father being the number 1 cross guard and now he's in over his head. I love the goofy ironic sound effects before it escalates to insanity. Just a perfect representation of the show. Excellent start.
Stormy Daniels interview wasn't that memorable but Blake Griffin was great. It first starts with him falling back after sitting on an inflatable chair, and when they bring a new one he hilariously keeps checking the chair again for the rest of the interview. We got another Cosby joke with the cocktails. The married PA couple were weird but wholesome. Eric keeps asking what team he's from! Seal team 69 drops from the roof, and Blake Griffin hilariously thinks he has to unironically stand up and show his support for the troops. He literally apologizes for not doing it sooner, ha! Belipe, Belipe, Belipe. Just an all around great interview.
We get a crazy Carbonaro effect parody with The Alfredo effect. Man I don't even know how to describe this one, but the reaction from the poor "victim" of the prank: "I have to go please!" He literally runs away. "I don't think that's funny man!" should be enough.
We end off the main portion of the episode with almost all the previous characters from the season coming back and singing beautifully. I really loved this. Among them though Hannibal comes back from the store! It was such an emotional moment until we realize, Hannibal never existed... No way. Kind of a dope way to bring the series full circle at the end showing it was always the ERIC Andre show and we get flashes to classic moments but now with only Eric and Hannibal missing. Does this mean Eric is schizophrenic in the lore? I don't know how to review these episodes to be honest.
As a nice bonus finisher to cap off the 50th episode, we get The pageant!
This was a brilliant segment where we start off at a normal looking--well maybe a little shabby--beauty Pageant where it slowly gets weirder and more uncomfortable. But what really makes this are the reactions from the audience. I love how it cuts to an old guy licking his lips for example, and this is before it even gets weird. Eric is an expert at slowly building the uncomfortability with lines like: "I get to legally marry one of these women tonight." "Can we have a moment of silence for all the contestants that passed away last year." Then a muscular lady comes and the audience goes crazy (in a bad way). Then a buff dude.
"Freak show" "Complete rubbish." Then a fat man in underwear!
"I don't usually see guys in their underwear like that." The cutaways to their faces and then interviewing them right after are so perfect. Sad how this is the reaction to the most inclusive beauty pageant! Then some of the contenders start fighting? The audience gets served Benadryl tacos? "It smells like dick and ass" Oh yeah, that's an Eric Andre set alright. But it wouldn't be The Eric Andre show without some esoteric hilarity, like the Irish singing tree! If that wasn't enough though we also get naked crackheads! I love how at least we see a couple of dudes there loving it and laughing. They're one of us! But yeah, like most of the audience, I think it's time to go to church after this.
(This is a review I meant to post way earlier but I honestly forgot to, and I thought it was finally time now that Season 6 is about to air! As always Eric delivered and I'm sure he will again for Season 6!)
Succession: With Open Eyes (2023)
TV History Has Been Made. One of the greatest finales ever to the greatest show in the last decade!
They actually did it. Like every other season finale of the series, Succession 4th and final season ends spectacularly at a high. It's rare a series can end on such an intense climactic episode like this, but with the juggernaut 1h30m runtime it worked.
Beginning with both sides prepping and being delusional about their chances, as always the Roy kids were never serious people. They come together to find Roman with the beautiful scenery and cinematography of their mother's home. Their mom nearly as fascinating as Logan, almost trying to keep them together. Many people theorized the twist ending would be Tom on top, and of course the writers were ahead smartly revealing this early on. Greg plays one of his smartest moves yet using a translator besides Mattson, revealing to Ken, who reveals to Shiv that she's out. Just like the season 3 finale (still the peak to me), it seems like the sibs are truly coming together once again, finally realizing that Logan lied to them all, with false hope given as Kendall symbolically floats above the sea with his 2 shark siblings sneaking up. But like Roman put it, "we're nothing."
We see this so clearly in 2 contrasting scenes, the first one such a happy brotherly scene of Shiv and Rome accepting Ken as the king. It's so delightful funny-I love Shiv yelling "MOM!"-but as Mylod put it, "Every moment of hope like that is so cruel, because you're just waiting for that shoe to drop." We know they're misguided, no longer caring about their project The Hundred from the premiere. Then the super tense build with Tom telling Shiv it's him. Shiv going full force with Rome and Ken. With Tom realizing Greg screwed him, fighting him in the bathroom even though he slipped up with Shiv too. It's all classic Succession.
It all culminates in the board meeting. Tension is at an all time high. Roman is losing it and Kendall tries to support him with what seems like a brotherly hug that turns into Logan-like abuse reopening Roman's old wound. Tragic to see as Roman lost one abuser to gain another. We went from one of the nicest sibling scenes, to the opposite of the brotherly love. Succession shows both ends of the spectrum. In the end, Shiv can't let go of the resentment she felt for always being pushed aside and belittled, but is also truthful accepting just like Rome did, that they're BS. They all devolvei into the stunted children their dad failed to properly raise. "I love you but I can't stomach you." is one of the cruces of the show. Kendall going full baby, literally begging, whining, even lying and fighting. They were all so petty. Shiv bringing up Ken killing the kid, and him just desperately lying about it. But the real twist was the reveal from Roman that Ken's kids aren't even his. I actually thought the way they handled Rava and the kids was kind of below the show's standards, but this added context makes so much more sense and it's such a brutal jab from Roman. Kendall absolutely losing it and trying to strangle Roman, it's so hard to watch, but this is it, this is Succession.
It all ends, Kendall coming back to the board room, confidence lost, back to his stuttering. The show ended like it began: Kendall losing the vote. The dread of Kendall storming into that elevator, the audience expecting the worst. The shots of his back paralleling Logan a misdirect. Similarly Roman is in the same spot he was in the beginning of the show, but now there's relief, with Kendall losing power there's no longer a bully holding power over him and he's reached acceptance in the stages of grief. But Shiv, tragically she's now stuck in the same position her mother was in, history repeating itself, Tom and her relationship's power dynamic totally flipped. Incredible final shot of them in the car. Finally, Kendall. His story is over, Kendall is finally out of the water.
What an ending.
So many more little things I want to mention, like I love little callbacks to Lawrence from Vaulter. The last and nicest Logan scene, a side the kids rarely saw. Karolina screwing Hugo. RIP Frank and Karl. Caroline hating eyes? Peter is hilarious. Connor and Willa going long distance... uh oh. Loved Mattson's hilarious lines and intense yelling. If I had to give criticisms though is I do wish the elections had more importance in the end, Connor could've gotten a better send off, and I think there were some loose ends like what happened to Marcia's 2 board seats? Regardless, I want to say more but I think I'll leave it to when I gather my thoughts more.
So the Successor is Sleepless Tom, the pain sponge, Mattson's meat puppet, who's going to be dealing with the potential fallout from Mencken being called wrong, his Rocky relationship with Shiv, and his only friend constantly betraying him... Yup, he's the winner all right! Tom and Greg made it.
I think this might be a masterpiece of a finale, for a masterpiece of a final season from an overall masterpiece of a series. There are just my initial thoughts, but I will surely come back and add more to the review as I think of it more. The rest of the review I'd like to give my thoughts on the season and show.
It's been an incredible journey watching this season weekly when almost every episode has been amazing and surprising. One of my best TV viewing experiences ever. Every week the power dynamics shifted in such riveting ways, always keeping you on your toes, never quite going where you expected. One episode one character was on top, the next they were at their lowest, while another was rising up. Always done in believable ways that escalated the plot and stakes, whilst exploring one of the best and most complex cast of characters on TV. Every episode got better the more I thought of it after watching. This is one of the greatest seasons of TV ever and I'm so glad to have watched it while it aired.
