What's To Watch? - Apr 15 - Where We Were. Where Are We Going?

 

     April 15th! Tax Day here in the U.S. (okay, we technically have until Monday the 18th this year), and this year it's also Good Friday - which by some odd company history not worth going into here and now is also a day off for me - and, as with every year, it's also my birthday. Taxes (federal, state and local) have been taken care of (Just! I let them go very late this year), so I'm going to be trying to enjoy this three-day weekend... though I've so very much to do to begin to prepare for some big changes at and of home in the months ahead, along with tending the paying career. I can't just be watching my stories all day.

     As if often the case, as I get around to watching items I'll try to loop back and add generally non-spoiling comments.
 
     I've already watched and enjoyed this week's episode of Moon Knight (Disney+), which is now halfway through its 6-episode run. Nearly all of the players are in action, and we have a much better sense of how supernatural these events really are. Interesting characters so far, and the underlying dynamics of ancient gods at work, with the primary struggle being between the choices of being violently reactive or violently pro-active underlying the conflict. In that respect it's the whole (Marvel) Civil War conflict of ideologies being played out again, this time with backing from another plane of existence. As is the way when dealing with gods, we also see what we've always pretty much known: they're as varied and flawed as human beings are. Authority comes from power and conviction, and it's ultimately always flawed and up for debate.

     My next, weekly, leisure stops (not necessarily in this order) will be the latest episodes of Star Trek: Picard (Paramount+), crime-beat investigative reporter memoir-based Tokyo Vice, and French Chef biopic series Julia (those latter two both on HBO Max). All three continue to engage me in their own ways, even if Picard feels much like wheel-spinning in its main plot. It's best to just focus on the character arcs. Meanwhile, Tokyo Vice has me interested in seeing how this comes out for the key characters, while Julia has become a sentimental favorite for me, where with only three episodes to go I'm already beginning to miss the characters. There I'm just enjoying it, including the many, many human moments, and trying not to focus on the more contrived elements that try to expand the cultural footprint, such as the confabulation that is Alice Naman (ably brought to life by Brittany Bradford), who is carrying the load of being not merely a young woman trying to navigate a 1962 workplace, but also being African American. Still, I'm enjoying the interactions of the characters and am not fixated on policing the show for historical accuracy.

     Caught by a DVR preset in place from at least a couple years ago, the eight-episode, fourth and final season of British spy thriller series Killing Eve (BBC America and AMC/AMC+) had been building up, week to week, since the end of February. Knowing in part that I'd prefer being able to binge it, I kept putting off getting to it, and came perilously close to just clearing the memory and leaving me to find it later. Happily, I instead decided to start in on it last week, and rolled through it an episode or two or three at a time.
     Fans will of course differ on how well or poorly they thought character arcs were resolved, especially in a world where brutal, final options are common, but at the very least I certainly enjoyed the ride. At its core through the four seasons was both the relationship and the individual journeys of personal development for both British intelligence investigator Eve (Sandra Oh) and psychopathic assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer), complete with romantic tension. This final season includes revelations about the long games behind the mayhem, and the players backing the various pieces.
     This final season even included the very interesting introduction of two more assassins, one a savage pro, the other a neophyte. Particularly with respect to the latter, the audience's empathy is repeatedly tested.
     Back to the core pair, we see the arguable evolution/degeneration blend arc for one, and the murkier attempt at self-improvement and trying to determine her ability to be a human being for the other. Villanelle's journey by itself makes for an interesting compare and contrast with the recently-concluded life arc for serial killer Dexter Morgan, late of Dexter and Dexter: New Blood (both from Showtime.)
     Anyway, here's the season four trailer for Killing Eve

     The end of the series was... abrupt, and understandably disappointing to some faction(s) of the fans. It's difficult to believe that this is someone's clear concept of an ending.
     Currently the most reliable spot to catch the entire series (at least in the U.S.) would be by trying out a subscription to AMC+, one of the services I've yet to add.

     Today on Amazon Prime, the first two episodes of an eight episode first season for supernatural mystery thriller series Outer Range. In it, Royal Abbot (Josh Brolin) is a rancher in Wyoming, who finds himself in the thick of a mystery following the arrival of Autumn (Imogen Poots), a drifter with some connection to his ranch. Two episodes this week to start, then two each of the following three Fridays.

     In the New To Me category, arriving today on Hulu is a documentary that's come up repeatedly as a reference in things I've read: Drunk, Stoned, Brilliant, Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon (2015).

     Next Monday, the 18th, a little over two years since the final episode of season five aired, Better Call Saul returns with the first two episodes of the sixth (and final) season. To emphasize that, this is the final season of the terrific Breaking Bad prequel series that turned out to be so much more than I ever expected when I stepped on the Saul Goodman ride back in February of 2015.

