Category Archives: Netflix Original

The End of BoJack Horseman

Netflix Original,

The second half of Season 6 was recently released bringing BoJack Horseman to a close. One of the best programs on the platform and arguably one of the best animated shows ever made, BoJack ended the only way it could: poignant, sad, and with a sobering dose of hope.

I’ve been a fan of BoJack Horseman from the start and have written about it on my blog in the past with each new season. I ended up not detailing my experience with Season 5 because the end was such a surprise that I wanted to take the time to think it over and then give my thoughts, but life got in the way and I never sat down to write anything about it. So a week after I finished the final season, I’m going to make sure I get my thoughts into words this time.

BoJack is a challenging show. It’s animated with talking anthropomorphic animals interacting with people. It’s a goofy looking show that is often goofy in its humor. It’s easy to dismiss or not engage with at the start because the initial run-up doesn’t feel like it’s going to do anything new or terribly interesting. Then it gets serious, then it gets complex, then it goes into directions you never thought of while it makes you laugh.

This is a challenging show because BoJack, the main character is terrible. A self proclaimed “piece of shit” it’s easy to root against him. BoJack is an obnoxious, conceited addict who despite being surrounded by others, always feels alone. It’s easy for him to hurt people because his selfish decisions come from a dark place in his mind where everything comes down to what he deems as most important–himself.

With this in mind, it’s easy to think why would anyone want to watch a character like this? That’s the genius of the show. You watch complete characters–flaws and all–navigate the life that Hollywood can foster (and fester). The show goes on to dig into more than just Bojack, the principal protagonists (who can also be antagonists to Bojack, among other story propelling devices) also grow, change, and question what they value. Todd, Mr. Peanutbutter, Diane, and Princess Caroline are all part of Bojack’s life, but they occupy different spaces. Everyone moves to, around, and from Bojack in the course of the series.

And everyone doesn’t act the way they do just because. There are roots to the causes and you find out what they are. There’s some incredible character development done on this show. I don’t just like one or two characters–the whole main cast is rich and memorable. The creativity of this world is absurd. It goes from silly sight gags, dumb references, clever word puns, to serious adult issues in basically every episode without skipping a beat. There’s an episode with no dialog and one episode that is only Bojack giving a monologue and it all works! And it shouldn’t!

With animation, the writers are able to use abstract visuals to represent complex emotions. In this final season, a montage of Diane working on her writing comes up where everything is scratchy and rushed. She rambles on from thought to thought, fighting insecurities and distractions as crumbled bursts of drawings and words. I saw a lot of myself in how her writer’s brain is represented. Her last arc in this season brought me closer to her than any other character on the show. Anyone who works in the creative fields will get a lot from this show.

I also appreciate them ending the show here. It’s far too easy to keep escalating the stakes so high where it gets unbelievable. Plus, Bojack’s cycle of pain can only go so far before it either repeats itself or his story gets overwhelmed by darkness and everyone bails in disgust. The end of season 5 brought Bojack to physically harm someone. That felt like a line he was headed for, the true rock bottom that even he could no longer explain away. Season 6 starts with him in rehab and the other characters go forward (or sideways) without him. They all work on themselves independently. BoJack then becomes dependant on therapy, terrified he can’t be or do anything on his own. The second half he gets a job as a professor at a university to teach acting. He begins to find his self-worth…even as he steps on some toes in doing so. He starts to learn from that as well until his terrible deeds come back to haunt him.

Bojack Horseman goes into territory that shows rarely do. Plus, the intense material never felt like a stunt or an obnoxious means to gain attention or notoriety. There’s a level of respect and earnest desire to talk about issues of mental health, society, sexuality, responsibility, and relationships. The final two episodes are especially noteworthy, they are an absolute trip. A deep introspective into death, morality, and the personal costs of change. Knowing and understanding you always have a choice to make a decision for the best and the desire to do it is incredibly powerful.

I can’t recommend BoJack Horseman enough. I will absolutely be going back to it for years to come. I’ve said basically nothing about the virtues of this show, I’ve left out a lot because so much ground is covered in the 6 seasons. This show has everything I’m looking for in storytelling and I’ll do my best to raise my own work to reach the bar that’s been set here.

Fall is in full effect

Life, Netflix Original, NY Rangers, TV

Summer held on for as long as it could, giving one last heat blast on October 2nd. Now the chill has officially moved in! So that means hockey weather is here.