The Munsters: Having the Roy siblings united. Seeing Logan reflective for the first time. (8.7/10) Rehearsal: Connor's most heartbreaking moment "The good thing about having a family that doesn't love you is you learn to live without it." Logan's incredible villain speech, but also his last scene trying to reconcile with his kids. (9.2/10) Connor's Wedding: The absolute shock but brilliance of Logan unexpectedly dying off screen. Such a raw and visceral realistic relatable episode dealing with a death on the phone. (9.8/10) Honeymoon States: Kendall's arc becoming Logan begins when he thinks his dad chose him, killer shock ending. (9.1/10) Kill List: Matsson takes up the antagonist role. An incredible outburst from Roman and the incredible twist where Shiv becomes a real player secretly siding with Mattson (9.2/10) Living+: Underrated episode where Logan's spirit is felt throughout, Kendall finally doesn't crack under pressure while he delivers his presentation, and Roman is unhinged. As relevant and sharp as ever. (9.5/10) Tailgate Party: Election coming. Shocking revelations about Mattson. Surprising plot developments like Greg getting close to Mattson, and Nate coming back. Mattson and Kendall confrontation, and aha all-timer scene of Tom and Shiv's argument. (9.6/10) America Decides: Election Day comes with probably the most jam packed episode, full on the intensity, depressing but also has so many hilarious moments. Brutal pregnancy reveal, Roman at his most devious playing with America's fate. Kendall stuck between his morals, family and the business. All culminating in an incredible scene where Shiv shows her hypocrisy, gets exposed by Greg for lying losing the trust of her brothers, while they decide to call the election for Mencken, risking the entire company. (9.9/10) Church and State: Logan's funeral comes bringing together so much of the cast one last time. Ewan is the highlight giving an amazing eulogy explaining the Rose story giving us the last piece of the Logan Roy Puzzle. Roman depressingly breaks down, sours relations with Mencken, Kendall steps up, Shiv makes plan, it's now Roy Bros vs Shiv. Bit of a slow down though for the penultimate, I expected more personally, but still amazing.(9.3/10) Finally, With Open Eyes: (9.6/10)
This show just fires on all fronts. Nicholas Britelli making possibly the best score on TV. One I hum literally all the time and have listened to endlessly and still gives me chills.
The crew of the series, with the wonderful handheld style, lavish and subtle visuals. Directors like Mark Mylod pushing the envelope with crazy stunts like most of the funeral scene done in one take. Just awesome.
The cast. I feel bad for the Emmy's because Succession's cast is so stacked they're practically competing against themselves. Truly they're all incredible. Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Matthew Macfadyen, Kieran Culkin and Brian Cox all deserve awards.
But finally the writers and creator Jesse Armstrong. Some of the sharpest, funniest, cleverest dialogue in any drama. The tragic Shakespearian storylines and character arcs done in modern time. The incredible exploration of language in our modern society that I've never seen done before and find incredibly fascinating. The Strained complex family dynamics, deep themes and character psychology... I truly believe this to be one of the most important shows of our time, like The Sopranos of our generation.
Succession has now become my Top 2-3 shows ever after The Wire and next to The Sopranos. HBO is truly the king of TV. (Honorable Mention to The Shield as my Top 4, but #1 in my heart).
Thank you HBO, the cast, crew, writers and creator Jesse Armstrong for having worked together to create one of the greatest pieces of art ever.
Season 1 (9.2/10)
Season 2 (9.6/10)
Season 3 (9.7/10)
Season 4 (9.9/10)
Overall: (9.85/10)
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022)
Tight, engaging, tense flick that delivers on the title and a little more.
Since I was lucky enough to watch this movie early and there aren't many reviews I thought I'd give my brief thoughts. Solid movie. Delivers on the title! Maybe a little too preachy for some, but well executed and it never felt overbearing. It keeps a tight pace, and tension throughout. Despite cutting to flashbacks explaining the character's motivations periodically, it never felt like it detracted from the plot too much and in other ways it added to it very well. We aren't bogged down by exposition thanks to the clever structure and it keeps the movie going engagingly with a few surprises. I dug the style and synth music, all well made and executed. My only possible criticism is that a particular side story with 2 characters is probably the least believable part of the grounded story, and it doesn't help it's from the 2 least likable characters. However, I liked most of them in their own unique ways especially Michael. He got the most laughs out of my theater, just some small nice moments of levity. Despite the ensemble cast and short runtime, there is a good amount of depth given to the characters, and all the actors did a good job. I wish I had more to say since I was lucky to catch it earlier than most but it's truly one of those movies that I enjoyed but can only really say... "yup that was pretty good."
And by the way to the FBI agent reading this review I'm not condoning the actions taken in this film nor recommending the readers of this review to repeat those actions aha... But yup, I recommend it.
Shingeki no Kyojin: Retrospective (2022)
Epic on the outside, terribly written on the inside. The worst episode.
Before I completely tear this horribly written episode apart, I gotta give credit where it's due. Wow, this is easily the best animated and directed episode of Season 4. The long shots, the blood, explosions, it was so epic yet it's so badly written it makes for the most frustrating experience ever. It still doesn't look amazing though. The hype is all there, got chills multiple moments, it's really goof, but it's still not as great as it could be, or as great as it was with WIT. There are a lot of mistakes in it, inconsistencies between shots, and the animation is pretty choppy in some scenes that are supposed to be smooth. Like last episode, this episode is very exciting, but if you think of it for more than 2 seconds it makes absolutely no sense, and it's even worse than the last despite how epic it feels. I know how this goes and I was literally screaming at my screen. Watching it all animated made me realize it's even worse than I thought. Like in the manga you only see brief moments, not what happens between them, so now having all that time we see even more nonsensical character decisions, insanely contrived action, and plot armor even battle shounen main characters would be jealous of. Anyways without further delay let's list all the issues this episode has:
-So in the middle of this war, Jean, Hange, Magath, etc. Are chilling planning stuff with the Azumabito people. If a Yeagerist happens to fly over them and shoot a thunder spear they're dead. Actually, they were spotted last episode, so why they didn't do it is beyond me. Does the boat plan even make sense? Cause to escape in the boat they have to kill all the Yeagerists or deal with them while being chased, which takes time, then get on the boat without everyone they need being killed, then ride on the boat safely, arrive at the hanger with everyone and all the materials, and set it up there... Like isn't that going to take pretty much the same time as setting up the plane here and be riskier?
-Just like the last example, the cart Titan, Yelena, Oyankapon, Levi, Gabi, and Falco are all together, walking through the battlefield, where a simple thunder spear could've killed them all if a single Yeagerist spots them. They sure are lucky! What about when they're going into the water, and coming out to breathe (cause there's no way they held their breath that long)? Of course it cuts to them when they arrive leaving the trip it took there off-screen cause it's totally unbelievable. Plus Connie and Armin were just chilling there doing nothing for half the episode. Connie then just gets back to killing Yeagerists after killing his childhood friend, so much remorse! No Yeagerists are at the boat, or in it? You know the literal thing you're guarding...?! The more I think of this episode the more the awful writing is made apparent, and the more I hate it. This fight's spatial awareness is terrible. It's almost like if characters teleport.
-I need a section just for Mikasa. Just wanted to say her character has sucked for a while, but even in the beginning she wasn't that great, she's only loved because she's "hot" and "cool" Her character devolves into, "Muh Ereh... Muh scarf..." There's potential to do interesting things with her like the slave mentality but that isn't explored. Remember the whole thing about her heritage and tattoo? What did that amount to? Anyways in this episode we see Mikasa literally dodge bullets! Absolutely 0 plot armor, but that aside, our "heroine" kills some Yeagerists, ties them together, and blows them up... Uh, why? To look cool with an explosion behind her and bloody rain? Yeah, she is our hero! Blatant proof there is no longer any care put into the logic and character of the show as long as it looks cool! There are no stakes left. Mikasa kills like a hundred Yeagerists, multiple at once, without a scratch! Maybe Mappa realized how evil the alliance is and decided to make them even more evil.
-The clearest display of the plot armor the alliance has is when Magath shoots multiple flying Yeagerists in a row, yet multiple Yeagerists shoot at groups of Azumabito people below them and miss every shot... heh.
-The worst and most egregious part: The Yeagerists literally shoot almost all their thunder spears, like dozens, at the cart Titan and they all miss. They all miss... Thunder spears only work if the main characters use them! Not only this, but they could've just shot all the thunder spears to the boat and it would've been over, why didn't they do that?! Floch literally says "It's all riding on this one shot" And I kept yelling at my screen, "Why did you waste all the other thunder spears earlier for literally nothing?! Why didn't you do this earlier?!" Literally 0 casualties from the alliance and they kill pretty much ALL the Yeagerists. Falco did more damage as the Titan than the Yeagerists (that was the only part I liked), seriously?! They literally turned all of the Yeagerists and Floch brain dead for this plot to work, and then killed him off. The only enjoyable character in this arc is gone... Gonna be tough to make it through this without you! R. I. P. Floch, you will be missed. At least he went off in the most epic way possible with the best animation in Season 4. (Btw of course he's a terrible human being, I'm just talking about the character writing and consistency. He's not a hypocrite like our supposed "heroes!") Also I appreciate Mappa not portraying the Yeagerists as cartoonishly evil like the manga.