     This last season of the series will be 13 episodes, three more than each of the previous five, which is good as we still have a great deal a ground to cover in the final stretch of this pre-Breaking Bad supporting character origin story. That of con man "Slippin'" Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) who became a lawyer, then, frustrated in his career path, used some innate showmanship to work his way into becoming a garish, regional, defense attorney, rode high only to see his life implode. Also, we hope and have good reason to expect, we'll close on more detailed word of his ultimate fate -- or, at least, something farther down the road than we've previously seen. Is there any hope of happiness for Our Anti-hero? I'm rooting for him.
     The series so far has been superb television, and while this is technically a mostly prequel series it's really best enjoyed if one first watches Breaking Bad.

     The same day, HBO Max subscribers have been told to expect the latest relaunch for Batman with the streaming release of The Batman (2022 PG-13  2h 56m)

     I'm curious to see it, but this wasn't a driving matter for me. I was content to wait for it to come to my home screens. I'm open to (yet another) interpretation of the characters, but despite being steeped in decades of related lore these DC items remain very casual-level fan involvement for me. Warner/DC's approach of recasting and re-presenting different directors' interpretations of the same characters and city across the years - frequently including variations on the same first meetings - leaves it all with little to no convincing momentum. Don't care for this one? Wait a few years and you'll get yet another one to choose from.
      That's also set to hit HBO itself that Saturday, the 23rd.

     This past Tuesday I was saddened to see that comedian, actor and podcaster Gilbert Gottfried had died. Only 67. While my experience of Gilbert strictly as a comedian had been limited for most of his career, the past few years his podcast (I'll get to that shortly) has been a fun and informative show, and had unexpectedly endeared the odd, little man to me.

     In another of those synchronicitous moments, I'd earlier in the week watched Can We Take A Joke? (1h 15m) a 2015 documentary examining the chilling effect of outrage mentality in the era of social media. It drives along with a handful of comedians who relate situations and experiences, along with looking at some of the longer history of censorship, including Lenny Bruce's pivotal role in (posthumously) shattering the obscenity laws that dogged him. Gilbert is one of the recurring comedians in the mix. It's available to stream freely for Amazon Prime users.

     It continues to be a tricky area to navigate, though I'm coming to more fully realize we as individuals would do better concentrating on our own shortcomings, blind spots and journeys of growth, and less on playing a game of pointing to gasp or guffaw. A little less emphasis on silencing the world.
     Today I turn 61 (which is a horrible thing to happen to a 19 year-old), and I almost daily still catch myself detecting "humor" where there really is none, but which social programming in my youth convinced me by example that there was. Even just the area of dialect humor, with the underlying audacity that the ability to speak English is a measure of intelligence, in league with the asinine notion that other languages are just nonsense sounds to be derided, is a frequent point of self-correction. Realizing one's own ignorance, and trying to keep from punching down, or at The Other, requires constant vigilance - especially for those of us who are getting well along in life.

     I'll also note, as it's streaming entertainment (if audio only), that I've yet to be disappointed by any of the interviews that make up the hundreds of Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast series. Gilbert and his stalwart researcher, straight man and merry enabler, Frank Santopadre, started doing the podcast back in 2014. While Gilbert had an adolescently-arrested development aspect to much of his sense of humor, the pieces are a treasure trove of celebrity, screenwriter, director, tv and movie memories. They celebrated their 400th podcast just this past January.
     Also, while it's from 2017 and so won't have the more recent years, much less include the end of his story, there's a documentary about him that can be seen over on Peacock, even by we lowly sorts who just have a free account and will see commercials during it. (Note: While it was on Hulu back when the trailer below was made, it ain't no mo'. Such are the vagaries and tides of the streaming seas in our glorious, treacherous, future age!) It's titled, appropriately enough, Gilbert (2017 1h 36m)

     Something that crept up on me due to DVR series presets is this Sunday's Doctor Who special, an episode dropping on Easter Sunday. It's The Legend of the Sea Devils (45m). This is the penultimate episode with Jodie Whitaker as The Doctor and with Chris Chibnall as showrunner. After this there's just one more special, sometime late this year, where Jodie's version of the Doctor will bow out, regenerating into whoever once and returning (for 2023) showrunner Russell T. Davies has chosen to take on the mantle next. I'm hoping the trailer for this episode is just very poorly assembled, because it has no (good) energy that I can detect.

     Ah! Another oversight! Next Wednesday (April 20th) Netflix will bring us the second season of the time-looping comedy-drama series Russian Doll. Another of the pandemic-enhanced gaps, the first season appeared over three years ago, on February 1, 2019. Natasha Lyonne again stars as Nadia Vulvokov, though we're rejoining her four years after we last left her. Then it was all about a looped 36th birthday day, now she's fast-approaching her 40th.
     Here's the second season trailer, which gives us a good sense that season two will not be hinging on a single time-looped day.

     While the first season was eight episodes, this one will be seven.

     And that will do it for this week! I've much to do Friday, and some of that will be me trying to enjoy the day, too. I keep forgetting to do that.
     Take care, and see you next Friday! - Mike