And so is the NHL season! The New York Rangers beat the Winnipeg Jets 6-4 in the home opener last night. It was a hair raising game with too many Ranger penalties (looking at you Strome). Defense was super dicey at times, rookies Fox and Hajak looking rather cross eyed at times. That meant Lundqvist had to put on his crown to keep them in the game, saving 43 of 47 shots. One of those was a soft goal, but he was stunting most of the night. All in all, promising, if sloppy. Winnipeg was all over Panarin and he was still able to make moves, which also let my boy Zibanejad run around. Both Panarin and Trouba scored so dropping all that money on them seems like a good idea so far! Oh! And Staal was the first to score! Staal! So it’s a promising start, they just need to get comfortable as a team.

The fall season also means a whole lot of entertainment is flying straight at our eyeballs. A lot of returning shows of course and a couple of new ones.

I tried watching the new season of American Horror Story and it bored me to death, so I’m out on that one. The Deuce is on it’s final few episodes, The Righteous Gemstones is amazing. Ink Master wrapped another good season

Netflix is killing it, I have more on there than I know what to do with. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance was fantastic. Derry Girls season 2 was terrific. Disenchantment and Big Mouth are back. I have a few stand up specials to watch, the last season of Orange is the New Black is on the backburner still, some horror movies I’ve had in wait I’ll get to this month. The Great British Baking Show! Between Two Ferns movie, The Spy, Mindhunter. El Camino!!!

On Amazon, I watched all of Undone in less than a week, liked it a lot and I’ve heard so much about Fleabag I need to figure out when to watch that. I’m probably going to stick to one series, finish the season, watch a movie, go to another series, and go like that until I run out of shows. Like I’ll run out of shows. Mr. Robot final season starts this Sunday! I think the Walking Dead is this weekend too and I have no idea why I still watch that.

And here’s a real big on out of no where: pro wrestling! All Elite Wrestling made it’s TV debut. I haven’t watched wrestling in I think 15 years so this was a trip. It was a lot of fun to watch and since I recorded it I can jump through the shoots (the story bits wrestlers do to set up fueds and such) that I have no patience for anymore. The talent they have is really fantastic. I’m happy to see anyone rise up to stick their thumb in Vince McMahon’s eye after all these years. Force his organization to be less garbage with competition.

Three Piece Movie Combo

Movies, Netflix Original

It’s a mix of genres for this post. I’ll start off with the biggest title.

Bird Box

This one is getting a lot of attention online. As a Netflix exclusive that stars Sandra Bullock, that’s not too surprising. Thriller/horror movies get a lot of buzz these days so hopes were high for this book translation. Bullock plays Malorie, a woman on her own who is expecting her first child in a few months. One day an epidemic breaks out, some kind of creature that compels people to commit suicide when they see it. These beings quickly devastates the world population and as the movie jumps from past to present, the invasion continues for 5 years with no reprieve.

I had high hopes going into this and it was more or less a let down at every turn. It was surprisingly boring which was really weird considering the premise. First and foremost, every character comes off as a character, not a real person. Everyone clearly has their typecast role and no one deviates from it. Bullock does a fine job with her acting, but it’s not enough to save the movie. When you first meet her character, she’s obnoxious and vapid, so I never connected with her. Despite being the heroine and doing truly heroic things at times, I didn’t care what happened to her.

The film is very conservative in its horror too as it never dares to show anything that intense or gruesome. A lot happens off camera. The creatures are seemingly ethereal, they can’t interact with solid objects (can’t open doors, break things) so the basic survival method is, cover the windows and stay inside. That’s not too interesting. The interest would be survival in such conditions and the stress it puts on the people who are together. Again, that all falls rather flat as while there is in-fighting, it never seems like a threat. Running out of resources never felt like a problem. While scenarios are made to throw chaos and surprises at you, all of it is predictable so again, there’s no weight to it. The creatures are shown as little more than a shadow so that’s disappointing as well.

The ending felt all wrong too as you watched someone being chased basically the entire time get a “don’t worry, it’s cool here” break. The whole thing just isn’t interesting. A few days ago I read a theory that the movie is a metaphor for racism (if you stick your head in the sand, racism doesn’t exist because you can’t see it) which is way more interesting and thought provoking. Considering how paper thin the entire movie is, I don’t think that idea crossed anyone’s mind in the making of this.

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle

Hollywood tends to run with a hive mind. A theme or genre becomes the thing to do and similar projects get worked on at different studios. In this case, it’s the Jungle Book. Disney got their reboot/re-imagining out first to great fan fair. This version, directed by Andy Serkis, took longer and ended up not getting a theatrical release. Enter the Netflix pick-up crew.