-Let's not forget Gabi's aim-bot once again, where she not only shot a gun about her size to kill Eren and other characters, but now shoots and kills Floch, who's flying at full speed, while being on a boat. You know maybe it wouldn't be so egregious if the Yeagerists didn't miss every single shot...
-So not a single Yeagerists kills or injures one of our main characters at all in the entire episode, and they all get on the boat safely. The only person left behind is Magath. Heh, they really think Magath can hold back all the Yeagerists that are left? Magath hides behind this metal beam (I think?) with holes in it being shot at by multiple Yeagerists and of course all the bullets hit the beam instead of him. Our 10th Deus Ex Machina arrives this episode, Shadis who conveniently (and inexplicably) blew up the Yeagerist reinforcements. Shadis and Magath talk out in the open and the Yeagerists conveniently stop shooting. Like how can you defend this? This is so bad, it makes no sense, what happened?!
-This episode skips showing a lot of stuff, especially characters getting places, like Shadis and Magath getting on the other yeagerist ship, which happens off-screen because there's no logical explanation of how they could've gotten in undetected to the exact room they need to be in to blow up the ship. By the way, Shadis didn't even have to die, but okay. Don't let his "sad" monologue distract you from the fact he's a forced Deus Ex Machina! I'm still wrapping my head around how they expect us to believe the events of this episode.
-A lot of people will defend the lack of stakes with what happens to Magath and Shadis. Sure, they die, but it wasn't even by Yeagerists, it was by their own choice to blow up the ship with them. Shadis is a very minor character I almost forgot. Magath is easily the least important character out of the alliance members. The stakes and logic are gone, this show has become a joke.
-Finally, let's end off this list with the post-credit scene. So all the characters got away without a scratch. Annie suddenly gets emotions, and it feels so out of character. How are the other people sympathizing? She's led to believe her father is dying anyways, you know the only reason she's doing any of this, so why is she gonna help them when she's basically a sociopath? Again these people are enemies who have been killing each other! I still can't believe the only drama we get between them is the dumb campfire episode. Seriously now how are they gonna catch up to Eren and stop him? If Marley and Liberio are destroyed too why are they fighting? Let's say hypothetically with whatever convenient Deus Ex Machina crap writing they use to somehow beat Eren, most of the world would be destroyed, and the Eldiands would once again be seen as the villains, and so they'll once again be hated, killed, etc. The world will still be at war, then Eren's plan, while of course horrible, would've been pointless. Yeah sure you save people, that will probably start killing each other! Eren's plan is not right, but logically speaking once it's begun, and has gone this far, stopping him will just make things worse. Anyways I'm done.
This episode is just horribly written, I can't take it. I might've quit the show here if I didn't know the next episode will be some quality flashbacks. I hope so hard that Part 3 of this season, or the movie that ends off this series is an anime original because it's about to somehow get even worse. Honestly I was gonna give this episode a 3, but this is one of the angriest I've been at a show ever, and people are praising this with a 9.6/10?! It gets one extra star for the visuals (forgot to mention the music was also good), but the storyline and characters have been completely ruined in this final arc. This is beyond badly written. It's simply embarrassing and sad how a show I would've once considered to be a great has become this bad. I wouldn't say it's a bad season overall, thankfully the first part and the beginning of this part was still really good, but after the rumbling, apart from a couple of episodes, this arc is truly terrible and indefensible. It doesn't ruin the show for me, but I can no longer call AOT great if they don't fix it.
(Reposting for like the 4th time cause it keeps getting deleted.)
Better Call Saul: Saul Gone (2022)
"The names McGill... I'm James McGill." Fantastic, greatly executed finale, but a bit too predictable.
I'm not gonna waste any time. The finale delivered. One of the best ever? Possibly.
Starting off we get a never before seen scene from Bagman.
Nice to see we got a final Mike scene. This scene parallels their first scam together when Mike took the Kettlemen's stolen money, and Jimmy brings it back but later wonders why he did he right thing.
Here he's literally sitting on 7 million like he says, but obviously these are much larger stakes, he's involved with the cartel now, there's no right option.
He shockingly mentions that he'd get a Time Machine with that money. If you haven't noticed this season there's prominently been a Time Machine book in the background. Both in the prequel time, but also during BB, maybe Gene but I haven't spotted it there. Mike says he would change the moment he took his first bribe, brings a bit more context to Mike, but Jimmy... Jimmy wants to become a billionaire. Or trillionare if that's a thing? It seems this episode Jimmy tries as long as possible to ignore the past until he can't any longer.
"That's it, money?"
"What else?"
"Nothing you'd change?"
I love how the episode gets straight into the action. No time to breathe as Gene runs away from Marion's house and right as he's back home the cops are already on his tail. It's easy to say this is arguably one of the most intense moments in both shows since it's truly the end. Jimmy continues to evade the cops with the beautify cinematography you'd come to expect from this series. Lets not forget the sound design, I love how we hear the helicopter first before seeing it and we react with Jimmy. Gene get's Into the garbage where his first big case started, and where his life as a free man ends. I squirmed when he dropped the diamonds! But it was too late, he's caught.
This episode has a myriad of callbacks, parallels. In his first scene in prison we see him back like in the Season 2 Gene scene, and with the slanted lighting reminding us of the beginning of the series.
I audibly yelled "YES!" when I realized he called Bill Oakley one, and he is now defending him, such a great way to bring him back. It's shocking how confident Gene is, or Saul now. He wants this to end "With me on top, like always." But he seems to have forgotten Kim's impactful line in the Season 4 penultimate episode, "Jimmy you're always down."
First we're surprised by Saul being clean shaven, but a bigger surprise is right around the corner... MARIE????
Everyone sits in a room that reminds me of Dr Strangelove, discussing Saul's crimes.
"They told me they found you in a garbage dumpster... Well that makes sense."
We're reminded this is truly the end of the Breaking Bad universe as we hear about Hank again, and Gomie's death gets more tragic leaving behind fatherless children.
"For what money? You did it all for money."
The acting is excellent from everyone here, even Saul. When Saul starts acting like a victim I laughed in shock! There's no way he's still going, especially the last episodes how we've seen how instrumental he was in the creation of Heisenberg's empire.
"I have nobody. I have nothing." That's the first thing he says he believes. Saul ain't gone yet.
Saul shows he still knows his law and shockingly drops his sentence down to 7 1/2 years!? But he doesn't stop, he's just having too much fun, he chooses a specific prison, and the ice cream flavor we know from Season 5 of the series that was swarmed by ants. There's so many important objects this episode.
Saul thinks he's got an ace up his sleeve with what happened to Howard, but he didnt count on Kim having beaten him to it.
We get our final, and best Breaking Bad cameo, back when Walt and Saul are at Ed the Disappearer's place.
Bryan Cranston's big bald cap head is hilariously back, but it does look better this time!
Walt is always fixing stuff when he feels powerless, and putting other's down. There's the second mention of the time machine here, but Walt hilariously calls this a "Meaningless question."
Walt knows about regret, there's another parallel with Walt looking at his watch, and he again talks about Gray Matter. Walt hilariously says he did the "Gentlemany thing" even though we know he hasn't.
Walt truly just wanted money. Saul was even actually trying to help, but he gets hit with the same words that kept pushing him down the bad choice road.
"You would've been the last lawyer I would've gone to."
Saul is always so close to retrospection but not quite there yet. At least we get the backstory of his bad knees!
"A slip and fall?"
We see how crafty Saul always is using a scam to put himself through school, and like Chuck has always know, Walt says "So you were always like this."
Saul is always so close to retrospection but not quite there yet. At least we get the backstory of his bad knees!
We finally see Kim back after being led to believe Saul is trying to screw her over. To be fair "It's really good ice cream!" Kim can finally move forward now that she's confessed, her real self is coming back now that she offers herself up to work, for free, or pro-bono if you will. She stuck with the files like before, but now she happy about it. Until she's rudely awakened after finding out Saul has something on her.
The stage is set. Saul comes out with one of his classic suits, he's there to represent himself, Kim in the back nervously tapping her feet, is Saul truly all that's left?
"It's showtime!"
He tells the same story he told before... it's excruciating to watch thinking he's ruining everything-but he comes back, Saul's gone.
He wanted Kim there to show her the return of the man she loved, Jimmy McGill.
"I made millions!" It's like he's proud that he was partially responsible for Heisenberg's empire, but he finally shows his first moment of regret, after ignoring it for so long-By the way I love Oakley trying to help in the background yelling- He finally mentions Howard, and after so many years, so many seasons and episodes for us, he mentions Chuck too. We see the exit sign reminding us of Chicanery, there's no going back now. He finally admitted to himself he had a part in the death of Chuck.
