Category Archives: TV-G[eek]

Lanterns S1 E7

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“The Jordan Boys’ Legacy”

The penultimate episode of Lanterns takes a look into the past of Hal Jordan, while John and the Hal-ogram continue to try to discover the killer of Hal Jordan in 2026.

The show started off in 1975 and young Hal did not want to give up a baseball to another player who was replacing him on the mound. He was two outs from a complete game and the coach tried to remove him from the game. Young Hal would have nothing of it.

The baseball thing was, of course, a direct comparison to the ring that Hal did not want to give up either.

The Hal-ogram was fun as he encapsuled a happier, kinder, though still an asshole version of Hal Jordan with John. John wanted the Hal-ogram to use his voice to open the mysterious vault, but the construct wanted to meet the sheriff first.

After meeting Sheriff Kerry, Hal-ogram stated that she had killed him. Of course, the construct had also accused John of the same thing.

Later, Hal-ogram admitted that his own father had committed suicide and that maybe Hal Jordan had done the same thing. He called it the Jordan Boys’ Legacy, as apparently the grandfather killed himself too. Hal-ogram thought that maybe the guilt that he thought he saw in Kerry’s face was from her covering up the suicide, much like young Hal had done for his father.

They also found a portal to another planet. This was the same planet that the aliens from earlier this season who were searching for the Manhunter lived on and had been killed on by a poison gas. The gas nearly did in John too, but Hal-ogram was able to stop John from killing himself.

They came across Sinestro on the planet as well, leading into the finale next week.

I enjoyed the talking time between John and the construct and this made me wish there was more of this between John and the real Hal.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe S1 E10

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“Spoiler: Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience”

I speculated last week that the big bad would be revealed this wee. I was wrong. The floating shit, as they called it, was not revealed in the season one finale.

Instead, we did a whole meta, She-Hulk-esque final with Stuart and the others realizing that they are inside a sitcom. They started off at the comic book shop and only Kripke could hear the canned laughter, but they all would hear it by the end.

Watching the characters watch themselves greeting the audience was wild and cute.

I’m not sure where this goes as they walked across the studio.

This season was up and down for me, but I am going to say that I would watch another season of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #88

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DTF St. Louis

“Snag It”

The word of the week: Uncomfortable.

The other thing we see this week is how awesome David Harbour is at freestyle rap dance.

This episode revealed to us the background of the affair between Clark and Carol, and it is bizarre. Carol absolutely pursued Clark and was the driving force behind their affair. And she sat on his face while she responded to texts.

The interviews by Detective Homer with Clark were unbelievably uncomfortable. Of course, it was designed that way.

The episode was designed to load on Clark as the suspect. He does not deny the charge at any time during the episode until the end when she was on the phone.

Carol truly seems to be a solid suspects as well. She is absolutely manipulative with the situation and with the police. Detective Plumb does some great detecting during this episode too.

I hadn’t considered any other options than Clark or Carol, until the very end of the episode when I suddenly had another suspect- Clark’s wife, Eimy. Her motive might be messed up a bit, but she did have access to the same things Clark did.

I love how the narrative is being spread around time.

I am intrigued into the mystery of the murder, and I think we have got much more coming with it.

American Horror Story 13 S13 E1-3

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“13”

“1:13 AM”

“Rauhnacht”

I was shocked to see that the latest season of American Horror Story debuted this week. I was also surprised to see that they dropped three episodes on the opening night. I thought to myself that I did not have the time to fit three episodes into my schedule for the night, so I started the first one to see how much I could see.

Episode one ended suddenly after only about 33 minutes. The second episode was around 31 minutes and then episode three was the shortest of the three at 22 minutes. I was able to see all three in a short space of time.

Wild.

The show was weird as could be. There were characters that were from previous seasons that I recognized, such as Constance from season one, the Coven from season three and Rubber Man, also from season one.