I liked Jon Favreau’s take. It was a gorgeous movie at times and it played it more or less safe in the Disney mold. Mowgli is a bit more grounded, certainly less bombastic. I might even like it a bit more as I thought Jungle Book dragged on for too long. I definitely felt more of a connection with this version of the Mowgli character. You rarely leave his side and his story arc, being orphaned and raised by wolves, accepted on the fringes but still very much alone, to be very compelling. A kid trying to fit in a world he doesn’t exactly fit into and being shoved into another world he wants no part in. I really liked watching his guardians Bagheera and Baloo do their best for him, to the point where they both fight over his well being. When Mowgli gets cast out of the pack, I felt heartbroken over it. Then, when he interacts with people for the first time, it’s horrible but he’s soon shown compassion and there’s an interesting angle there about being accepted. Because he looks like everyone else for the first time in his life there’s is a level of basic need and comfort there.

In time he sees the ugly side of humanity and that forces Mowgli to make up his own mind about what family means to him and what his purpose in life is. Shere Kahn is kept as a better menace in this one too (JB veers off to the monkey king for a while with a massive action sequence, one of the scenes I think Mowgli does better) and I really liked Mowgli’s relationship with Bhoot, which I think is something JB is lacking.

Jungle Book does look better though, it’s much more majestic. The animals in Mowgli look off and it took me a while to figure out why. In the animated and Favreau versions of this story, the animals are romanticized versions of wild animals. They all look healthy and happy. In this version, the animal’s fur is matted with grime, and they are malnourished. They look like they live in a jungle and for the time at least, food isn’t plentiful. You see it most on Baloo, who in the animated version looks like he’s had his fair share of honey (he might have a sharecropping deal with Winnie the Pooh). Serkis Baloo looks like he could use another 150 pounds or so.

A strong ending put the finishing touches on a movie I enjoyed way more than I thought I would.

The Package

It’s important to go into a dumb comedy knowing it’s a dumb comedy. It sets expectations. The title and synopsis of the move make it pretty obvious as to what’s going to happen and the movie delivers (the package) on that. Four teenage friends go on a camping trip and an accident forces the crew to help their friend save his most precious body part.

Produced by the guys who made the show Workaholics and the movie Game Over, Man! you can guess the levels of cursing, situations, and absurdity this movie goes to. It actually goes much father in visuals than Bird Box does which is funny in itself.

I got what I wanted out of this. There are laughs sprinkled throughout with one standout scene that I thought was hilarious. The cast is great and every character gets a backstory and the time to be more than just window dressing. Yes it’s dumb, yes it’s gross, but that’s the goal and I think it’s a well made movie. The escalation of terrible events is done just right and with a 90 minute run-time, it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. Watch this instead of Bird Box, you’ll probably get more out of it.

The Horror! Part 3

Movies, Netflix Original

Little Evil– With running so much horror back to back I felt it would be a good to shift into a horror comedy title to cleans the pallet. And Little Evil was a disappointment. A goofy take of Omen and various other That Kid Ain’t Right movies, Little Evil follows new step-dad, Gary, try to bond with his step-son, Lucas. His time dating (and marrying) Samantha was a whirlwind so they haven’t spent too much time together. Lucas is a quiet kid and when the disturbing events around Lucas start stacking up it’s clear there is some deviltry at work. As a horror movie and as a comedy, both halves barely show up. I was surprised at how safe this movie played everything. Anything scary comes down to lighting in the scene, not the action. Lucas does one thing really messed up, but even that was pretty tame all things considered. There’s no real suspense, surprises, and a body count so low it barely registers. it often felt like nothing much was happening. The comedy is a few chuckles here and there and most of that comes from Bridget Everett. If you are a big fan of Adam Scott, this might be worth watching if you want to see him play his role in Parks and Rec again, but in a different setting. I like Evangeline Lilly too but nothing the actors do make me want to recommend this.

The Witch– Here we find the classic tentpoles of horror: isolation, paranoia, and possession. It’s the 1630s and a family recently immigrated from England has made their home at the edge of a forest. The move isn’t going well. The planted crop has mostly failed so any sustenance and income is essentially non-existent. With that stress weighing on the father, the youngest child, Samuel disappears under the watch of the eldest daughter, Thomasin. This puts the mother into hysterics and the rumors of a witch living in the woods start to take over. As the family tries to continue on, signs of evil encrouch futher into the home and everyone starts to turn on Thomasin, thinking the abductions are her fault. They lean on their faith as the decent into madness continues. Of all the movies I’ve watched this season, this is my favorite. I think isolation and paranoia are the most effect avenues to make real horror and The Witch does a lot to keep the questions popping up and the dread moving in. There’s a little bit of gore so the squeemish need not worry. Everything flows through Thomasin (huge props also go to Harvey Scrimshaw who plays Caleb, this kid can act) and I was with her for the whole trip. Religion is a big part of this story as the families faith makes their interactions drastically change as each event unfolds (there’s a whole lotta blame being flung about). I am on the fence about the ending. I can see why it was done but I’m not sure how effective it is. Less is more might have been the way to go.