"What was all that? That thing with your brother that wasn't a crime"
"It was a crime."
Saul's gone, "The names McGill I'm James McGill."
I've been waiting for so long to finally get another Chuck scene and we got it!
After everything we know Chuck was right, we see he was trying to help him as well, but Jimmy didn't want to talk about his cases, he didn't listen to his advice.
We see the time machine book was Chuck's all along, a reminder Jimmy has kept, for the moment he wanted to go back to, and talk to Chuck, listen to him for once.
"If you don't like where you're heading, There's no shame In changing your path"
I was so happy when i saw this scene, I knew the time machine book had importance, I wrote it my notes.
The finale went pretty predictably, but it was very well executed. I will however say though the scene in the bus where everyone chants Better Call Saul was very cheesy, but ultimately while he can never escape the Saul persona, at least it helped for something, he's respected in prison. Jimmy can now be happy basically doing the same thing he was doing as Gene, cooking in the prison, but truthfully now, openly, he's not hiding anymore.
Kim visits one last time and we get the obvious parallel to the one of the first scenes, though this time Jimmy's in the shadow instead of Kim. Jimmy tragically but almost comedically says he got himself from 7 years to 86, but while it seems sad, he's happy the law worked like Chuck wanted and he got what he deserved.
Better Call Saul ends where Jimmy doomed himself at the end of Season 4 when he did the finger guns and lead himself to the Saul Goodman road. But this time he redeemed himself. It's all Jimmy now.
...And then I remembered they forgot about Jeff hehe.
Overall this was one better finales to one of the best shows. Very well executed, yet ultimately very predictable, a 9/10 finale from me.
Better Call Saul: Point and Shoot (2022)
Excellent episode with a disappointing aspect
Coming off of the last masterful episode I didn't expect them to keep the momentum going and they did! This is easily one of the most intense and exciting episodes of the entire show. The way it was executed was excellent and very well done. Jimmy's and Kim's shock and aftermath was still amazingly acted. The talk Lalo wanted to give was so unexpected making Jimmy go to shoot Gus for him, but then even more unexpected is when Jimmy makes Kim go instead! Her reaction was devastating, crying begging to not make her go, but it makes sense Jimmy wanted to get her out of there. Kim walking up to Gus's house was so intense cause we know Gus survives so something must go wrong for Kim. Though of course if you think about it, that wouldn't make sense, and then you realize Lalo's true genius plan is to make more of Gus' men leave and he got Gus and Mike separated! So yeah I really loved most of this episode... However, Lalo's death was quite disappointing. I'm pretty sure most people predicted it since the episode Gus stashed there gun, I even made a review with that prediction, and since we know Gus survives Breaking Bad then there's only one outcome, which kinda ruins the intensity. Other than that though this was an excellent episode, but I wish Lalo had a better send off. There's a theory he would survive being shot so Gus would keep him as a pet like the story he tells Hector of the Coati back in season 4, which actually would've been pretty awesome but not even that, we got the most basic outcome. Loved his creepy bloody smile and laugh though. Howard's send off was better, and man Patrick Fabian's performance was on another level this episode! Jokes aside, I still miss him. I hope the last 5 episodes are amazing and make the first half worth it cause honestly apart from some stand out episodes this season like 3, and 7, this hasn't been up to par for me with at least the last 3 seasons of the show. Regardless, still loved this episode and this is still one of my favorite shows.
A few tidbits I wanted to add:
Absolutely devastating how the most decent and lawful person is buried right next to the most vile and criminal character. Especially since Howard's reputation is going to be ruined and now going to be known as a drug addict. Now let's await Kim's and Gene's fates!
I thought they were going to make the part where Gus kept shooting at Lalo the tic of him pressing his fingers together in Breaking Bad.
Lyle cameo was hilarious, going to have to save that tune. I love how Gus tries to appeal to Lyle by asking him if his absence is acceptable to him after he basically tortured Lyle cleaning last season.
Were some of the shots of Kim driving in the streets CGI? That looked off to me. Apart from that loved the cinematography, especially the longer takes and moments of handheld cam that added more momentum to this episode.
Though I didn't love Lalo's death, Gus' monologue was so great. Interestingly paralleled Nacho's amazing monologue. Giancarlo Esposito's Spanish has improved, though as a Spanish speaker it's still not great. Laughed out loud when Gus called the Salamancas wh*res!
(Censored cause IMDb considers this profanity)
The new episode promo was so lame! I wanted new footage... even after a nearly 2 month break between episodes these weeks are going to go by so slowly.
9/10.
Better Call Saul: Plan and Execution (2022)
The episode we've been finally waiting for. One of the best episodes and easily the best of the season! Worth the wait. 10/10
After the last couple of episodes which were a little underwhelming, but still really good, mainly being set up, it was worth the wait! The episode begins with Lalo hilariously coming out of a sewer finally back in the US. He takes a shower and goes back to the sewer with the cockroaches (where he belongs!) to spy on Gus's laundromat with the super lab after getting the information from poor Casper. That was already an exciting cold open as we've all been waiting for Lalo to finally come back into the main story, and it went worse than we could've imagined!
We smoothly get back to Jimmy and Kimmy's scheme, no need for explanations because we can now easily piece it together thanks to all the set up of the previous episodes. I love not only the intensity of the characters trying to fix the pictures before it's too late, but also the excitement as we live vicariously through them even if we know they're doing something bad. It's all beautifully captured in a long take of them setting up the pictures of the Judge Casimiro look a-like. The music in the background and excellent direction from Thomas Schnauz make this the most enjoyable and intense episode in a long time, even more so that the moment with Nacho for me.
We get a lot of time with Howard this episode, which hurts so much. Howard has been a character I've always liked, especially played by Patrick Fabian who I can't help but love, which makes this so tragic. The parallels to Chuck make this all more poetic and sad as he almost gets the same fate as him but without it actually being his own fault. Him being dosed by the drug and handling Irene so nicely brought more intensity. There's a lot of red herrings that keep you guessing and make the episode consistently so anxiety inducing. My stomach was in knots even during the ads!
It's also sad to see Clifford struggle to trust Howard because from the outside it truly seems like Howard is lying, which just makes for such great dramatic irony. When Howard finally goes off as we expected he gets his own Chicanery moment as Jimmy goes as far as to switching the pictures, and Fabian was glorious! Him putting their plan together and us knowing he can't prove it further makes this so hard to watch but great writing. Howard's life unraveling while Kim and Jimmy make out in the background is just hilarious and fitting, but in retrospect even more painful...
Lalo... when we finally saw Lalo back I was so excited as I was worried we wouldn't get more of him this episode. I just wanted to add that the cinematography in this episode was also excellent, as they had so many great shots of Lalo simply in the sewer. Lalo recording himself was hilarious, but when he accidentally incriminates himself to Gus by calling Hector that was no laughing matter. While Lalo is obviously a horrible human, his character is just so fascinating and enjoyable to watch because of how it ties to the plot and because of Tony Dalton's performance. So when Lalo tricks Gus with his own trick it was even more intense and exhilarating! We're left in the dark to what exactly is happening and it made more suspenseful.
So Howard... When Howard came to Jimmy's home to confront him I thought that was honestly it. It was a brilliant scene and arguably Fabian's best in an episode where he kept one upping himself. Howard just tragically describing Jimmy accurately knowing what he becomes, but giving even more insight into Kim. It was already an amazing moment, talking about his own issues, and then calling them soulless... Then that candle flickers and you know something is going wrong... I thought Lalo was really going to Gus, so when I saw him I was initially excited because I've been waiting for him to meet Jimmy one last time, but then the terror set in knowing what was coming with Howard... Poor Howard, in the wrong place at the wrong time. It made for the best scene in the season when we already had another amazing death scene with Nacho. I love the parallel to Bad Choice Road, the previous most intense scene in the series till now. While this wasn't a planned mid season finale or a planned cliff hanger it totally delivered and I couldn't be happier with this episode when I was a little underwhelmed by the last. To think Howard will probably be remembered for being on drugs in his last moment and maybe even killed by drug dealers, Wow... Thank you Better Call Saul. I know the 2 month break for the last 6 episodes will be worth it.
Better Call Saul: Black and Blue (2022)
Spoilers: Prediction for the next 2 episodes.
I'm gonna go back and write a proper review for this episode when I rewatch it but before I do that I wanted to leave a prediction for where the season is going.