Since I have not watched all of the seasons of AHS, I was not sure how many were returning characters and which were new. I discovered that the entry point to the season was Ben (Joey Pollari), a hospice and palliative care worker who suffers from triskaidekaphobia. Trying to overcome his fear, Ben went on an ill-fated plane trip with his girlfriend for her birthday. The plane crash killed her in the cold open. We then see Ben taking a hospice job at a residential building called The Apollyon in New York City. This is where the characters from previous season can be found.

Ben was hired by Constance to take care of the mysterious Mr. Nas. There are a ton of weird things going on with this man, including his vomiting black substances, what looked like a tail, and possible horns. Devil, anyone?

Tate Langston is alive and living in the building along with Kai Anderson, the cult leader from season seven (Cult). Both are played by Evan Peters. Twisty the Clown showed up about midway through episode 2 and brutally killed 13 people.

The number 13 is significant this season.

Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short also returned from Murder House and Apocalypse (season 8). Sarah Paulson is all over the place too, back as both Apocalypse’s Wilhemina Venable and Coven’s Cordelia Goode.

There is a portal to Hell beneath the Apollyon. This is where Wilhemina is hanging out.

This has been wild so far, and I do like how things are coming together, though I wonder if my lack of knowledge over the AHS seasons will hurt the experience of the show.

Ted Lasso S4 E8

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“Follow the Anger”

This is one of my favorite episode of the new season. So far, the episodes have been great but there has been one of the story arcs that I thought was weaker than the other stories. Tonight, I loved all three main story arcs on the show.

Story #1: Gemma gets injured during a game and it affected Alice dramatically. She confronted Gemma, who had not even been checked by a doctor, but she was thinking about not coming back to play.

Story #2: Roy and Keeley were going to the ceremony for Roy at his old team, and just about everything that could go wrong, did. This led to the reunion of the pair in one of the sweetest, most epic scenes of the series. It was truly a beautiful moment.

Story #3: Leslie Higgins investigated someone trying to force people into selling their stock in Richmond under the table. It is the possible return of Rupert. I am curious if Anthony Stewart Head had recorded a role prior to his death or if this would be a recast. I enjoyed the almost secret agent mood of this storyline.

Ted gave a wonderful speech to his team after he found Alice crying in the office over the injury to Gemma. It was an absolute classic Ted Lasso speech and it was very emotional.

I loved this episode.

OJ Unseen: Exploitation of Evil E3, E4

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“It Has Escapability”

“Reckoning With Reality”

I finished the OJ docuseries on HBO Max tonight with the final two episodes talking about the time OJ and a group of creators tried to make a hidden camera prank show called Juiced.

The last two episodes really showed just what a bad idea this prank show was. It was shaky after the first two episodes, but there were some simply horrendous things such as OJ pretending to work at a car sales lot and selling the white Bronco or doing a rap that was in remarkably bad taste.

The whole project got tore down by a leak from within the project. I think that was a great thing, considering how scummy this was.

It followed the story right up until OJ’s death in 2024 and covered his arrest for the robbery of his old sports memorabilia that sent him to prison for nine years.

The discussion from the people who worked on the crew of Juiced was fascinating, though most of them were truly lowlifes too.

I am glad I watched it…. but a little ashamed too.

Lanterns S1 E6

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“Bad Optics”

John Stewart- grave robber.

After last week’s major conclusion of the 2016 storyline, we find ourselves back in 2026 to continue that story that dropped in episode one.

Hal Jordan is dead. Shot in the head.

There were a lot of speculation that Hal was not really dead from the online pundits, but that seemed to be definitively put to bed with this episode.

I really have some questions about John’s motives in this episode and the town’s anger and resentment toward Hal. We learned that Hal and Kerry had a relationship after she split with her husband. John had come back to Rushville because his mother had told him that Hal wanted to apologize. That was a surprise to Hal. John hit him, perhaps breaking Hal’s nose in the process.