The Haunting of Hill House

Netflix Original

I watched The Haunting of Hill House as part of my The Horror! Halloween updates, but as this is a show with 10 episodes it’s a much bigger story and commitment compared to a movie. Plus, I liked it a lot so I can write more about it.

The Crains, lead by mom and dad Olivia and Hugh, move their family into Hill House in 1992. Their five children, 2 boys, 3 girls aged 7-13 or so, come along as their parents are on the final leg of their “forever home” mission. Once they fix up and flip Hill House, they’ll have the money to build their dream home. The problem is, Hill House is super haunted.

The story of the Crain family is told in the past and the present. You never get the tale in a linear fashion, it jumps back and forth from 1992 and 2018 as the Crains are drawn back to the house, remembering chunks of the horrors they went through when they moved into the house.

The kids notice something is off about the house almost right away. It’s very simple and subtle stuff like one of the kids mentioning that the house is cold (they move into the house during the early summer months with plans to move out sometime in August). The weirdness grows from there like a red door that no one can open on the top floor and strange noises. Then the ghosts start appearing to the kids and Olivia becomes more and more affected as time goes by.

The whole series is largely devoid of violence and gore. The ghosts are the most gruesome things on display (very corpse-like) along with some disturbing images (like missing eyes) when the main characters have nightmares/hallucinations. The show leans on the creepy and disturbing for its scares. While there quite a few startle scares, violence and gore are never used as a showcase/scare tactic. It’s a decision that often works very well (I think jump scares with orchestra hits are a super cheap tactic but I think what you get here is pretty reserved in this regard). The show is a slow burn so the haunting is very subtle until the end of episode 3. From there, it escalates faster with each episode.  What happened on the last night in Hill House is largely unknown to the kids and that secret is held by Hugh. One that the House forces out of him.

The shifts in time worked way better than I thought it would. The strange events that happen early on in 1992 are often re-visited later. For example, what one thinks at one point is simply the ghosts messing about is actually much more than that. The house does things for specific reasons, things are connected way more than you think, and that realization is one of the greatest parts of the show. Episode 5, “The Bent-Neck Lady” is my favorite for this reason. This episode has the most horrific part in the entire season in its final minutes. Brilliantly done, it blew my mind when I saw it. Runner-up goes to the cellar scene in episode 3 that made me say “Oh fuck!” out loud. If that happened to me at that age, there is no way I would have recovered from it.

Along with all of this storytelling praise comes another shovel full when I talk about the cast. The five kids are all amazing actors. This entire project would have been a failure without this quality of a cast. They’re all fantastic and the emotions they get shoved through are immense and show incredible range. I completely believed that these people were actually family members (I got really attached to Nell and Luke, both as kids and adults).

The family is the most important aspect of the show. The introduction is simple and slow at the start but over the 10 episodes, time is given to each character so by the end you really know them. Luke and Nell are very close as they are twins, Theo is the oddball middle child, and Shirly and Steven as the oldest kids, emulating their loving parents, Olivia and Hugh. When the final credits rolled, I appreciated all the effort that was put into fleshing each family member out. No one is two dimensional.

The time inside Hill House traumatized them all and that trauma stayed with them all for 26 years. It’s sculpted who they in present day.  The secrets come out and you get a much deeper understanding of their relationships with each other. Some are walking disasters (Luke) while others are just better at hiding it (Hugh and Shirley). Hill House caused this family a lot of pain and anger and changed the family dynamic. As much as the house is haunted, so is the family that hadn’t set foot on the property in 26 years. It’s the exorcism of those demons that the show revolves around.

Production wise this one is a knockout too. Every episode looks like it cost a million bucks and think this is one of Netflix’s best original programs. Watch it.

Ozark Season 2

Netflix Original

Season 2 of Ozark met and beat every expectation I had for it

Every episode something horrific happens. For every step the Byrde’s take to get out, a mountain of dirt is pushed back on them.

Last season we saw the Byrde’s get linked to the Snells. It certainly wasn’t a mutual bond and Marty struggles at every step to manage some kind of sense out of the Snells. Well, one Snell over another. One of my favorite aspects of this season was the parallels that ran between Marty and Wendy with Jacob and Darlene. Born decades and miles apart, they are strangely similar.

The star of the show is absolutely Julia Garner as Ruth. She is an amazing actor and she is put through a gauntlet of misery and pain. Every time something happened to her, I thought this was it, this is where she breaks. The responsibilities she took on would test anyone and she was getting pulled apart from every angle. Her father Cade getting out of prison is the stuff of nightmares and him immediately figuring out her secret set the stage for his exploitative arc. As much abuse as she goes through, her ultimate goal of getting Wyatt out from the family shadow is the most beautiful part of this season. Ruth is a soldier like few others and I hope Julia gets some awards recognition for her work.