Many people including myself already feel like they've seemingly figured out where the Lalo and Gus plot is going. Basically Lalo will go to the place where Werner's mold from the beginning of the episode was being made, and someone there will tell Lalo about one of the workers for the super lab, and obviously since Lalo is spooky the guy will spill the beans leading Lalo to the Super Lab. Gus however, is already prepared, and he will turn off the lights, get the stashed gun (that's why he was counting his steps in this episode) and then shoot Lalo. This all concludes with Lalo getting buried in the south wall. I can see this happening, and I feel like maybe it'll be done in the next 2 episodes, which will leave mainly Jimmy stuff for the second half... honestly I hope this is a misdirect because this is too obvious. The moment you have Gus with a stashed Gun and Lalo investigating Werner this is the most obvious conclusion. While I suppose it would work, I don't think it's a bad ending, it ties many things together pretty neatly, also it all depends on execution, but I hope this isn't so easily predictable because this show is usually so unpredictable and I expect a little more from it being one of the best shows of all time in my opinion.
Anyways this was a good episode, but a bit underwhelming as not that much happened plot wise. As I said I'll come back to properly review this episode soon, but just wanted to leave this prediction for now.
Ozark: A Hard Way to Go (2022)
A terrible inconclusive ending to a fillery meandering season.
Welp... there it is, another terrible ending that we should've seen coming. I actually quite liked Season 4 Part 1. It was the only season, well half a season, that I felt got progressively better as it went on, and while it was a lot of set up, and had a lot of padding I actually preferred it to seasons 1 and 2 originally, under the assumption this will all pay off in a superior second half, you know. Season 4 part 2 on the other hand was the complete opposite, starting off pretty good, but progressively getting worse and worse until the horrible finale. I was actually going to review the entire show, and I plan to come back and edit this review with my overall thoughts, but since that's not done I just thought I'll give my thoughts on the finale already cause I gotta let it out.
So... before I get into the bad stuff, I do have to say that the acting and cinematography are at its best here. Other than that though this finale just fell off a cliff as the rest of this part was tumbling down already. There is a single scene which ruins large amounts of this season. Remember the flashforward? Yep, uh what was the point of that? Because by showing us that the Byrdes survive and are all back together doesn't that kinda ruin the tension? So any moment we think they might be in danger, oh but the car crash hasn't happened yet so they're fine. While it was kinda interesting to see a bit more of Wendy and her dad, ultimately that plot point of her dad taking the kids also was pointless and had no tension since we know they will be back together. And when does the car crash scene happen? Not earlier in the season to show that the Brydes can die at any moment, nope, literally in the middle of the finale? What?! And to make things worse, the car crash is completely useless to the plot! Everyone comes out unscathed and apart from a mention or 2 the next scene, they come out practically I bruised and the car crash is never mentioned again... what the heck happened to the writers? Who thought this was a good idea?
So the only other important character is Ruth and it's pretty obvious that she'd die. She was the saving grace of this all, I genuinely felt sad to let her go as she has been one of the best characters of the show for the entire run, compared to many characters who were be fine one season and sucked the next, looking at you Jonah. The only tension in this season surrounded her, and unlike the dumb car crash, the Langmore curse was a great way to build a sense of dread. Even then though, her death scene felt so off. In fact, the entire episode did! Is it just me or did this episode just feel off? I don't know wether its the editing, pacing, directing, but as soon as I started watching and "felt" how the finale was, I knew we were in for another disappointment.
So unexpectedly, the plot goes how you'd expect. What I mean by this is you'd think they'd try to surprise you, so you don't expect it to go the way it's been going, but nope. The Brydes get back together, Navarro is killed off, Camila is boss, the Byrdes foundation is successful, uhhh half the episode was set up so am totally even forgetting what happened. Despite Wendy institutionalizing herself because she literally wanted to kill her dad being totally moronic, at least it brought for the best scene where Wendy spills her guts out to her children about why she did all this being honest for once, with Laura Linney being fantastic as always. I also really liked the realization from Marty and her when Ruth is going to be killed that they can't do anything. That's pretty much the only positive things that stood out this episode I could remember. On a side note I just wanted to add I find it hilarious how Wendy draws the line on voter fraud after everything she's done, but I digress.
For most of the episode I thought it was pretty mediocre, maybe bad, but what really made it terrible for me was the ending. So the private investigator they wrote off the show so flimsy by getting his job back after him pointlessly investigating things that lead to nothing, comes back, breaks into the Byrdes house to find Ruth's cookie jar because he's just so obsessed with this case! Ummmm... okay, so he committed yet another crime, hoping there might be some convenient evidence against them for blackmail, whilst also knowing the Byrdes are involved with the cartel so can probably have him killed? Was he still on the coke he stole from evidence? And the story ends with Jonah, you know the character who does a complete 180 after Season 2, doing a complete 180 again to suddenly be fine sticking with the family he's been trying to leave for the past season, and kill for them!
We never find out what happens to half the characters, KC mob was useless I guess. Do the Byrdes ever get under Camila's nose? Will the Byrdes even stay together after the entire show was then constantly on the verge of separating? I don't know but apparently they needed to fill in half of this meandering season with pure filler only to not even properly conclude the series. What even is the point, did the Byrdes seriously get away with it? I mean obviously the series isn't condoning them, but come on they should've totally gotten some consequences... But hey, at least Sam found God, and got away safely! Good on you my man!
Season Rating: (6/10)
Finale Rating: (3/10)
Edit: I'd like to mention 2 things I didn't fully grasp about this finale initially. So the car crash is meant to actually unite the family again, so it's not useless. However, that still doesn't change much because the fact that this silly contrivance once again 180s Jonah's character, and that is indicative of the poor contrived writing this show has had. In forcing the family together you've created way more flaws, so it's not worth it, and not earned.
Now the ending, conceptually I can kinda like it. Ozark is kind of a show about class struggle. The have's, vs the have not's. The Brydes are the privileged immoral rich family that drive away the Ozark's poorer people, businesses, culture, etc. This is especially evident with the Langmores. They can't escape the circumstances they were born in, kind of like the Langmore curse. So in the end they essentially get away with it, and their family is together in crime, without the excuse of survival anymore to justify their evil. This is conceptually quite good, however, this is not earned or well executed in the series. These themes are not well enough explored for it to be the thesis of the entire show in a satisfying way, and the Brydes only win through constant luck and contrivance. They aren't even together as a family organically. So, maybe it wasn't as terrible as I thought when I didn't grasp these things, however, it is not enough for me to not still call it a terrible ending, because execution matters most.
Shingeki no Kyojin: The Dawn of Humanity (2022)
Good ending to the second part of the season, before it'll fall apart in the third part.
The final episode of Attack On Titan... wait you mean there's a third part coming to the final season?! What manipulative marketing haha. Oh well at least we got some good flashbacks, but no AOE and they skipped surprisingly a lot from the manga which I don't like, they didn't even adapt chapter 130 fully, don't like this pacing. Regardless, onto the episode itself, why do they have to treat the characters like morons who don't know cars exist? Like you have literal trains... Also the fact that there happens to be a kid who steals from Sasha to parallel the Eldians, not forced at all! Like I've been saying there's no subtlety left in the series, but hey this is a good episode I'll try to stop criticizing too much. The really good stuff comes in the second half. I couldn't care less about the Mikasa romance with Eren, it's just cheesy. The episode later confirms that Mikasa doesn't actually act like this cause she's an Ackerman, nope she's just unhealthily obsessed with Eren, no interesting character work there anymore. I could've also done without the flashbacks to scenes we've already seen, but what was really good was finally seeing more of Eren's perspective. Eren telling his plan to Floch and Historia, calling her the baddest girl haha, cutting his own leg, and declaring he'll kill everyone to stop the cycle of hate, cool stuff. They adapted it pretty faithfully, so I surely hope they don't go against the set up here in the future! The fleets shooting at the rumbling titans looked kinda funky though, except at the end when it showed the founding Titan looked very cool. Overall though it was a good episode, not great, but solid. Wouldn't usually review something like this I don't have much thoughts on but since I've reviewed the rest of the season I might as well might. Fine episode, nothing special, not a 10/10, but maybe the last good episode.
Shingeki no Kyojin: Traitor (2022)
Pretty awesome until you think of it for more than a second.