We learned that Hal was shot point blank in the head, which was an odd situation. Just off the top of my head (poor pun there) I am guessing that Noah is the one who killed Hal. That would make sense why someone could get that close to Hal to kill him.

John Stewart contacted Guy Gardner with the Green Lantern-signal, which is in the middle of the town, provided by Guy. However, a bunch of men showed up, including Billy, Kerry’s ex-husband, to threaten John. John kicked all of their butts, and eventually ended up in jail for assault.

Guy showed up as John was behind bars. John asked Guy to retrieve Hal’s suit and decommissioned ring so they could bury him in it. Gardner was not anxious to help, seeing as that he would have to fly to Oa to get it. He wound up doing it after all because John had told him that everything he had was because John had refused the ring.

Guy dropped the piece of info that Sinestro had escaped from the space prison. He also confirmed the existence of the Phantom Zone in the DCU.

Carol Ferris made a debut in the episode as well. Carol had a previous connection to Hal Jordan, specifically a main love interest in the actual comic books. She apparently had become the Star Sapphire in the comics, which I did not realize since I do not collect the Green Lantern books.

John, Carol and Kerry were the only ones in attendance at the funeral, and they did bury Hal, only for John to come back at night and dig him up to retrieve the ring.

Did not see that coming.

I kept waiting for the ring to fly off Hal’s hand and choose John, especially as John was reading Hal’s handwritten eulogy. This scene reminded me of the episode of The Boys where Hughie read the letter written by Frenchie.

Of course, the ring had 5% power left for some reason and John used it to bring back the Hal-ogram with the intention of using it to help solve the murder.

Two more episodes remaining.

Boston Legal S2 E8, E9, E10

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“The Ass Fat Jungle”

“Gone”

“Legal Deficits”

James Spader is so good.

He rattled off a monologue to another lawyer that was absolutely off the charts. And he did it with such a ferocious gleam in his eyes that I was nearly intimidated sitting at home.

The was also one of the best scenes of the series in “Legal Deficits” where Denny Crane was examining Brad on the witness stand, after Brad had been arrested for cutting off a priest’s fingers in “Gone.” Brad was trying to help Denise, whose housekeeper’s son had been kidnapped by a pedophile. Brad and Denise did several thing that were anything but moral, including snatching the brother of the pedophile to get information out of him, pretend to be FBI agents and the aforementioned finger cutting.

The scene with Denny and Brad was so beautifully written that it was as clever of a scene as the show could offer.

“Legal Deficits” also saw the debut of Jerry “Hands” Espenson, who would become a much bigger part of the series moving forward. Jerry is shown to be on the Autism Spectrum, with a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome. Early connection to Alan would foreshadow what the characters’ future would entail.

In “The Fat Ass Jungle”, Shirley had to cross-examine a witness who had stage for Alzheimer’s Disease and she had to make her look confused to get her client off on the charge. It was clearly a dirty tactic for Shirley and she was conflicted with having to do it. We meet Shirley’s father at the end of the episode who is suffering from Alzheimer’s as well. David E. Kelley has used Alzheimer’s several times in his shows, certainly putting the disease front and center in Picket Fences as well as with Denny Crane in Boston Legal.

Denny cracked a great joke about winning an Emmy, which broke the fourth wall once again. The banter and the dialogue of this show is simply brilliant.

OJ Unseen: Exploitation of Evil E1, E2

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“He’s Back”

“You Should Be Afraid of Me”

Okay, I feel a little dirty.

I have to admit that I was fascinated, as much of America was, in the case of OJ Simpson. When I saw a new four-episode limited series on HBO Max that chronicled the life of OJ during a time frame where he was recording a “Reality Show” called Juiced, based upon the Ashton Kutcher Punk’d or Candid Camera, I knew I wanted to watch it.

The documentary used all kinds of unseen footage from behind the scenes of that show, including direct interviews with OJ himself. The first two episodes truly set the stage for some explosive results.