Whipping politics into this season was a really fun aspect of this year. Wendy got to strut her stuff and the head-butting she does with Marty turned into some of the season’s best moments. I think the whole entanglement with getting the casino approved, the encroaching FBI, Ruth’s world, the Snells, and Mason was executed as well as one could hope for. A lot happens this season and all of it was done on a tightrope suspended a hundred feet in the air.

There are few shows that have this many great characters. Half of them are nuts but that makes them shine even brighter. The cartel lawyer, Helen, is a force to be reckoned with. Agent Roy is about as obsessive as one can get. Watching Rachel try to get out of the spider web in one piece was nerve-wracking. Darlene is straight out of a Quentin Tarantino movie, I loved seeing how she and Jacob met. Buddy rules, I loved seeing the relationship he built with Jonah in such a short time.

With ten episodes a season, the writers manage to keep it all killer and no filler. Major things happen every episode. There are never simple answers and very little goes right. It takes major footwork for the characters to get somewhere and there are consequences for all of it. I admire how well the show manages to keep things believable and the ending was so satisfying for me. There is no easy out for the world the Byrdes are in and I can’t wait to see what happens next year.

What’s going on?

Life, Movies, Music, Netflix Original, The Darkest Winter

It’s the last day in August and with the holiday weekend this feels like the end of summer. Sure we can expect warm weather for quite a bit longer but mentally when September hits it feels like winter is standing on top of us already.

So with the pending winter blues approaching, what’s going on?

The obvious is my book, The Darkest Winter. I’m waiting to hear back from Amazon about getting approval for the paper book files. When that happens, I order the proof to make sure everything is fine and dandy for public consumption. While I wait for the proof, I’ll get the ebook in order. I expect my business cards to come in next week so I think the end of next week is looking the most likely for launch. There are a ton of moving parts I’m now navigating and I’m itching to show the end result to everyone.

With September hitting, that means TV is about to pop off. Netflix dropped Ozark season 2 today and the first show on the doccet for cable TV is season 13 of Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The promo looks insane so I have high hopes. That’s on Wednesday I think. Then Bojack Horseman on Netflix! There’s a huge list of programming about to start and I’ll do updates as they start (5 weeks away from hockey season!).

Better Call Saul is going well and Ink Master just started so those have been keeping me warm along with some movies and stand up specials on Netflix that I’ve been knocking off my list:

  • Moonwalkers (good)
  • Hardcore Henry (nauseating, turned it off)
  • Wheelman (liked it a lot)
  • Bert Kreicher: Secret Time (hilarious)
  • The Standups- Deon Cole and Kyle Kinane (both hilarous)
  • Train to Busan (loved it)
  • Iliza Shlesinger: Elder Millennial (very good)
  • Demeri Martin: The Overthinker (very good)
  • I Am Not a Serial Killer (good)
  • I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore (good)

I’m listening to Twenty One Pilots new track “My Blood” right now and I dig it. Their new album comes out soon and I’m sure it’ll be a smash. Eminem dropped a new album out of no where and I’m about to check that out.

Disenchanted

Netflix Original

From the creator(s) of The Simpsons and Futurama!

I liked this so much I watched all ten episodes this weekend. I haven’t watched The Simpsons and years and consider myself a bigger Futurama fan. That worked in my favor as the writing skews more towards Futurama.

I think the easiest way to describe Disenchantment is to take Futurama and change the genre from sci-fi to fantasy. The main character here is Princess Bean of Dreamland. She’s a bit…rebellious let’s say about the whole princess gig. She doesn’t have a problem getting into trouble but when she meets Elfo, an elf also trying to figure things out, and Luci, Bean’s very own personal demon, things get kicked up a notch or two. Oh, and her Dad, King Zog is on a desperate hunt for the elixir of life.

I can’t really think of anything I don’t like about this show. I laughed like I did when Futurama first came out. It’s absurd, rude, and sincere all at the same time. The casting is perfect and I love the main trio of Bean (Abbi Jacobson), Elfo (Nat Faxon), and Luci (Eric Andre). Elfo is my favorite, a kind of magical mix of Homer and Fry. There were a few times where I swear he said exactly what I would have if I was in his situation. I even love the opening credits music.

The show covers a lot of ground in just 10 episodes. We get to see in and out of the Dreamland kingdom and while they ring the bell on the fantasy tropes for expected gags, they also do some great world building. When the main arc of the elixir comes around to its end in the last few episodes I was left wanting more. The worst part of the show is that there are only ten episodes!

The set up for season 2 looks ripe for all new adventures and I can’t wait to see where they go with it.  I avoided just about all the promo material for this so I think I’m going to go on the hunt for the interviews to dig further into the makings of one of my new favorites.