From memory this was one of the better parts of the last arc, but watching it animated, while it makes many moments better, it also highlights more of the issues with the story. Honestly for a lot of the episode I was enjoying it, but this is one of those episodes that are great in the moment but start to fall apart when you think of it. First of all Magath has a good moment admitting his hypocrisy, but this should've happened last episode. It's clear that if he's going along with all of this then he has seen his mistakes, it just didn't need to be said now after that was all resolved, and it just made the first half of the episode feel redundant. I mean don't get me wrong, there definitely should be more drama with these characters, but that was just pointless at this time. Then Armin's plan makes absolutely no sense. So they need to get on the boat with the plane with the Azumabito mechanics as well. How? Armin says the cart Titan escaped by the sea, firstly how? Okay let's say the Yeagerists didn't catch that, now why would they need to go after them? Where would they go? Marley which is about to be completely destroyed? What's the point of chasing them, and with Armin being rumored to betray them (as mentioned by the other Yeagerists) Floch and the rest have no reason to believe them. Why doesn't Floch send some of his more trusted people then? But ignoring that, let's say the Yeagerists let them, and the they illogically remove the bombs... They still need to sneak in all the alliance people, like Oyankapon and Jean, who he tells Floch were killed, let alone Reiner, Annie, Magath, Pieck, Gabi, Falco, etc. How are they all supposed to get to the docks undetected and be snuck in? This plan just makes 0 sense. At this point the Yeagerists would've logically blown up the planes. Hell, shoot a thunder spear at it or something. Then we get the dumb moment where the middle aged woman Kiyomi (off-screen of course because it would be impossible to show it believably) disarms and knocks down a trained soldier who had a gun on her. I'm confused, what was her plan after this, get shot? The other Yeagerists just stand there dumbfounded at the plot armor so that Mikasa can break in through the window, and they can drool like when AOT fans look at Mikasa, allowing her to knock them out instead of them just instantly shooting her. Again, cool moment until you think of it for more than a second. These Yeagerists are incompetent, they're prepared and can't shoot at them for some reason. They literally blow up the room but of course the plot important characters get away unscathed. At least Reiner and Annie coming in was cool, the animation was very well done. Them destroying the Yeagerists reminded me of the good old days, just really cool. The funniest part though was the alliance members who were waiting on Armin's plan are shocked it didn't work. Wow it's almost as if Armin's plan made 0 sense and relying on it was idiotic! Also Reminder Levi is useless now and just here for fan service. The episode ends pretty strongly with the moment where Connie shoots and kills Daz and Samuel, though it felt forced. It's the type of emotion I missed from this show. While it felt forced the way it played out (All they had to do was shoot or blow up the ship! No other Yeagerists came?) Connie having to kill them was pretty good drama, and the voice acting was great... but it felt kinda off to me. At first I thought Connie killed Samuel pointlessly as he was unarmed and it almost ruined Connie's character for me (well even more after he almost kills a child) but thankfully I rewatched the episode and noticed a single frame it shows he actually had a second gun. In the heat of the moment I get shooting Samuel, but I felt like it could've been better handled. You knok it's his literal childhood friend, and he shoots him multiple times in the head? Couldn't he try to disarm his other gun, or get Armin's help? It just feels off framing him as a hero who had to do a tough thing, and hypocritical when he will kill him, but let nah let Annie and the others slide... okay. Anyways, well acted, cool moment, though once again like everything else in this episode: forced. Is it a bad episode? Out of the post rumbling episodes it was one of the better ones, but I don't know with these episodes the more you think of it the dumber it gets. Armin's plan alone turns half the characters into moron's but whatever, it was the most enjoyable out of the last few episodes.
Forever: The Last Death of Henry Morgan (2015)
Bad finale for a bad show that got cancelled for a reason
Every episode begins with a quirky Abe and Henry moment relating to their past due to Henry's immortality. Then a cliched predictable case, with an obvious red herring, twist, and easily resolved in predictable ways, with unrealistic police work, Lucas' quirky pop culture jokes and references, Jo romantic teases. There's the occasional exploration of the characters' cliched past, some flashbacks to Henry's past lives which are often pointless and neatly tie to the episode's very simple and cliched message that is annoyingly explained in the end of the episode by Henry with narration. Almost every single episode has to end happily. There's this storyline where it's revealed that Henry's dad sold slaves. Of course Henry being the main character he is totally against this, leading him to try to free slaves getting killed in the process. He believes he failed those slaves and they died, but in another episode it's revealed that actually he did succeed in letting the slaves be freed somehow despite all the other information we've gotten about this completely contradicting this and not making sense. We also have Henry's past wife, who he's so sad about, that literally leaves him because she ages and he doesn't... where's the creativity?
This is basically an average cop procedural that's totally mediocre, only carried by Ioan Gruffud's charismatic performance, and the intrigue that the immortality plot will be more developed. The pilot setting everything up, while not great, was pretty fun and interesting. I thought it would get better from there, but apart from the occasional decent episode the only other good episode was the mid season finale and penultimate episode which FINALLY developed the immortality plot significantly. The mid-season finale in particular was my favorite episode which revealed the mysterious villain, played by the solid Burn Gorman, which also gets away conveniently but whatever, it was the only episode where I was actually somewhat excited. The villain honestly carried a lot of this show. Even though he barely appeared, every time he did it almost always felt like an above average episode for the show, and his backstory was interesting with him being caught and tortured by Nazi's. I thought after the mid season finale it would pick up, but nope. I'd honestly even say the second half was worse though I don't know if that's because I grew more tired with it.
It only started to get interesting again literally in the penultimate episode when they find Abe's mom/ his wife. It was interesting to see how the villain was related to it all, the actual mystery and the way she died was one of the only semi-surprising moments in the show. There's only like 3-4 good episodes, the rest are decent to bad, mostly mediocre and bad, some even being terrible. This is the type of show I played in the background while doing something else and only giving it like a quarter of my attention, yet the episode are mostly so basic and predictable I don't feel like I missed anything. I only watched this show because of the main actor, interesting premise and reviews on IMDb, to be honest I totally regret it. If I wasn't so obsessed with finishing everything I watch, and thinking maybe it would eventually get good to justify its ratings I would've likely quit it or skipped most of the episodes. It took me over a year to get through this. By the time I reached the second half I honestly just started skipping through scenes, especially the the cheesy narrations at the end. This is something I almost NEVER do because I feel like I'm missing something, but for this show I'm confident I just saved my time. I wish I just stopped earlier. This is genuinely one of the main reasons I've now started to let go my completionist mindset and just drop some shows.
As for the finale, I am reviewing it after all... it expectedly sucked. They seemed to be trying to save some of their best material for last, which is nice I suppose. I liked Lucas acting like Henry. But the main case is average and boring apart from the obvious connection to the villain and the dagger which can supposedly kill him. I like when Henry spots a guy who looks like the villain, it's the rare moment where the show builds a tiny bit of tension. There's also a decent scene where Abe realized Henry was thinking about maybe killing himself with the gun, and that he shouldn't kill, but honestly I'm just looking for the only decent things I could find in this episode cause it's truly mostly mediocre to bad. It started to escalate when Jo stared going after Henry after she realized he poisoned the guards coffee to get information, but then Jo let's him get away with it because of their unspoken romance. Lucas and Henry get a moment but it all feels so obvious and cliche. This show peaked in the mid season finale. But nah it just completely falls into more contrived cliche crap, the 3 C's. I can't believe this episode is so highly rated on IMDb. The villain has this master plan, he happens to have the original gun, (did he get it from the safe or was it a replica? I don't know.) he shoots in a subway which of course only Jo heard it and goes investigate. Of course Henry is able to drug the genius villain who has gotten away all this time after he's shot. Of course Henry dies before Jo arrives and survives. They really spread this scene out as to build tension like we didn't know he wouldn't die or be caught, like always. The villain is now paralyzed in perfect poetic irony, and obviously Henry will reveal the truth to Jo, the only significant plot development in 20 episodes, what trite.
Overall this was a mediocre show with very few redeeming qualities by the end of it. Despite some potential, mostly unused, it was cancelled for good reason. It has the occasional funny moment and I didn't hate it or anything. There was some enjoyment to be found, but it truly felt like waste of time at the end of it. His immortality barely played a factor in most of the episodes. The only time a semblance of tension was built was when there was a chance of him being caught dying or being exposed, but it never happened and those moments happened so infrequently. Also the show is kinda racist when it comes to certain cultures being depicted in overly stereotypical ways or just in plainly wrong ways. Clearly a show where much thought or research was not put in it. That being said visually it's above average for a show of this kind. Nothing impressive but it doesn't look as dull as some other shows of the same style I'd say. Regardless a good lead, a few funny moments here and there and above average production value is not enough to support a badly written, painfully cliched and predictable procedural show we've seen endless times. If you want to see a good supernatural cop procedural kinda similar to this, but actually good, check out Lucifer. This will be the last time I think about this. Goodbye.