The show gave us a look at OJ and his reactions to a lot of the situations that he was placed in. OJ was very charming and had a lot of charisma, which is undeniable. Still, every time you wonder about him, you couldn’t help but picture the gruesome scene of Nicole and Ron’s murder.

While OJ was certainly reviling in the attention and infamy, the fact that the creators of the show were exploiting him could not be lost. Did he deserve it? I am sure that there are plenty of people who would say absolutely. Still, it felt a little wrong.

That does not mean that I am not engaged in the series. I am two episodes in and I really wanted to continue on to episode three, but I had other things I needed to do. In fact, I had originally intended to do one episode over the next four days, but after episode one, I was enthralled enough to just let the show move on into the next one.

We will see where this goes and how this docuseries finishes up.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #87

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DTF St. Louis

“Cornhole”

An Emmy winning limited series from HBO Max is the next show for the Sunday Morning Sidewalk and I am a little disappointed. Not with the show, I thought it was a compelling and gripping first episode that I am excited to continue. I am disappointed because I knew the premise of the show before I watched episode one.

I knew that there would be a surprising murder in episode one… truthfully, it was what attracted me to the show… but I really wish I had not known this fact because the surprise would have been monumental.

We got some hints at the non-linear storytelling techniques in the first episode as we did see David Harbour’s character Floyd Smernitch in flashbacks after his body had been discovered dead. I do enjoy the non-linear structure as the use of flashbacks can help tell the story extremely effectively.

Jason Bateman’s weatherman character Clark Forrest feels like the classic red herring, as he was arrested in the first episode. Linda Cardellini, who was Floyd’s wife, Carol, was purposefully made to look sinister at times in the episode.

It’s really early to try to make a judgment on whom the killer is, because there could be any number of factors that played into it that we do not know yet. The manner in which Floyd was killed does seem to limit the number of possibilities.

I love a good mystery and a major character being offed in the first episode is great. It reminded me of when Laura Palmer was found wrapped in plastic, though I do not expect any sort of weirdness like I got in Twin Peaks in DTF St. Louis.

I do love the dynamic between Richard Jennings (who played Detective Donoghue Homer) and Joy Sunday (who played Detective Jodie Plumb). They will be a fun pair to follow as the facts of the case are laid out before the audience.

Jason Bateman, Linda Cardellini and David Harbour are awesome actors that I love in just about everything I have seen them in, so I expect this seven-episode limited series to be a fantastic ride. It already dropped a bunch of shocking reveals that I can’t wait to see play out.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe S1 E9

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“Spoiler: We Couldn’t Get Green Lantern”

So Amy Farrah Fowler married the Flash.

Or… at least, Jay Garrick, the original Flash.

What a strange episode. It was fun seeing our crew in Gotham and Central City, with Stuart name dropping all kinds of DC lore.

At the end of last week, Stuart, Denise, Bert and Kripke were stuck on a comic cover, but they were able to figure out a way around it… by sliding off the cover and into the actual book. Stuart came up with an idea to find the Flash and have him run on the Cosmic Treadmill to get them back to their own universe.

I like how they used the Golden Age Flash in this episode to avoid all that other Flash nonsense around. Having Amy be married to Jay was a weird choice, but it was a way to get a Big Bang cameo into the episode.

Mr. Freeze was brought in as well, which led to some slipping on ice jokes that were not very funny. Stuart postulated about why Flash was fighting Mr. Freeze and not Captain Cold. This felt like an important line of dialogue, though nothing apparently came from it.

This is another episode that felt too short. It was over before it even began. It was fun with the references though.

It ended with the gang back in Stuart’s comic shop, but it was floating through what looked like space, and a laugh track that was noticed by Kripke. I assume that this is heading into a season finale next week. Maybe leading to the person behind the whole thing. I am guessing Sheldon Cooper.

Ted Lasso S4 E7

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Spoilers

“Yes & Baby”

Coach Alice is back and trying a new philosophy… say “yes” more. It got to be too much, until Ted and Beard gave her a look into improv… and explained what it means to be “YES…and.” Or as Beard yelled, “YES & BABY!”