End of the Year Clean Up

Movies, Netflix Original, TV

I’ve been writing solely about Mr. Robot and Shameless so that may seem like that’s all I’ve been watching. I’ve been keeping up with more TV shows than movies as there is so much to keep track of. Time to do some quick hits for the end of the year.

Movie wise, Kong: Skull Island was pretty good. There’s something off about it though. The tone was odd to me and I can’t really place it.  The time of the movie maybe? If I remember right it’s around the time of the Vietnam war and the movie aesthetically looks like it’s trying to fit in with the likes of Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket but it’s got giant monsters in it. The cast was odd too. I’m never going to be convinced that Tom Hiddleston is an action hero (even with slow-motion running with a machete in hand) and Samuel L. Jackson was a maniac for no more reason than needing a human villain. For some reason, giant monsters aren’t enough? At least Kong represented himself well. Quality SFX made Kong look like a champ.

Bright on Netflix was fun. It’s getting crushed by critics and I don’t see why. Sure it’s a half-baked story (with some heavy-handed messages) as the production clearly wants to set up a franchise. I think most of it works though and visually I think it’s rather striking, Quality SFX, great sound design, and better action than Suicide Squad. I think David Ayer had a lot of fun making this one. Will Smith gets top billing and he’s…Will Smith. He’s pretty much Mike Lowrey from Bad Boys in this which is basically his go-to character. The real star is Joel Edgerton as Nick Jakoby. He’s under a ton of prosthetic makeup to play an Orc and the guy acts his ass off. He brings to life a new and likable character and he steals pretty much every scene. I’d be down to watch a sequel.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is great from start to finish. I think it’s better than the first in every way. More cohesive, more heart and more adventure. A real quality ensemble movie where everyone gets their time in the spotlight and the production is absolutely gorgeous.

Now to TV.

I’m liking what they’re doing on Gotham. Keeps my interest and while there are a lot of moving pieces with so many characters, I think each plot is easy to follow and moving along well. Good to see Bruce hit a dark patch that throws his mission to the side. It’s a lot for a teenager to go through and with the resources he has, I think it’d be easy for him to throw it all away with distractions of debauchery. Fun show.

Arrow. I find myself being bored watching this lately. It’s just not clicking with me. Is the cast too big? Not enough interesting characters? I think it follows a formula too closely where it all starts to blur together. The hits all the same beats As hard as they work to make new action sequences, each fight in a warehouse or on a street at night looks the same. And why does Stephen Amell whisper all the time?

SMILF comes on right after Shameless and I like it a lot. I’ve become a big fan of Frankie Shaw (first seeing her in the first season of Mr. Robot) and this show often makes me laugh.

I’m struggling to get through The Punisher. It came out more than a month ago and I think I’m on episode 4. For a show about a mercenary, it’s strangely boring. It’s gotta be the pacing and I haven’t been able to find a character I really like.

I finished season 2 of Lady Dynamite and I liked it quite a bit. I do think it gets hard and difficult to watch when it leans too far into portraying a manic mind. Most of the “future” sections get so bizarre and nonsensical, I think it would turn off a lot of people and they won’t get to the payoff that comes later. As a contrast, the flashbacks to 1980s Duluth, MN are often the best parts of the show. Maria Bamford is really funny, I’d like to see another season.

Finished up Maron and liked it a lot. You can watch Marc become a better actor with every season and the storytelling is very good. At four seasons I think it hits the perfect spot to end the show.  It probably helps to be familiar with Marc from his WTF podcast but it’s not necessary to enjoy the show.

Trollhunters Part 2 on Netflix just hit. A pleasant surprise as I didn’t know there would be more. Gorgeous animation (behind only TMNT I think) and part 2 wastes no time in getting to the goods. PIcks up right after the end of last season to button up a major plot point of the first and it’s on to a new threat. Fun characters, fun world.

The Walking Dead is a frustrating watch. The pacing is terrible. Long stretches of wheel spinning before something interesting happens. Negan is almost always a disappointment. I swear it seems like every time I say I’m done, I get a payoff that keeps me watching to find out what happens next. I think the cast is far too large. Characters can disappear for awhile to the point where I forget they exist and then they get an episode dedicated to them. I can’t remember this person’s name and I’m supposed to care about them? It’s so bad that when a character who has been on the show for a few seasons gets killed, I have no reaction to it. That’s a problem. I think a world of good would be done with a culling, there’s a lot of dead weight on this show.