Series and Finale: (4/10)
Diabolical: One Plus One Equals Two (2022)
What the rest of the show should've been like.
This episode is what I hoped the entire show was. We finally get to see another side of Homelander's origin, which is confirmed to be canon and set up season 3. We now understand Black Noir's role in The Seven, as the guy who keeps Homelander in check, which is a bit similar to the graphic novel but I'm pretty sure it'll be very different when we understand the full context of the character. I think after Season 2 of The Boys which was a bit weaker plot wise but stronger character wise, Homelander has potentially become one of the best TV Villains I've watched, and this short but great episode gives the character another dimension to hopefully see explored in the main. Series with a lot more time. We already know about his abuse and experimentation as a kid, but we get to see how badly this affected with him having severe PTSD and what looks like anger issues from it. At the time of the show I suppose he has had them more under control, but we realize at least at first he was trying to do good, which I think shows a great new angle at Homelander, who can too often seem fully evil. I think the gore is needlessly excessive at times in The Boys, but the way it was utilized here with Homelander's powers being too strong and accidentally hurting people was effective. Reminded me of how it was done in Invincible but in a darker way. So yeah, I honestly don't have that much to say about this episode, but what about the rest of the season?
Well I have mixed feelings. There's some cool concepts, the superhero couple, 90s cartoon, anime inspired episode, but they're mostly so cliched and basic it feels like wasted potential. I'm kinda confused what this show so going for, cause I thought this was supposed to be funny? I had like a few laughs, mostly from the Rick and Morty style episode from Justin Rolland which was actually creative and fun. But then there's multiple serious episodes, and it feels like they didn't know what they were doing. The anime inspired episode was totally serious, then why not have more variety in tone, cause half of it was more serious, maybe a little comedic, and the other half was trying way too hard to be funny and often failing. Not gonna bother mentioning the poop episode as I already reviewed it. Why couldn't we just have more episodes like 3 (the butcher one) and the finale building up the world? This just seems like something they quickly threw together without much effort except from the probably overworked animators (which were the saving grace for some episodes) to have something in between the extra long wait from Season 2 to 3.
It feels like The Boys has devolved into the media it criticizes on the show. Also it's needlessly edgy, there's so much swearing and sexual humor that don't fit with the episodes. Obviously with such a small runtime you can't do much with the stories, but aside from the stories feeling obviously rushed, most of the episodes also feel lazily written. I was hoping this was going to take place in the world of The Boys, as in it would be canon and build up the world in new and interesting ways, but the stuff that happens here completely goes against things we know, it just feels unbelievable and badly written to the point where it makes no sense and it actually would hurt the world building. Obviously none of it is canon except the last one, but then I ask what's the point of this? Like a few changes could've made episode 3 canon, the teens with crappy powers could work too, especially the Envision episode could tie into things and was interesting, though the episode was super predictable. Which was a problem with almost all the episodes.
I think the biggest example of this was the seventh episode, which had great animation, but a pretty dumb and cliched plot. So this old dude somehow steals some compound V for his dying wife, which gives her destructive powers she doesn't want, you get the obvious dialogue you'd expect and heard 50 times from these type of things before, Vought comes to get them, she drops them all- Wait, by the way, why is Vought portrayed so incompetently in these shorts? Like they do almost nothing right, heh. Anyways it all culminates in this monster coming out of the old lady, all the Vought soldiers being destroyed and then the old guy stops it with a taser?! Uh... what? Actually it turned out the old lady shot it at the same time but that genuinely confused me initially. So it seems his wife then sacrifices herself and we see her fly into a field... okay, maybe a little rushed? Like do you expect us to care from a cliched 10 minutes? Also I know I said I wasn't gonna mention it, but doesn't this plot have some of similarities to the fifth episode that shall not be named? It just seems like a complete lack of originality and actual effort put into the scripts of many of these. Almost the plots in the episodes are super forced, and I suppose they can get away with some things due to the runtime, but it still felt badly executed. Look at something like Smiling Friends, which came out recently, can accomplish with 10 minute episodes. Ultimately this was just a big lack of potential, and with it being barely movie length I wonder why did they settle with this? While The Boys: Diabolical doesn't affect almost anything in The Boys to hurt it, that also makes it disposable, as it's not good enough to stand on its own and the only tie-in is minimal. Overall, it had a few enjoyable episodes, some pretty bad ones, the animation was at least solid, so it just gets a mediocre 5.5/10 from me.
Shingeki no Kyojin: Pride (2022)
Worst episode yet, genuinely terrible.
This is when Attack On Titan sadly starts to become genuinely bad. This is easily the worst episode thus far in the entire series, and an embarrassment. In just 1 episode we see all the non Yeagerist characters join up and come together to "Save the world." HA! What fan fiction is this?! This is the direction the storyline is taking? Hmmm, I wonder where the story is going now, totally not gonna end like any average battle shounen! Nothing makes sense anymore. Crazy how Gabi can already perfectly ride a horse, remember when they specifically stated she knew barely anything about them? Jean is not a Yeagerist, all the characters met up off screen and planned together, no drama yet about working with what were previously your enemies and have been killing each other. None of the Yeagerists noticed the big noisy cart Titan? We also have the egregiously dumb Connie subplot. At least Connie calls himself an idiot! Honestly conceptually it could've worked, it's kinda creepy when he has Falco and acts like he just wants to brush the Titan's teeth, but the execution of this arc relies on major contrivances, like the timing of all the events, dumb character moments, like when Armin literally risks the colossal Titan in a stupid stunt, and the placement in the story is wrong, which makes this subplot useless. It ultimately is filler, as none of the characters mention how Connie literally just tried to kill an innocent child. I honestly wish Connie inadvertently fell into his mother's mouth because of this, which I thought could've been an super cool and interesting direction, but whatever. I haven't even gotten to the worst part yet. The rumbling just happened and again where's the tension, stakes, urgency? These last 2 episodes feel mostly like filler. Once the rumbling begins it's pretty much over, what are they gonna do realistically? Before I get to the worst part, the only positive I can give this episode is the scene in the beginning, I like the shot of the characters trying to sleep with the rumbling, something simple that I don't think most people would initially think about but cool they showed. But yeah... that pie scene, oh my lord. How do we get the characters to meet Annie? They conveniently happen sit next to her while she's eating, and then laugh at her eating a pie. Wow, what a funny and great moment for the characters to meet the main villain of the first season who mercilessly murdered multiple of their friends! Armin even shows concern for her since Connie laughs what?! I mean I get he wants Annie (who's in an underage body, Uh oh), but they don't question how she got out, if she killed anyone on the way, what she knows, and what she's gonna do?! Worst scene in the series yet, in a terrible episode with inconsistent characters, a hugely contrived plot, the wrong tone, and bad writing. What a joke. I desperately want an anime original ending, but even an AOE won't save the last arc if it's gonna adapt such crap moments.
Edit: Totally forgot about Mikasa's moment where she cares more about a scarf that a dying girl. A dying girl who's hero is Mikasa... What happened to this character? Also this review got deleted? I have no idea why, do AOT fans just mass report any negative review? I believe it, but my review didn't do anything wrong. Originally gave this a 3/10, but the more I think of it the more I hate it. This just goes against everything that's been set up before, what happened?!
Diabolical: BFFs (2022)
Watched this while pooping...
Pooping was better than this episode.
Joke aside, this was truly a crap episode what the hell? I try not to give 1/10s, because at least the animation is fine I suppose, and it's not unwatchable, but the plot is just so stupid and bad. I mean I think any plot could be potentially well executed, but this was simply cliched and dumb. There was 0 originality except the living poop, which I assume the humor of this short would be derived from the absurdity of it all, but it did not work at all. Especially since the humor itself was not creative and dull. Story wise I'm confused why the deep is portrayed like such a bad guy? He was certainly not a good guy, but I never to the point of being a villain, like he threatens a child, literally kills someone. Wasn't the point of this that it's in the universe of the show? So the story is this girl has cliched bullies as friends who are using her to get drugs, haha so funny. She coincidentally runs off with compound-V, drinks it because she so sad, and living poop comes out. By the way, why doesn't the poop make a mess? The Deep finds her somehow, takes the poop, and then she's asked by Vought to never speak of this again, so she leaves, but is sad she has no friends so she must save her poop! This literal child just sneaks into Vought, hits someone over the head with an iPad, gets her poop and flushes it, then somehow goes down a sewer, finds her poop and fights The Deep with her poop controlling powers, and goes live happily ever after with sentient living shi-
Didn't even deserve a number 2... 1/10.