The improv idea seemed to work much better for Alice.

However, the “BELIEVE” sign did not seem to be a hit with the Richmond Lady Greyhounds. They had all kinds of complaints about it, until Alice added a sticky note saying “and win.”

The hot doctor came to see Roy at work. Roy was in a scooter because of his knee, and she broke it off with him since she knew that he was in love with someone else. They had some nice scenes together, but I am glad that they did not drag this storyline out. They absolutely could have made this stretch out for a long time and I am pleased that they did not. We just need the Roy-Keeley reunion.

There was a weird storyline with an agent for a player on the men’s team (who also is Roy’s agent) and Tracey Ullman. They did a strange phone call bit that was funny, but odd.

This was a fun episode that did not feel very significant. I think the best part of the episode was Keeley and Ted filling out a Bantr profile. That was a perfect example of Ted’s wit and wisdom. That scene was one of the best of the entire season.

The Muppet Show S3 E1, E2

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Spoilers

Guest Stars: Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge

Guest Star: Leo Sayer

Season three kicked off with a few little changes. The first episode featured the first time when there are two named guest stars-Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge, who were married at the time. They each performed one song and then did one together.

We got a new set with the backstage cafeteria and the lunch lady Gladys.

One of the coolest songs was Floyd Pepper singing New York State of Mind.

Then, episode two has three songs from disco singer Leo Sayer. It was funny because Kermit had said that it was rare when they get rock and roll. Rock and roll, Kermit? Anyway… he does “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing,” “The Show Must Go On,” and “When I Need You.” I had heard two of them, but I could have never have named another except “Dancing.”

The second episode has the debut of Annie Sue Pig, a new female singing pig that really makes Piggy jealous.

The opening does not change much, but they do add the audience response in the song. They are getting closer to the Statler and Waldorf singing.

Lanterns S1 E5

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Spoilers

“Light’s Out”

This big week’s episode made me feel very icky over all.

We were led to believe that Hal Jordan denied his oath and was not the hero expected. I don’t see that. Him leaving John in the car (which eventually blew up) was not cool, but the show tells me that Hal broke his principles. They indicated he was like an addict, but I just did not get that from him.

John was rotten through the entire episode until he left that ring on the bar in front of Lianna. John made a deal with the Manhunter, who, if you did not realize it last week, was Zoey, to heal himself. However, he did not follow through with his end. He attacked Hal and they had a knock down battle and he took the ring off his finger. I really did not like John Stewart in this episode, until he left the ring on the counter.

So much was finished off this episode. I am not sure where this goes from here. Zoey is dead (killed by John), there is no Lantern, the whole town got blown up real good.

Huge Lantern battles had been missing, but everyone must be happy with the amount of Lantern power being used. Still, I found this episode to be my least favorite of the season because it seemed like a lot of the characters were doing things out of their normal behavior.

Seeing next week’s previews, it looks like the story is heading back to 2026.

Dark Matter S2 E2, E3

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Spoilers

“A Perfect World”

“Everything Beautiful, Everything Terrible”

I don’t know how I feel about this show. I had enjoyed the first season, but it felt like such a long time between that and the second season that made me lose some interest.

Then, these two episodes felt really slow and I just struggled with all of the Jasons running around. I was confused at times and I was not following a lot of what was going on.

Outside of the family that have settled down in Chicago (which I believe is Jason 1), I am not sure how any other the rest work or which world they are currently inhabiting.

I did like the ending of the third episode. Jason dismantled the Box, leaving just a shell. He returned later that night to find that the Box was back in full working order. I am not sure how this happened or what it will mean for the family, who have identified each other through family tattoos.

I am not sure how I feel about continuing this show moving forward. I probably have at least one more episode in me, but if it is not improving or grabbing my attention more, I think this show is iffy for me t keep watching every week.