Happy! on Syfy is great. Super twisted and unique, it’s about a cop (Nick Sax played by Chris Meloni) who has fallen from grace. Out of the police force, he picks up hit jobs to make money. One day after a job gone not so well, he gets an emergency visit from Happy (voiced by Patton Oswalt), his daughter’s small, flying, bluish purple, donkey/unicorn imaginary friend. Nick Sax is an absentee father (put mildly) and his daughter has been kidnapped by a deranged Santa Clause. It’s funny, violent and absurd, I really dig it. Happy looks amazing too, his animation is great and he’s textured to look like a plush animal. It’s easy to forget Happy is a CG creature because he’s integrated so well. I think it’s only 8 episodes so it’s all killer and no filler so far.

Stranger Things <> Season 2

Netflix Original

I don’t think expectations for a series can get any higher than they do for Stranger Things. Last year the show came out of nowhere and swept people up into its 1980s mythos. Netflix has had some popular shows but nothing to the level of this. It’s become part of American pop culture.

I adored the first season. It was made for me and I ate it up. A time period I grew up in and remember well. An awesome adventure that stars kids that harkens back to the best stuff that Stephen Spielberg has done. The cast of kids is awesome, the story was cool with a fantastic mix of horror, suspense, and laughs.

Now a year and a half later, The Duffer Brothers and crew have delivered Season 2.

I’m going to talk about everything, so spoilers ahoy.

It’s an expansive season in terms of the main kids. They are apart for quite a bit of the runtime, trying to figure things out largely on their own until things blow up so much they come together to survive. By breaking the group up, more personal stories come out.

Eleven and Mike are largely pushed out of the spotlight. Mike is pretty much in mourning over the missing Eleven and is very protective of keeping the status quo of his crew. Eleven doesn’t reunite with the boys until the very end which was really surprising. Hopper keeps her hidden (rightfully so) until he’s swept away and she breaks out on her own.

Will remains window dressing, which is disappointing. The kid is the resident of The Upside Down and everyone more or less worries about him for the entire show. He’s the McGuffin again and while the kid is fantastic at selling torment, they can’t waste his talents as the We Have To Figure Out How To Help Him Kid again.

Dustin and Lucas get pushed forward with much more screen time and all for the better. They’ve both hit the “notice girls” phase and jockey for attention from the new girl. We get to meet Lucas’ family (his little sister is fantastic) and he gets much more fleshed out as a character. Dustin gets himself in trouble by breaking group rules and he scrambles for awhile to fix things on his own.

Speaking fo the new girl, Max is a good fit for the cast. She’s rather guarded and it takes far too long to find out why, but she’s an interesting added dynamic that has a lot of room to grow. Her stepbrother Billy is a ponderous character though. His dynamic with Lucas is super weird and he’s a rather tacked on bully that doesn’t do much. He’s a half-baked character compared to the rest.  His quick scene with Mike’s mother was a great payoff though.

Steve is probably the biggest standout this season, pretty much everything he’s in is fantastic. By breaking up the kids more, they got to do different character pairings that worked really well. Steve and Dustin are the greatest together as it turns out Steve is a great mentor and he’s awesome to have in a clutch situation.

After Nancy chose Steve last year, I think we were all bummed for Jonathan. One of my favorite arcs this season was the love triangle shift. The dynamic between Nancy and Steve quickly soured and the mission with Nancy and Jonathan brought the real couple together. And hey, Justice for Barb is real!

Sean Astin as Bob! I love Sean Astin, so I love Bob. They managed to keep Joyce from being ultra weepy so, so that’s a bonus. Bob was good for her. For as little time as Bob got, he was established well and he made for a great hero. I’m also happy with Paul Reiser’s character, Dr. Sam Owens. I thought they’d follow his Aliens roll but they kept him solid guy which I was happy to see.

Hopper remained great and his surrogate father role worked well and felt believable to me. As much as Eleven pouted and complained, he was right in everything he did. When you find out The Upsidedown is spreading under your town, that can be a distraction from your parenting duties. That leads to the most controversial part of the season: episode 7. Eleven’s Solo Adventure.

I liked it. It was good to get out of the town and see something else. Eleven desperately needed something new to do. It’s very easy for her character to stay trapped in Will territory, the same stresses and scenes replaying over and over again. She has far and away the most interesting backstory to explore too. She learns her mother isn’t dead and manages to communicate with her when no one has in years. It’s such a tragic story but it’s great to see Eleven meet her roots. That leads her to Eight, who is essentially her sister. The only person (right now) that knows exactly what Eleven has gone through.

The criticism for this stretch seems to be that it’s too much of a show deviation. It’s only Eleven, so everything stops for her to take a short road trip. I don’t agree with that. I’ve seen people go as far to say it was “pointless” which is completely wrong. It’s world-building for a show that really needs it. Eleven is integral to everything and she has to make moves on her own. She’s been basically a lab rat for her entire life so she’s naive and it’s often like following a preschooler around. How many times can we see her wiggle her hands around to use her power and make her nose bleed? You gotta move past those clichés as fast as you can.