Shingeki no Kyojin: Night of the End (2022)
One of the better moments of the fumbling, but underwhelming due to the potential, and doesn't stay true to the drama and characters.
What the hell was the direction this episode, with window shots, so many tree shots, stew, still shots? I know that someone will say symbolism, of course, but you don't have to show it for so long, it's probably Mappa saving time and money, I respect that. But for real this episode just felt so weird. I hate how they skipped the intro for such a lackluster scene. Hange just makes erroneous assumptions of what people believe. Jean Is the only person acting relatively in character. It just makes no sense to stop the rumbling, if they do they're essentially killing themselves, and logically they can't. But we need to force the plot. Once again shows Jean should've been an yeagerist. They had to show all the dead characters like that to try to get some emotion from you, but nah that was cheesy, there's no subtlety left in this show, especially with all the tree shots haha. They even cut some small but good moments that really added to the characters. I absolutely hate Annie now, and I can't stand her, especially when she woke up Reiner last episode by kicking him in the face, but in the manga we actually see Annie treating Reiner after the beating, but this is cut?! Why, you trying to make Annie be even less likable? This was actually one of the better chapters of the final arc, though still not any good, but for once they actually executed it worse. Jean is the only interesting character right now, I liked his moment with the dream. This episode conceptually is great, having all these different characters with different views and from different sides coming together, Jean gets some good moments here, but it's just that it feels so forced and untrue to the characters just to eventually force these characters to work together and continue with the plot. Why do they assume Marley and Liberio is still safe when it's literally the closest place to Paradis, they'd be the first to be destroyed? There's barely any true or interesting drama, it's completely shallow. Yelena also gets a good moment work her past and valid criticism of the alliance, she literally mentions their past actions, like how Annie has killed multiple survey corps, and the characters are seriously still chill with Annie?! It just shows them being sad, boohoo, where's the conflict? How the characters ignore this is perfectly shown when Jean mentions the good soup instead of everything Yelena said! Magath gives a simplistic and ignorant view, Hange just says "genocide Bad." No... really?! Yeah of course Genocide is bad, please give another option or a solution though. This is an episode which is trying to seem deep like Midnight Sun, which is a brilliant episode, but doesn't actually have much depth or makes sense if you think about it. Jean is the only one with a proper reaction, arguing. At least Reiner and Annie admit to Marcos death, but why does Jean attack Reiner and let Annie slide?! Only valid Annie moment was questioning how they were going to stop Eren, they can't, unless they get BS plot armor and contrived deus ex Machina solutions. This episode ultimately the only drama we'll get between these characters, and for the potential it's underwhelming. It's not actually as bad as some of the episodes we'll get but it's just not that good either. Not trying to be this negative but it's just so frustrating. This is an episode that gets worse the more you think of it, at first I wouldn't call it bad, but now thinking of it more I think it is. Most of the dialogue makes no sense, is out of character, hypocritical and forced.
Blue Velvet (1986)
Quickie: Great potential and depth, but simply badly executed. My first Lynch.
I think I get it, and there's some very interesting concepts that could make for a great movie, but the execution ruined most of it for me. It's quite shocking to me this is genuinely considered by many to be one of the best films of all time. Don't get me wrong, there's aspects that deserve praise but most of the movie isn't even that well made in my opinion. The entire movie feels so stilted and clunky, from the performances, dialogue, editing, etc. You know you've failed when you make a literal rape scene unintentionally funny. None of the acting is good, honestly feeling like a student film. It's baffling to me this would get an Oscar nomination for it's directing. Are there good elements to the directing? Yes, it's pretty decently shot, it has some good symbolism, but mostly everything else fails. Some scenes feel like the actors weren't even directed. Sometimes it's hammy, and other times it's under-acted. Also I really dislike the pauses and whispering in some scenes. Can you really call a movie that makes a rape scene unintentionally funny well directed? The characters are all very thin and basic, they could've used so much more development to further strengthen the themes. It's like they only got the most basic elements to make these characters, but forgot to actually delve into them. It feels bare bones, and while the bones are strong It forgot the meat to truly support it. Not that all need much development, but most of the characters feel unrealistic, and unbelievable without much development. The plot is basic, bland, and even contrived at times. There's nothing that special or original about it, so the execution is what would set it apart, and it does by being mostly stilted and silly in all the wrong places. I honestly found most of the movie to be unenjoyable. I also believe it could've been shorter and had a tighter edit to at least be more enjoyable. Though at the same time it could've also been longer to further flesh out certain aspects of the film. The script feels like an early draft for a potentially great movie. Ironically Lynch's direction feels wrong for this type of movie. Yes, there are great elements in this movie, but the execution is middling at best. This movie is like the opposite of the opening scene, with the disgusting cockroaches at the top covering the rich grass brimming with potential that never quite got out. I would argue some of this movie is badly made, but I still gave it a 5.5/10 because I recognize it does have some great stuff deep in it. Maybe I really didn't get it, and Lynch's style isn't for me, but again, to me for the subject matter in this movie to be this badly executed is not a stylistic choice but an obvious flaw with the direction and movie. This is something I'll probably revisit when I watch more Lynch films, I hope I'm wrong about it, but this isn't a good start from his filmography for me.
(5.5/10)
Note: This is an old review I wrote last year that I always meant to expand especially after watching more Lynch and if I rewatch this film, but for now I thought I might as well post this.
Gangs of New York (2002)
Quickie: Competently made, but surprisingly generic coming from Scorsese
This is such an early 2000s movie. Huge great cast with great actors that are mostly underused or wasted. Great potential in a plot that is executed in an overly bloated, cliched, underwhelming, and even sometimes contrived way. It has this weird weak and extremely cliched Cameron Dias romance which completely feels out of place. Unnecessary narration, tons of exposition, and uninspired dialogue. There's so much that can be done with the time period, but honestly the time period almost seemed supplementary to the actual storyline and characters of the movie, and by the end of it I felt like it wasted too much time setting up this world that wasn't even that important for the storyline and characters apart from making this a flashy impressively made movie. I did certain aspects of the time and setting though, like the election, and rising racial tensions, but not enough was done with it. With all this time it should've been used to either develop the main characters more, or the larger cast. The Butcher could've been such a great character, and the movie could've easily focused on him, but we don't spend enough time with him, and focus our time on the basic Amsterdam. I don't know what to say about this movie honestly... I can see people enjoying this if they're sucked into the world. I was really trying to like it, but I couldn't get into it. I mean it's technically very well made in terms of the gorgeous sets, costumes, and seriously impressive camera work, scale, etc. But even some of the technical elements were off like the editing. It has its moments, but even Daniel Day Lewis wasn't enough to truly make this movie good. Even Leonardo Di Caprio, the now classic pairing with Scorsese, wasn't that good either. It's still decent enough, it definitely has some great moments, but it's quite disappointing how much potential this movie had even as someone who had lower expectations. I think there's some themes of the cycle of violence, and USA's development, but nothing seems to be too deeply developed here. There was this part a little after the half point of the movie where I thought it was suddenly going to take a surprising and exciting direction, but then it prematurely stops itself from going all out, and the rest of the movie plays out as you'd expect from the cliched plot. At least the battles were cool. Also, is it just me or is this movie and The Departed very similar? They even have similar issues, though at least The Departed was more enjoyable for as flawed as it was. I feel like I've seen this type of movie so many times. Maybe I would've liked this if I saw this earlier, but the entire movie was just so predictable. Honestly apart from the sets, costumes, and camera work this could pass off as a movie made by a pretty average director. Sadly one of Scorsese's weaker films.
(6/10)
Note: This was an old review I wrote after watching the movie that I didn't originally post because I thought it wasn't good enough and I would probably expand it, especially considering I plan to write many reviews for Martin Scorsese's filmography. That being said, I don't think I care enough about this movie to do that, so I thought I might as well post this.
Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (2014)
Most of these were cut for a reason, pretty pointless apart from a few key scenes.
Mostly pointless and even bad scenes that were cut for a good reason. I don't really know how to rate this but I didn't enjoy almost all the scenes, and I felt like they were pointless to release at all, unless they were special features, except for a few small parts that better explain certain things and this apparently setting up certain things in The Return. Still as a whole, even ignoring that this isn't a proper movie I would say it's bad and shouldn't have been released this way.
(3/10)