The girl has the guts to go hitchhiking and she finds her family! She decides to put in some of her detective skills to good use after everyone has been sheltering her (something Will can relate to). I think Eight is cool and watching Eleven basically meet her sister was huge.  They both got away from the lab and they both found their own crews. Eight has been consumed by anger and found friends to enable her. Her whole motivation is revenge and that’s something Eleven can (and has) fallen easily into. It’s not that difficult to manipulate Eleven but in this episode, Eleven stands up for herself. She’s uncomfortable with Eight’s techniques and realizes her place isn’t next to her sister. Her crew that she left behind (and that includes her “father” Hopper) is where she needs to be. It’s major growth for her and I was stoked to see it. Plus, she gets a bad ass entrance when she comes back. Our telekinetic is done hiding!

The build-up is slow this season. It takes awhile for the pieces to be put in place and the mayhem to kick in. I found the build up to be fun, if predictable. What happens with Dustin’s pet, Dart, is obvious as anything and the show asks you to just roll with things a lot (what are they injecting Will with? No one’s putting a single second thought into jacking him up like that) about the dosage? Characters figure out/realize things at just the right time). The climax is rather blasé too. We never truly meet the monster and never get any kind of motivation or goal from it. Something besides “thing that’s trying to get here to do bad things” would be appreciated.

I had fun the whole way through. I get a kick out of the little things like how they show what a pain in the ass it was to find a friend if he wasn’t home when you called. The chemistry with the kids is great, and the balance of comedy and suspense is spot on. Killer soundtrack and solid special effects, too.  I think the end sets up the possibility for the best season yet because of where everyone is left to move on from. It’ll take the show to new areas which I think will ultimately pay off. I’d like to see Eleven find more kids and I hope someday Eight comes back. A monster that can communicate would be nice. Now that Eleven is back and Will is fine (he better be) the crew will be whole right from the start so there are no limits to how they can kick season 3 off. After the initial cold shoulder Eleven gave Max, it’ll be something to see them become friends.

Let’s blow this adventure up to new heights, I’m excited for more.

 

BoJack Horseman <> Season 4

Netflix Original

BoJack Horseman continues to one of the best TV shows, animated or not, on any network. Season 3 was intense with a gripping finale so the stakes were very high going into Season 4.

I like and need to be rather vague when discussing Bojack. It’s a complicated and mature (in the best adult way, not cursing, sex, nudity) story that you need to watch to grab onto what this show throws down. Bojack’s world can get very dark and skipping the nuances does a disservice to the writing and performances.

Season 3 got down in the dumps at the end. Some really awful stuff happens to BoJack that sends him into a spiral. He tries to flee his problems and the last scenes are intense. There’s a glimmer of hope at the very end that could have been a series finale or season finale. We got more, so here we are.

Season 4 starts without BoJack. Everyone in Hollywoo is grinding forward in his absence. Mr. Peanutbutter gets into politics, Diane is holding on for dear life as the political hysteria (it’s nuts) push into her personal space as she struggles to write for a website. Princess Carolyn is strutting her stuff trying to keep her agency and relationship with Ralph and Todd keeps plugging along trying to be himself while helping everyone around him in any way he can.

Bojack gets into some wacky spaces, dysfunction being a paramount theme. The main theme of this season is family. The relationships you have with those who do and do not share your blood. Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane go through some really trying stuff and end up somewhere new. A girl named Hollyhock shows up claiming to be Bojack’s daughter and that throws BoJack for a loop. A guy who can barely help himself has a new responsibility show up and he doesn’t know what to do. Then his ailing mother comes into the picture, they’ve had a strained relationship, to say the least, and he doesn’t know what to do. Todd isn’t sure what kind of relationship he wants and Princess Carolyn knows what relationship she wants but nature keeps getting in her way.

BoJack Horseman covers a lot of ground. Depression, anger, anxiety, sexuality, self-sabotage, self-medication, what does it mean to be happy, and it’s all wrapped up in the Los Angeles environment.

As you can tell, I adore this show. BoJack is the main character, but the show doesn’t necessarily hinge on him. He can be taken out of the spotlight and it’s fine. All the “B” plotlines are so rich that the world building outside (alongside, really) of BoJack makes the show completely enthralling. I love all the characters and that’s incredible. The fact that this show can get so funny pushes it over the edge for me.

If you don’t watch this show, start as soon as you can. And from the beginning! That’s very important. Season 4 shows a lot of growth for the entire cast and it ends on a much different note than Season 3.

Season 5 has been greenlit. I’ll be there the day it hits.